Chapter 206 – The Long Tuesday: Late Afternoon
(SePOV)
"No, the Tarkisians only appear to be gaseous creatures," Ratchet corrected the human patiently. Regardless, the humans stared at the medic in astonishment.
Sentinel concealed a smirk and leaned back slightly, watching as Ratchet answered the myriad of questions better suited to his caste. It hadn't been for nothing that he'd insisted the old medic accompany him to the seminar this day.
Today was Ratchet's day, because if anything remained unchanged it was the old medic's love of conversing with those whom held the continuation, preservation, and improvement of life in as high regard. The humans' sparks were as malleable as any Cybertronian spark, as easy to read, and as simple to converse with. Singly requesting that those humans whom crossed him as those best suited to have a long conversation with Ratchet return on the ninth day of September?
Simplicity in itself.
Convincing Ratchet that he needed to attend the seminar upon this day, when the schedule had called for Arcee? Far more challenging, however that difficulty only added to the reward of a medic less likely to wrench him into oblivion. Then again after having four processors switched out and upgraded by Archangel Prime, the medic had practically tailgated him all the way to the lecture hall.
Just to get away from the teasing 'I told you so' dancing in the optics of his spark-daughter.
A notice appeared in his Hud, Sentinel glanced at it curiously. There was a charge for a café on his card, Mala's. He smiled slightly, she was eating. Good, his femme was safe and continuing her trend of optimal condition.
"Then what is it!?" the human asked incredulously. His spark rose and strode to the centre of the mindspace. Villaro, Ramon. Biologist, among other things. Sentinel smiled, Ramon had taken to the mindspace with great alacrity during his previous visits, the human-shaped spark now circling the diagram Ratchet had set up. The medic grinned, his own spark rising and striding to the centre of the mindspace as his mate took over monitoring the condition of the various humans, as she had been initially scheduled to do in the first place.
"Are they," Ratchet corrected cheerfully. "That is the proper pronoun." He promptly zoomed in on the cloud, enlarging the individual particles. "They are in reality a colony of near-microscopic arthropods, the static friction created by their wingbeats snaps back and forth between them in a fashion similar to the way that your own neural impulses function. They've evolved to the point that one colony possesses a single hive-mind but without any identifiable queen. The memories and thought process of a single individual scattered among hundreds of individual creatures."
"Spectacular," Ramon stated with a broad grin, ducking about to see the diagram from all angles. "How do they reproduce without a queen!?"
"Individually, it is a single live birth after a long courtship between two hive minds, each colony is comprised of both males and females, but none mate within the colony. Those offspring are all deposited within a niche together, and develop into a new colony, a new hive mind."
"Their studies in psychology are fascinating," Arcee murmured with a small smirk.
"You can talk to it!?"
"Them. The Tarkisians grow rather irritated when anyone refers to them in singular form, hive mind and all," Arcee stated in an amused tone. Looking directly at him.
Sentinel glowered at the femme.
::. To what do I owe this blackmail attempt?.:: he sent to the femme irritably.
::. Just making sure you remember, old friend.:: Arcee replied benignly. ::. No sense blackmailing you with history so ancient you've deleted it.::
Sentinel rolled his optics, watching as Ratchet shot his mate a fond look of exasperation.
::. You'll make the humans glitch, my mate.::
::. Nonsense.::
"Studies in psychology? How advanced are they?" another asked with a frown.
"Technically? Being as they never bothered to invent fire, or the wheel, or utilize tools of any kind..." Sentinel began in an amused, mockingly deprecating tone.
"Is a gaseous creature, how you propose it picks up a hammer?" Ki Han shot at him with a grin.
"They don't, they secrete Enanthic acid, which reacts quite violently with the crystalline lava flows of their planet. When a volcano erupts the Tarkisians view it as their planet giving them room to expand, it's a time of celebration. Once the new formation is cool enough dozens of colonies fly through and lay the acid in what seems to be an entirely random pattern. Until of course those lines fracture and carve out a city quite literally cleared by earthquakes. Their technology has failed to advance, because they have absolutely no need for it." Ratchet stated with a broad grin.
