Friendly Robbery

It is all gone.

Or rather, soon it will be. Here on the edges of the technoversity grounds, former teacher Wheeljack was given a shed to make his own. The plan was that this would occupy the inventor, and keep out of the 'versity labs - and from blowing them up. This worked for a time and Jackie rebuilt the space into his own private workshop. Here he would tinker.. and sometimes meet with those of 'less than desirable repute' for private repairs. It was a good deal and a decent life. And then Jackie has to go and mess it up.

He expanded. He opened it up to other scientific minds such as Brainwave and Natica. And Starscream. Something happened, something Wheeljack couldn't control. Starscream shot an exlosive experiment and... now the workshop lays in smoldering, smoking ruins.

Nearby, Wheeljack stands, reflecting on what was wrought here, the data pad that informs him all of the materials here will be confiscated in the morning in hand. "So much here goin' t'waste...," he sighs to himself.

Hot Rod slides to a stop just a short distance away to look down at the ruins of Wheeljack's ...labs. Ex-labs. Red and yellow and flashy, nothing about him says 'sneaky' or 'covert', but it looks like he's /trying/. He's surveilling ahead of time and everything. (By which we mean pausing, briefly, before charging in.) << This is the right address, isn't it? >> he radios Whirl above. He idles in bemusement. << Because it looks like someone already blew up everything we wanted to grab. >>

You know how it is: a leak here, a word there, a few shanix changing hands and the would-be-rebels in Nyon have the address of Wheeljack's workshop. What they don't have are updates on current events. Important current events. Like Starscream blowing things up. That would've been good to know!

<< Let's see what's left. >> Hot Rod zips forward again only to come up short and sharp as a turn around the corner of a nearby building brings him up in line of sight of Wheeljack.

If Hot Rod was trying to be stealthy, he royally screwed up as soon as he decided to bring Whirl. The opposite of inconspicuous, Whirl has been following the speeder from the air, flying all over the place like he was on robot crack and occasionally taking potshots at random things that catches his attention. <<It looks like it exploded at some point so I guess it's the right place?>> Ha ha, get it? Because Wheeljack blows stuff up? It's funny.

Whirl lowers himself as close to the ground as he can go without colliding with any nearby buildings and transforms, falling the rest of the way and landing on his bizarre chicken legs like a total pro. He pauses a moment to take in the damage before whistling his approval. "Wow, this must've been an awesome fire. Kudos to the arsonist who started it."

Wheeljack has to look up as someone approaches because his spark surges! Could it be that one of his invitees have returned? Maybe, just maybe... could it be Starscream coming back?!? Yet, this approach is on the ground. Jackie raises a hand to his brow to help his optics focus. That ain't a bot he's seen before. "I was told I had 'til tomorrow!" In fact, so anxious is Jackie to assert this fact that he holds up the datapad as a greeting, the one that says the very thing he just said! He assumes that Hot Rod must be the worker sent to janitorially clean up this mess. "I ain't had time to go through it myself yet." There's at least one thing in there he has to be sure to remove himself. He looks ready to assert himself when...

"Whirl, that you?" It's impossible to see behind the faceplate but Wheeljack is smiling. He immediately moves to the legged chopper because, hey, familiar face! "When did you clean up yer act long enough to get a decent job," he chuckles as he assumes Whirl is a part of the janitor-esque service? Jackie looks back to the blaze, or what remains of it. :Coulda' been worse. A lot worse. The thermal nuclears didn'lt go off," he chuckles again, casually like it ain't no thing. "Or the chronial fuses... say, makes sense someone like you would sign u to handle hazardous wastes like this." He looks over to car-Rod and ponders. "All them mufflers - turn into vacuum tubings?" Because that makes sense to Jackie.

Whirl clean up? And get a job? A DECENT one?

"Pffffffffffft!" Whirl busts out in a fit of laughter so hard that he has to brace himself to keep from falling over. "Ahahahahhaha, yeah it's me but I.. ahahaha.. Yeah, no, I don't have a job." Wasn't getting a job something he was supposed to do after he joined Team Trouble? You know, to help out with the cause and all that? Obviously that's never going to happen. The last time Whirl had a steady job, it ended with him going to prison. "It's great to see you again, Jackie but I think you've got the wrong idea. We're not here to clean this crap up, no offense." He glances at the smoldering rubble that was once Wheeljack's workshop. "What happened here anyway? Is this something you did or what?"

Then Wheeljack suggests that Hot Rod's mufflers turn into vaccuums and he starts cracking up again.

"An awesome fire that blew up stuff we wanted," Hot Rod points out. Frustration wins out over his own appreciation of the destruction leveled on the workshop.

