Sneaking Suspicions

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=====================<* Scene 23: Sneaking Suspicions *>======================
--------------------< Prowl Posed on Dec 17 09:35PM CST >---------------------
It's late in the solar cycle, and most people are recharging or relaxing in their hab suites. As such, the hallways are rather empty. Not everyone relaxes, though. After all, how else are you supposed to stay one step ahead of the game all the time? Certainly not by relaxing or wasting time on a thing called 'leisure'.
--------------------< Arcee Posed on Dec 17 09:36PM CST >---------------------
Suddenly, there's a new arrival at the office door. Who could it possibly be at this hour? Who, indeed...
"Hello? ...You still working in there?"
--------------------< Prowl Posed on Dec 17 09:42PM CST >---------------------
The door slides open as she is speaking. It seems Prowl was just leaving. He quirks a brow ridge at her, appearing slightly surprised. "Arcee..." he begins. "What are you doing here this cycle? You should be recharging."
--------------------< Arcee Posed on Dec 17 09:47PM CST >---------------------
"I did! ...Well, somewhat, not all the way," Arcee says with a slight smile, as she just barges right in once the door opens. She takes her usual seat across the desk from Prowl. "I wanted to talk to you about Maccaddam's! Thinking about that was keeping me from resting. So I decided to come here, instead."
--------------------< Prowl Posed on Dec 17 09:52PM CST >---------------------
"I--" Prowl looks slightly exasperated. He turns back around to face her, but remains standing in the doorway. See, this is part of the reason why he doesn't like having to socialize. "I'm sorry Arcee, but I was just leaving. Can it wait?" Does -he- ever recharge?
--------------------< Arcee Posed on Dec 17 09:56PM CST >---------------------
Arcee pouts slightly. "I wasn't going to take a lot of your time," she insists. "In fact, I wanted to get your opinion on what might be going on there. Looks like a racket to me." She pauses, then adds, "Real quick, then I'll leave you be."
--------------------< Prowl Posed on Dec 17 10:00PM CST >---------------------
Prowl sighs. "Fine, make it quick." He says tersely, folding his arms. He really doesn't look to be in the best of moods. Wait is Prowl -ever- in a -good- mood? Maybe or maybe not, but more than likely his 'good' mood is less cheerful or friendly than a 'normal' good mood, if there is even such a thing.
--------------------< Arcee Posed on Dec 17 10:06PM CST >---------------------
Arcee figures Prowl is grumpier than usual because she's stopping him from heading to recharge, which is kind of rude, but she figures she can have her one tiny moment of rudeness when he has all the social graces of...well, a cop, all cycle every cycle. He used to scare her, but she hasn't really been intimidated by him in a very long time, not since she got to know him a little better.
"Okay, here's how I see it," Arcee says. "Maccaddam's been intimidated into participating in Swindle's protection racket. Swindle's probably skimming a considerable profit off his business, and others as well. Matter of fact, I could do some investigating and find out just how many businesses are affected by this racket, if you want. Then, we can bust it wide open and deprive Swindle of that income!"
--------------------< Prowl Posed on Dec 17 10:11PM CST >---------------------
Prowl nods, though he still has this impatient look on his face, as if that's the least of his worries right now. "Yes, yes of course. In fact, why don't you attend his next talent show, and see what you can find out. Keep your reports updated."
But is he going to recharge at all? His hab suite is connected to his office, so why would he be leaving the room to do so? Besides, why would someone like -him- be in a hurry to get to stasis?
--------------------< Arcee Posed on Dec 17 10:15PM CST >---------------------
Arcee observes Prowl's demeanor for a moment, then she folds her arms across her chest. "...I planned on doing that already," she comments, "I just wanted to see what you thought, I mean, you've had far more experience with taking down these things than I have." She knows something's strange about the way he's acting, but she isn't entirely sure why.
--------------------< Prowl Posed on Dec 17 10:18PM CST >---------------------
"You're learning quickly." Prowl comments. Then he starts out the door, and appears to be waiting for her to leave the office as well, so that he can lock up. "Now would that be all?"
--------------------< Arcee Posed on Dec 17 10:23PM CST >---------------------
"No, that won't be all because I think you're avoiding the question," Arcee says pointedly. She knows that calling Prowl on his hedging might make him particularly irritable, so to soften the blow a bit, she gets up and heads over to the door where Prowl is standing, hopefully giving him the impression that she might leave if he's more forthcoming about this topic.
--------------------< Prowl Posed on Dec 17 10:27PM CST >---------------------
Prowl is -really- looking impatient now. "You said you were going to make this quick." He's standing in the hallway, right outside the door. "Look Arcee, we can talk about this later. I don't have all cycle right now."