Another notice popped up in his HUD, Sentinel glanced at it and smiled. A charge on his card, Mala's. A store devoted to women's clothing. He wondered what she could be buying.
"They have no need for technology, and no desire to travel, granted there will always be some few anomalies in that study, however as a culture the Tarkisians have no desire to leave their home world, and are indifferent to visitors." Sentinel stated patiently.
"Did you come across one of those anomalies?" Ramon asked immediately.
"No-" Sentinel began.
"T'vwazz," Arcee stated at the same time; Sentinel promptly glowered at the femme.
Ratchet turned to look at the two of them and burst out laughing.
"What happened!?" Ramon demanded with a broad grin.
Sentinel glowered at the mate of the Medic as she levelled a mockingly benign gaze at him.
"We discovered the extent of the Tarkisians extreme distaste of being referred to in singular tense when Sentinel continued to utilize it," Ratchet chuckled.
"They were gas clouds with individual personalities!" Sentinel growled irritably, then he smirked. "Upon my arrival I believed the local Tarkisian kind had taken to adopting the usage of the royal 'we' from Baroness Arcee, whom acted as their first contact with the Cybertronian kind. T'vwazz kindly corrected me," he added idly as Arcee glowered at him.
"Since when have you ever heard me utilize the royal 'we'?" Arcee asked him icily.
"It was a new planet, I had somehow assumed that once you were away from Cybertron you would begin to behave as a proper Baroness," Sentinel informed the femme airily.
"Any other questions?" Ratchet interjected before the two of them could begin a full out bickering contest. Spoilsport.
"We're missing something of the story," Ramon grinned at them.
"Indeed, T'vwazz corrected Sentinel by etching the reason they prefer to be referred to in the plural right into his paint." Arcee smirked at him.
"How is that kind!?" One of the other humans demanded incredulously.
"T'vwazz controlled their acid excretion enough that it marked only my paint, rather than eating through my armour and into my protoform as it would have far more likely done," Sentinel rumbled with a snort.
"But it still took how many re-paints before the acid was neutralized enough that it didn't just eat through from the rear?" Arcee prompted him cheerfully.
"Seven," Sentinel grumbled irritably as the sparks of the humans chuckled at his expense. Then, he smiled as another notice popped up on his HUD. Another charge on his card, Mala's.
A store devoted to the maintenance of a human's hair and flesh. Sentinel glanced somewhat impatiently at his chronometer, waiting for the correct time to leave the seminar and investigate what his femme had purchased.
"Now then, any more questions?" Ratchet asked cheerfully, looking around himself.
"Yeah," Ramon grinned. "Once we're out of the mindspace what can I buy you to drink?"
Sentinel quickly reached up and rested his jaw on a hand, idly covering his grin.
"Hey that's right time's all weird in here, what time is it?" another asked curiously.
"Half past five, or seventeen hundred thirty within the eastern time zone," Sentinel stated immediately.
"Jeeze it feels like we just got here! Whaddya say there Ratch? Second round's on me," Professor Niklasson piped up with a broad grin.
"As your bodies have remained inactive for seven point four eight hours I cannot recommend the consumption of alcohol-" Ratchet immediately began.
"You're absolutely right we're gonna need food with that," Ramon interrupted cheerfully. "You know there's this great little pub down on fourth – ladies are more than welcome..."
(MaPOV)
Mala eyed the flashy red Ferrari parked inconspicuously in front of the entrance. The sallow faced man was behind her, she knew it. It was uncanny, really, the way the man always seemed to predict her. She'd led him on a merry chase today, back and forth in the mall getting a bit of lingerie in one wing, then a few perfumed salts on the other side, back to the same wing as the lingerie for the lovely silk robe she'd been eyeing, then to the salon for a manicure and pedicure. It was only fair to let the man have a lunch break – there was only so long he could loiter outside of the salon without tipping off security – only to have her disappear in a trip back for one last order of tea and perhaps a wee slice of that trifle...
