Heroic Rescue

He stopped in for some quick refuelling while on the trail of the missing outlier, Feint. Sitting at the bar and sipping an Enertini, Jazz is going over the details in his head. He's having a crisis of conscience; normally having civilian informants is something he does as a matter of course, but this case is shaking up differently than he expected, especially after reading the files on Sherma's assassination. Maybe what's going on isn't illegal... but it isn't right.
Pensive unease runs down his frame, from the tilt of his doors to the higher idle of his engines. His tires idly turn, as if his body wants to get rolling before his mind is finished cogitating.
It's not specifically to find anyone that Breakdown enters the bar. Really, after a long haul day mostly consisting of his typified low caste role as /muscle/, Breakdown is going to the bar for the same reason he usually does: to brood until Knock Out gets done and shows up. However, sighting Jazz across the room as he enters crystallizes a certain weight of purpose in him, and instead of holing up in the corner with the cheapest-ass energon he can find, he moves to the bar on lumbering clanks. Rumble from the depths of his throat, a grating sound in his voice as though it is dredged from some disused chamber of machinery, he goes: "You again." 
Breakdown is very polite. 
His next words are more to the point, though, weighted as they come with the heaviness of a frown. "Found that flying femme yet?"
Jazz is so busy thinking he startles, spitting energon. "Whoo!" he announces, wiping his mouth. "Either I need my sensors checked or you are -really- good at sneakin' up for a mech your size!" he announces in good humor. Sitting up and turning around to face Breakdown he shakes his head. "Nah, nothin' yet. I got a few leads but where they go? This case may go from missin' persons to obituary."
Hot Rod's around for highly unspecified and surely very harmless reasons, but these reasons seem unlikely to bring him immediately into Jazz's orbit. In fact, he is kind of avoiding even so much as looking over there lest he catch Jazz's eye. (It is probably too late.)
Hot Rod is talking to the kind of someone who specializes in high-speed, low-visibility transport of completely legitimate things, but the conversation must be wrapping, because when Breakdown skips in and approaches Jazz, he fairly leans out of his seat to eavesdrop. "Yeah, sure, sounds good," he says, and then slides right on out of his seat to join the MORE INTERESTING conversation. He leads flames first. "Where do they go?" Hi.
"Guess my badge isn't scarin' you off now, huh?" Jazz quips, smirking as Hot Rod butts himself in. He can't help but like the kid - he's got that somethin'-somethin' that makes for a good spark. "Well, last security feeds go straight into the Dead End of Polyhex. I don't have to tell you that's not a good place for a femme to end up." He handwaves Hot Rod over. "Y'know, you -might- wanna get a little closer before you start a conversation, otherwise mechs might get the impression you're spyin' on 'em." Badly. He leaves that word out.
About to reply to Jazz, Breakdown's mouth closes over set teeth as Hot Rod bounds up. He looks at him. His look is very clear and expressive. It is actually expressive of a very similar sentiment to that he first directed at Jazz: /you again/. He breathes in, and then says, as he curls his hand to rest knuckles against the bar, "No place is a good place for somebody to end up getting hunted for her /masters/. Don't know what all I can do. But I'm in for whatever it's worth." He rumbles with a deeply grudge-bitten sound, adding a jerk of one thumb that is so directed at Hot Rod it actually tinks off his spoiler. (tink tink) "Even if you have some forsaken need to take flamey here, I /guess/."
Whoa, whoa. Watch the spoiler!! Hot Rod rolls back on his heels and shrugs his shoulder away from Breakdown's jabby thumb. He regards him somewhat doubtfully beneath the downward tip of his helm. "Good of you," he says, the skepticism lingering like 'good' and 'Breakdown' really struggle to come together in his head. He's all earnest conviction as he looks up again, regarding Jazz with an innocent look that doesn't quit fit with this /blatant eavesdropping/. "I wasn't! Just -- you know, heard a thing. Anyway, so what if it's the Dead End? Just because it might be dangerous isn't reason to stop trying to help someone. Sounds like a good reason to try, actually, since that just means other people won't."
"They set up a Relinquishment Clinic there," Jazz states simply, as if that statement contains all the explanation anyone needs.
"Of course they did," Breakdown growls in a rev of engine.
What Hot Rod gets from this is, "You know where it is?" He shifts, straightening a little, standing poised on the edge of movement like he thinks he's a hero on a poster about to go save the world.
"Yeah. I can take you there, in fact, but first --" 
Jazz downs his enertini. No reason to let a good mix go to waste, after all. He's gonna need the energy. He sideglances at Hot Rod, who practically has speed lines flowing in the background around him. "If you're comin' along, you're gonna have to do this low 'n slow. Move all quiet-like." He hops off the barstool. "And you're gonna stand out like a plasma vent on the dark side of Luna-2 with that paint. Think you can dirty it up?"
Jazz adds, grinning, "Maybe tall 'n' blue over here can give you a hand with that."
What Breakdown says to answer this is another low rumbling sound, but much less cranky and more amused, a chuckle whose edge is sardonic but not bitter or indicative of suppressed rage. Straightening a little out of his brace of knuckle to bar, he says: "Heh."
Low 'n slow. Quiet-like. Hot Rod frowns in an expression of deep, intense thought as he attempts to parse these words into understandable concepts. "I can handle that," he says with absolute (and absolutely unwarranted) confidence. He seems less delighted by the idea of Breakdown helping dirty his paint. "No dents."
"Just dust yourself up an' -try- to look like you don't have a shred of hope or shanix," Jazz advises, as he begins walking to the door. "Otherwise you're gonna attract the wrong kind of attention before we even /get/ to the clinic."
"And for what it's worth? Thank you both. You still have a chance to duck out now, because you might end up seein' things you can't unsee. You dig?"
"Are you sure," Breakdown says with absolute deadpan to tone and expression, only a slight narrowing of his glow-bright eyes reflecting how great and hilarious he thinks it is that he gets to say this: "because I know a really good mechanic." 
Without waiting for Hot Rod to reply, he turns to fall in step with Jazz, walking at his flank not entirely unlike a mech who is fairly accustomed to taking up this position. There's a reason he makes a good muscle, and not just because he is big; his habits leave him essentially geared for this kind of thing. "Probably seen it before," he grunts. "Fragging why I'm coming."
Folding his hands over his bright, shiny, be-flamed chest -- can't see it! -- Hot Rod says, "No hope, huh? I'll try." At least he has the advantage of the shanix thing not being /all that far/ from true.
"I'm not going to back out." Hot Rod sounds somewhere between amused and exasperated at the very /idea/. Of course he would never back out of a thing!! Exasperation wins as he returns Breakdown's deadpan with an unamused stare. On realizing he's falling behind, he hastens to catch up, even sort of creeps a few paces ahead: it's as much impatience as anything, pushed forward by the desire to throw himself headlong into action saving the day. He does not move like the kind of guy accustomed to falling in step with anyone; he moves like the kind of guy who runs ahead on his own.
Taking back routes in specific, Jazz and his newly recruited posse enter the dead end of Polyhex. He's aimed it for a specific time of day; now most of the wrecks that frequent these streets have taken to hiding. The sun is out and high overhead, making their movements easily visible. Now is the time when those who want to stay out of sight do so - the spy eye drones are flitting about, just out of the corner of one's perception, taking pictures and identifying anyone who is somewhere they shouldn't be.
Jazz knows their movements as if he were part of their very network; he signals Breakdown and Hot Rod to blind spots as they pass. Walk without rhythm, and the worms won't find you.
Breakdown has been here before, but certainly in nothing like present company. The ticket to being inobtrusive here might be to look like you belong. Even if he helps scuff up Hot Rod with some schmutz to make his paint a little less HELLO THERE I AM OUT OF PLACE, or maybe just because it's fun to scuff up Hot Rod's paint, he keeps an eye on the other mech until they split, skepticism written in the lines of his features between the bladed curves that frame his face. He peels off to hunker where he's been directed, an impatient tension whuffing through him that he (mostly) keeps under wraps.
Back routes! More dirt, debris, and refuse! It's not like Hot Rod transforms back into root mode and rolls through mud puddles (oil puddles, maybe), but he does make sure to get nice and smudged /with Breakdown's generous help/. His bright colors have been dulled to russet and tan and black (because oil puddles) and he looks like he thinks the mess is hilarious. This is why he and Knock Out are mortal enemies.
The bright humor in his expression is entirely out of place as they make their way through the streets, but don't worry -- the Dead End isn't very funny. The look fades in only a handful of steps, replaced by the jaw-clenching set of determined heroism. The trouble with waiting in blind spots is /waiting/, but it only takes one close call for him to pay a little closer direction to Jazz's instructions. "You've got a good feel for those," isn't /exactly/ an accusation.
"Kaon Security," Jazz replies easily to Hot Rod. Well, that could be a pretty damning accusation in itself; it would mean Jazz is on Sentinel Prime's elite team of oppressors.... and yet here he is, doing something he really shouldn't be doing, and tipping the hand of the mechs in power to those who might just be able to do something about it.
This is Jazz's little act of rebellion.
"You ever ask yourself exactly what it is that a 'cultural investigator' does?" This is probably a really poor time to be making Breakdown and Hot Rod even more suspicious of his motives, but that in itself is telling. If he were leading them into a trap, why would he be telling them how to climb into it?
"Umm-huh." Breakdown's affirmative is a dry hum leveled from the depth of his chest. His suspicion has not made him more jumpy than normal, but more focused his alertness to his surroundings and made it sharper. "Sure. I also asked you why you wanted us." The sound is a little grindy. "Spent some good quality time thinkin' about it." 