--------------------< Arcee Posed on Dec 17 10:33PM CST >---------------------
"OK, I *know* something's up, now, know why?" Arcee pokes her head out of the room. "Because //you're headed the wrong way//. If I was stopping you from getting some rest, I'd be blocking you at the /other/ door -- you know, the one to your habsuite? Because I'm depriving you of your rest cycle." She smirks. "So now, you're just being avoidant. What don't you want me to know?"
--------------------< Prowl Posed on Dec 17 10:37PM CST >---------------------
Ugh. "I didn't say I was going to recharge. I said I don't have all cycle." Prowl says, really sounding irritated, now. "You of all people must understand that not everything is below your clearance level. Now, are you finished or am I going to have to -force- you out of there?"
--------------------< Arcee Posed on Dec 17 10:43PM CST >---------------------
"No, you're NOT going to have to force me out of there, for Primus sakes, I'm just making a point," Arcee sighs, exiting the office and looking up at him. "Good night," she says evenly, already formulating her next move. She's not a special sparkling who can get her way every time, but she knows she has more leeway than the average bot with Prowl, and she's convinced he has a reason for shutting her down on this topic. She's far from finished with this.
--------------------< Prowl Posed on Dec 17 10:50PM CST >---------------------
Finally. Prowl doesn't make a reply, instead he quickly shuts the door the office before she can go back in, then transforms and takes off down the hallway as quickly as his engines will carry him. Yes, he appears to be in a great hurry. And no, he doesn't want her in his office alone. But didn't he say he trusted her?
--------------------< Arcee Posed on Dec 17 10:57PM CST >---------------------
Arcee watches Prowl head off in a mad hurry, and she frowns. "Alright. Two can play this game," she murmurs, quickly heading down the corridor to the nearest terminal. "Computer, track Prowl and transmit his coordinates to me in 10-millibreem increments," she requests. He's already out of sight, but that's how she wants it, because she transforms and trails far behind as she follows the computer's coordinates. She'll just find out what he couldn't possibly wait to do that was more important than answering a very simple question about racketeering.
--------------------< Prowl Posed on Dec 17 11:01PM CST >---------------------
The tracking works for a few breems, and she manages to get him within her sights, but not long after that it suddenly fails--he's become untraceable. His signal's been encrypted. Which is, of course, even more disturbing. Prowl is trying to hide from his own allies? He appears to be headed for the outskirts of the city.
--------------------< Arcee Posed on Dec 17 11:06PM CST >---------------------
Arcee traces the signal for as long as she's able to do so, but she gets a bad feeling in the pit of her being when the signal stops. She isn't too worried about the loss of signal -- she has been taught ways of triangulating lost or patchy signals, and estimating proximity by way of said triangulation. That isn't what bothers her. It's the thought that Prowl could be up to something sketchy. She couldn't even fathom such a thing.
Once the signal drops entirely, she begins calculating estimations of where he might be based on the last signals received, then she works on closing the distance even further by driving a maze of alleys and narrow corridors to hide her progress toward the city's outskirts.
--------------------< Prowl Posed on Dec 17 11:16PM CST >---------------------
Finally, she comes upon a facility on the outer rim of one of Iacon's many industrial sectors. It is rather isolated, but otherwise doesn't appear to be anything much out of the ordinary. Looks like a warehouse of sorts, and she manages to catch a glimpse of him entering it through a side door...
--------------------< Arcee Posed on Dec 17 11:24PM CST >---------------------
Arcee transforms back to root mode within an adjacent alleyway, then takes a quick moment to go through her field kit. Those blessed with e-senses can probably hear anything going on inside that warehouse with no trouble at all, but Arcee is not blessed with such hardware; she has to make do with gadgets from R&D. Sometimes, the field gadgets are great. Other times, they're total crap. After a moment, she decides to try out an audial resonator. The device can't just be affixed to the front door of the warehouse and magically allow her to hear inside...it will require some effort on her part to introduce it into the building, by way of the ventilation system. So she climbs her way onto the roof with the aid of dumpster, then once she's up there, she affixes the resonator to a cord, and begins feeding it down into the vent system, bit by bit.
--------------------< Prowl Posed on Dec 17 11:35PM CST >---------------------
The resonator is successfully lowered into the ventilation system, but there appears to be no feedback. Well, there are some foosteps and the sound of the door Prowl just went through closing, but other than that, nothing...
Perhaps she should try the door or a window? There are a few windows near the roof. Small, but maybe worth a shot?
--------------------< Arcee Posed on Dec 17 11:38PM CST >---------------------
Arcee frowns deeply at the resonator failing, but she didn't come all the way out here just to give up and turn back now. So she begins scouting the rooftop area, and that's when she notices the windows. It's a huge risk to go inside the building, but in order to get some answers, she's willing to take the risk.