Then she'd wandered to the exit on the west end of the mall, the opposite end to the cab-stand she'd entered at. But there sat that glittering red Ferrari, hiding as inconspicuously as a blood red rose amidst a bouquet of lilies.
A quick blip of a siren and Mala glanced to the right, quickly shading her eyes against the late day sun. Then she smiled as the now-familiar firetruck gracefully made his way along the fire lanes, no few little children pointing excitedly and staring; several of them cranking their arms bizarrely in the air then cheering as Sentinel lightly touched his air-horn.
Made all the more impressive by the utter lack of driver. The children certainly didn't seem to mind however.
Mala shot a wry, amused look at the holoform that flickered into being behind the steering wheel, as though he were sensing her very thoughts. A low hissing of air-brakes and the being on the other end of her spark-thread came to rest in front of her. Mala lowered her hand and took a couple of steps forward, reaching well up for the door as Sentinel's holoform seemingly tried to rush around the front of his own cab to beat her to that door.
"You make it exceedingly difficult to be chivalrous in the human fashion," Sentinel informed her dryly as the latch popped open before either she or the holoform could make it to the step.
"Yet you still try," Mala murmured with a small smile, lightly pinching the holoform's chin. The stunned curiosity in the holoform's eyes almost had her laughing aloud, she had done so before of course; but never in public. "Help a lady keep her modesty?"
Instantly, Sentinel had a gentle hand under her elbow, lightly guiding her to back a step as the mech himself released several low hisses and sank down on his axels. Her bags were lightly collected from her arm the next moment, floating eerily by themselves to settle securely beside the seats.
Before Mala could look twice at the floating luggage a hand lightly cupped her waist, and in a light, waltzing manner Sentinel backed her to the passenger's open doorway before he plucked her from the ground and had her effortlessly in her seat.
Mala glanced around and watched the sallow faced man's eyes flick hastily away, then she smiled slightly as Sentinel lightly worked to tuck her into place. She quickly smoothed her skirt as she turned in the seat, Sentinel closing the door the moment she was properly clear.
The holoform winked into being beside her in the drivers seat the next moment, maintaining a calm, patient demeanour as they drove.
"You are oddly affectionate considering the circumstances of today," Sentinel commented patiently, glancing at her curiously.
"We're being watched still, Cain told me to accept your affections to more effectively lead you on," Mala stated, hiding the comment behind a 'yawn'. Then she glanced in the mirror and narrowed her eyes at the bright red Ferrari inconspicuously following them several cars back.
Not that the high-powered vehicle would genuinely need to stay close to follow her mech's impressive form...
"Ridiculous," Mala muttered to herself.
"What?" Sentinel asked curiously. Mala turned herself so no casual glance nor reflection could catch the movement of her lips, ostensibly to check her parcels.
"There's a bright red Ferrari being driven by a sallow faced man a few cars behind you, he's been following us around from the start," she informed the mech with a small frown, idly fiddling with her parcels. "He's been following me around since my first rendezvous with Cain, and by the look of it he finally wants to see where your base of operations is for himself."
Mala jerked upright to look at the holoform incredulously as he began chuckling.
"Sentinel Prime to Mirage," he rumbled in amusement.
"What happened to the standard heavy-traffic radio silence?" a cultured voice shot back curiously over the radio.
"You have been made, Lord Spy," Sentinel stated in an amused tone.
"What!?" another male voice demanded. In the mirror the red Ferrari casually made a right turn.
"I haven't heard any chatter to that effect from the Brotherhood!" Lena's voice protested.
"My Mala has spotted you on numerous occasions," Sentinel rumbled smugly. Mala rolled her eyes as the second male voice cursed.
"Just how sharp eyed is that woman?" he demanded with an audible scowl.