And yet, here he is, hunkered in shadow. His blue paint is a duller sheen and the grime coating is not unfamiliar for him, he who moonlights carting wrecks. The glow of his optics is the worst of his telltales, harsh light in the midst of shadow, a little eerie. He's not very subtle in motion, generally speaking, not an infiltrator, but he /can/ be patient.
"Uh, only every moment since you mentioned it. Kind of sounds like you're a narc." Hot Rod sounds a little /judgmental/ there, but his tone softens as he studies Jazz a little longer, saying, "And maybe not that happy about it all." He seems willing to believe better of most anyone, as long as they don't have 'Senator' in front of their names. (Except for that Shockwave guy. He was cool.)
"Maybe you've seen enough, huh?" Hot Rod smiles. "You might know enough to do some real good, then, helping her." Hot Rod doesn't seem bothered by Jazz pointing out just how suspicious he is, but consider his probable reaction to being told 'It's a trap': kind of seems like it'd be 'Rad. Check this out!' as he backflipped into it. Just sayin'.
At being called a 'narc', Jazz shrugs his shoulders and admits sheepishly, "Yeah, that'd be it." He signals them to move ahead one street as they come in view of the Relinquishment clinic. It stands out as much as Rod's paint would: It's brand new, it's clean, and it's seeing business.
"As for why I picked you two - Hot Rod, Breakdown - it's because you two care about what's goin' on, and because you two have made at least a few ripples with the wrong kinds of people. Flames there more'n you, Big Blue." He waits for the next pass of spy drones, the last for now, and then his demeanor totally shifts.
Jazz seems to slump and lose all of his hope and vigor; he makes his engine hitch irregularly, his doors droop and his plates hang loose. He wears the face of someone who is, frankly, ready to end it all.
"Play along," he whispers. "Act like y'all are comin' here to die. S'what everyone else does when they step inside."
Breakdown makes a disgruntled noise. It's not entirely clear at what it's directed: that he's been pinpointed in the same category as Hot Rod, that he's somehow made /fewer waves/ than Hot Rod, or maybe that somebody has noticed him giving any scrap about anything whatsoever. 
He's probably not bothered by /Big Blue/, though. It's accurate. 
Watching Jazz's transformation with mild consternation, Breakdown thinks about what it would look like to wallow in despair. It's not very easy for him. He mostly manages an anger barely muted to its bleak edges, his scowl driven deep into his features. "Fragging scrap," he growls. His sotto voce is /mostly/ sotto voce. "Who wants to just knock this place down?" 
(It would be really subtle and no one would notice.)
Hot Rod does a great job pretending to be someone who is going there to die mostly because he looks inappropriately delighted by the fact that the wrong kind of people might be looking for him. That's /exactly/ of the face of a bot who wants to die. "Yeah? Cool." It takes a /lot/ of effort to wipe the look off his face. He ends up passing a little more manic than depressive, and gives Breakdown a shove right on his big silly tire. "Low 'n slow," he says, but then he adds, "though that'd be really awesome."
"Pushin' it down isn't gonna stop another from bein' built in its place. Ya gotta kill the root instead of pickin' off all the leaves," Jazz advises. He grimaces at little at Hot Rod who has just moved up to 'Most Likely To Blow Our Cover' on the Crew List for this adventure.
The three of them make their way inside to the waiting room, where several empties of varying states of worn ruin are silently sitting on a bench, saying nothing to anyone, or two each other. The door to the inside of the clinic is very secure, complete with keypad and emf scanner. A friendly looking mech in red and gray is sitting at the reception window. Did we say friendly? Try oily. Swindle levels of oily. Rub-him-against-the-wall-and-it-will-turn-clear levels of oily. "Hello gentlemechs," he greets. "Are you here for the special or for donation?"
Breakdown gives Jazz a measuring look for his wisdom but does not argue the point: it's very clear that it's necessary to tackle the problem at its root, but Jazz's badge that of course he's not wearing right now since they're undercover is sufficient argument, perhaps, that their ideas of that /root/ are not the same. Tick tick tick, goes Breakdown's engine behind his frown. 
As he follows the newly wilted Jazz to the door, he stares around the benches with an expression that at least attempts to mask the tension it wakes to some deep discordant level. Breakdown is not overburdened with /empathy/, but his rage runs very, very deep. Gears grinding with inner strain as he grapples for self-control, he turns his bleak stare upon the talking oil slick before him, and grunts, "...special?" It's almost a question, almost a -- guess. Maybe he's too depressed for sentences?
The look that Hot Rod shoots Mr. Friendly entirely validates his place on Jazz's list. While he can't quite cut off the glare before shooting it, he manages to pull it away and turn it on the rest of the clinic. He looks more generally sullen rather than specifically aggressive when viewed through the right filters. The bleakness of his expression in answer to study of the empties has nothing to do with subterfuge and everything to do with empathy that lies (some might say deep, deep, deep) beneath his gloss. "What difference does it make," he says with a, uh, slightly over-dramatic sigh.
"Yes, we're having a special on flying altmodes this week, only five hundred shanix for a permanent swap. We had some new donors arrive, though the more exotic ones will cost a hundred extra," the receptionist says without a hint of shame. He keeps up that commercialized pleasantness around Hot Rod as he then says, "Well, the difference between getting the special and becoming a donor is how long you'll be staying at the clinic, and how much you want to be paid for the use of your body, as opposed to how much you want to pay for renting one."
Jazz puts on a masterful display as he seems to be carefully counting his credits, as if each one were his very last, "You takin' cars?" he asks the receptionist, downcast, as if he cannot afford to swap, but rather, must sell himself.
"Ahh." Breakdown's breath exhales, frown grooving itself deep into his expression as he glances aside across the other dejected bots in here. His stance shifts, a widening set of heavy feet, almost unconscious as he sets himself up on defense, like a bulwark against despair. "What kind of flyer." He works so hard on staying neutral that he just sounds flat. Breakdown is not an actor. Unless you need someone to act the part of walking scowl.
Hot Rod ... twitches. A shiver creeps along his plating before he shakes it loose and pulls his armor in tight. He makes a low noise not far from an, "Eh." He casts a glance toward the secured door like all his hopes and FLYING dreams lie beyond. "How much can I get?" is the REALLY important question and he actually sounds like he wants to hear this. (And hear that he gets the most. right. RIGHT.)
"To answer your questions, yes we're taking cars, although ground modes and industrial modes are flooding the market these days so you may not get the price you'd hoped for." That last part is aimed at Hot Rod. Then to Breakdown: "We have your standard tetrajets, gyrojets and a couple of exotics that just came in. We're prepping one for donation now that is stealth drone, very sleek--" He pauses and looks between the three of them. "But it's probably the wrong gender setting.... unless I'm sadly mistaken," he says to Hot Rod with a distinct leer. "Even in all that oil, you're still quite cute."
Jazz's doorwings flick, the only visible sign that inside he is -laughing his tailpipe off-.
Breakdown slants a sidelong look at Hot Rod at this. It should be noted that there is nothing at all leerish about this expression. (He does hang around with pretty boys all the time.) It might be an edge of exasperation rather than anything kinder, which is not going to really help their 'cover' here. He goes, "So a ... real sleek flyer, then, but not a mech," with a dour shade in his voice.
Hot Rod has never not-looked anyone harder in his life than he not-looks at Breakdown right now. He stares murder at Jazz's doorwings before lifting his gaze to the edge of the receptionist's desk. He doesn't quite lift his eyes. He can feel that leer -- he can feel it!! "Cute good for a bonus?" he sort-of-flirts. "I've kind of thought about -- I mean, I'm not so sure it'd be the wrong gender setting. Flying ... do you have any stills or vids of the frame? What it's like? Before I decide?"
"If you are interested in donation or frame-swapping, I can take you in for a free maintenance check and access to washracks. You can see the videos and make frame selections or designate your monetary beneficiary in case of spark failure during the procedures there," The receptionist replies, leaning forward and resting his chin on his hand, admiring Hot Rod now. "... Cute may come with a bonus if you don't mind a -personal- examination."
"All right. I'm in," Jazz grimly replies trying very hard not to crack up at Rod-etta's flirting. He makes a note that the kid might have the chops for special operations. -Might-. He looks at the others. "You guys comin'? Don't make me do this alone.... if somethin' happens, I don't wanna go gray alone."
Breakdown stares at Hot Rod for a beat. His expression is hard to read as anything but reluctantly impressed, so it's for the best that Hot Rod is avoiding looking at him so hard. It would just embarrass them both. (He is impressed at Hot Rod's willingness to fling his dignity aside for the good of the cause, clearly, not by his flirting.) 
He makes a sound, ground in the depths of his throat before he swallows it and replaces it with actual words, turning his etching of a frown toward the sleazy receptionist whose desk he'd kind of like to flip over on top of him. He says, "Yeah." He frowns more forbiddingly. "Nothing had better happen."
Soothing his spark with the promise of mayhem and heroism, Hot Rod nods. His eyes lift a farther, all the way to the receptionist's chin. He looks fascinated by his mouth rather than unwilling to meet his eyes. "Me too," he says. "And ... I might want a bonus. I want to be able to fly." He soaks up attention like one desperate for it (which may not be entirely far from the truth).
"Oh, everything will be just fine," the reception says to Breakdown, dismissively. If he's afraid he's not showing it, which could mean they have plenty of defenses on the premises, or....