Clutching the edge of the roof, Arcee lowers herself onto the sill, and tests it to see if maybe she can just slide it open from the outside. She doesn't want to risk the noise of kicking it out unless it's absolutely necessary.
--------------------< Prowl Posed on Dec 17 11:44PM CST >---------------------
The window isn't easy to open from the outside, but it is doable. However, upon peering through it she'll find that the warehouse appears to be empty? Just a vast, open room with nothing in it. Wait--is that a gravlift on the far side of the room?
--------------------< Arcee Posed on Dec 17 11:46PM CST >---------------------
Once she wriggles through the window and drops down onto the floor, Arcee hrms to herself as she sees the gravlift. She remembers the IAA building.
She doesn't like gravlifts and the places they go, especially when there's no telling precisely where they go.
But she came here for answers, so she'll have to take this chance. Arcee steels herself, putting aside her growing apprehension, and presses the call button for the lift.
--------------------< Prowl Posed on Dec 17 11:49PM CST >---------------------
The elevator responds to the call as if nothing were amiss. As if this were just another day at the office. The doors open, inviting her inside...
--------------------< Arcee Posed on Dec 17 11:52PM CST >---------------------
Arcee steps into the lift. "Last floor," she instructs the lift. Sometimes this actually works. Then again, sometimes R&D audial resonators work. Her luck was a little bit spotty today.
--------------------< Prowl Posed on Dec 17 11:59PM CST >---------------------
It seems the lift actually doesn't need any commands, there is only one other floor to go to. It starts moving down pretty fast, and soon enough it opens up to a long, empty corridor. Certainly not like last time, at the IAA, there is plenty of light here. Doors line the walls, but again there is not much to look at. Yet.
--------------------< Arcee Posed on Dec 18 09:38PM CST >---------------------
Arcee disembarks, and very quietly begins venturing down the corridor. She isn't entirely certain which doors she should be checking -- all of them, she supposes, but she has a feeling deep down in her spark that her movements are being recorded somewhere. Instinctively, she looks for any obvious cameras as she makes her way toward the end of the hallway. What she decides to do is to check the furthest doors from the lift by listening against them, and then work her way back toward the lift, just in case she needs to leave in a hurry at any given point.
--------------------< Prowl Posed on Dec 18 09:44PM CST >---------------------
She finds that the corridor ends with a T-intersection. All is quiet, that is, until she hears some shuffling noises coming down the hallway that intersects the one she's standing in. It's not Prowl...but some mech she doesn't recognize. He looks nervous, constantly glancing behind himself as if expecting someone to spring upon him or attack at any moment.
--------------------< Arcee Posed on Dec 18 09:52PM CST >---------------------
Arcee quickly presses herself into a doorway alcove, for lack of anywhere better to hide. She peers toward the approaching mech curiously, and can't help but recognize at least one familiar feature about him: he very much resembles someone who's been psychologically 'pressed' by Prowl. She's seen that look before. Even if Prowl had nothing to do with making him wary, she suspects otherwise. If he doesn't notice her pink self standing against one of the doors in the hallway ahead of him, then she'll probably head down the hallway where he just came from; otherwise, she'll have to confront him, because there's no time to move back toward the lift without being spotted. It's times like this when her color scheme is problematic.
--------------------< Prowl Posed on Dec 18 10:05PM CST >---------------------
The mech seems pretty preoccupied with whatever or whoever he's currently trying to watch out for, and doesn't notice her. But suddenly, one of the doors in front of him open and Prowl steps out, so that when he looks back from glancing behind, he's face-to-face with the Autobot second-in-command. And he has what looks like another model of that prototype he's been telling Arcee to test.
"Going somewhere?" he says flatly. But he doesn't give the mech time to reply. The trigger is pulled, but as with the one she'd been testing for him, nothing appears to come out of the barrel. However, the victim just stasis locks suddenly and collapses to the floor.
--------------------< Arcee Posed on Dec 18 10:15PM CST >---------------------
Arcee covers her mouth with her hand, absolutely stunned as she witnesses Prowl shoot the other mech with some weird auto-stasis version of the prototype gun. What was this?? What was he doing?? Who WAS that other mech?
It occurs to Arcee that this could very well be something /other/ than what it appears to be. This could very well be a sting. In fact, it was...fairly logical to assume that this was, in fact, simply Prowl tracking down some criminals on his most-wanted list.
Except, she couldn't shake the feeling of deceit. He was deceitful to her. He tried to prevent her from knowing about...whatever is taking place here. So Arcee has doubt in her mind that anything happening here is okay. But to confirm it, she has to follow through; it wouldn't do to simply assume. That would be a rookie mistake. So she decides to observe Prowl some more, to see if she can get an idea of who the downed mech is and what this warehouse is used for.