"You didn't tell Mala that we're watching her?" the cultured voice asked in amusement. Mala turned a raised eyebrow to Sentinel's holoform.
"I had assumed Archangel would inform you that her human assassin colleague had been assigned to watch your movements by the brotherhood," Sentinel stated in a lightly defensive tone.
"Of course she wouldn't," Mala stated comfortably, settling back in her seat in time to watch as the massive doors revealed the ramps into the Auto-bot's headquarters. "If Archangel has another double agent in place in the brotherhood she wouldn't jeopardize his cover by informing me of his identity unless it was absolutely necessary."
"Are all human femmes this devious!?" the cultured voice demanded incredulously.
"Not all of them, a few though," the second voice chuckled.
"Where the slag do I find one?"
"That would require not hanging out with me, for one."
"Right. You. Out. Now where do I find one?"
"Oh come on I was kidding Mirage!"
"You never kid, you're supposed to be the modern day James Bond a'la sniper rifle with yours truly backing you up in style. Now where the slag are all the femme fatals?"
"You realize that the only time the femme fatals and assassins actually bother with each other is when we're trying to kill each other, right?"
"Slaggit."
Mala laughed and tucked her knees up to her chest as the firetruck shattered around her, Sentinel transforming around her with room to spare until she was sitting comfortably in his palm beside her parcels. Just in time to watch that red Ferrari drive down the ramps and the sallow faced man disembark.
"So you aren't actually in it to help me track down that Shockwave blighter, are you?" the sallow faced man demanded with a broad grin as the Ferrari shattered. "You're just in it to see if you can snatch a bombshell out from under me."
"I am Cybertronian, if I weren't multi-tasking every last one of my actions I'd need to remove several processors to dull myself enough to function in this society," the red mech stated airily. "Not that you can help it, as fast as this little rock is spinning around on it's axis? Your people are so short lived that your maturity gets fast tracked, yet your tiny processors slow your day to day lives so drastically I'm astonished your technologies made it this far."
"This coming from the mech who can't be bothered to talk for a week on end?"
"There's nothing wrong with a bit of silence and introspection."
"For a week!?"
"Sabre, have you a report for us?" Optimus asked regally, striding gracefully into the entrance bay with a tiny girl nestled cheerfully into a hollow in his shoulder. Mala looked a bit more closely and smiled to see a cable wrapped delicately around the child, making absolutely certain she wouldn't fall to her death as she watched the goings-on around herself from the perspective of the gentle-sparked titan.
"Where's Archangel?" Mirage asked cheerfully, looking around.
"Currently in the stratosphere over Italy," Optimus replied patiently.
"This is irregular," the sallow faced Sabre commented with a frown.
"So's us turning up outside the schedule little-man, never fear, whatever you tell Optimus Archangel will have a response to within seconds," Mirage stated in a comfortably suave tone.
Mala quietly added that little piece of information to her mental catalogue of Cybertronian oddities and looked up at Sentinel.
"How's that work?" Sabre asked curiously.
"Optimus has been blessed with a spark-bonded mate as I wish to be, they know each other's thoughts, feelings... even their precise position in the universe."
"No matter the distance, she is here," Optimus rumbled quietly, lightly touching his chest. Mala smiled to hear the soft, deeply contented tone from the mech.
"Do you mind if I hit my quarters and freshen up?" Mala asked calmly, looking up at the mech silently watching the proceedings around himself. Sentinel looked down at her with a mildly reluctant expression, the dear. "Everything I can tell you Sabre most certainly already knows, though you were nicely discreet with your staring today; well done," she added with a small smirk toward the assassin.
The irritated look on his face was only marginally mollified.
"With the permission of your guardian I shall escort you, milady," Mirage stated grandly, making an elegant bow in her direction. "Then you can tell me all about your sister."
"And which sister is that?" Mala asked in amusement.
"Why the one you're going to introduce me to of course!" Mirage stated cheerfully, grinning unrepentantly at her.
