PART 5
#Gears in Motion
"So, that's it. You got the idea. Now do your job and stop bothering me, because unlike a particular someone, I actually have parts to contribute to in our mutual plan." And Shockwave cut the comm.
It was the third time within that same decacycle that he had initiated, set up, and severed the connection before Orion even had any chance of getting a word in between. On some certain occasions, he had even suspected whether or not Orion was actually on the receiving end of the line, but he never deemed it worthy of his time to try and verify. He was just too busy to attend to meticulous details now.
Recently, he had traced back a long history of contacts that originated from Ratbat's personal comm frequency, which he hacked into with barely any obstacles. With his superior processor strength, decoding that encrypted message was child's play. The nefarious plot written in ancient Neo Cybex-a rather redundent precaution indeed, considering Orion was a fragging ARCHIVIST, a HISTORY-major one at that. Anyway, not only was he able to learn of the Councilmech's villainous yet-to-be crime, but also his methods, his various transaction partners, and his ultimate objective to overrule the entire Council board and turn Cybertron into a dictatorial empire, with him on the power throne. To any normal mech, his ambition would sound ill and hallucinatory, but skimming through his partnership correspondence, the forever logical and composed Shockwave was petrified with frozen terror at how close to goal he was.
So there really wasn't much time for any other options left. Shockwave had to prevent this somehow, and he couldn't leave the Academy's perimeter during his unreasonable two-deca-cycle detention, so he had to rely on Orion to get the job done. Or so he hoped, as he cut the comm link and returned to his own private investigation further down the Senator's private affair, scouring for any preposterous scandal that he could get his servos on. After all, if he dared to apply confinement penalty to a self-defending mech and push an innocent's life to the extremity of escaping his own trial for fear of probable deactivation, then he should be a little bit more prepared to face publicity with his own criminal commitment. That was his ultimate aim, to use communal criticism to cause pressure and force resignation on the ill-willed mech.
Despite every variable being thoroughly evaluated in his epitome of a plan, and disregarding every logic circuit of his brilliant processor reassuring with factual corroborations and rational deduction, he still couldn't shake off a specific abdominal-wrenching temptation deep down within his flawless metabolism. Intuition was hinting him at something wrong, just like the last time he received Orion's letter, but he still couldn't place a name to that unfounded concern. Yet, he was wise enough to believe that he should be prepared for anything.
Only that this "flaw" couldn't be repelled against.
The Thirteenth Prime's wishes were almighty and irresistible.
-0-0-0-
Orion couldn't believe in his own audio receptors anymore.
Because as he rationally analyzed what Shockwave had just said before the comm. line went dead, it just didn't make sense.
"How the FRAG would I sneak into an empty warehouse at night to intercept the transaction between two dangerously armed criminal parties with discretion?"
But self-doubting was a bit off-timing at the moment, as he was crouching close to the ground, camouflaged with invisible force field, provided coverage by looming shadows of surrounding high piles of stacked crates, listening intensely for arrival pedfalls of heavy millitary mecha. And holding a Nucleon-charged Rifle.
With the crosshairs flashing red warnings and the safety trigger off.