Hot Rod shuts up as he gets closer to Wheeljack and stares in confusion at the datapad held up for study. "You -- what?" He takes a look, reading all about confiscation and deadlines and what have you. The unflatteringly blank look on his face gives way to a dawning thoughtfulness. His attention turns as Wheeljack addresses Whirl, and he looks between the two of them. "You know, a lot of this stuff is probably just going to get junked. Wouldn't you rather it went to better use?"

"None taken!" If Wheeljack thought Whirl was having a laugh at his expense, he doesn't give any outward suggestion of that - mostly because he doesn't think that. This is how Whirl is. Jack is amused with whirl, how someone without much of a face can be so animated. It's delightful! "Oh! Well, if you ain't here to clean it up then if it's \*you\* then you're either here to ask for repairs to something or to steal this stuff! Hahah!" Yet, then it occurs to him that... "You are here to steal from me."

He should be hurt, or wounded but then, this is Whirl after all. Whirl is as Whirl does. Jackie looks to Hot Rod to make sure this other bot is in on this and... yep. Wheeljack crosses his arms and rubs his chin as he considers. Really considers. "I ain't about to support weapons being made..." He lets that linger so that it's known that he doesn't want to know about it if that's the case. "It's more that I don't want any of this stuff goin' into \*their\* hands," he thumbs back towards the main complex of the technoversity. If Jack is good at something it's at defying authority.

He looks to Whirl. "It was... a misunderstandin'." Wheeljack sounds, well, wounded as he admits that. "Might of well have been me. It was my mistake," he sighs. "I had some partners in here workin' on things and it didn't exactly work out as planned.'Creative differencesl let's say."

Jack then looks back to Rod. "Okay, but you both gotta' help me recover one thing from in there," he points to the ruins. "Somethin'l I built that I can't risk goin' unfound. It'll be in a sealed indestructible box, or at least it should be."

Whirl is as Whirl does indeed. Stealing and hustling is how he's managed to survive this crazy thing he calls a life ever since that whole 'being incarcerated' thing. He gives Wheeljack a lazy shrug of his shoulders at the robbery accusations which are hardly accusations if they're true but whatever. "Sorry, it's nothing personal. Well, actually, I guess it kinda is personal. I mean, you've got a lot of cool stuff to steal so... yeah, there you go. It's kind of your own fault really, if you didn't make such neat things people wouldn't want to steal your stuff." He glances at the building Wheeljack jabs his thumb at. "..Or use them to make weapons of mass destruction which seems unneccesary to me; all your things are weapons of mass destruction in your hands."

Wheeljack's request for them to retrieve a mysterious lock box makes the cyclops hesitate, turning to look at the ruins, claw tapping what used to be his chin in thought. "I don't know, what's left of your workshop could collapse and trap us. Seems like a lot of risk for something we don't know anything about. What makes it so important anyway?"

Hahah hah ... yeah, they are totally here to steal from him. Hot Rod meets the words with a brilliant grin, as though he can charm his way right past any offense or resistance. "Well, you're not using it, right?"

When Wheeljack agrees without so much as a threat exchanged, Hot Rod glances at Whirl with surprise: "Just how do you know this guy?" he asks in an aside. "Do you have blackmail material on him? What?" Far be it from him to question fortune's favor, but--.

Pressing his hands together, one fist curled into the opposite palm, Hot Rod says, "Oh, yeah. We'll keep it out of their hands, don't worry about that. Bunch of jerks, right? Wouldn't know a good science--" Yes, that's what he's calling it. "--if they saw it. So what's this you need help recovering, and are you just stalling to call the enforcers? No offense if you aren't. I had a rough day yesterday."

Wheeljack can't argue with Whirl's logic; it \*is\* kind of his fault. It is almost like he asked for this, didn't he? Wheeljack blinks as he comes out of thought to stare at Hot Rod as he admits, rather freely, "Oh no, I ain't alerting anything authorities. If they had even halfa' notion of the things we were working on here, like ways off the planet or energon alternatives or any of that, they'd lock me up like they did with Whirl here!" He thumbs towards Whirl to help remind Rod who he means, in case Hot Rod forgets which one is Whirl. In all, Jackie is rather.. candid... with what he just said because, honestly, it feels good to tell \*someone\*. And bandits are less likely to rat him out than the technoversity authorities that have confiscated and will be sifting through all of this stuff. In a way, he's saving himself by inviting these two to unload all of this damning material.

