The Lost Light's ship-wide alarms began blaring at full volume. Rung looked at the ceiling of his office as he hurried to turn on his comm-line. The main line was filled with confused chatter, occasionally being interjected with excited adrenaline seekers who wanted something big to start happening.
"Attention all crew members. We have picked up a distress signal approximately three hours from our current position. Please remain calm and prepare for a possible firefight. Dismissed." Ultra Magnus cut clearly through the jumbled communication.
Rung checked his schedule and sighed, he had been waiting for this meeting to happen for weeks now. He sent off a comm to Whirl with an apology and an offer of rescheduling. The fact that Ratchet had ordered the ex-Wrecker to attend the meetings was lightly implied near the end.
The psychologist settled in his chair again and glanced at his shelf of models. Spending time building another model would be fun, and a great time consumer. He pulled out a box of model parts he recently received from Tailgate and looked at the manual. "Let's see…" Rung mumbled to himself as he began to differentiate the many pieces.
Rung was in the middle of delicately fastening two miniscule parts together when the door to his office crashed open with a loud bang. Startled, the pieces fell apart and dropped back onto his desk. Silently mourning the lost progress, he looked up with a patient smile and was startled when he saw Whirl holding two large, slim objects.
"Eyebrows!" The ex-Wrecker exclaimed. "Look what Perceptor gave me!" He waved the objects around.
"Whirl," Rung said cordially. "What were you doing with Perceptor? I would have thought you would stay around Brainstorm."
Whirl shrugged and nodded to the psychologist's words. "True," He admitted. "Brainstorm was in science bot's lab, so I relieved the bot of one of his burdens."
Rung stared. "Please tell me you didn't steal unknown experiments from Perceptor's lab."
"I didn't steal an unknown experiment from science bot's lab." Whirl gave an eye smile, "I stole known experiment from his lab."
"Why?" Rung asked tiredly. For the love of Primus…
Whirl stood awkwardly for a minute and shuffled side to side. "No reason."
Rung sighed. "Why did you bring the experiment to me? What is it?"
"Candles!" Whirl proclaimed as if he himself invented a new thing. "Scented candles."
The small bot's optics brightened behind his optical lenses. "Fascinating. What scents did Perceptor create?"
"Dunno," Whirl said unconcernedly. "Figured you might enjoy them for the loopier bots that come here."
"Thank you for your thoughtfulness Whirl," Rung replied warmly. "Won't Perceptor be missing these though?"
Whirl waved a hand dismally, "Don't worry about it eyebrows."
The pair stood in silence for a long moment before the copter started towards the door. "Well places to be, bots to blow up."
Rung sighed at the farewell. "Have a good day Whirl."
"I will," Whirl chuckled sinisterly. "A fight is in the air eyebrows. I can feel it." With that he left the office, doors automatically shutting behind him.
Rung stood in the middle of his office, candles cradled to his chest plates awkwardly. To think this was only the beginning of the day…
