A Mercy Kill

Metal creaks as cybertronian boots stop atop a pile of scrap. Night time always brought out a particular kind of lifeform in Dead End - animals mostly - and Spectrum was the exception that proved the rule. Outwardly she looks like any other being living in this part of Cybertron; battered, short on parts, and missing most of her paint, but her critical systems are in deceptively good repair. Along with her usual accoutrements - or lack there of - metal chains have been wrapped around one forearm and they jingle quietly in the breeze. A damaged optic sweeps her surroundings as she sniffs the air and a pump hums quietly in her exposed torso as it sucks the air into a specimen chamber. No injured nearby but...

  The empty's optics brighten as she recognizes the faint smell of industrial solvents - cleaners if she's lucky - and draws in a deeper breath. Spectrum smiles in the pre-dawn dark; the hound has found a scent and as she slides down off the pile and traces its path, she's on the hunt.

  It's a good thing for Spectrum, but not so much for her prey; the scent of cleaner was absolutely spot on, and the little bot it belongs to is not very good at hiding. Deep in a garbage pile, a single lone cleaning bot digs in the scraps and refuse. One little YX bot, alone and not looking too unhealthy; it hasn't been very long since their kind was recalled.

  The little disposable is shaking and looks like he is having a VERY, very bad day. Or week. Probably longer.

  Spectrum spots the little robot half-buried in refuse, by sound more than sight as her optics lack any night adaptions, and she pauses at the lip of the hole he's dug, a comfortable distance away for now.

  "Poor thing," she assesses sympathetically. "You must be one of the new empties that recall made." Her free arm spreads wide to expose the depths of her innards - and there's quite a lot on display. "Welcome to the club."

  The little cleaning bot is quite new to the whole 'empties' thing; it's probably why he lets out a terrified scream at suddenly being talked to.

  The YX model bot stumbles back in to the garbage and grabs around him. He pulls up an... Empty can. He waves it like a weapon. "I'm armed!" No he isn't. "Stay back!"

  "Relax, we're kin in a place like this," the half-open femme assures gently with a downward wave of her hand. The fact that there's a large blade on the same arm probably doesn't help the gesture.

  "Are you one of those cleaning robots I heard were getting scrapped left and right?"

  The YX bot is still holding up the can. Though, his optics do look the femme over; they lock on the blade for a few seconds too long.

  "Y-Y-Yeah. Yeah. I'm... Yeah." He's still all defensive. "Wh-what do you want?"

  "Oh, sorry." Spectrum notices belatedly and tucks that arm behind her with a sheepish smile. "I was just curious who had the bearings to be making noise at this time of night. Part of staying an empty is knowing when to lay low."

  "You're pretty new at this, aren't you?" She asks in the same gentle tone as she looks the little cleaner over. "How long have you been here, a few days? Two weeks?"

  The arm holding the can is shaking a little harder; at being told that he was making too much noise, he looks terribly startled.

  "Y-Yeah..." Oh, now he's practically whispering. "A... A couple of days. I think four."

  "I said relax," the femme laughs softly at the disposable's behavior. The blade is shown again, but only for illustration. "I can scare off anything that wants a bite of you." Her expression turns distant as it turns upwards towards the stars. "I've been here for a long... time."

  Spectrum looks back down and gestures the robot out of his hole with her safer arm. "Come on, I've got somewhere safe you can stay."

  "Safe?" The disposable seems dubious; a brow raises and he takes a step backwards. "Safe for who? I-I don't know you or eh-what you want...!"

  He hits the pile of refuse. A few bits of metal goes 'clank clank clank' as they tumble down.

  "Stay here if you want," Spectrum offers without a hint of complaint. In response to the cleaner's retreat she makes no move forward, only resting a hand on her exposed hip joint. "I was in your position a million years ago, back when I had all my parts. An older empty helped show me the ropes, I'm just paying it forward."

  That can is STILL being held up. The cleaning bot seems to be giving Spectrum's offer some serious thought.