No, he's distracted. His optics are grazing over Hot Rod with bad intent. He blows the oil-stained, dirty youth a kiss before reaching over to open the door leading into the back of the clinic. "Follow the yellow line on the floor to the first door on your left. It's blue. I'll be with you shortly."
Jazz looks over his shoulders to the others, nodding slightly as if to say 'get ready'. "... let's do it." He moves past the door and into the hall.
Breakdown watches that distraction with a set to his expression that looks particularly forbidding, not that anybody is paying attention to it. He lumbers forward on heavy, clanking steps as if putting most of his bulk into each grouchy stomp. He shoulders forward past Hot Rod, preceding him into the hall. Age before beauty.
It's a good thing they are already headed to the washracks, because Hot Rod has a MIGHTY NEED to scrub. He answers the blown kiss with a (sickly) smile. He settles his systems with a long inhalation before following, which allows Breakdown to get ahead of him. He frowns, faux flirting forgotten in competition and the need to prove himself. He hastens after.
Once they're inside the staging room, Jazz closes the door. His downtrodden demeanor evaporates like liquid nitrogen at room temperature. "Ha! Good job showin' a little wheel arch there Roddy! I know that ain't exactly the most pleasant experience you've ever had, but you did good. That creep couldn't keep his optics off ya!" He immediately goes to the frame selection computer and starts flipping through available bodies. "Breakdown, how much experience have you had in close quarters combat?" That can't mean anything good.
"I can hold my own," is how Breakdown chooses to answer that. He sideglances Hot Rod again, and then turns his scowlish look back in Jazz's direction. Coming up behind him at the frame selection computer, he stares past Jazz's shoulder at the shifting images. Pauldrons lifting with with a clanky crack as he pounds a fist against his opposite palm, he adds, "Particularly if we can smash that guy."
"Yeah, I wouldn't mind giving him a close and personal examination of my fist," Hot Rod agrees as he stirs in restless frustration. He idles high, obviously itching to act. "Can't fault his taste." Duh. "But that's the kind of mech who leaves oil puddles when he walks, you know?"
"Oh, you mean like you right now?" Jazz quips helpfully, pointing to the trail of drops Hot Rod's left behind. "Grab the wash racks over there mech, we got a few astroseconds before ol' lovermech comes callin' for ya." He moves to the side so Breakdown can see the frame listings if he wants. "An' if you wanna take his smug little head off his shoulders, Break, I ain't gonna get in your way."
"... Not seein' Feint in here, but they said they were gonna prep an exotic-type for donation, which means she may end up on this list soon," Jazz announces. "Once creep-o gets in here, we do a lil' smash an' grab. We need his keys so we can get further into this mess, and when we do we gotta move fast. We ain't here for the clinic proper. We're here for what's -underneath-."
Breakdown drags his thumb meaningly along the knuckles of his fist, mouth lifting at one corner in a partial display of his teeth. He looks pretty ready to take off a head. "I may not be as fast as he is," he says, in a rumble full of, somehow, pleased threat, "but I can be fast enough for /that/."
Hot Rod rude-gestures at Jazz for that little bit of help, but he follows direction to the washracks happily enough. "I can do fast," he says, like there was /ever any doubt/.
The door chimes. "I'm coming iIIIinnn~" the creepy reception announces before the door opens. Jazz darts over to the bench near the wall and immediate goes back in to Super Depressed Mode (tm). He gestures for Breakdown to take point near the door where he'll be able to get a good clean swing at the jerk.
The door slides open and the orange cycle-fame strides in. "Now, where is that -delightful- young thing?" he asks, before his optics fall on Hot Rod, who may or may not be washing up right now. He seems shocked. He probably won't be able to express his disappointment after the next few seconds.
It's true that he doesn't actually get a lot of time to express much of anything before IT IS ON. There's that first frisson of surprise, sure. Breakdown, stationed by the door, lunges forward to crack into him full-bodied, snagging him by a grip of long, pointed fingers that crunch into his frame and then hurl him bodily to the floor. It's not the move of a seasoned soldier, exactly, but he sure shows signs of having mixed it up. He might have viewed more fights than he's been in, but he's large, strong, pissy as hell, and kind of inclined to stomp the other mech's head into shrapnel. VIOLENCE!!
Hot Rod's cleaning up just enough to ensure he's not leaving any more puddles behind to track them, which leaves his coloring patchy-bright beneath the grime. He turns at opening of the door to spread his hands DELIGHTFULLY (distractingly -- and what's with that disappointingly!!) wide all 'here I am'. It's easier to do with Breakdown RIGHT THERE to capitalize on distraction with a thumping. Hot Rod slides on over -- but not to get in a kick of his own. His concern is more practical: "Don't crush his keys."
Jazz expertly divests the receptionist, who seems to be suffering from a case of concave cranium, from his keys. "Looks like they're fine. All right, we're gonna have to move quick. If the layout of this clinic is anything like the one we found outside Petrex, we head down the hall, to the left and kick down any barriers. We gotta make this fast because once they know they're compromised they'll start packin' up to run, and that means anybody on the tables is as good as dead."
"Breaking down things is what I do," Breakdown says as he shoves aside the fallen mech with his foot. He smiles a smile far too pleased for the context in which it comes. He moves toward the hall, clanking with eagerness that lacks dignity, but Hot Rod would know all about that.
"What? Dead?" How Hot Rod can possibly sound surprised by this is a precious mystery. He's shocked. He's appalled. He's -- moving. He exits back into the hall ahead of Jazz, stepping over the receptionist's fallen body and then forgetting him. Loser. "How can they think they can get away with this," he seethes. He heads deeper into the facility despite having absolutely no idea where he is going. FORWARD.
Jazz is moving fast, ahead of the group; with fluid, easy motions he begins disabling both obvious and hidden security sensors, some with his fists, others with a small hand-held blaster. He might even have moves like Jagger, but one thing's for certain, he's as agile and light on his feet as any cat. "Yeah, dead. Y'see this place ain't just for body tourism. It's a harvestin' point for brain modules."
Let that sink in a minute as the cultural investigator uses the stole card key to open a heavily shielded blast door.
It's a long pause after this before Breakdown says anything. He watches Jazz at work. As the door slides open, he finally moves forward again, head lowering with the kinesics of a bull about to charge. (Or a truck about to charge.) "Because they can, Hot Rod," he says with a level-weighted voice as he strides forward. For all the insults slid back and forth between them, somehow he still manages to sound snarky when he's just saying Hot Rod's actual name. Then again, Hot Rod's actual name is /Hot Rod/. 
"They can get away with it," says the Decepticon in a low, intense voice as they delve into the underbelly of the chop shop. "They already are. Just like every other broken fragging thing in this broken fragging world."
Hot Rod slows here and there as they pass through the hall. He shows no fear of the security -- although he probably should -- but rather lingers a moment to study it, trying to figure out how Jazz was able to spot the hidden systems. Like he expects to do it again. It's nothing he's going to figure out in a day: he takes a picture, since it'll last longer, and hurries to the blast door. "Yeah, well--." But he breaks off with a glance at Jazz, because secret adventure buddy or not, he still has a badge. He shrugs at Breakdown.
The blast doors open, and there is an open area just beyond, a wide hallway with signs hanging from the ceiling and colored arrows with destinations above them on the floor. Everything is white: pristine, perfect, medical white. Only touches of silver break up the monotonous lack of color. Doors are located on either side of the hallway. It's a guess as to what's behind any of them from this position at the entranceway.
"Stick with me," Jazz instructs. "If you get lost in here, they might be able to overpower you, and they you are well and truly fragged." He pauses to shoot out a domed ceiling camera further inward, before he moves on directly down the hallway.
Ward numbers, along with descriptions such as 'Dissection Lab 2B', 'Destabilization Center' and 'Memory Editor' mark the floor, encased in colored arrows, leading into the shadows.
Halls of whiteness and clinical chill leave a deep-seated unease to shift Breakdown on some level beneath metal plating and gears. He sucks in a breath at the rain of the shattered camera and keeps pace with Jazz on hyper alert, each step clanking. Fists knuckling at his sides, he stares at the markings on the walls with a low grind in his depths, creaking like a straining brake. His only weapon down here, really, is mass. Maybe mass times acceleration, in the thick of it.
Unless his scowl counts as a weapon. It's an impressive example of its kind. 
"No plans on being overpowered," he rumbles. "You know this layout already? Where we're lookin'?"
"It is way too clean in here." A low note of disgust shivers through Hot Rod's voice. His gaze lingers on the labels. He grinds his foot down over 'Memory Editor' as they pass as though he can smudge it out. He pauses a moment at the blank doorways they pass: they may be a mystery, but they are very nearly guaranteed a mystery of horribleness and maybe, just maybe they could help--.
Oops, there goes Jazz and Breakdown. Hot Rod hastens after. "They'd have to catch me, first," he scoffs, but it should be noted he's sticking close, despite the /obvious/ and /transparent/ urge to go rushing off on his own.
"I've seen a few images here an' there, been snoopin' around in Sentinel's files when he ain't lookin'," Jazz explains. "I'm done snoopin'. It's time to act. I didn't become a security enforcer for this - this ain't peace. This is -fear-." He starts looking in the windows in the walls. The things visible behind the iron glass are horrifying.
Patients are held fast to their circuit slabs, some quiet and still, others visibly raging and struggling. Some rooms are filled with empties that have hollowed out heads. Some are surgical theaters. Others are wide-open facilities with dozens of technicians working with trays of dozens of brain modules.