--------------------< Prowl Posed on Dec 18 10:30PM CST >---------------------
Once the mech is down, Prowl gets a datapad out and appears to signal some drones, which come down the corridor and lift the guy off of the floor and start carrying him toward the gravlift. At some point he wakes up again, but looks to be in some kind of dazed state.
As for Prowl, he goes back through the door he just came out of. She could follow him to see what he's up to, or she could follow the drones to see what really happened to that mech just now.
--------------------< Arcee Posed on Dec 18 10:35PM CST >---------------------
Arcee hesitates for a moment. She feels a strong compulsion to confront Prowl, but thinks better of it for two reasons: one, he could hit /her/ with the stasis-lock ray (and she doesn't doubt for a moment that he /would/ if he realized she followed him to this place), and two, even if he didn't, he'd try to shut her accusations down with his usual crap-filled bluster about duty and whatnot.
She makes a mental note of Prowl's 'place' in the corridor, then quickly scurries toward the gravlift to see what's to become of the targeted mech.
--------------------< Prowl Posed on Dec 18 10:42PM CST >---------------------
The drones carry the mech into the gravlift, not appearing to be aware of her presence. If she follows them inside, the guy seems to be groaning and mumbling incomprehensibly. When the elevator opens back out onto the ground floor where the empty warehouse is, he is taken outside and dumped unceremoniously onto the streets.
--------------------< Arcee Posed on Dec 18 10:50PM CST >---------------------
Arcee simply avoids the drones, who are tasked with disposing of the mech. Once they file back into the building, she crouches beside the mech, touching the side of his face. She knows nothing about him. He could be a dangerous criminal, but she's learned a thing or three about dealing with ornery mechs, so she's not too worried. She suspects that he might have been mindwiped, but there's a chance he may still recall his reason for being inside the building. "...Are you okay? Talk to me, can you sit up?" she asks softly.
--------------------< Prowl Posed on Dec 18 10:53PM CST >---------------------
The stranger finally sits up, rubbing his helm and grumbling but otherwise appearing all right. "Ugh...did I get too overcharged again?" He peers up at her. "Huh? Who're you?" She can see now that he has an Autobot badge like her. And like Prowl, too.
--------------------< Arcee Posed on Dec 18 10:57PM CST >---------------------
"Maybe you did, I don't know...hey, you're an Autobot, too!" Arcee is, indeed, surprised. Now, she doesn't have much doubt that Prowl is up to no good. "Can you remember why you were here?" she asks, gesturing toward the warehouse.
--------------------< Prowl Posed on Dec 18 11:00PM CST >---------------------
"...uh." The mech stares at the warehouse, at a loss. "Eh, I just assumed I got overcharged and wandered down some alley." He gets up, dusting himself off. "Sorry to trouble ya."
--------------------< Arcee Posed on Dec 18 11:07PM CST >---------------------
"Hey, no problem," Arcee says. (HUGE problem,) she thinks to herself. If Prowl is using the prototype to plant ideas into other Autobot's heads, there's a HUGE problem. As she watches the other mech head away, she begins to have second thoughts about heading back into the warehouse. She feels very much in over her head. It's becoming clear to her that more mechs are going to need to know about this.
Jazz...Sky Lynx. /Prime/. None of them had any idea about this mess, Arcee suddenly realizes.
What kind of an Autobot would she be to not report this because of personal feelings? Personal feelings aside, she has a lot of ethical problems with this situation. Problems that she can't solve on her own.
--------------------< Prowl Posed on Dec 18 11:15PM CST >---------------------
The mech transforms and drives off, leaving Arcee in silence for a few moments. She has a choice....she could try to go back inside and search for Prowl, or she could leave now. If she wants to go back inside, she probably doesn't have much time by now...
--------------------< Arcee Posed on Dec 18 11:22PM CST >---------------------
Arcee decides to leave, at least for now. Having Prowl know about her following him out to this location would likely put her on a suspect list. In the meantime, she's going to do some research on this location and see if she can discover any documentation in the archives that would point toward its purpose. As much as it pains her to think about it, she's beginning to realize that Prowl has his own agenda, and any relationships he carries on with others either further or hinder that private agenda. Once they're no longer useful to him...
Without thinking much more on it, Arcee transforms and begins to venture back toward the main cityscape of Iacon.
--------------------< Prowl Posed on Dec 18 11:30PM CST >---------------------
Any records she will manage to pull up about this particular warehouse would indicate that it is empty and hasn't been used for a while. Well, she didn't really see anything there, other than Prowl and that other mech, whoever he was...
But maybe he was just getting into some things he didn't have clearance to access? If she were to confront Prowl, he'd probably say that some things -need- to be hidden even from allies. Who knows, maybe the other members of command do know about it...
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