The Diego Diaries: Chaos 9 (dd3 19)
=0=In the Metroplex District, Autobot City, Mars
They sped down streets weaving in and out of the traffic as they made their way to the Mall of Metroplex. Entering, they pulled to one side to watch as business mechs and their staff began to rebuild the business center. There were no broken windows inside, something surprising to see.
Outside The Bakery At Metroplex, Rampage was discussing the day's plan with his bakery manager. Inside, it was evident that the machinery, furnishings and materials to make their products had taken a ride when Metroplex had stood up. They were cleaning, replacing, moving and getting things back into order.
:Let's go to the drugstore. I wonder what happened in Breezy's shop: Epps said. They sped onward pulling up before the glass doors and windows of the pharmacy. Entering the pharmacy, they pulled up around the front desk .Epps called out. :Breezy!:
A youngling Seeker who was picking up things looked over his shoulder. His handsome face burst into a smile. Then he arose to bow slightly. "Robert Epps! How are you? It has been a few orns since last we spoke."
Robert smiled. :I know. We were off planet for a few visiting the forward bases. How's your situation here? I don't see much broken:
Breezy grinned. "I know. Metroplex is an amazingly good bot. He has systems that protect his internal configurations because he's also a residential mechanism. I wasn't surprised that this is so remarkably light," he said gesturing to the remaining mess around him.
:He sat in the fire and didn't move until everyone was out. That's remarkable: Antonio Lopez said.
"Not if you knew Metroplex," Breezy said. "He's the most wonderful mech. His kind are guardians in every sense of the word. They protect us and our world without reservation. Metroplex is one of the best sparks you will ever meet."
:Given that you are so far, I think I have to know more about Metroplex: Sheila said to her favorite Seeker bar none.
He grinned and bowed. "You are too kind, Miss Sheila. You should go to see Metroplex."
They looked at him blankly.
Then he grinned slightly and told them how.
-0-Ops Center
Prowl sat at the conference room table chatting with Ratchet who'd just left the trine's house. "Just one bent thing and the house contents strewn about. That's a miracle."
"Metroplex is one of the most complex mechanisms I've ever worked on. There's still things about him that I'm finding that are beyond our current knowledge. He's complex in a way that makes complexity seem simple. If you know what I mean."
"Sort of," Prowl said with a slight smirk. "If you say so, Ratchet. I hear Orion had a brawl in infant school. And pray tell, what are you going to be doing to keep a once and future bad boy in line?"
Ratchet snorted. "You're spoiled with your mechs. Miracle might be a ticking time bomb."
"As if," Prowl said with a chuckle. "Do you suppose this will lead to détente?"
"Depends. Both sides have their own agendas and no one is talking. Han is as hardcore as Orion. Right now, it's anyone's guess. But I'll tell you, I thought Ironhide was going to pass out," Ratchet said with a laugh. "I was beside myself but Ironhide was on the edge of oblivion. Did you get the film of the brawl?"
"I got it, thanks," Prowl said with a snicker. "I showed it to Optimus and he grumped that he wasn't there."
"He can take my place next time," Ratchet said with a grin.
The door opened and bots began to come inside to take their places around the table. Ironhide followed by Flint walked in and sat on either side of Ratchet.
Starscream and Thundercracker entered and sat as well. Wheeljack and Perceptor, Jazz, Mirage, Springer, Drift and Kup along with Red Wing entered and found their seats.
Prime came behind them and walked to his seat at the head of the table. He looked at Prowl as he sat. "We need to discuss the bombing and sort through our data."
The door opened again as Inferno and Red Alert walked in. "Sorry." They sat down and began to roll out a map and stack data pads.
As they did, Magnus and Jetta walked in apologetically.
Prowl grinned. "Perhaps we need to reconvene in the intersection of The Fortress."
Jetta chuckled as he sat down with his data pads arrayed before him. "Sorry, Prowl. We hurried."
"Is this everyone?" Prime asked with a smirk.
Prowl glanced at a data pad and cast a caustic optic around the room. "Yep."
"Very well," Optimus said sitting back to get comfortable to listen to uncomfortable things. "Commence, please."
Prowl looked at Jazz. "You begin, please."