Breakdown is not, as previously mentioned, a bot who is overburdened with an excess of empathy. And yet. He walks at Jazz's flank and a sound escapes him like a long hiss of air compressing. Suddenly the fury that fires him boils over into the crack of one massive metal fist into the wall. He doesn't have a lot to say. Steam only doesn't come out his ears because it's not biologically or anatomically likely.
Hot Rod watches Jazz a moment with something like excitement undercut by skepticism: change in the ranks of the powerful? one more culture Jazz is investigating? Who knows! Not him. Before he can quite make up his mind, he follows the other mech's gaze onward to things behind glass.
Oh. Great. Windows. That makes it ten times harder for Hot Rod to keep himself from throwing open every single last door. He growls, low and uneasy: "I don't like walking past any of this. What if we killed the power? Maybe we could get more out."
"You kill the power an' all those brain modules and bodies bein' operated on right now end up dead," Jazz quickly responds to Hot Rod's suggestion. He doesn't jump when Breakdown punches the wall, but he understand the sentiment. He's feeling it too. He left a few dents in his office when he found the first images in Sentinel's secured file server. "We get to the control center, an' maybe we can bust a few out by turnin' off power to the cells. An' maybe we'll find out where our blue bird's been caged."
"Remind me why we aren't razing this hole to the ground," Breakdown grates, which-- well, he's mixing his metaphors, but he's never been the witty one. He smacks his next fist hard into his opposite palm instead of the wall, shaking himself and pounding forward a few paces on momentum driven by ill-suppressed rage. It hasn't been that long since Jazz told him the first time. It's probably not really memory loss. "I'm gonna pound it down to its struts--" he steams along like an engine coasting on its last burst of fuel.
The noise that Hot Rod makes at Jazz's reasonable and logical response is nothing more than a snarl of frustration that doesn't lend itself to words. "Yes. Cut power to the cells. How many places like this are? Is every relinquishment clinic settled on top of this kind of pit?"
"I don't know." Jazz turns down a hallway, checking for security, before shooting out three more sensors. "Far as I can tell, the clinics are one face of 'em, but there might be hundreds more all over Cybertron. We just got real lucky that our bluebird is in this one."
It occurs to him that it might not be luck at all. He doesn't like that thought, and it nags at him, but he doesn't have time to worry about it - he's all about improvisation anyways. Let Prowl spend days over his plans and his protocol - Jazz sticks and moves.
"Control center should be on the next floor, if I'm right. If I'm not... well..." He shrugs and grins.
"If you're wrong, that's about when we just start breaking things," is Breakdown's considered and yet probably unsurprising opinion. He is a little twitchy, watching Jazz fire at the sensors -- what if he misses one?! Breakdown can't shoot anything. Clanking along at his heels, he grunts an unhappy little sound and doesn't follow up on the thought.
"You find any other places like this in that snooping?" Hot Rod asks all ~casual~ and easy. "Because if you're really set to /act/, you know enough to do so effectively." There's a note of hunger in his voice that undercuts his attempts to seem nonchalant. The fire lingers as he considers Breakdown, brightening the sharp smile he sends his way. "You have some good ideas, sometimes."
Jazz hurries along with his impromptu partners to an elevator at the end of the hall. It's big enough to fit either very large equipment, or very large Cybertronians. Once inside, Jazz uses the stolen card key in the elevator control's card reader and pushes the button for the appropriate floor. All of them go increasingly down - not up.
"I give us a few more minutes before this key stops workin'," he warns Hot Rod and Breakdown. "An' we can't just go around smashin' everything because we're goin' deeper, not higher. Ain't no easy way to escape this pit unless you wanna take your chances around the underground."
"The best plan of action is to save who we can save an' grab as much data and evidence as possible. It's gonna be up t' you two to take that evidence and start shoutin' it from the mountain tops."
Jazz looks to Hot Rod. "Yeah. But nothin' I can do anything about just yet."
Breakdown shifts his weight uncomfortably back and forth, heft in the scrape of his feet against the elevator floor. He accepts the logic with ill grace, scowl seemingly riven deep into the red plate of his face. He resists the urge to try and break the elevator while they're still inside of it. "I'm an ideas kind of guy," he rumbles, narrowing a look at Hot Rod that is not, quite, a smile to answer, but something that teeters on the very edge of one. 
"Loud I can do." After a beat, he jerks a fist backward toward Hot Rod and kind of grunts, "Look at him, he's loud standing there not doing anything."
Of course they go down. Why would anything look up, go up in this pit. Down, down, down.
"Oh, I'll shout it," Hot Rod agrees. Rather than take offense Breakdown's gesture, he straightens a little to pose all the more loudly. He gleams, all fired-up determination. "And I'll make sure someone listens, too. If we can get enough data to shut them all down--." Well, even his tiny, action-focused head can understand why that might be a better overall goal than smashing things. However tempting.
The elevator stops and the door opens. The main hallway seems to go on forever, and a sign at the top reads: SURGICAL WARD 17-E. A round, open area in front of them has a security console and workstation off to the right.... and the guard there is on duty.
"What the FRAG?!" he shouts, standing up from his chair, an average size mech with some kind of wheeled altmode. He unslings a blaster rifle from his back and aims it at the three intruders. "Identify yourself or you're goin' to the freezer full of holes!"
If that particular guard is paying any kind of attention, the three of them might not be the only thing he has to worry about. -Something- just whizzed by one of the surveillance cameras in the stairwell...only they couldn't quite tell what it was---it was moving too far too fast.
Rage is not /actually/ a fuel that can be used to power action, but apparently nobody told Breakdown, because his response to the challenge of an armed guard is to bellow, pounding forward with a roar not entirely unlike he's trying to channel the incredible Hulk or something. He pounds with momentous force right at the guy like a bot about to get himself shot.
"Nah." It's an either/or kind of choice, but Hot Rod doesn't like either of his options. He braces himself and then lifts his arms to send a blast of flame at the guard that advances ahead of Breakdown's charge. The wave of heat is startling more than anything, ruining tracking and vision for any clear shot; burners designed to give him a boost in alt mode, it's too brief and unfocused to be damaging, and serves mostly as cover for the thumping behind the flames. (TEAMWORK.) He is obviously too hot for the freezer.
The guard notices something whizz past and is distracted for just a split second, trying to follow it; his attention is immediately drawn bsck by flames shooting forward at him. "MOTHER/BOARD/!" he snarls instinctively going to try to shield his face and torso with his arms instead of shooting at the big blue mech that is hulking out and charging towards him. This guy is not a trained soldier - just a hired thug - and his lack of discipline is showing at a critical time.
"Don't smash the controls!" Jazz shouts over the noise before trying to track the source of the sudden gust of wind. His sensors are highly acute, and he can make out the afterimages of Blurr's form. "Mech you don' know where you're goin!" he calls out after Blurr, trying to get the racer's attention so they can work as a team instead of getting divided and conquered.
Mildly surprised by the flare of heat that whooshes past, Breakdown doesn't stop to think about it because he's pretty good at not stopping to think. He winds up with the backward pull of his fist and then smashes it forward into the center of the mech he's charging, bearing down with the full force of his charge to crack into the chassis of the unfortunate before him. He's not really a soldier at this point either; he is all raw power and at this point undisciplined rage, but the thing is that he has a lot of both of those. 
Breakdown snarls through, "I'm gonna break you down into parts--"
Jazz is right, Blurr doesn't really have any idea where he's going. He's not even sure what this place is. He just...caught a glimpse of Feint, and he just couldn't resist! Once the guard is occupied, he finally stops moving. "Who're you?" the racer asks of Jazz. If he met the mech before, he probably just forgot his name. He has a problem, with names.
Hot Rod moves to put himself between the controls and Breakdown and his buddy before a) they can get carried away in their enthusiasm or b) the guard can trigger an alarm, but facing the security console, it's clear it's a mystery. He doesn't touch anything. Not even any big red buttons that say 'don't touch' just to see what they would do. He behaves himself! He turns toward Jazz, asking, "Who are you--" And then Blurr stops, the question answering itself. "Blurr!" he calls all delighted enthusiasm. There is zero hesitation before he adds, "We're going to get your friend!" so let's all hope we're on the same side.
Jazz isn't a terribly religious mech but right now he is promising about twenty different things to Primus Lightbringer in exchange for Breakdown not smashing that control panel. He doesn't think he could stop that moving mountain once he's started, and he knows better than to get in the way - he lets the big guy do his thing: Violence. He does it well.
"A friend. I got a missin' persons report about your lady friend and it lead all the way down here. Stick with me and if we're lucky we'll get her outta here in one piece," Jazz explains to Blurr, quickly.
Breakdown has at least focused his aggression on the guard that he is currently trying to beat into scrap. He wrests the blaster rifle from his grasp only to start using its butt as a bludgeon, laying waste to the poor unfortunate hired goon's paint job. Cracking the guard down onto the floor and dropping his knee atop him like the metal thunder of a clanky avalanche. He doesn't attack Hot Rod or the control panel. Small mercies. 
"/That/ guy," Breakdown grunts on observation of Blurr, when he has the violence well enough in hand to look up (and his temper spent enough to speak). "What the frag is rich and fancy doing down here?" (Never mind whose friend they're rescuing.) A noise ground from a groan in the depths of his chest accompanies the glow-bright angle of his gaze, narrowed at Hot Rod. Smash, goes the butt of the appropriated weapon across the chestplate he has been whaling on. "Your smile makes my teeth hurt."