"That's gonna' have to be my secret," Jackie says surprisingly sternly. "It's my most dangerous creation. Ever. If it ever got out it'd \*destroy\* Cybertron," he states with absolute certainy. "It'll be in the box labeled 'Danger: Do not Open." Whatever is in there, he's more fearful of that then any of the weapons he is willingly ignoring the thought of these two likely blowing themselves up using. Yeah, he knows Whirl - which is precisely why Jackie thinks that is apt to happen.

Whirl gives Hot Rod an annoyed huff."Hey! Why do you assume everyone who hangs out with me only does it because I'm blackmailing them or something!?" He crosses his arms and tries to look hurt except it's totally impossible for him to do so. "I'm allowed to have friends too, you know!"

The cyclops is just a tad surprised at Wheeljack's secretiveness about his mysterious box he needs fetching. Usually he wont shut about whatever cool dangerous thing he's working on so, yeah, him being cagey about it is strange and a bit alarming, or at least it would be alarming if Whirl cared about silly things like 'personal safety.' "Okay fine, be a jerk and not tell us what we're about to risk our lives to get you but just so we're clear, anything else I find in there is mine to keep right?"

Oh yeah, and he's totally going to open that box if he finds it first

Hot Rod holds up his hands to fend off Whirl's huff. (Too much time around Blast Off, Whirl.) "Sure, you can have friends, but friends that eager to be robbed?" He's just sayin'.

As Wheeljack speaks, Hot Rod's smile returns: bright, sharp. "/Really/. You know, I like you," he tells Wheeljack, whose name he was told, but almost certainly doesn't remember. But he totally likes him. Hot Rod is an excellent judge of character. "You've got your head pointed in the right direction if you're working on breaking the clampdown and dealing with the energon shortage." Said shortage may be buried in the media, overseen and controlled by the state as it is, but he speaks about it like a fact: a fact one might not necessarily expect a mech who speaks of 'a science' to know.

"Let's get moving, then," says Hot Rod, advancing toward the structure. He has no idea where to begin, but he's clearly not letting anything like a simple lack of directions stop him. "How big is this box? And just how much shouldn't we open it?"

<OOC> Whirl says, "uggh that shuttlenerd is rubbing off on me :("

<OOC> Hot Rod says, "probably because you keep hugging him."

<OOC> Whirl says, "IT WAS ONE TIME"

<OOC> Hot Rod says, "IT WAS A BIG HUG"

<OOC> Whirl HUFFS

"\*Fortunately\*," Wheeljack rambles - because yes, he truly does love to ramble on about what he's working on - on, "All of that equipment and research got moved to Dead End before this happened! My buddy Ratchet's got a free clinic there," he blathers, not thinking about the dangers of giving criminals future addresses for potential robberies. "He'ls a medical genius. You heard of 'im? We're workin' on this synthetic energon there, processed from other means like solar or wind collection... which reminds me, I heard 'bout this scientist that recently returned to Cybertron, named Starburst? Somethin' like that. Anyway, we're gettin' closer but the charge from it ain't great, don't last long or really carry ya' like real energon does..." He goes on like this as he heads to the smoldering rubble fully expecting the others to follow.

"Oh, if you find this tentacle spectral ... creature, well, it's likely dead but pal Brainstorm would likely like that back... anything else... have at it! There's a magnetic railgun I meant for trans-hemispheral message conveying right there," he points out as he moves in. Why would a messenger service need to be in a railgun format? Because Wheeljack. "That USED to be a subsonic micro-fissure inducer," he points to something else. "Oh, it'd be about this big," he gestures. "It was under my work station, which used to be in the middle. Can we start there? This one was Torque's. That was Brainstorm's... Nautica's...: Jack sounds genuinely increasingly sadder the more he looks around. He sighs as he looks to the furthest one. "Starscream's..."

By the time Wheeljack starts rambling, Whirl has already made his way into the ruins of Wheeljack's workshop. He's only half listening, if even, but a familiar name sticks out from the rest of Wheeljack's words and his attention is caught. "Did you say Ratchet? Hell yeah I know Ratchet! One time this fascist cop jerk ripped my guts out and, uh.." He hesitates. "A 'special friend' of mine brought me to him and he fixed me up, got me on my feet again." This walk down memory lane reminds Whirl that he was supposed to see Ratchet again to recieve a part that the medic had to order for him. Oh well!

Then Wheeljack mentions another familiar name. "Torque? I know Torque! One time this snobby space shuttle shot me in the head and I went blind but she was able to fix me and restore my vision." There is clearly a trend here with Whirl and crippling injuries. The cyclops suddenly focuses all his attention on the workstation Wheeljack points out as Torque's because he has a creepy fascination with her and just wants to put his claws all over things she might've touched at one point.

