Chapter Twenty Eight
His internal chronometer had failed again. He couldn't recall how many times that made it now. Of course, even without it he knew they had been walking towards that stupid beacon for 8 hours. Stupid Skywarp. Although, he was rather impressed that his sensors had picked up a Decepticon blip at such a distance… unless of course the irritating beep that Warp kept mimicking could simply be a glitch in his damaged sensors.
"How much further?"
He whined as he stepped over burnt out mini.
"Not far, maybe another ten of the human kilometres".
"Why are you using human measurements?"
"Thought you might be more at home, hahah".
"You really are a rusty old exhaust, you know that?"
"Hahah! Maybe so, brother, maybe so!"
Thundercracker had planned on completely the rest of their journey to the beacon/glitch in silence, but he noticed something that made him reconsider.
"Warp, check it out!"
He pointed off a south west direction.
"What? It's a human military base, there's a few of them around here".
"Yeah, diode brain, that's true, but look at the mess".
"Same mess as everything else, wrecked up three ways from a borone compressor!"
"No, Skywarp, I'm not talking about the buildings, I'm talking about the bodies".
"What? You think the meat sacks can just lie around in the radioactive dirt and not rot after a week?"
"You're really dense… look at how they died… their injuries all have one thing in common".
"Alright, I'll bite, what do all their injuries have in common?"
"They're self inflicted".
Thundercracker approached the first string of bodies on the outskirts of the derelict base.
"I don't think it took a direct hit".
Skywarp mumbled as he changed his direction to join his brother.
Thundercracker somewhat ignored the statement, given it was so obvious that this site had not taken a nuclear blast like so many other military instillations would have. He crouched down by several of the bodies.
"Maybe they got radiation sickness, that's what its called, right? Radiation sickness?"
"Yeah, that's what its called. But why do it out here? Why not end their lives inside the base, away from any scavengers. There seems to be a fear amongst the humans about other beings and insects picking at their corpses when they're dead".
"Eew. Maybe they were insane or something?"
"I don't' think they were insane".
Thundercracker picked up a twisted metal pipe and used it to poke the hand of the nearest body, but death had firmed its grip around the pistol.
The head of the body lay in rotting fragments about the singed concrete road. His companions were in similar situations, all head shots, all self inflicted.
"Do you think it was some kind of mass hysteria?"
"Could be".
"Wait? Isn't that just a fancy word for 'insane'? I mean, what in the glowing smelting pool of Polyhex is going on here? This base is hardly touched, certainly didn't' take a direct hit from anything, unless one of those bombs we passed in the dirt was meant for here. So why are all these humans lined up outside dead on the fraggin' pavement with their own bullets in their own heads? They can't all have decided to slag themselves; they can't all have wanted to stay!"
"We don't' know that this is all of them, besides, there's only 42 out here, that hardly constitutes an entire military base… anyway, you still getting that signal?"
"Yeah, its coming from within the base".
Thundercracker stood from the bodies and stared towards the empty installation, Skywarp wouldn't mention it, but he was sure in a split moment he caught a flicker of fear in his brother's usually stoic optics.
"Well, let's get this over with, find this stupid beep beep beep of your's and then get the pit out of here".
He regained the composure he hadn't really lost and walked over the buckled fence into the compound.
The windows on almost all of the buildings were shattered, blown inwards from neighbouring blasts. Soot lay dusting the roofs of all of the structures and most of the ground. Any tree or plant that still remained standing was drowned beneath the death of humanity. Trucks and other vehicles lay in various position, some were smouldering, others were burnt out, some were still burning. And of course, there were the bodies. Laying about the facility like the bodies on the immediate perimeter. All dead from head shots. All self inflicted. They hadn't found a single body yet that was not in that condition, well, until they walked around a larger structure and found a small court yard which was painted in such a way that it resembled some kind training arena. Thundercracker informed his unconcerned brother that it was called "basketball", though the hoops used for scoring were damaged beyond any semblance of use. A building on the opposite side of the courts looked as if it had taken a convention bomb or an explosion from within had damaged it. Its roof having caved in, its walls broken, windows shattered and light wisps of black smoke gently making its way out from beneath the rubble towards the sky to join in with the rest of the pollution.
"Hey, look at this blob!"
Skywarp called as Thundercracker was busy giving thought to an overturned tank, a human body lying near by, same head injury, same evidence of self infliction.
"Warp, I swear to Primus, I'm not interested in you pointing out any more blobs!"
"This one ain't a suicide".
Thundercracker turned and approached his brother, inwardly debating with himself as to whether he should give his pesky wing mate a whack upside the head.
"Oh, and the beacon is coming from within that building".
He pointed to the building with the caved in roof.
"Of course it is".
Thundercracker looked down at the body, a female, aged 58, over weight for her height and gender, but not so that it would be an immediate danger to her health, African American, was the label the humans would give her, black hair with flecks of white throughout, face down, the 105 bullets in her back most probably the cause of death, of course, the estimated 23 that passed through her head certainly would have left her standing.
Laying about ten metres away, they found her killer. The man, also African American, age 60, healthy, strong, in excellent condition for a human of his age, an automatic weapon clasped in his hand, also the weapon he used to end his own life after dispatching this woman.