Jazz glanced at Jetta, then Prowl. "We, that is Mirage and I along with Blaster combed the scene and pulled the servers. They were pretty damaged so we took the data and gave it to Sciences.
"The scene was damaged beyond the usual kill zone effect because stone ricocheted throughout the blast radius beating everything there to death twice over."
Optimus considered that. "Then you have information recovered anyway."
Jazz nodded. "Sciences can speak to that. We just pulled it and passed it on. Suffice it to say, the bombs created major havoc but I don't think it was to do more than that. No one should have been in the Plaza at that time. The bomber could have hurt more during business hours but they chose closing time."
Prime agreed. "Thank you." He glanced at Inferno and Red Alert.
Inferno leaned forward and began. "The bombs had the concussive force of a Seeker run due to the many devices and created a line of breakage along the back wall that has put the building's structural integrity in question.
"The fires were very destructive, undermining the foundation along the wall by its heat and intensity. We'll have to shore up the entire structure and dig out the foundation. It'll require a new one as well as a rebuild over half the building. Jetta will have the details."
They turned to the big black and red mech. "We've done a structural integrity survey of the building and we'll have to rebuild the sections from mid building to the rear of the structure. It'll require tearing down the affected parts, rewiring the building and replacing all of the systems for the entire building.
"Since the systems control sections were along the back wall, the entire building's functional operations were fried. The businesses inside will be off line until that's repaired. We can allocate workers to do this once the building is shored up and the damage then taken down and out."
"What is the time line, Jetta?" Prime asked.
"I'd say two orns to shore up the structure, three to dismantle the damage and five to six to replace the missing building sections themselves. It could take an orn or two longer depending on how it goes in the dismantle. We can only give estimates."
"Then my genitors will be out of business for a decaorn?" Ratchet asked.
Jetta nodded. "At least that long, Ratchet."
Ratchet vented a sigh. "I'll let them know."
Jetta glanced at Prime. "The City lost a lot of its supplies and other items in the blasts. Servers have been destroyed and a lot of irreplaceable things were damaged. We've asked the University and Museum to do a survey to see what can be restored or conserved. It's a sad thing for that part of the inventory in the warehouses."
Prime felt the burn, too. "Thank you. I know you and all concerned will do your best. We need to build a vault that can handle big problems for our treasures. I would like that to be a priority, Prowl," he said as Prowl noted it on his pad.
Prime glanced at Springer. "What do the forensics reports tell us thus far?"
Springer looked at his data pad. "We've detected the remains of ten small bombs. Small in size but big in concussive force. They were plastique devices with simple detonators attached. They were placed rather close together due to the number of bombs used and that's why this has been so damaging.
"We gathered the scraps together for Sciences. There have been tips checked out by the Night and Day Watch about mechs hanging around the area but they didn't pan out. Most of them were younglings fooling around and courting.
"We checked the alibis of our usual troublemakers and they all checked out. The remark most often given is if this is a crime then this is a high caste tantrum and nothing more."
Prime noted that. "Anyone of interest or are we back to square one again?"
"There's suspects who aren't fond of the way things are here," Springer said. "They've gotten into fights over the caste system in the clubs and some of them are unfriendly as the Pit on their jobs and around the city. But that's what we have so far. We're still seeking evidence."
Prime looked at Wheeljack and Perceptor. "Anything?"
"We concur with everything said so far regarding the bombs. They appear to be made from materials used in the quarries and among the blast teams. They were from a batch of plastique made three months ago and released to the sappers ten orns later ending up in this event somehow.
"The configuration of the materials and the elements added to tag that batch for identification for quality control confirm it. The detonators were made in the main armory and released as well at the same time. The materials were supposed to be used to remove a lot of really hard rock in the new housing construction sites to the west of the city.
"There's no record of them being signed for nor was there a recording of them being taken since we don't use security cameras on construction sites. We're going to rectify that, however," Wheeljack said. "The count made after the blast showed enough plastique and detonators unaccounted for to make bombs of this magnitude. I don't believe there's any more material out there left over to cause more trouble.