"Hey, you know Ratchet?" It's a bit silly that Hot Rod should be surprised by this when it is far stranger that /he/ knows Ratchet. And yet--! "Man, everyone knows Ratchet," he adds with a glance at Whirl. Ratchet gets around, pass it on. "He's patched me up, helped out with a thing or two. Good mech." He kicks through the rubble as he searches, but begins to kick a bit more /cautiously/ when Wheeljack moves from railguns to subsonic micro-fissure inducers. That sounds painful.

Hot Rod goes still and turns to Wheeljack with even more pointed surprise: "Nautica never mentioned you. I think. You don't work with, uhm, Pharma, do you?" He eyes Wheeljack in sudden suspicion. "Who's Torque?" is asked as much of Whirl as of Wheeljack.

Wheeljack is totally clueless to Whirl's intentions - just as he always has been. He's far too sad looking at all that was lost here - before it was realized - to be aware of what be happening around him. He merely waves a hand in the direction of the station that had been hers, his optics locked bench that had belonged to the Vosian leader. Yet, he smiles (under the plate) as Whirl also knows Ratchet. Hey, Torque too! That helps to stir him out of his misery to listen to Hot Rod. "We went to the Academy together. We were recharge station mates." They shared a college dorm. He then moves forward and tries (in vain) to lift off some junk that's fallen on what was his work bench. "\*Unf!\* Ratchet's the best! But .. \*grnk\* No, don't know Pharma but ratchet talked 'bout him." Almost as much as Jack talked about Starscream. Everyone has their idols? "\*Hnf!\* When did you meet Nautica? Was only recently for me... \*guuuh\*" He continues to struggle with the debris. He's not a strong mech. He is a bit hurt she didn't mention him though. Jack does stop though as he gets a bit of a dreamy look in his optics as he explains to Hot Rod, "She's ... solid." That's the best way he can think to describe her. Right now he's really thankful for his faceplate.

"Careful," he says offhandedly as he adjusts to try to get a better angle to lift this chunk of charred metal. "That thing you are 'bout to step on used to be an innermost energon scanner," he sighs to Hot Rod. "But I could never get the dang thing to work. It always had this exhaustive, vertigo-inducing effect." On the user? The scannee? Likely both.

Hot Rod ... moves his foot. He relaxes as Wheeljack outlines his connections to the nerd squad, placing himself on the Ratchet rather than the Pharma side of the spectrum. "Eh, I met her a while ago, I guess." He glances up at Wheeljack after pushing aside debris elsewhere. Catching the look in his eyes, Hot Rod grins. Even if he had a faceplate, he's expressive in a way that's impossible contain. His good-natured teasing is painted across his features and colors his voice. "Solid, huh? --Hey! I think I found something." Saved from further teasing by a box peeking from beneath an overturned chair, Hot Rod asks, "Is this going to trans-hemispheral micro-fissure anything if I pick it up?"

Wheeljack still strains with his piece of debris which is surely comical to watch. Still, Jack keeps trying. "Yeah. Solid. In every way. You ever met a bot you were just \*sure\* of?" He's not sure he's making sense so goes silent, mostly because while he's great at sharing his thoughts, Jack is terrible at sharing his feelings. They are a lot harder to tinker with. Still, he feels compelled to try. "It's lik-..." He stops and his optics go wide.

He recognizes that box anywhere! That's the only safeguard between Cybertron continuing and it being utterly destroyed, reduced to inertia on every level. Within that box is the most vile, terrible thing that Jackie has ever dreamed up and brought into existence. The intention was purely good, something to unite the planet and yet once made, the consequences were far too dire to unleash. And the 'indestructable' box is open, just a \*peek\* to Hot Rod... until Wheeljack dives on it like the grenade that it is, seeking to wrestle and steal it away from Rod. Please, Primus! Let him contain this! Unless stopped he'll make that mad grab and all but run away from here! Like I said, you can have all of!" Even, should you be able to recover it from the main computers, his dozen or so Starscream fansites - should you want them.

It's inevitable that, with the box open, Hot Rod tries to get a peek. There are just certain /truths/ in life. That Hot Rod will try to look at the thing he's warned not to touch is one of them.

What he makes of the mysteries within is unclear. Hot Rod barely has time to even see inside, much less process it, before Wheeljack is snatching it up and running off with it. "Wha--." He breaks off when he'd otherwise call after Wheeljack, watching as he clears the area. Looking around at the mess of what is left behind, he rubs his helm. "Well. Okay. Let's grab anything that looks like it's mostly in one piece and bring it back for Nautica, then. Maybe there'll be some stuff you can play with," he says as a bribe to (relatively) good behavior (for Whirl). There's a lot to sift through and not a lot of time to do it before they draw inevitable interest from THE MAN. They better started.