Mala laughed and rose in Sentinel's palm, stepping into the smaller hands offering themselves to her.
"I am made desolate in your absence," Sentinel informed her quietly.
"Well you shouldn't be, I expect you to report to my quarters in an hour," Mala informed the mech sternly.
In an instant Sentinel straightened proudly, saluting her as Mirage began carrying her toward her quarters. Mala looked up at the bright red mech looking hopefully down at her and smiled
"In comparison to Optimus and Sentinel, how old are you dear?" Mala asked gently.
"Eh? Oh, hmm... I suppose in human years Sentinel is around seventy... Optimus'd be in his thirties by now..." Mirage stated musingly. "Roughly... thirty... eight?" the mech stated unsurely. "Optimus is a few vorn younger than I... but I am fairly certain it's not more than forty..."
"How do you not know each other's ages?" Mala asked curiously.
"Doesn't matter," Mirage shrugged.
"Doesn't matter?" Mala pressed lightly.
"Well, the older somebot gets the more experience they have, certainly, Sentinel is precisely five hundred and eighty-two point four vorn older than I. Do I want to take him in a fight? Slag no. Whatever slowing of age might have touched his frame is more than compensated by his skills," Mirage stated, shaking his helm slightly.
"You know Sentinel's age and not Optimus'?" Mala asked curiously.
"He's never told me," Mirage shrugged. "He's never told anybot. It's one of the running bets we have going: how old he is, and which hatchery he came online in."
"So much time and only two bets?" Mala asked with a laugh, turning to look fully at the mech.
"Archangel cleared most of them," Mirage grinned.
"Except his age."
"Except his age," Mirage nodded, kneeling down lightly as he deposited her beside her door. Mala lightly twitched her skirt straight and looked at the kneeling mech.
"Are you at all deterred by the fact that I am the youngest in my family?" Mala asked in amusement
"If your sisters are as beautiful as you? Not at all," Mirage stated grandly.
"Well being as you're thirty-eight I'd be more likely to introduce you to a number of my nieces," Mala stated with a laugh. Then she turned a stern eye on the mech, "But I will not have you sullying the virtue of my girls without their explicit permission!"
"I swear it!" Mirage stated immediately, straightening proudly and saluting her. "Upon my honour as an Auto-bot-"
"Whatever you do don't introduce a femme to Mirage!" Ratchet's voice bellowed down the corridor.
"Oh a lady killer are you?" Mala asked in a mockingly stern tone.
"What!?" Mirage demanded in a stunned tone. "No! I would never- Ratchet why would you say such a thing!?" the mech bellowed, jerking to his feet.
At the commotion Sentinel was already through the entrance bay door, Optimus close behind him with no few humans clustered around his feet.
"Mirage-" Ratchet started in a stunned tone.
Mala set her parcels down, raised her fingers to her lips and blew a shattering note into the air. The corridor froze for a moment.
"You." She stated commandingly, pointing at Mirage. "Sit." Mirage knelt down, close enough. "You." Mala pointed at Ratchet sternly. "Why would I not introduce a young man to a lady if it has the potential to bring happiness and prosperity to both?"
"He's unbearable to be around," Ratchet stated musingly, eyeing Mirage carefully. "It is a running joke. I have repeated those words in seventeen languages on thirty-one occasions, and have made numerous comments along those parameters which have always been taken in the jesting manner intended save for this occasion. Mirage I want you in the med-bay-"
"What!? No I-"
"So I can take a look at your processors-" Ratchet continued in an increasingly loud tone, trying to drown Mirage's protests out.
Mala rolled her eyes and whistled again.
"Mirage. Med-bay. Now." she stated flatly.
"But-" Mirage trailed off as she firmly held the mech's optics.
"If you hold any hope of being introduced to my nieces you can be absolutely certain I won't introduce them to a defective being. Med-bay. Now." Mala informed the mech firmly.
Silence.
"Yes ma'am," Mirage murmured meekly, rising and fairly skittering to Ratchet. Mala watched him for a moment before catching Sentinel's optics.
