“This keypad in Broadwing’s nest.”[quote=“Chromeharpoon, post:6243, topic:49995”]
“So,” Halfrunner says, “you and the rest of your little band are gonna be heading down there soon, I reckon? To find the Omega Lock and all?”
[/quote]
Spectrum shrugged.
" I d-d-d-dunno!"
Zepar snaps his fingers, “If you’ll excuse me, I have a few things that need to be done before going planetside.” He said. He began heading for Sprocket’s lab.
The Blue Cybermatter was there for our heroes’ taking; being produced in sizeable quantities in the med-bay.
Thrift gives Zepar a thumbs-up.
“Good on ya!” he says encouragingly.
Sprocket and Grommet could be found in their lab, each working on their own projects as they wait for SideStep to return.
There is a moment of silence as Motherboard attempts to locate the keypad in question. She could not, however; the machine was hidden from her.
“I am unable to access this keypad remotely,” Motherboard reports. “I will fly down to Engineering to assist you personally.”
Halfrunner shrugs right back.
“Neither do I, lad; I’m just the barkeep.”
“Thanks.”[quote=“Chromeharpoon, post:6251, topic:49995”]
Halfrunner shrugs right back.
“Neither do I, lad; I’m just the barkeep.”
[/quote]
“L-l-lass.” Spectrum cheerily corrects. “Am s-s-s-sister!”
Zepar eventually makes it to Sprocket’s side of the lab and asks if he could see the schematics Arachnados was able to procure from the Insecticon world.
“You are welcome, crewman SideStep,” Motherboard replies.
With that, the first officer terminates the link and exits the bridge, transforming to her drone form to rocket on down to Engineering. A quick timeskip later, and she arrives, transforming to robot mode and climbing up to meet SideStep in the nest.
Sprocket looks up from the mining tool he had been studying.
“Oh, that!” he says. “About time we figured out what to do with it, huh? Maybe now that Salvation’s got some new tricks…”
The Autobot rummages through a disorganized storage cabinet, before procuring the datacard on which Arachnados had stored the data he’d scavenged from the ancient ground bridge. He hands it to Zepar, and the angelicon could see that some whispy strands of blue webbing still adorned its surface.
Halfrunner squints, getting a better look at Spectrum.
“Oh!” he realizes. “That you are. Sorry about that; thought you were the other one.”
“Heh, I must be going blind. I guess we don’t all age as gracefully as our chief engineer, sadly…”
SideStep extends a hand to help her up. [quote=“Chromeharpoon, post:6254, topic:49995”]
Halfrunner squints, getting a better look at Spectrum.
“Oh!” he realizes. “That you are. Sorry about that; thought you were the other one.”
“Heh, I must be going blind. I guess we don’t all age as gracefully as our chief engineer, sadly…”
[/quote]
Spectrum giggled as she hopped on top of Pixel’s head.
@ToaNoah_Wafflemeister
Motherboard accepts the help, climbing up next to SideStep and immediately inspecting the keypad.
"This keypad is not in the designs for either the DFC Invincible or the CFC Salvation she reports. “I am also unable to access it remotely; it is reasonable to assume it was placed here by Bludgeon’s spy,” she says, though SideStep had likely figured that out already.
Halfrunner smiles faintly.
“That’s what I was thinking.” SideStep replied.
“Hm.” The aging decepticon rubbed his chin. “Motherboard, are there any cameras nearby that have a view of this nest?”
“Checking…” Motherboard announces as she looks up, a circular icon rotating in the center of her visor.
“Affirmative. Accessing video recorded from camera E-226.”
SideStep watched her visor carefully for the video records.
Footage appears on Motherboard’s visor, showing the nest at the edge of the camera’s vision, cloaked in shadow. Motherboard then plays through the footage at a blistering speed, searching for anything suspicious, turning her head to the side to give SideStep a good view, otherwise standing completely, unnaturally still.
“Hm.” SideStep watched the footage carefully.
Motherboard suddenly stops the playthrough and rewinds to a section recorded just days after Salvation’s launch from Cybertron. The faint silhouette of a humanoid bot creeps through the shadows toward the entrance to the hideout, but stops in his tracks, realizing that Broadwing had just recently built his nest atop the front door. Quickly, the figure turns and exits the scene.
“Can you zoom in on the figure?”
Motherboard complies, and zooms in to enlarge the silhouette of the mysterious figure. Most of the figure’s features were hidden by the darkness, but SideStep would be able to make out a faint red glow from his optics.
“Who all has red optics on this ship?” SideStep wondered aloud.
Motherboard takes this as a legitimate inquiry, and her visor fills with thousands of profiles pulled from the crew manifest.
“[X] Thousand documented crew members possess optic lights of varying shades of red, crewman SideStep,” she reports.
“Can you match their optics with the color of the glow?”
Motherboard revises the list of suspects to include only those bots whose optic lights matched the hue of the two crimson pinpricks in the screenshot. The new list was now only slightly smaller.