  He shifts in place, clearly indecisive and debating with himself over what he should do.

  "...Okay. But I'm armed! I am!" He hesitantly walks forward, still with the can.

  "I can see that. You've got more arms than a lot of empties I've met," Spectrum laughs. She raises a hand to stop him and points at a nearby hunk of scrap. "If you want a real weapon, try tearing off that piece of paneling. It looks sharper and might even be big enough to block something for you."

  "What?" The YX blinks in surprise. He turns to look at the piece of scrap.

  He flushes a little, a little ashamed, but heads for the piece of garbage. He grabs and PULLS. ...And a sizable scrap piece of it rips off. He also manages to cut his hand in the process. He doesn't seem to have noticed, though.

  Spectrum smiles approvingly. "Better. Now come on, and stay on my safe side. I can't defend if you're between my blade and my target."

  The YX bot still looks uncertain, but follows Spectrum. He makes certain to stay as far away from her blade arm as possible.

  The metal sheet is clutched close. The can is no longer in his hand, so at least he's smart enough to know when to abandon something.

  Now, he's quiet.

  Spectrum begins to lead the little robot back out of his scrap heap and off to another part of the rotting sector when she pauses and sniffs. "You're leaking," she points out while looking down at his frame.

  "Huh?" The YX bot blinks at the statement. He looks over himself; it takes a few seconds to notice the cut on his hand.

  "...Huh. So I am. I don't think it's a big deal, though. Just a little cut."

  "Let me see it," Spectrum asks, holding out her own hand.

  There's some hesitation. Slowly, the YX bot holds his hand out.

  The half-open empty takes his hand in hers and leans her head over it. Her tongue comes out and laps at the cut and any oil that's trickled away. She pauses in that position as the pump in her chest hums its ceaseless tone, and then licks once more before straightening back up and giving the littler robot his hand back. "You should be fine for now, but we might not want to go to the more wild areas."

  The YX bot stands there, going absolutely still at that tongue. Optics widen in to shock.

  He stands there, looking absolutely disturbed. He pulls his hand back as soon as he can, shrinking back as if Spectrum might suddenly eat him alive.

  The femme laughs openly at that. "Waste not, want not," she teases. "You might want to suck on that now and then as we walk. You want leave a trail that way and good oil is harder to find out here than you think."

  The YX bot somehow looks more disturbed by the idea of drinking his own leaking energy than Spectrum having done it. Still, once they start walking again, he hesitantly does as told.

  He doesn't look very happy about it, but the fear of leaving a trail overrides the disgust.

  "There you go," Spectrum praises jovially as she claps the cleaner on the back and resumes leading him along. "You'll get used to living here yet. Modesty, hygiene, tastes... that's for upper-caste slobs. You'll feel liberated once you realize all the things you'll do to survive. It's a great justification; makes life much simpler."

  The cleaning bot stumbles a little as he's slapped on the back. One he's stable again, he gives Spectrum a glare.

  "How... How do you get energon around here? I mean, real stuff. Not from bodies." Oh, he's catching on quick.

  "Oh plenty of ways," Spectrum assures. "Do odd jobs, sell scrap, panhandle. Plenty of people are happy to buy their own trash if you pick the valuable cores from the rusty casings. Call it profiting from sloth."

  "And... And what if you can't do stuff like that?" The YX bot was still following, so that was something. "What if you gotta hide?"

  "No such thing," Spectrum answers smoothly. "If you find a harmonic gear worth ten shanix on the street but don't want to be seen on the street, you sell it to someone off the street for five. You both turn a profit and the Dead End keeps going."

  There's a long pause as the little disposable thinks this over. "...Okay, let's stop pretending. I'm pretty sure you know that there's a reward for bots like me, right? I can't just... BE SEEN out there." A huff. "For all I know, you're leading me in to a trap for the reward money."

  Oh dear, he's shaking again. The scrap piece of metal starts making a rattling noise. "Everybody's dead or were taken for the reward money and probably dead now too..."