"We've salvaged the server given to us from Springer and Drift. It was heavily burned and very much in critical condition. We pulled the data out and tried to rebuild it but we couldn't beyond two partial images." Perceptor punched the keyboard of the computer behind him. The monitors flashed and an image was on them. "This is the first image. We have a picture from the security cameras nearby of a mech standing against the wall. He's gray with white highlights. He has wings as you can see in this corner," he said pointing to a notch emerging from the burned edges of the image.
"This image has very few identifying characteristics about it. We were worried that the color had been compromised by the fire but the full color spectrum analysis we made revealed that the gray is his normal color." He touched the keyboard.
Another image appeared. It was larger and clearer. It showed a mech walking away. His body from his right shoulder down to his ped was rather clear but the rest was burned and missing including his helm.
"This shows a wing tip here," Perceptor said pointing to the image. "This is also a chevron on his arm, a white one. Analysis of his paint scheme indicates a very expensive finish and armor of high quality. This is a high caste mech. A gray winger with a white chevron on his right upper arm."
They were silent a moment as they stare at the image.
Then Prowl sat back tossing his stylus down.
Prime looked at him. "What?" he asked.
"I remember that paint scheme," Prowl said quietly. "I'll never forget it."
Ratchet leaned forward. "Spill, detective," he said.
Prowl sat a moment in silence as he looked at the image, then Prime. "Optimus," he said forgetting protocol on the job, "this is the mech that insulted Kaon. I kicked his aft for it, he and six others with Ratchet in the rec room."
"We did? I don't remember. I was off my processor at the time," Ratchet said.
Prowl looked at him. "Ratchet, you might have been but I'm a detective by training and profession. Or at least once I was. I wouldn't have missed a thing no matter how crazy it was and I concede it was. That's the mech that called my Kaon a low caste loser. I'd never forget that. Ever."
Jazz rose and walked to the computer console nearby with direct link up to the mainframe data of Teletraan. Inputting information, he pressed the enter key. After a moment the monitors showed another image.
A sullen looking mech appeared on the screen with his personal data along side. They read it as they stared at the image silently.
Then Prime leaned back. "He's the son of Copperton and Turquoise."
"Oh slag," Ratchet said. "I have Turquoise working on the carrier-soldier problem reading and analyzing code. He seems rather nice. Copperton seems like a fragger."
"We need to pull this mech in and talk to him," Springer said as he glanced at Prime.
"We need to have our evidence in order," Prime said. "Where does he work and does he have access to these materials? Is he alone or are there others involved? We need to have firm evidence that points to him or we have to wait to gather it."
Jazz went through a larger search on their suspect. He read it, then glanced at Ratchet. "He was brought in on the assault and battery with you, Ratch."
"Oh right. I forgot. Things have been busy lately," Ratchet said.
Ironhide sitting quietly beside his old mech shook his helm. "You worry me, Ratchet."
Ratchet grinned, then looked at Prime. "The paint scheme on this mech is a very expensive gray with a white chevron on his arms. He has wings. Pretty damning I'd say."
Prowl nodded. "It is. I think we have enough to pull him in for questioning. Jazz, run a schematic search based on the paint scheme of this mech's armor on our entire population."
They waited as Jazz did the search. After a moment, the screen flashed three names. Jazz pressed the keys and three images appeared. Two were variations of most of the keywords and one was as close to the suspect as possible.
"This one is a mech that's gray and has wings. He's a middle caste mech, Optimus. No chevrons. This mech," he said enlarging the next picture, "is a low caste mech with chevrons and wings. His scheme is light blue. Light enough it appears to fall into the color spectrum that I chose for the search." Jazz pressed keys and data came onto the screen. "I compared this color against the one supplied by the spectrum analysis of the data from the destroyed server. They aren't the same." He pressed more keys and another image appeared. "This is the last mech. He had the same color scheme, it's extremely high quality and he is a high caste mech."
"What's his name," Prowl asked knowing already.
"Copperton," Jazz said glancing at Prowl. "He's the atar of the suspect, Burnoff."
It was silent a moment, then Prime sat forward. "I think we need to bring Burnoff in for a chat," he said. "I want him brought to the other big conference room and left alone for a moment. Prowl, you have the most experience in interrogations. You were the detective. I want you to do the first interview."
Prowl glanced at Drift and Springer. "Bring him in," he said quietly.
The two walked out without a sound.
=0=TBC 2012 (9) 4-24-2022