They found two others dead, from having a run in with this man, a slightly obese female, age 26, African American, and next to her, a Hispanic man, 25 years of age, injuries the same as the 58 year old woman. A quick scan indicated a genetic link between both women. Mother and daughter. The Hispanic man no relation, but the murderer, the obese woman was also his daughter. This man had killed his wife and child, along with this strange man, perhaps the husband or partner of the overweight woman, if at all, he was definitely the father of the deceased foetus that was rotting away quickly in his mother's womb.
"Why would he shoot his own family unit? I thought humans liked their families?"
Skywarp asked, his scanners obviously telling him the same thing.
"I don't know. Now can we just dig out this beacon and get out of here, my olfactory senses keep re-activating".
Skywarp chuckled as he turned to the building and began pulling large chunks of rubble and debris from it.
"I found a lot of bodies in here".
He said after two minutes of them working.
"Yeah, me too".
"In fact, I think I know what the difference is between the self killed blobs and the killed by another blob blobs".
"And what would that be, Warp?"
"The blobs that were killed by other blobs, they were civvies".
"What? How'd you reach that conclusion?"
"All the blobs that offlined themselves, they're wearing the material fashioned into what they say are uniforms, yet the blobs that were killed, they're wearing normal everyday human clothes – they weren't part of the military".
"Wow. For once you came to a well founded and evidenced conclusion about something. But really, it doesn't matter. They're all dead. Who cares how or why?"
"I just thought, you being all into humans and junk, that you'd wanna have this mystery solved, cos I know you, you're my brother, my friend, my wingmate, you're the wind beneath my wings".
"I do not even want to know how you picked up the lyrics to that song".
"But like I said, I know you, the who, what, where, when, how, why's of this little party will grate your nerves, and if it grates your nerves, it'll end up grating on mine!"
"I can only sigh".
Thundercracker replied as he removed a heavy piece of concrete.
"I found it!"
"The signal?"
"No, dipshit, Nightbird's chastity belt".
"Screw you".
"Well, you gonna get over here and check this out, the moment of truth and all?"
"Yeah, yeah, I'm a commin'".
Thundercracker tossed aside what had once been a table and joined his brother as he was digging away at the thin layer of dirt that separated them from their current mystery.
"Its actually buried under the ground, but not very deep. Maybe a metre".
"There you go again with human units of measurement".
"When in Rome… tee hee hee".
Thundercracker chose to slap him upside the head at that point.
"HEY! You're so mean to me!"
"Whatever, just dig".
"This building doesn't look that old, and I'm guessing they dug in a deep foundation, so this thing has probably been here about 20 years or so".
Skywarp chattered as he scrapped away the dirt.
"Its not very big".
He added.
Movement caught Thundercracker's optic.
"Did you see that?"
"What?"
"Movement, up ahead".
Skywarp looked up and stopped digging.
"Yeah".
"When?"
"Just now!"
"There it is again".
"Don't fire! You could dislodge the rubble, we'd have to dig all over again".
"You're the one doing the digging".
"Oh, that's right, you're just being a lazy aft".
"I'm delegating responsibility".
"So that's what you label your sloth".
"Are we going to address the movement, because I just caught a glimpse of something".
"Well, what do you think it's going to be? An Autobot? Ooooh, maybe it's Powerglide coming back for round two".
"Shove it up your exhaust, you diode licker".
The movement then addressed itself as a large black rat came scuttling out of a gap in the ruins.
"What's it got in its teeth?"
"You don't' want to know, Warp, you don't want to know".
"Sure I do, this is me we're talking about here, I like to know everything".
"It's a human toe".
"Okay, yeah, I didn't want to know".
"Get back to the digging, Long John".
Skywarp muttered a profanity under his breath and went back to the digging, until the sound of metal scrapping along metal was heard.
"I found it".
"I can't believe it".
"I know!"
Skywarp brushed the dust and dirt away and lifted out the small (for them) box. He turned and sat on a mound of collapsed walls.
"Its definitely Decepticon".
He said as he ran his fingers over the faded insignia pressed into its surface. He began to struggle with it.
"It won't open".
He informed his brother.
"Maybe its best you don't try. Now we found your beacon, let's go get Screamer and take them both back to Megatron, and let's just hope its not some stinkin' Pandora's box".
"A what box?"
"Human myth stuff, Pandora, had a box, told not to open it, she did, end of the world ensued sort of thing".
"Hahah, stupid imaginary blobs".
Skywarp stood, handed the box to his brother.
"I don't' want it".
"Yeah, but you've got more self control than me".
"So you're giving it to me because you don't' think you can restrain yourself?"
"Well, if it quacks like a duckbot and walks like a duckbot".
"How very mature of you… wait… there's no such thing as a duck bot!"
"I know, I just didn't want to sound like I was using more human expressions… it's a human expression, right?"
"Yes, it's a human expression".
Thundercracker took the box and subspaced it.
"You're not even going to look it over".
"It's a box. I saw you look over it. I don't need to waste time we could be looking for that numb nodes".
"Hehe, I'm going to tell him you said that".
"Then I might just tell Megatron about who it was exactly that rigged Soundwave's consol to blast out Justine Beebo songs".
"Um… I retract my threat".
"Let's just go".
ooOOoooo
