Conjoint was busily removing the several dozen browsing programs he had open of a wide variety of wacky cat videos, having stopped just shy of discovering what a ‘furry’ was, when Tokamak rolled back up.
“Oh, uh, hi.” Conjoint waved, resorting to telling the terminal to completely reboot. “You got a friend, I see.”
So how do people talk to him? Kitai approaches one of the two guards.
“Excuse me,sorry to intrude,but do people ever get to talk to Vector Sigma?”
“Please, do so. It’d be an honor.” he agreed, debating mentally to go in human or bot mode.
“Yes, there were quite a number of you,” says Watchdog. “I have other officers helping me to track you all down.”
“Not long,” Watchdog then says in reply to Nova. “I take you to the station, you tell me what you can, and then- Primus be willing- we won’t have to see each other again for some time.”
Overclock peels herself off of Tokamak’s vehicle form, whatever need for speed she held thoroughly met- and then some.
“Overclock, Iacon PD,” she introduces herself, again displaying her badge and code number. “And you are?”
“One moment,” Codex requests, stepping around a corner. Then begins a game of telephone over the comm system of the Basilica’s angelicon personnel, moving up the ranks until Downburst herself contacts Axis Prime on her communicator (@ValkyriePrimal).
“Sorry to interrupt whatever it is you’re doing, ma’am,” she says, “but I’ve been told a private investigator wants to speak with you. It’s about the journal.”
“Sure they do,” the rifle-wielding Knight says kindly. Her partner nods his head toward the open entrance, leading into a hallway with slanted walls that went deep underground.
“After all, what good is an all-knowing supercomputer if we don’t let people use it?”
Snowblind can’t help but chuckle at that. Oh, he’s going to hate me.
“What, getting tired of us already?” she jokes.
Now thoroughly chastened, Stonefist resisted the urge to make a snappy comeback, as that might get him into trouble. Instead, the rock-armored robot looks at the ground and mutters to himself.
“Well, it worked.”
“Good idea.” Aralysa comments, and their work begins. The Hecatan bot observes Roaster’s routine, and then the oven-bot spoke up.
Aralysa thought about that for a moment, and then responded.
“Well, the name is partially accurate, at least. It involves building, and also putting components together. But altogether it isn’t that rigid; the end result is a new life.”
Conjoint’s face fell dramatically.
“Oh.”
“uhh.”
“I’m Conjoint.”
“…”
“Hi.”
“I’ve barely been here a couple days and I’m already tired of this whole planet.”
Nova said.
“Only reason I haven’t left yet is because I’m still fixing mech. That and I’m actually curious to see what’s in that museum.”
Axis was already outside the Basilica, having not gotten to far since her encounter with LD-L1.
“Certainly. I’d be happy to answer whatever questions they may have. Where are they?”
The Prime asked. Though she was close enough that Ivroy might have overheard her, just out of sight.
Ivory, having heard her, takes a moment to slip out of sight from Codex. He quickly transforms back into his human alt-mode, the Shining Shroud. He prepared to step back out when Axis approached. Got to go for effect, after all.
“Well, as you observed, most of you ran in without a solid plan and could have made things a hundred times worse,” Watchdog replies to Snowblind. “You’ve complicated things, to put it mildly. But my superiors believe we can help each other, so your cooperation would be appreciated.”
“Hello, Conjoint,” Overclock says. “You mind coming down to the station with us? We have some questions about the attack this morning that maybe you could help us answer.”
“Codex tells me that he’s by the main public entrance,” Downburst tells Axis. “Look for a guy with a piano alt-mode.”
Conjoint looked in desperation at Tokamak before giving the officer a resigned shrug.
“Why not.” He sighed. “Anything I can do to help the justice system.” He walked over to Tokamak’s vehicle form and then stopped, staring at it for a moment and then down at his new arm.
“Is there room for two on that? Uh, him?”
“Well, if it involves pounding more terrorists into the ground, I’d be happy to join.” Stonefist replied. Then the gray-armored transformer chuckled. “Though I can do a fair bit more than that.”
“You’d have to ask him,” Overclock says. “What, can you not transform?”
“Hopefully, further violence will not be necessary,” Watchdog tells Stonefist.
“When could i see him?”
“You can go in right now,” the Knight tells Kitai.
“Ok then.” Kitai walks in.
Vector Sigma resides deep beneath Kaon, separate from the city’s subsurface transit system. The hallway eventually opens out into a vast spherical cavern, with Kitai and other visitors standing on a ring-shaped platform. Small light fixtures wrap around the ring, dimly illuminating the space. Between these fixtures are several terminals, some inert, but a few of them occupied.
In the center of the room, hovering above a deep pit, is a holographic blue-and-white sphere, its surface burning like a miniature sun. A pair of rings wrap around the orb, slowly spinning around it and each other.
“Good morning, visitor,” a calm and pleasant-sounding voice says in greeting. The sphere’s light pulses as Vector Sigma speaks. “I am Vector Sigma, the sum-total of cybertronian knowledge and culture. How may I be of service to you today?”
“No I can, it’s just uhh…”
Conjoint looked between Overclock and Tokamak.
“…Inconvenient for fast travel.”
“I think it’s insulting. ‘Cold’ construction,” Roaster said, putting on an irritated emphasis. “I get it, they call it cold because the bodies were created away from the Hot Spot but it’s so wrong! Don’t they have any idea how–Hrm!”
Roaster lets out a frustrated breath and asks Aralysa to reattach some of the redone limbs. After another moment, she continues, “Alright, I’m going to explain this from the top before I shout it from mountain tops.”
With a slow cycling of her optics, she collects herself, and speaks. This time, her tone is closer to that of a Sunday School kid, repeating the verses they’ve recited many times over. Confident and familiar, almost younger sounding when calling upon these old words with her eyes closed.
“Primus, seeing it ill-fitting for him and his champions to be alone, gave up his form to create us, his children. With aid of the planet, he forged new bodies and split his own spark to give us life. But when Primus called upon the moon, it was too weak. As best it tried, the moon had not the strength to forge the bodies. So Primus called upon his children, through their sparks, to lend their hands and tools so that their brethren could receive his gifts of life.”
Roaster eyes open and she resumes working on another part. Her tone shifts, keeping calm but losing the confident peace from before.
"That is not cold, that’s warm. Hotter even! Everyone else pulls themselves out of a well, maybe greeted and aided by guards and angels. But us? Primus used one of us to work out our forms, has his trace physically there. No need to see the Allspark, you can just meet the one he used to make you! Primus, represented in physical form, right there!
But no! It’s ‘cold!’ It’s ‘dangerous’ to tell them that Primus used you to build them! Only lunatics and Dr. Frankensteins would take credit for given them life. We only build the body, we can’t build the spark. The heavens and hells know how many butchers have tried."
“What, can’t be bothered to walk a bit further? The station isn’t that far away.” Tokamak teased.
“Walking is for peasants.” Conjoint rolled his eyes, playing along. I sincerely hope she decides to just accept both this and my weird color combo for the time being, hopefully forever, I really never should’ve come here
“I prefer to travel in style.” His eyes grinned mischievously as his feet revealed their wheels once more, and he traveled in a small circle. “So which direction is it? C’mon, don’t leave me hanging here, I get sick if I’m still for too long.”
You know that’s a complete and utter lie.
Yes, but wacky quirks make me believable, don’t they? If they don’t, now’s my chance to learn.