Blurr nods. "Yeah, I saw her get dragged in here...you know where she is?" he asks, looking hopeful. He turns to Hot Rod with a smile. "Hot Rod! Here, of all places? What is this place anyway?" All these questions. He's partly afraid Feint won't go with them if he's here, since she had run away from him. He doesn't voice that concern, however.
Also, he ignores Breakdown.
It isn't hard to see just how taken Hot Rod is with the idea of teaming up with Blurr for heroics. ...or just taken by heroics, period. "Yeah, we'll get her out, we'll get evidence, and we'll bring this whole rusting slagheap down." He smiles all the brighter but it cuts out sharply as he glances back toward the elevator in answering Blurr's question. "Did you take a look at any of it coming down this way? Place is monstrous. I almost hope she isn't here."
"Maybe he better /not/ look in those windows, Roddy," Jazz suggests. "I dunno how well he'd take it." The Kaonian security officer is fairly sure Blurr's one of the Altered and the fact that the speedster got in here is just going to make Blurr's life worse. If anyone finds out... both of them could be smoked in short order by their superiors.
He knew the risks when he decided to break protocol and act on his own. There may be only one way out left for Jazz, but he's certain he can make it. He always finds a means of improvising.
The security guard is now a very, very crumpled individual who will require extensive repairs to survive. IF he survives. The control panel is now open, and Jazz quickly makes his way over to it, slotting the stolen card key one more time and quickly accessing patient registries and locations. "She's in surgery -right now-! Room 17-E-12!" he shouts to the others. Flipping open an access panel on the console he removes several data slugs, opening his hood and slotting them in. "All right, I got the data logs of the whole joint, I'll pass 'em around if we get outta here, but we gotta hurry!"
Thrusting the guard's limp and dented frame to the side with a sound unappetizingly like the crunch of metal, Breakdown hoists his stolen weapon to kind of eye it. Taking it with him more /just in case/ than because he thinks he's going to be an especially good shot with it, he huffs a low sound of more hiss than breath, ground from the depths of his frame. He spits, "Surgery. Hot Rod, /move/." He doesn't bother to talk to Blurr. He starts moving. 
Breakdown's not the fastest. He's just the crankiest.
Surgery? Blurr looks confused, but that sounded urgent. And no, he didn't really look in the windows as Hot Rod had asked, so he just gave Rod a blank look. Anyway! Time to get moving fast! And Blurr /is/ the fastest! Room 17-E-12 here he comes! 
Following the numbers on the walls, the speedster takes off like a bolt of lightning, leaving the others behind. Whether that was a wise idea or not remains to be seen...
"Yeah, but who could take that well?" It's obvious Hot Rod has no idea what kind of deeper layers might be moving beneath the surface of rescue for Jazz or Blurr -- but then again, that probably wouldn't much change his approach.
"You don't have to tell me to move!" Already pushing forward when Breakdown calls toward him, Hot Rod's words lift lighter, bold and cocksure. He doesn't hesitate, not even when Jazz pulls the data: he trusts him enough to make good on his word. Despite the grimness of the setting, he's transparent in the delight he finds in action. That probably makes him the happiest to Breakdown's crankiest, but ... also not the fastest. He follows after Blurr, inevitably.
"Uh oh, they're sendin' in more security!" Jazz shouts. "I'll hold 'em off, you just get to that room!"
Room 17-E-12: There are no windows into it. The door is locked and an LED sign near the door reads: SURGERY IN PROGRESS. Does anyone dare to open it?
17-E-10....17-E-11...17-E-12! Blurr stops in front of the door, ignoring the glowing red sign and attempting to push it open. If it doesn't budge, then he'll transform and attempt to -ram- it at high speed. Not much room to gather a lot of momentum in here, but it's worth a try...right? Well, depending on what that door's made out of.
Uhm, Hot Rod always dares. By the time he catches up to Blurr, it's looking like force is going to be the approach -- to which he has no objection. Hitting things: cool. He fetches up on the far side of Blurr and times his hit to match, leaving room for Breakdown to lumber up after them and start smashing.
Here comes Breakdown, thundering down the hall after them. His features are set into a grim aspect, his eyes ablaze with light and the same destructive energy that powers his charge. He's not unaccustomed to bringing up the rear, if these circumstances are a little more fraught than usual. If Breakdown knew words like microcosm, he'd think this is a microcosm for the oppression inherent in the system. He's not exactly the edumacated kind of anarchist. Mostly, he knows he's real mad, and there's a door -- or a wall -- whose structural integrity needs serious damage. 
Revving up to full throttle, he hurtles forward to make it three matched impacts and live up to his name.
The door bursts open and is slammed right off its hinges onto the floor. Everything inside the ward can now be seen:
There are two bodies on circuit slabs across from one another; devices hanging above each of them contain multiple arms ending in tools, cutters, drills, siphoning hoses, linking cables and injectors. Life support systems at the head of each are alive with lighted displays and monitors with rippling, jagged waves that denote the health of various functions. Trays of tools, pink with inner energon, rest in the arms of floating assistant drones. Milling machines in the far back are extruding wires, cables, new components, one after another, weaving them out of molten materials like cloth.
One body is an aerial frame of unusual design, paint ultramarine blue and mesh black, arms made of wings with long thin fingers. The face is covered by black visor, matte black, without reflection or inner light. The body's natural lighting is gone, flat gray.
The other body is an Arachnicon, silver with lavender accents. Some of the plating of this body - this femme body - indicate gyrojet capabilities. The ends of rotorblades extend from underneath the body. It's pristine and new, never yet activated, and its torso - and spark casing - are wide open, waiting to receive life.
That life, a pale blue spark, is held in an extractor clamp, in the clawed hands of Tarantulas.
He's grinning - it's hard to make out considering the shape of his mouth, such as it is, but he's grinning as the three mechs stand at the door. "My my my. -Three- mechs to the rescue, is it? I certainly seem to have picked the right subject, kyahahaha!"
As naive as Blurr is, he sure isn't stupid. It doesn't take him long to recognize Feint's body, see the spark, see the new body waiting, and put everything together. No! He knew he shouldn't have just let her go! That creep Solvent must have found her, and sent her here! He just -knew- that no-good piece of slag had some kind of sinister plan in mind!
Unable to control himself, the racer just goes berserk. He rushes at Tarantulas without another moment's hesitation, attempting to grab the extractor clamp from him before he can so much as speak another word!
The extractor clamp in Tarantulas's hands is the only thing that keeps Hot Rod at threat display rather than outright attack. He lifts his hands as he moves forward. "Put her down, ugly." The horror of the room beyond draws his gaze past Tarantulas: he studies the equipment, the dead frame, and the waiting vessel -- and then there goes Blurr, pulling his gaze turns back again. A snarl turns beneath his hood as he shifts forward and toward Tarantulas.
Whatever Breakdown might have been going to do, Blurr's forward launch sure changes his plan. He makes a noise like the stutter of the engine in high incredulity. It's something like /what the frag just happened/--, except shorter, more abortive. The others launch for Tarantulas. He knows better, perhaps, than to lunge three men on a horse after that fragile spark. Instead, he heads for the Arachnicon frame. Maybe he's planning on dragging it out of the way and hiding it. "Scrap, scrap, scrap," he chants almost in time with the clanking thunks of his feet.
Blurr is incredibly fast, but the cagey old spider can see him coming. For someone who is so old he could fart dust, Tarantulas' reflexes are lightning fast. Laughing maniacally he -throws the spark extractor towards the door-, spark still in it, over Blurr's head! "CAAaatch~!" he teases, sing-song.
Oh, really? A game of catch? Haha. To Blurr, child's play! At least he thinks so. In a flash, the racer changes direction and speeds toward the door while Breakdown and Hot Rod hopefully keep the nasty spider at bay. Not that he -needs- it.
Yeah. Hot Rod will totally keep the nasty spider at bay. Yep. He doesn't even try to catch the spark extractor. He leaves it in Blurr's capable hands and fast feet as he squares off against Tarantulas. "Hey! Ugly!" He swings a punch at the joint of one of his many-limbed arms. "Don't ignore me!" He's so needy for attention. "Your paint is terrible."
"Hey, legs," Breakdown sneers at Tarantulas, you know, creatively. He's got a pretty good vocal sneer for somebody who hates a system of classism. He fetches up by the empty Arachnicon frame and starts gathering it, her, it up. It's like he has some kind of deep instinctual attraction-aversion to spiders. (Ha ha. Ha.) "I'm gonna break your toy," he says, "over your /head/." 
Who is more obnoxious, Breakdown or Hot Rod? Ready -- go!
Blurr can no doubt grab the spark extractor and the spark, and Hot Rod is trying to play heroics as he takes a swing at Tarantulas and connects - with one leg. It bends at the joint and becomes immobile. The old mech gives a cry of discomfort that, eerily, falls right back into laughter, as if this all one tremendously funny situation to him.
"Oh you want some attention do you? Well, I suppose I could have you fitted for a new frame too!" he taunts Hot Rod, as he brings up one of his hands, and at close range, sprays meshsteel webbing at the younger mech. It's incredibly sticky and difficult for even the strongest bots to break, and Hot Rod's at point blank range.