  "Probably. Welcome to being old, kid," Spectrum replies indifferently. She pauses in her walk to let the little robot have a bit of a break down. "If I just wanted the reward money for you, why wouldn't I have just cut you up when I first saw you?" She reasons, displaying her blade again.

  "I don't know!" It's almost a yell; he startles at the loudness of it before his voice hushes back to a near-whisper. "Nothing makes sense, anymore! A week ago, I was cleaning up sewers and everything was fine! Now everybody's dying or being hunted!"

  The older empty allows the cleaner his outburst. "That's what's called a recall. Welcome to politics - they're slag for the party not in power. Keep your head long enough and you'll get used to it."

  Spectrum walks in silence with the cleaner, adjusting her pace to his. She gives the little bot some peace while sniffing the air and taking in their surroundings.

  "What caste were you before all this?"

  "What?" The YX bot blinks in surprise. "...Disposable. Yeah, at the bottom, but we did our jobs..."

  "You're 'disposable', you were disposed," Spectrum reasons simply, letting the plain fact sink in.

  "I was middle-caste..."

  There's a low whine at Spectrum's words. The YX bot only looks more and more upset as the conversation goes on. "You fell a long way down." Oh, and he's upset, too. "...Sorry. Shouldn't... Didn't mean it like that."

  "You're not wrong," the older robot replies, unruffled. She made peace with that long ago.

  "You know technically this means you don't believe in functionism, I doubt you've realized that yet. That or you believe the government's interpreted it wrong. Your function's defunct, your purpose is your own responsibility now."

  "I wonder how long it'll take them to realize that no one is fixing up the sewers..." The little disposable wonders bitterly, still carrying the piece of metal scrap. "Is that what you do, though? You dig for scraps and sell them?"

  "That, but I'm also a housekeeper of sorts," Spectrum explains. "I prune the Dead End of impediments. Criminals running dangerous business through the area, chop shops, hoarding empties... it's a perverse reclamation system but with a little attention life here sustains itself."

  "Wait... Hoarding empties?" The YX bot blinks in confusion. "Chop shops? And you, uh... Prune? What, like kill people?"

  "Someone has to do it," the femme justifies. "Do you think any police are looking out for us here? For every one that tries, three beat us up for fun. It's not fair to let one spark extinguish ten to stay alive and the longer you let them operate the bigger the number grows."

  The former cleaning bot frowns deeply at Spectrum. "Please explain the 'hoarding empties' and 'chop shop' thing. I don't know what they mean but they don't sound like good things."

  "Chop shops are places where empties go in the back door and cheap used parts go out the front," Spectrum explains bluntly. "Hoarding empties are the ten-to-one I mentioned but passive. They live too rich, gather too much, and steal the fair shares of other empties. If you leave people like that unchecked then in a thousand years the Dead End would be nothing but feral robots cannibalizing each other."

  The YX bot looks troubled, disturbed and a little horrified. "How do people LIVE here? I lived in a sewer and it sounds better than this...!"

  "Any way we can." Again the answer comes plainly. "You've got social preconceptions, you've got habits, you've got rules, and you've got morals. To live here you choose to strip some away. Some can't strip away a lot so they can't survive on a lot, others can strip away almost anything so they can survive on almost anything. For some it's horrible, for some it's pleasant. Some experience a gradual, frightened collapse into insanity. Some get carburized and move on. A few escape."

  "Most die. It's just a question of how much you want to forestall it."

  There's silence from the little new-empty cleaning bot. He doesn't seem to know what to say, but has an expression of deep thought on his face.

  He's clearly disturbed as he follows Spectrum, though.

  The mounds of waste and cobbled together housing pass in the dark without any offering any signs of familiarity. The surrounding landscape, born from the chaos of necessity rather than plan, bear little resemblance to most cybertronian architecture. The half-open femme lets her new companion walk in silence as she leads on with only the occasional glance to confirm her heading. She's said her piece for now, until a certain sight comes into view. To the cleaner, it no doubt looks the same as anywhere else in the sector but to her it's just a little bit more.

