The Diego Diaries: Cat and Mouse (dd6 635)
=0=Ops Center, conference room, the big one
They sat on chairs on the table as around the room mechs and femmes, the military elites and officers of Prime's General Staff stared at them with their unknowable faces. The two of them, Horst Mueller and Colin Anderson sat without expression though their faces were very pale. They were cuffed and nearby watching them were the soldiers, Epps, Lennox, Graham, a grim faced Gavin Pritchard who had come along for the ride, John Fulton and pacing nearby as they sat, Glenn Morshower, both called in from Earth.
Optimus walked into the room with Prowl, then both sat down at their usual spots. It was murkily silent in the room. He leaned his elbows on the table, then glanced as Perceptor and Wheeljack entered the room. "What did you find out?"
"These things," Wheeljack said turning on a monitor nearby which showed what looked like two strips of human skin, "are ingenious. These contain the tech that makes them transparent and that's what this is … the tech makes the two humans transparent. It also makes it impossible to see footprints because the tech displaces in some unknowable manner their weight. They wear them on their skin in these clever skin-like patches. They also have two devices planted in their arms, small pellets that are central to their operation.
"The first is a tiny transmitter that sends messages from where they are to our comm system that are then ghosted out on the backs of our own. The other one is a scanner. They can gather data just walking around and with the other device send it on our frequencies. The device detects them like a computer or phone will seek WIFI. This is definitely alien tech that was modified by Jhiaxus and then, Shockwave. This is partly our own and partly someone elses stuff."
It was silent as everyone absorbed that.
"We're working on it, Optimus but we don't know how it operates as yet." Perceptor leaned closer to the two men. "We shall, however. Count upon it." He leaned back. "You have endangered my son. I will make this my new religion, finding out how this works and building counter measures."
Prime stared at the two who were not giving much away. It was clear that they were scared but how much, he wasn't ready to wager a guess. "I want to know everything you know. If you leave even one small thing out I shall take you to mile 3 and mile 15 on the TransWorld Highway and leave you there. Do you understand me?"
The two men looked at Prime, then the soldiers staring at them from their own chairs nearby. :What about our rights?:
Glenn stopped pacing, then turned to them. :You have the right to say nothing. You also have the right to a firing squad for treason. Of course, given that you breached the security of the Prime of Cybertron and are currently in his custody, good luck with all of it. You signed a contract that you understood that any violations of their laws meant you were jailed by them. There would be no get out of jail cards given:
They stared at him, then Prime. :If we tell you anything, what happens to us?: Mueller asked.
Prime sat back. "It depends upon your information. If its everything, then we can talk. If you leave out one tiny scrap of what you know and have done, all bets are off. You will sit in my prison for the rest of your natural lives. There is no extradition treaty between us and your world."
The group watched the men do the math, working out what they would do silently. They stared at each other, then Prime. :You're going to take down the network, then: Anderson said.
Mueller glanced at him sharply. :Don't-:
:Don't what? We're here in this hell hole with these bastards and they won't give a fuck if they toss us out the door without our helmets. Are you going to die for them or what? Do what you want, Horst: Colin Anderson said bitterly. :I'm going to tell:
:Fucker: Horst said as he sat back in his chair. He stared at Prime with a cold look on his face. :You fuckers don't belong here. This is our solar system. You bring death wherever you go. So what if you take down our network. There are ten others you'll never get:
Prime stared at him, then leaned in close to Mueller's body. It made him satisfied to see Mueller's tiny tells give away how he felt about such a big malevolent mechanism that close to his smaller body. "We will get them all. Right now … talk or regret it."
Barron who was called to watch prepared to take notes. These two were in the custody of Optimus and would stay there until jurisdictional matters were ironed out between who would prosecute who first. Right now, the Cybertronians had all legal rights to the pair. "Lord Optimus, you understand that anything they tell you now is not admissible in a court. They have not been given their rights and they have no representation as of yet."
Prime nodded as he glanced at Barron. "I am aware of that, Barron. Right now, the more pressing matter is seeing how much damage and danger these two have caused. Talk."
Colin Anderson stared at Prime, then began. :We were part of a cell that's centered in Switzerland. We applied and were accepted to N.E.S.T to try our luck at getting on a striker team. Our group wanted us to get on world. That's the holy grail to them, ending up here on the inside. It was a bitch to get here:
:How many others are there doing the same thing?: Lennox asked.
Mueller shrugged. :Your guess is as good as ours:
"What is the name of your group?" Prowl asked as he began to work their interrogation.
:We are The Blade. That's the code name. You won't get the whole picture. They only build groups and cells here and there so that if things go wrong no one gets the whole game. We don't know anything beyond our own cell:
"Where in Switzerland?" Prowl asked. "How big is it? What is the name of your control? How do you communicate? The details must be complete and detailed."
:Its based at Zug, north of Lucerne. Its the usual size for an operational cell … 16 members including us. We communicate through our devices. They ghost out over your comm lines and come back the same way. Once they arrive our implants recover them and erase all tracks. They go out the same way. Our control is named Luca:
"What did you send? All of it. Details. If you leave anything out I will personally see to it that you regret it," Prowl said as he leaned in closer. The cold blooded hard sparked fragger cop was back.
They stared at him. :We scanned around the colony when we could go out. Most of it was from the consulate … their data and some from Earth2. No one noticed: Colin said.
"What about us?" Alor asked. "What did you steal from us?"
They glanced at him, then sat back in their chairs.
"Tell us," Prowl said. "You want to tell us all you got. If you hold back, well ..."
It was deadly quiet in the room.
:We scanned Teletraan a couple of times. We sent a lot of data over the comm lines to Switzerland: Colin said as Mueller steeled himself for anything.