Tarantulas uses two more arms to /turn off life support/ to both frames, and the monitoring equipment starts giving off a high-pitched single note of alarm. "Oh -do- go ahead, my dear boy," he quips to Breakdown. "Because you're all -very qualified surgeons- and know -exactly- how to put a spark back into it's frame. I bet you even know how long you have before it starts burn out, too."
Of course, Blurr didn't exactly think about that part when he just went charging in like that. But he is determined not to show that. After all he always had a way with words. He catches the clamp and spark easily. Yes, now that Feint's spark is in -his- hands, he feels much better. Even though he doesn't exactly know what to do with a bare spark.
Suddenly he's not standing in front of the door any more. In fact, he's darted right up in the old spider's face, that is if he isn't able to back away fast enough. He might have acute senses, but can the old mech move fast enough? And oh look who stole that poor unfortunate guard's weapon? Bet no one managed to catch -that-! He's just so fast. He dumps the spark onto Feint's body, as the gun is pointed right at Tarantulas' ugly head. Guess who's in point blank range, now? "Maybe not..." he smirks. "But -you- are, isn't that right? So put it back now, or I'll blow your brain module out."
"Nah. I like my frame -- and you have /terrible/ taste." There's really no avoiding that shot, which means Hot Rod's gotta think outside the box. Arms stuck? WHO NEEDS LIMBS.
Hot Rod headbutts, driving up into Tarantulas's chest with the point of his helm. He heats his frame in an attempt to render the webbing more pliable, even torch where it binds his limbs. The stick of it over his plating, while gross and uncomfortable, is nothing compared to the way it hinders his movement. He backs off, clearing the way for Blurr to take a clear shot.
Oh. Well. That didn't work. Breakdown doesn't spend a lot of time beating himself up over it, though. He abandons that, lifts his blaster rifle like he's going to fire it, and then goes, "Aw, scrap," because he doesn't know that much about aiming ranged weapons, and Hot Rod and Blurr are both /right there/. 
So instead, he drops it to the floor with a clatter, and launches himself at Tarantulas with both arms lifted to grab at those mean and nasty extra arms in hopes that he can control the limbs before the tricky old spider can, like, hit Blurr in the pressure points or flip over the table or whatever you do with extra arms when you've got a gun to your head. Breakdown doesn't know. Whatever it is, he doesn't like it.
The sounds of weaponfire erupt down the hallway. Those security guards Jazz was talking about? Well, let's just say he's engaged them.
Tarantulas is headbutted in the chest and then slammed down onto the empty circuit slab, with Blurr pointing a gun at his head. He wheezes. "So rough with an old man!" he complains bitterly with a highly put-upon, overly dramatic sigh. "Well make up your minds already! Are you going to beat me up, hold me down or shoot me unless I repair your friend?" He looks over at the body, now off life support, with a spark precariously crammed into its frame, extractor sticking out. "That is, if you haven't already done irreparable damage to her already...."
"Hmmm..." Blurr turns his optics upward slightly, feigning a pensive look. "Oh, Primus I dunno, how about all -three-?" he looks back down at Tarantulas and grins. "I haven't met you, but I have no doubt you know -me-." 
The barrel of the assault rifle is gripped a bit harder, and it straightens up a bit more, as if pointing more definitvely at his head. "And I doubt you'd think of me as a very patient mech. So now it's -your- turn to make up your mind. Fix her, or die." He definitely sounds a lot tougher than he's actually feeling right now, but thankfully hiding behind a visage of knowing exactly what he's doing when he really doesn't is one of his many talents.
"I wouldn't suggest stalling, either. He gets impatient." Hot Rod gives Tarantulas a smile as he heads to the door. "Stabilize her, then we're getting out of here -- Blurr, take her as far as you can, as fast as you can. All we need is her stable." Between Blurr and Breakdown, they have the threatening well in hand, so he'll just keep watch for backup from the security guards, maybe see if Jazz needs help.
"Which fragging switch was it? The power! Turn it back on!" Breakdown presses down hard in the grip of his hands, apparently trying to crush Tarantulas's arms in his grip. He looks up at Hot Rod with a faint narrowing of his glow-bright eyes. "Scrap, no joke," he growls. "Shiny paint's talking sense." He sounds reluctant to say it, and yet, he can hardly be more vehement: "We don't want to stay in this festering pit."
"Auugh!" Tarantulas howls as more of his arms are crumpled. "D-Do you think I'm going to be able to fix her if you break -me-?!" he snaps. He chitters irritably at Breakdown's demands. "Third blue button on the topmost panel of the diagnostics system!"
His optics literally turn in different directions to look at all three mechs at once. "I have a much better solution for you, Mister Blurr. You'll put down that gun, turn around, and run as fast as your little legs can carry you, and I'll tell you why: This is -my- facility and I am uplinked to its systems. If you kill me - or if I so choose - the facility will begin -cleansing itself-. Every patient, every spark, every body, every brain module - all of them will go ~bye-bye~!" he cheerfully announces.
"Every patient, every spark, every body, every brain module huh well I guess that includes -yours-, that is if you aren't -already- dead." Blurr points out, still keeping up the facade quite well. He is definitely freaking out inside, but he's determined to save Feint...he feels terrible that he just let her go. That she had to go through this. "So since you seem to be having trouble figuring out this little -situation-, let's go over our options, here. You do as I say and fix her, we all walk away from this. You -don't- do as I say and fix her: You for sure die, Hot Rod and Breakdown here -might- die, and Feint and I probably won't." he smirks again. No offense, Hot Rod and Breakdown. Well actually maybe Breakdown.
"Now you're smart, you do the math, yeah?" Trigger finger shifts slightly...would he really do it? Could he really kill someone? He'd never done so before--he just had to -act- as if it were second nature.
"Think about how many projects you'd lose." Hot Rod sounds unaffected by the implicit threat of Tarantulas off-lining the entire facility, but he glances back in the direction of the control center.
In ways, hitting the blue button Tarantulas is identified is a test. Is Breakdown about to kill them all by trying to turn life support back on? Let's find out. He stares venomously at Tarantulas's head for a moment, and then eases off his grip, leaving one hand braced in a scrape of metal against metal as he reaches up to spear the button in question. 
Breakdown's voice is a low grind of metal and gears, rough and sharp all at once as he leans in close to snarl at Tarantulas. "They're better off dead than subjected to /this/. Stabilize her, or this is over. Right now." It is possible that he is bluffing, that the sheer menace he cloaks himself in is an act, that all the bullying and throwing his weight around is just a hard crackly shell around a soft gooey core. I mean, it's /possible/.
The life support systems come back on and sparks fly from the contact between spark frame and extractor. Smoke curls up from Feint's frame. No glass gas, no corroding agents, just... well that can't be good for Feint.
Tarantulas cackles softly. "If you shoot me she's definitely dead, or at the very least, you'll be searching for a very, very good surgeon to keep her from permanent damage. It seems you three can't agree on what you want; Mister Blurr wants to shoot me, take his property and run, leaving the rest of you, including your friend in the hallway, in the lurch. The big stupid one won't let me up to fix her, and time is running out, as the smell of ozone in the air might tell you. And as for the rest of the projects in the lab, well... if you're going to kill me, what would those projects mean to me? I can simply give the orders to kill all of them in -every- facility in an instant out of spite.... or perhaps I've rigged it to happen automatically upon my death. Care to find out?"
Blurr is getting -very- impatient. "Breakdown get the slag off of him already." He turns back to Tarantulas, face determined. -No-, he can't waver. He can't let this guy's threats stop him, even though Tarantulas is probably right, he's fast but he'd have to find a specialist and that would take far too long.
"Well who knows, maybe I do care to find out. I've always been a curious person. And maybe I already know a very good surgeon who'll do whatever I ask him to whenever I ask him to. Even if I didn't, if you were a doctor at Deltaran or somewhere wouldn't -you- want to get paid several times your regular wage to do something for..well, -me-? Wouldn't -you- drop everything you're doing especially if I said it was urgent?" It's very plausible, given Blurr's position in society. "So I'm giving you half a breem more to make up your damn mind before I plaster your processor against the back wall."
Poor abandoned hallway friend, left to deal with security all on his own. Hot Rod, already at the door and inching into the hall, glances once between Blurr and Jazz before leaving Tarantulas in their loving care. "I'll help hold off security," he says, then falls back to go do just that. (Hopefully he doesn't get in Jazz's way. Some might say he does that when he tries to help.)
Breakdown releases his hold with a spread of his fingers, although he doesn't withdraw without an additional creak of threat. He makes a noise of audible disgust at Blurr's new tack, but mostly what he does is slap Tarantulas upside the back of the head -- probably for 'the big stupid one' as long as he's being petty -- and growls, "Just do it already." He casts a wary look toward the form of the aerial laid out on the table, fists clenching in unfaded tension. What he wouldn't give to have their own doctor along right now.
"Ow! What ever happened to respecting your elders?!" Tarantulas snaps at Breakdown. Dusting himself off, he moves over to Feint and examines her. "Mmmn... not good, Blurr, you've damaged her spark frame with your little crash course in surgery." He dislodges the extractor, and bending part of the armature back into place, he sets the spark back into its casing properly.
Without being ordered he gathers tools in his remaining multiple good arms and works with a blur of motion over the inert femme, soldiering, removing broken pieces, bending things back into shape, retooling pieces and refilling missing fluids. It's all done so fast it hardly seems real, but the old spider has closed up Feint's frame and taken her off the nucleon feed before anyone but maybe Blurr can protest.