"And you," she began firmly, glancing at her watch before looking directly at him. "Have forty-eight minutes."
Mala turned lightly and caught up her parcels, smirking to herself as she strode into her quarters, then started in surprise as she fairly ran into Arcee's holoform. Arcee caught her lightly and grinningly pressed a kiss to each cheek.
"It's so nice to have another femme of wisdom around again," she murmured in an amused tone. Then she delicately balanced a discreet remote on the uppermost parcel.
"What does that do?" Mala asked curiously.
"Climate control for your quarters, Wheeljack finally worked the glitches out. The button with the crossed out sound waves will silence the room, no extraneous noise in or out." Arcee stated with a broad smirk before the holoform winked out.
Mala blinked and lightly settled the parcels on the table, picked up the remote and pressed the button. The juddering footsteps of a ten-footer bot silenced; the mech hadn't ceased moving, she could still feel the vibrations in the ground. Mala pressed the button and listened to the footsteps again for a moment. It was probably Mirage trying to sneak away from Ratchet. Mala caught a mental picture of the flabbergasted looks that had been on the mechs faceplates, pressed the room mute button and burst out laughing.
(MPOV)
Directly in front of me, two bare-armoured twins were admiring their new alt-modes in the harsh fluorescent light. Behind me, the final, wan rays of the sunset gave way to the restful night. No few Lamborghini technicians and spokespeople were gathered around the twins, admiring their own transposed handiwork. The twins had alternately cursed and praised me as I'd launched the three of us straight out of the atmosphere then skipped them across the outer edge. It'd worked perfectly though, the friction of high speed re-entry had heated their frames to the low end of the standardized re-entry minimum and stripped their paint down to the protoform.
Once I'd caught them on the other side of the ionosphere and they'd finished cursing me, a few idle calculations brought us into controlled re-entry and straight into the Tyrrhenian Sea with barely a compression dent.
Salt water. Not ideal, but the quenching got rid of the majority of the carbon just fine. The engineers had swarmed around the twins the second we'd paraded into the factory grounds, commenting on the unwise habit of driving around earth without a protective layer of paint to guard against rust before the twins were ushered into the wash bay ostensibly to make doubly sure there wasn't any salt on their frames.
I laughed and lightly waved the humans off as they eyed me up, or more likely eyed up the bits of seaweed I somehow always wound up sporting when I walked along the bottom of the ocean. It was getting well into the evening, and the sheer amount of work it would take to clean even my armour was a daunting prospect.
There was no way I was going to fit into that wash-bay. Besides, the majority would fall off the next time I transformed, and I'd just pester Optimus into helping me cleanse my armour of the rest in decon when I got home; it was an excellent excuse to strip my mate to his protoform.
Then, the twins had emerged shining and cleaner than they'd likely been in vorns and had been presented with the lineup of models they'd evidently been dickering over that morning.
Now, two Lamborghini Aventador Roadsters were being closely inspected by their holoforms, and admittedly I had a fleeting flash of size-envy over that. But there was no way I'd be able to squeeze into that form. Slag it all anyway.
At least I'd be able to look at the twins' forms from time to time.
"May I ask the purpose of the etchings?" one of the humans asked politely. Sunstreaker glanced down as Sideswipe looked at his servos.
"Which ones?" Sides asked curiously.
"Any of them, really, I didn't see them relieved in your paint this morning," the man stated curiously.
Sideswipe grinned and knelt down, baring his spark chamber for the humans.
"These are my marks, when they're properly etched on a mech's spark chamber they are a part of his identity, and the marks are transposed along his frame."
"The rest are the equivalent of human tattoos," Sunstreaker grunted.
"Who'd you kill for the tick marks?" another asked with a laugh, looking at Sunstreaker's forearms. I looked over at the frontliner warily for a long moment as he glared at the human. Sunstreaker glanced up at me then, and seemed to relax slightly.