"Frag," Prowl said. He glanced at Blaster. "Do a diagnostic. Find out what they took."
:You won't be able to find any traces: Mueller said. :It doesn't leave traces. No one here will know what was missing:
"I want a record of everywhere they were assigned, wandered off to and visited," Prowl said as he glanced at Lennox.
Lennox who looked faint himself nodded. :You got it:
Morshower and Fulton who were shocked and seething at the same time stepped closer. :What did you send?: Morshower asked.
The two stared at him, the head of the Great Enemy as the Cybertronians were called. Then Mueller told him. :Bridge tech, communications and ship engine data. That's all we could get the few times we were close enough to a nexus terminal that had access:
It was freezing cold in the room as the true measure of the disaster was taken in. Prime looked at Prowl. "Can we ask Teletraan to trace their access to terminals during their time here so we can have a measure of the windows they had to steal our data?"
"On it, Optimus," Wheeljack said as he rose and walked to a console nearby. He sat and worked away, waiting as Teletraan ran through the data and presented it. Wheeljack read it, then glanced at Prime. "They were only three times in physical proximity to a nexus node of Teletraan, Optimus. Once at the Armory, once here and once at the Main Branch of the Public Library."
Prime considered that. "Are there any more visitations to a terminal that you want to add?"
:No. We were never allowed free access to things. But we drove with the others and got a map of the colony. We sent it to our control: Mueller said almost with a trace of pride at the accomplishment.
:Fuck. That's highly classified information. No one has an accurate map of the colony on Earth outside of General Morshower's office. Not even governments: Lennox said. He turned to the two. :Consider this, fuckers. We keep the colony classified because if that information ever reached Megatron he could tear the shit out of here a lot better than if he was guessing:
:That was never our concern: Mueller said. :We aren't in favor of them being here anyway:
:Then if they got wiped out and Megatron came to Earth, you would be good with that?: Morshower asked with a trace of venomous outrage in his voice. :Or do you still live in the fantasy world where the Decepticons leave when the Autobots are wiped out? He didn't do that for his own world. What makes you simpletons believe he would do it for us?:
The two didn't answer.
Prime sat back. "I want you, Prowl, to get everything you can think of out of them. I would like you, Blaster, to examine the comm system and see what you can reconstruct of their messaging both directions. Wheeljack and Perceptor, take this tech apart and figure out what we can do when we take over their places in this game." Prime glanced at the two. "We are going to take over your end of this charade. You will tell Jazz and Elita all of the codes, passwords and other pertinent information to make the conversations ring true. Then you will go to jail and stay there as prisoners of the Cybertronian People."
The two stared at him as he rose, then picked up Morshower and Fulton. "William, I would like to speak to you outside." He then walked to the door and left.
Will Lennox ran to the ladder, climbed down and hurried to the doorway. He was gone in seconds.
As they left, Raptor walked to the table to sit as Hard Drive, a master interrogator sat down in Prime's seat as he had an internal discussion with Prowl over their next set of questions. As they did, Percy and Wheeljack walked out of the room to go back to Sciences for an all-nighter with the boys and girls of his division.
=0=Outside
They stood on a table as Prime sat down. Ironhide and Ratchet joined him as did Barron. They were called to come out to figure together the plan for this, the betrayal of both sides by the Resistance, Family and M.E.C.H.
:When are you going to ask about the murders, Optimus?: Glenn asked as he stood in front of Prime.
"We are going to do that tomorrow. We only have guesses about what happened but the evidence is pointing to them as the only ones with plausible motives for murder." Prime shook his helm. "I am concerned about our tech being out there with your people. You are inventive and creative. I know that some of it requires things that you do not appear to have but I'm not going to bank on the idea that you will not improvise. Bridge, ship and other technology … we must find it and get it back. They also visited the armory which is even more concerning to me. We are tracking the technology missing from Sentinel's venture and now this."
:They have a map of this place. I'm sorry, Optimus: Fulton said.
Prime glanced at him. "This is not your fault nor your doing. We know that the majority of your people have made their peace with us being here and we have gained in mutual respect. However, this cancer must be stopped."
"Then we have to get on it. Something tells me that the problems that are going to plague implementation of this technology are not going to hold these people back too long," Ratchet said. "What shall we do with the mercenaries? What shall we do about these two?"
"We let the mercenaries out when you have a case, Barron, and we throw these two in the jail. This whole business until we get it squared away is of the utmost secrecy and not to be bantered about by any of us," Prime said. "We have to get our tech back."
Ironhide nodded. "We will, the slaggers. That's the one thing you can count on out of all of this." He looked at the humans who were feeling it as they stared back. "You're pesky fraggers. Good thing I like most of ya or I'd be mad right now."
Lennox grinned. :The feeling is mutual:
The mood lightened a fraction as they bent their helms and heads together to figure out a way forward.
=0='Lucas', Zug, Switzerland
He walked to the house where he lived a simple life, then entered. It was cold and still snowy outside and the warmth inside was welcome. Hanging up his coat, he walked to the kitchen to get a warm drink and lunch. His partner had left it before he headed out to Bern to meet with others about what they would ask for next from their two spies.
He walked to the living room and touched a small bust on a shelf. The wall opened and he walked inside closing it behind him. A hugely technologically filled room presented itself as he sat down before a computer monitor. Setting his drink and food down on the desk, he began to prepare a message to the Major and Sarge.
Unfortunately for him, the Major and Sarge were getting grilled by Hard Drive and Prowl of Praxus.
=0=TBC 4-11-19
PS Valentine's Guest: I am SO STEALING everything that you put in your note. What great ideas and what a great way to see strategy and Prowl in full bloom. I love to showcase the bots and given that the news media has a permanent presence on Mars, what a fun set of notions. :D:D:D HUGS!
Readers rool!