"There! Since you're going to rob me of my bride, the least you can do is take her out in good working order. Or at least as good as can be done - from here out it will be up to her to bridge the spark gap." He sets aside his tools. "Good luck on that~" he happily chitters.
Blurr is quite relieved. He tries not to show it, but it comes out just a little on his face. Relieved that Feint will be okay, yes, but also relieved that he didn't actually have to muster up the struts to actually -kill- someone. 
He lowers the weapon and snatches up the fembot. "Thanks, I'll probably need it..." He mutters, and zips off without a moment's pause.
Breakdown stares at Tarantulas with the pull of half his mouth in a kind of sneer that shows the edges of his teeth. He looks tempted to show his disrespect for his elders. His fists crush nothing at his sides. Nobody is in here to remind him of all the good, sound, logical reasons not to try and murder the creepy spider mech anyways. Maybe it's a little spatter of gunfire in the hall that turns his head. He says, "You're going down. All of this. We're going to /crush it/." 
All decepticons grandstand. Even the most straightforward of them, clearly. 
Breath sighs out of him as his glow-bright gaze narrows. Breakdown lowers his head not entirely unlike a bull preparing to charge and pounds out into the hallway to lend his weight and bulk to Jazz and Hot Rod. Blurr he assumes is long gone.
Tarantulas straightens himself up and goes to pick up the empty frame. "Hmph! Back you go to wait for another compatible spark, I suppose, my dear. All in good time!" He pats it on the head as if it were alive, and then, walking to the back of the laboratory with it, steps into the corner.
The panel he's standing on sinks down into the floor as he disappears out of sight.
Outside the lab, there's already a pile of bodies, unconscious or otherwise, Jazz is close to being overrun by much tougher, much more disciplined agents. A large purple mech has his hands around Jazz's neck as the Meister struggles to break free of his grip. A second dark green truck-frame is behind him, getting ready to take a swing at Jazz with shock mace.
Speeding down the hall red and gold and fierce, Hot Rod evaluates in an instant and acts. He transforms into a leap that directs all the momentum of his charge into a single-foot strike at the truck-frame's knee joint from behind. "Hey! Fight fair." This, while he attacks from behind: consistency is a problem. He doesn't really bother to evaluate the whole: he doesn't take stock, he doesn't plan. He just hits the thing in front of him. Strategy is for losers.
Breakdown pounds out into the hallway behind Hot Rod, huff of breath ground through his teeth as he orients himself. Glow of his eyes narrowing as he looks between them, he pounds his fists together and momentarily regrets the fact that he ditched that gun. "Hey purple," he roars, "you're gonna want your hands free!" and stomps forward to join the fray, winding up for a broad-knuckled head shot.
The green truckformer is caught off-guard on the backswing as Hot Rod plows into him; inertia catches him and he falls directly backwards with a surprised shout; he may end up landing on Hot Rod if red and flamey can't get out of the way fast enough.
The interruption of new combatants draws the attention of the purple bruiser, who is slugged right in the jaw by the force of Breakdown's blow. His head snaps to the right and his jaw takes a fist-shaped dent. He drops Jazz and steps back. "Why you--!" he snarls around his injury, aiming a solid gut-punch at Breakdown.
Jazz drops to the ground, gasping like a fish on hands and knees for a few seconds, trying to shake off strangulation to get back into the fight. He's dented and pockmarked with black spots from laser fire, having already brought down at least eight guards.
Hot Rod may be quick but his reactions are untrained. He twists lithely away from the falling green guard, but not quite fast enough. The foot which carried the force of his strike lags behind and gets tangled up with the guard's legs. There is very little dignity in the way that Hot Rod kicks at him to get free. "Blurr's out with Feint," he calls at Jazz. "Our turn to go. Can we cut power to the cells, cause a distraction? Assuming Ugly hasn't cut controls."
Clank! Scraape. Breakdown takes the blow hard to the gut with a grinding hrrrf as knuckles crack across and chip his surface. He attempts to use the force and angle of his body to push back into the other large mech, as if it will be easier for Jazz to get up if he has a few more inches of space. "Think he's busy straightening the dents out of his /million creepy arms/," he grunts. His experience with fighting is still amateur, but he's certainly got more practice hitting people than he does, say, shooting them. He stamps down hard, bracing himself, and lunges to grab the other mech's arm and pauldron to try and wrench him all out of shape. "This place has /issues/."
Suddenly, in the middle of all of this chaos...Rod's personal radio crackles to life. It's a somewhat familiar-sounding femme voice. "<< Hi! >>"
"Yeah, ya think?" Jazz retorts to Breakdown as he squirms himself out from among the dropped guards. "Card key's been locked out since about five minutes ago and they smashed the workstation. The only trick left in our bag is gettin' outta here in one piece!" His right arm shifts into a grappling line; he leaps over, hits the wall side ways with both feet, springs up, backflips and comes down behind the green truck. Holding the end of the line in one hand he garrotes the truckformer, whose hands immediate go to his neck, trying to free himself.
"Looks like Blurr left us high and dry, but he kicked the stairwell open!" he suggests. The elevator is going to be a very bad idea right now.
The purple guard is engaged in wrestling Breakdown and it's coming down to a contest of brute force. His arm grabbed, he pushes himself past the pain even as his joints are beginning to give way with a whine of bending, twisting metal; with his other arm he tries to grab hold of Breakdown's head, to attempt to pull it to the side and twist his neck.
"Good trick. I like it." Hot Rod gets to his feet as Jazz garrotes the unfortunate truck. "We--." Then he pauses at the blip on his personal line, visibly startled for no apparent reason.
Pivoting to face Breakdown and Purple, Hot Rod answers with obvious distraction: "<< Uh, hi! Not to be a jerk but now's kind of a rough time. >>" He reaches in to jam his hands in a crevice between interlocking plates and release a quick blast of flame as disincentive to twist Breakdown's head off.
The sound that Breakdown makes is best transcribed now as "gnyaargh". He launches himself backward with the full force of both legs, hurtling them both backwards into the wall. His spare tire bounces against it with the reflexive motion, shifting forward again in his struggle with the arm he's still trying to twist. That's when Hot Rod starts /getting handsy/. 
"/Scrap/!" Breakdown yelps at the sudden gout of flame, stamp, kick. It's not aimed at him but it's still startlingly close to his head.
"<< Oh, no problem, I can call you later, it's not a big deal. Listen, though -- before I let you go, I was going to just stop by and say hi because I figured you were at Maccadams, >>" Arcee chatters away cheerfully, "<< But I guess my signal-seeker is kind of messed up, because I ended up in the worst dump you've ever seen! Words can't even do it justice. It's like a giant...rendering plant or something. I am so lost! But I found a room that looks kind of like...some kind of control center, with switches and cables! SOMETHING is going ON, here! Something weird! >>"
Now, what was that Jazz said about needing the power cut? This annoying random call *could* turn out to be a rather fortunate accident...
The flames are enough to make purple mech let go - at least as much as is possible with Breakdown pulling on his arm. The kick finally wrenches said arm free and Purple has had enough - he runs down the right side of the hallway, trailing a dribble of energy from his wounds as he goes.
Jazz dissipates the energy grapple just long enough for his hands to dart in and grab hold of either side of the green truckformer's head --
SNAP!
The mech goes motionless, neck broken in one swift movement. "That's about alla them for now but they ain't outta tricks. We got to get to the stairs and get outta this place before they step up the response!"
Hot Rod sounds unusually serious when he answers Arcee, "<< Yeah. This place is--. You need to get out of here. >>" He disengages as the purple mech retreats to start toward the stairs. "Yeah, let's go. If we're lucky, we might have some help upstairs." Does he explain? No. He pays unusually little attention to Jazz, Breakdown, or the hallway as they pass: he's focused on the line of conversation with Arcee. "<< But since you're there, >>" he is not too shy to say, "<< any chance you see anything that'll cut power to cells? Be careful! Some of that is life support for I don't know how many sparks down here. >>"
"<< Well, sure! Let me see what I can do. >>" Arcee pauses as she begins fiddling around with the control panel, trying to find something labelled 'cells' or with a similar designation. She doesn't rip out any wires or break any connectors, she simply begins switching off or powering down those things not labelled 'danger' or 'life support', as quick as she can.
"Yeah, he'll be back, with a dozen friends," Breakdown says with a narrowed gaze after the retreating mech. He shakes himself loose, trailing after Hot Rod and Jazz with a long look angling over the windows he knows what's behind, even if he doesn't spend a lot of time lingering on them. For one thing, he's got to keep up. "Whaddaya mean, /help/?"
"I ain't gonna look a gift drone in the engine block! Let's just move it!" Jazz leaps over a large, fallen guard and heads for the stairs.
All over the facility, the imprisoned mechs and femmes held in their research enclosures are suddenly released. Unfortunately, not all of the imprisoned bots are /sane/. Some of them stare blankly at the door, as if they're just not home there anymore. Some rush out in pure panic, trying to find the exits, ready to trample anyone or anything that gets in their way. Some, filled with rage at their treatment, begin smashing equipment and killing lab technicians blindly, leaving surgeries unfinished and destroying life support with little thought to the consequences. Others are simply -insane-; they scream and howl and attack everyone and everything or let the world pass them by while repeatedly counting floor seams or rocking back and forth, muttering to themselves. The facility erupts in complete chaos.
Arcee quietly departs the way she came in...having no idea what's going on in the other parts of this Lovecraftian hellpit. For all she knows, this is an annex to the Free Clinic down the street. And why did Hot Rod tell her to turn the lights out?? ...Maybe he's pulling a prank on someone.