  "Here we are," she says as she approaches one pile of junk in particular and pulls a dented panel aside. It exposes a hole that's been dug out of the refuse, small but navigable, that disappears somewhere underneath. "Home sweet home, as it were. Go on in."

  "...If you kill me, I will haunt you." The YX bot says entirely too seriously.

  He looks from Spectrum to the hole nervously. Slowly, he crawls inside.

  The half-open femme swats the cleaner's skid plate as he scoots inside. "Haunt away, little guy. You've got no need to fear me."

  Once he's out of sight and a few seconds more removed than that, Spectrum backs her way in after him and pulls the cover back over her tunnel.

  Inside, the passage winds awkwardly around a corner before suddenly dropping straight down. It's a short fall and one that the tight passage keeps from being too eventful, and at the bottom is what may well be the old robot's entire living space.

  For two people it might be a little cramped.

  No light save the shine of optics offer any illumination, but the room that's been crudely dug in all directions is small enough to be visible just the same. It extends a body's length in radius from the hole, plus some padding for comfort, and there's just a little more room than Spectrum would need to stand. For the smaller cleaning robot, it actually might not be so bad.

  Spectrum drops in a little behind her companion - hopefully not on him - and her optic-and-a-half add their token brightness to the room.

  For a disposable sized mecha, the place was actually auite spacious. For a YX bot who's used to being cramped in a room with dozens of his kin, it's actually... Not bad.

  The little bot barely dodges out of the way before Spectrum falls down. "...Nice place. Looks cozy. And warm."

  "Having two bodies to heat it will help." In the dark, Spectrum's skeletal frame holds all the comforts of a horror movie but by now the fellow empty's presence may have become familiar.

  "I'd offer you energon if I had any but for now let's get some rest," she suggests as she sits down against the opposite wall and fans her legs.

  "Unless you'd rather interface." That might be the damaged robot's idea of a joke.

  The YX bot just stands there. He blinks rapidly; he looks very much like someone had just struck him on the back of the head. That is how stunned he looks.

  "Buh?" That is the first noise that comes out of him. "Uh... That's... Okay. I'll just... Be over here."

  He slides down in to a corner. As small as the place is, it isn't far from Spectrum, but it's as far as he could get.

  Spectrum laughs heartily at the cleaner's reaction and tucks a hand behind her head as she reclines. "Prude. You'll warm up to me," she responds. There's a pause and the femme's pump fills the small chamber with softly echoing white noise.

  "Sleep well little guy."

  "...You too." The YX bot slides down; the metal piece of scrap is pulled closer as if it were a blanket. Somehow, he manages not to hurt himself with the sharp edges. Again.

  There's a few seconds of silence. "...Thank you." It's actually a whisper this time.

  While Spectrum seems to nod off as well, one optic flickers on irregularly. Too many years in the Dead End have made the femme a light sleeper and having a charge to look after makes her that much more so. It's well into the night before her other eye turns on too, cracked as it is but still alive. She gazes over at the poor little cleaner, finally offline in peace after Primus knows how long wandering around, and a small smile graces her lips. Slowly, silently, the femme rises to her feet and looks up to inspect the hole to her home. Deeming it secure, she sneaks across the room (all of one step) to give the new empty a closer look.

  Careful lest she wake him, her optics drift up and down his body to take proper stock of his condition and any preexisting injuries. The tiny leak from his finger is noted with amusement, as is the piece of scrap metal partly covering his frame. Spectrum leans down and sniffs over his chassis until she catches the scent she's looking for; just the barest hint of highly potent energon, the spark chamber. The empty draws back to her full height as she gives the cleaner a last kind, sympathetic, but also tragic smile and she draws back her bladed arm.

  If the hungry robot's aim and aged joints are true, the last thing YX-885 will feel is only a moment of discomfort before his spark is compromised and the last thing he'll remember is drifting off to sleep.

  "Haunt me all you want little guy," Spectrum says quietly as she slowly draws out her blade. "It was the gentlest way you could go."