"These are from a time in my life when I thought that being a gladiator was glorious," Sunstreaker stated shortly, swiping lightly at the few dozen tick marks along his left servo; as though he wished to wipe them away.
"Holy shit I thought I was kidding," the human muttered, then he straightened and looked at Sunstreaker properly. "You have my apologies, sir, are you going to incorporate them into your paintwork?"
"And ruin these lines!?" Sunstreaker exploded, flashing back into his new alt-mode and onlining his holoform again. "Are you insane!?" then he turned and glared at the tick marks etched into his leading fenders.
"Well then, may I offer a pair of paint jobs?" the man asked cheerfully.
"How much?" Sunstreaker asked warily.
"On the house, just for the sake of getting to say I painted a pair of heroes of the world. I'll just write off the paint on advertising," the man stated brightly.
"Advertising?" Sideswipe asked curiously.
"A load of alien robots a billion times more advanced than the human race touch down, save the world from a dirty load more that had less than our survival in mind and decide that the vehicle they wish to take the form of whilst residing here is one of ours? You were patrolling through Italy for the afternoon to route out the last few of the lot, what is it tomorrow? America? Australia?"
"Jamaica, I think," Sideswipe murmured thoughtfully.
"You're going to be seen by hundreds, thousands of people! How is that not advertising!?"
"Just what colours are you thinking?" Sunstreaker asked flatly, I looked a bit more closely at the frontliner and had to hide a grin. He looked quite ready to begin haggling over pigments.
"Well the Aventador Roadster looks spectacular on it's own in simple white, but for you? I was thinking a pearlescent gold over a sunset red base," the man stated expansively, eyeing Sunstreaker up and down.
I chuckled as Sunstreaker stared at the human in shock.
"And me?" Sideswipe asked cheerfully.
"The Azzuro Thetis, is quieter, subtle, but that pale metallic blue really pops in the sunlight and caresses the Aventador lines beautifully," the man grinned.
In an instant the twin mechs were looking at me apprehensively.
"Customarily we aren't supposed to accept gifts for the same reason the enforcers of the law don't," I stated gravely. The twins' shoulders sagged slightly, I smirked and flicked my holoform online, holding my personal credit card between index and middle finger. "However one cannot be a Lamborghini without a proper Lamborghini paint job."
"I can pay for it!" Sunstreaker immediately protested.
"You personally painted me the last time I burnt my paint off, and I have three times the surface area or better," I laughed. "Besides, I did sort of burn your paint off in the atmosphere on a joyride from hell. Fair's fair."
The twins grinned at me as Sideswipe immediately transformed and idled toward the humans. I handed my card to Sunstreaker's holo along with a tiny wireless data packet containing the pin number for the account.
"I'll see you back at NEST," I added with a laugh as the painter began scurrying around the work bay, digging out supplies for all he was worth and handing them to the multitude of late night volunteers. "I'll authorize the home guard to bridge you once you're good and ready."
"Thank you Prime," Sunstreaker fairly sang, lightly snagging my card with his holo as he followed his brother into the paint booths proper.
I chuckled and glanced down at the humans scurrying to their tasks.
"Take good care of my boys," I told them with a smile, receiving a few waving salutes before I turned and ran three steps down the driveway, launching myself into the air. Higher, higher through the clouds; I angled toward the south a little way, nimbly dodging well around a jet making it's ponderous way in for landing.
::. NEST to Archangel Prime.:: Jolt called out gravely.
::. Archangel receiving.:: I replied patiently.
::. Anabelle wants to know when it's her turn to go flying.:: Jolt stated with a little smile in his tone.
I glanced at my co-ordinates and grinned.
::. Hey Jolt?.:: I sent back cheerfully. ::. I'm coming in from Milan now, time me will you? Tell Anabelle I'll take her up just as soon as I get there, and add a general note to the bridge guard that the twins'll be coming in once their paint has dried.::
::. Copy that Prime, the clock has started.:: Jolt sent back with a broad grin.