Understood
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Chapter 6
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A stale scent immediately hit Tailgate's olfactory sensors as the old mech opened the door to his abode. "Well, like I warned you, it's a mess in here. Hope you don't mind too much."
'A mess' was an understatement, Tailgate saw as his client led him in. The house was full of... of everything. Had this mech cleaned up or even thrown anything away in the past hundred vorns? The room was full of junk of every kind, filling every surface and most of the floor. Stacking seemed to be the usual storage method, for there were stacks of stuff atop every piece of furniture and stacks in every corner. There were spare parts, advertiser's free datapads, spare parts from mechs that were definitely not his frame-type, low-class novelties, framed image-captures, collections of various trinkets, empty energon containers, broken toys, broken who-knows-what's, plating samples, outdated computers, worn-out consoles, polishing brushes, and thousands of nameless objects littering the whole room. Cables and wiring snaked across the floor and between the stacks.
"Berthroom's back here," said the mech, obviously a veteran of the Kaon-Helex Conflict given a set of banners hanging upon the walls and much of the disorganized memorabilia. A large model of a Kaonian Type III Shock-Cruiser hung from the ceiling in one corner covered in a layer of dust that had probably been accumulating since the Kaon-Helex Conflict. He led the way along a narrow path through the debris to a smaller room. A berth awaited, a berth that appeared to be half used for recharge and half used as display space for more of the clutter.
"Here, let me make some more room for us. Oh this is going to be fun!" said the old mech happily as he began clearing the berth, stacking the things he removed onto the stacks of other things against the walls of the room.
Tailgate waited patiently as the mech busied himself. And when the berth cover was revealed, the mech pulled it off to reveal a surprisingly clean mattress beneath. "Hop on and make yourself comfortable. I'm going to go get us some drinks."
Tailgate lay down trying to convince himself this wasn't that bad. He'd endured worse. There was that time he'd been taken to a deep doorwell not too far from Seventh Cycle street, and in the midst of a rather uncomfortable frag the residents on the other side of the door had chased them off.
The mech reentered with a couple glasses of darkly-tainted energon in hand and gave one to Tailgate. "Here you go, cutie. Distilled it myself. My sergeant taught us how to make our own hooch back when we were fighting Helexians."
"Thank you," said Tailgate with a forced smile. This job involved a lot of forced smiles. He cringed but drank it anyway, finding that it wasn't half bad.
The mech drained his glass and shoved it into the clutter on the bedside table. Tailgate did the same. And then he sized up the minibot upon the berth. "Primus you look good," he said. "May I start?"
"Of course you can. You've paid me to be here," said Tailgate with a more genuine smile. Most mechs simply pounced upon him the moment he got anywhere close to a berth. Some didn't even wait that long.
"Anything you don't like or don't want me to do?"
Tailgate was astounded that the mech had asked. "You can do whatever you want that will get you to overload, short of hurting me," he replied.
"Hurt you? What!? What sick fragger would want to hurt you?"
"There are all types out there," Tailgate replied with a shrug.
"Well I ain't going to hurt you. This is about having a good time, isn't it?"
"I'd hope so."
The old mech chuckled and climbed onto the berth, his cables creaking, and moved to embrace the minibot. "Well just tell me if I'm doing anything that feels wrong, or if I'm doing something that makes you feel really good."
"All right," said Tailgate as the mech began to wrap his arms about his torso. Maybe this wouldn't be such a bad job after all.
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"Understood" continues in Chapter 7
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