She emerges in a back alleyway, and begins slinking away, hoping to meet back up with Rod at some point.
Hot Rod gives Breakdown a smile which is sure to annoy him since it is not paired with an explanation. As chaos descends and the noise rises, he pelts up the stairs. He's not entirely heedless of the others -- particularly Breakdown, who just might not be able to keep up with the two speeders accompanying him. "<< Whatever you did, I think it worked. You out of there? >>"
"<< Yeah, I didn't break anything, I just switched off or turned down a lot of the settings on the panel. If this is some kind of weird joke, then I hope it doesn't backfire, >>" Arcee laughs. "<< There's an exit that leads back behind the building. >>"
Breakdown stops at the bottom step to look back over his shoulder with a slight widening of his eyes. He shouts up after Hot Rod and Jazz, "Uhhh, so about that evidence gathering we were doin'..." and then starts up after the others, each step pounding with excessive force. Something thrown down the hall by someone else clangs off his back only to get stuck between his plating and the spare tire between his shoulders.
"Run now, talk later!" Jazz helpfully encourages Breakdown as he turns around midway up the stairs and leaps right over the big mech. "I'll pick up the rear and watch your back!" Hot Rod, whom Jazz is almost entirely certain is behind this sudden clusterfrag, can fend for his spoiler-backed self.
If Hot Rod seems taken aback by the results of throwing a few switches, he certainly doesn't show it. "<< Not a joke, >>" he promises, before focusing on getting up the stairs and out the doors. He turns back as he gets to the top to make sure the other two behind aren't getting caught up on any complications rather than immediately head for (relative) safety.
"<< Hm? >>" Something about Rod's tone gives Arcee pause, and her cheer fades for the time being. "<< Okay, I'll wait for you out here. >>" She decides to play 'sentry', in case someone arrives from the outside.
Breakdown startles a little as the other mech sails over his head, possibly at how limber Jazz just proved to be -- shut up, Hot Rod -- and huffs a long breath as he charges the rest of the way up the stairs, launching himself the rest of the way up the stairs. Huffing a little as he hits the top step, he goes, "Shoulda just knocked it down to its struts--"
"Yeah, well, knockin' it down to its struts woulda taken us with it," Jazz replies as he pulls a gun from a hidden holster under his plates. Taking careful aim, he fires pot shots in front of and to the sides of the insane patients, driving them back and startling them, while waving the sane ones towards him. "
"We're almost there, the exit's one floor up, c'mon mechs, get it together and move in a single file line with me! Freedom's up but you gotta keep your heads if you're gonna take it!"
"What, you haven't gotten that knock-down urge out of your system yet?" Hot Rod leans over to glance down the stairs and get a glimpse of what Jazz is up to, then comms Arcee again: "<< You close to my location? We're going to be bringing some pretty rattled types out. No company? >>" He exits to make certain of that himself, stepping out of the building but lingering close to the doorway to hold it against potential trouble.
"Scrap," Breakdown mutters. He glances back down the stairs toward Jazz. "That's a whole lotta single file if it works, mech. Hopin' it doesn't get crazy." (Er. Crazier.) On the upper floor, he glances up and around, before he turns and tromps after Hot Rod, thundering on pounding steps as he moves the rest of the way out the door. "I'm just saying it's a fragging mess down there."
"<< N...nope, looks like you're clear, >>" Arcee says after double-checking both directions in the alley. She's beginning to wonder what Hot Rod is up to inside that building, so she turns her attention toward the exit. It isn't like she can do much else at the moment; she doesn't own any weapons, yet.
Jazz is surprisingly good at herding these cats; the truly insane he manages to scare back while those who just want out are well on their way behind Hot Rod and Breakdown. They reach the upper floor where they came in, and fortunately for them, the place has been cleared out. That may or may not be a good thing, but there's little time to argue when all you want to do is get -out-. "Follow the exit signs, single file! Single file! I don't even WANNA see any y'all runnin' over each other to get t' the door, you hear me?" He looks over his shoulder. "Breakdown, Roddy, make way, we got a whole lotta mechs that are gonna make a break for it an' I can't guarantee you won't get trampled on the way out!"
"Got it," Hot Rod calls back to Jazz. He passes the warning on ahead to Arcee, saying, "<< Watch out for incoming, then. Might be a bit of a stampede. >>" He glances back, waiting for Breakdown and Jazz to catch up and clear out, with an eye out to be sure that no one else gets trampled a few steps from freedom.
Arcee backs up away from the door. << What? 'Stampede'?? -- What the frell are you /doing/ in there?? Wait, is this illegal?? >>" She begins sprinting away from the door, in case it slams open with force.
As Breakdown arrives at the door, he grinds to a halt, head ducking with a deep-grooved scowl. "Here they come," he says. His fist glances across Hot Rod's shoulder in what is clearly not actually violence as he moves to the side to make sure he's out of the way. He then says, "Heh," which becomes more of a genuine chuckle of "Heh heh heh."
Jazz outright shoots the doors off the hinges and at least fifty mechs and femmes pile their way to the door. The push it off the hinges. They begin to shout, a long, horrified wail was their minds try to come to grips with the fact that they are free. They rush outside, some transforming and just escaping all directions, others dropping to their knees, alternating between laughing and sobbing inconsolably.
"... We got some," Jazz says lowly, uneasily, to Hot Rod and Breakdown. "We got /some/."
Arcee climbs halfway up a utility pole's support beam just to escape the stampede. "Whhhaaaaaat....!" She just stares below her, not quite comprehending what she's seeing. Suddenly, she has an 'AHA' moment, and wonders if this is related to the horror chamber she found Blurr in, not too long ago. Was Hot Rod freeing some mechs from the same horrible 'secret syndrome'? She would just need to find out, once things settled down.
"<< Funny story, that. >>" Not that Hot Rod goes out of his way to explain or answer. One can draw conclusions from his addition: "<< Maybe keep an eye out for Enforcers or Autobots. >>" You know. Just in case.
When the patients-slash-prisoners spill past the doors, Hot Rod watches them with reflective horror. "Yeah. And who knows what kind of shape Feint was in -- but." He gives himself a shake and then looks past them for a glimpse of Arcee. "We should probably get out of here too, huh? Got everything we'll need?"
"I'm pretty sure she was in whatever kind of shape you're in when somebody uses your spark as a percussion instrument," Breakdown grunts on a snortish expulsion of breath, thumping his fist across his opposite palm as he turns a look over the stream of abused escapees leaving the place. "What about them? What do /they/ need? Besides a /team/ of /qualified headshrinkers/ I mean let's just say there's a lot more than one of 'em to find a space to hide..."
"... Yeah. See, this time? I'm outta my depth. I wasn't even supposed to -be- in there," Jazz says, walking out of the clinic and into the light. He opens his hood and takes out a data slug, handing one to Hot Rod, then to Breakdown. "Copy of every file I could get my hands on. I ain't got the transportation or the ability to help any of them and once the word gets out the Enforcers are probably round 'em right back up and take 'em somewhere else."
Arcee slides back down the utility pole, and makes her way back over toward Jazz, Breakdown and Hot Rod. "...Who were those mechs?" she asks. "And if they ran out of there...shouldn't *we* be running, too?"
Taking the data slug and disappearing it for later study, Hot Rod gives Arcee a wave as she makes her way over. "Help," he introduces her to the other two. "You're probably right. That was...." He trails off rather than attempt to put the whole mess of it all into words. "I'll do what I can to make sure there's nowhere else to take them." Probably not by blowing things up. /Probably/.
Breakdown takes the data slug and holds it up to eye level. "Tchyeah," he says, glancing in Arcee's direction. "Don't think any of 'em are thinking clear enough where we should be usin' 'em as role models but getting out of here doesn't seem like a bad call." He tucks it away, glancing at Hot Rod with a narrowing of his gaze that is a more thoughtful expression than usual takes up residence on Breakdown's scarlet face. "Hn," he says. "Yeah."
"The Institute," Jazz explains morosely to Arcee. "They were in there. We found Feint in there - Blurr's friend. Blurr ran in there, up and hightailed it with her. We got stuck tryin' to save the saveable."
He looks over his shoulder at the door. "The rest of 'em in there... they ain't gonna make it. We go back in there in an hour and the place will be scrubbed clean of everything. Empty. Just last the last time."
Arcee doesn't quite understand, although she's beginning to connect the dots. She knows this has to be what Rung was telling her about. It must be related. "Well, I'm glad to have been a help, even though it was...not quite what I expected going into it," she admits. "But if this is the sort of thing you mechs do on a regular basis...then count me in. I'll help out in any way I can."
"Ha." Arcee's attitude restores some of Hot Rod's lost luster when he looks liable to fall into a gloom at Jazz's words. His fingers curl to form a fist. "This planet needs all the help it can get. Too many of those who should be helping aren't. I'm going to go make some copies of this, see about getting it into the right hands."
"Yes," Breakdown says. "Me too." It's possible he has a different set of hands involved than Hot Rod, though. You know. All things considered. He rubs the curve of his thumb along the knuckles of his fist. His mouth lifts in a partial smile. He doesn't have Hot Rod's smiling chops.
"Go talk t' Orion Pax, in Rodion," Jazz says to Arcee, handing her a data slug, too. "Take him this. I can't stay here any longer, for all your sakes." He doesn't say anything else; he simply transforms, and drives quickly into the distance, towards Polyhex.
Category:NC Institute