Cleaning Up and Looking Ahead

++ Empty Chamber <Acropolex> ++

With Whirl's official departure to go join the Autobots, Team Trouble is left down a member and with an empty room to return to clean vacancy. There's work to be done. Hot Rod's not doing it. In fact, he's not doing much of anything. He's settled on a slouchy, battered couch near the holo emitter. He's taking up more room than any mech his size could reasonably occupy.

Some of the others /are/ helping out by the habsuites, and from the sound of their chatter, Hot Rod's at least stopped by and pretend to chip in. Others are refueling, but the largest group is out doing troublesome things, and leaving the rest in relative quiet. /Relative/.

Rewind is attempting to help out. The small mech is holding a stack of energon cubes that are almost as big as he is and /trying/ not to spill them as he moves down the hallway. He wants to pull his weight here (that shouldn't take much right, ha ha?).... But he's still trying to figure out where he fits in and how he can best help out. Rounding the corner, he spots Hot Rod lying there, looking.... sprawled out. Rewind stops and tilts his head, "Hi Hot Rod, what's up?"

Hot Rod flinches upright with an almost guilty startle. A datapad goes clattering to the floor. As casually as possible, he leeeans over to drag it back to his side with his foot. "Oh. Hey, Rewind," he says with explicit ease. Nothing to see here. "How's it going cleaning up Whirl's room? Please tell me no one's found anything explosive.

Rewind notices the datapad foot drag, but has the tact to say nothing. "It's been fine. No explosives, but several traces of highly questionable fuel compounds, a number of mostly empty wallets (that I somehow doubt belonged to him), and various sharp objects. It's been... interesting, to say the least. How've you been? I haven't seen you a lot lately."

"Sorry." Hot Rod subspaces the datapad and then sits up. He clears the couch, taking up only the normal amount of space for a mech his size, and pats the seat in offer and invitation. "I ran down to Rodion to ask Panacea about an empty that'd gone missing. IAA's up to some kind of slagging tricks and I don't know what. What about you?"

A frown plays upon Rewind's lips (not that Hot Rod can see it under that faceplate) at the mention of the IAA and tricks. Sigh, more government shenanigans. Upon Hot Rod's seatpat offer, the small mech accepts. Placing the cubes carefully down for a moment, he hops up onto the couch next to the other mech, blue optics shining up at him. His short legs swing over the edge. "Sorry to hear it. I got to take a helicopter ride recently, got great footage of that big fight with Deadlock and the Enforcers. Since then I've been gathering video when I can, editing it and trying to find more to do."

The dataslug's legs slow down and stop, and he gazes down the hallway. "I've heard something about getting information out to the people. Like a radio or soemthing, do we have something like that?"

"Uh huh." Hot Rod smiles briefly at Rewind, then says, "Not radio, though. A datanet, one that the government can't control. Nautica helped design it. Lots of hubs, distributed whatevers." He spreads his hands wide. Distributed hands, distributed hubs. See? "We're getting it set up in Nyon, bit by bit. Mostly abandoned buildings, since the Senate's already shown they'll target it. Nothing like the Senate trying to blow something you make up to let you know you're doing something right, huh?"

Rewind's optics light up at that piece of information. "Really?! Wow... Well, if Nautica set it up I bet it's an amazing piece of tech." He lets out a sort of amused, sort of ..sad little laugh at the last bit. "Yes... I guess so. They're really not going to like something like that. Free speech? An informed public? That anathema to people like that. (So... yeah, let's get the word out /everywhere/!)" His leg swinging commences. "I don't suppose there's anyway I could help with that?"

"Yeah. Yeah, definitely." Repeating himself as he gets caught up in his own enthusiasm, Hot Rod brightens. Bracing his arm on the back of the couch, he leans toward Rewind. With his other hand, he sketches vague gestures as he talks. "Your videos are actually one of the best ways you can help right now. Showing people the truth. If we can get footage of what the Senate's Enforcers are /really/ doing to people, all the ways they are overstepping their authority -- and the things that they lie about, too. We've got an Insecticon, Harbinger -- she's going to help with that, too. Told her to talk to you about it, so you might be seeing her soon. Help her get stuff ready to go out over the datanet."

Rewind's small hands come to grasp the seat's edge in front of him as he leans forward slightly. "I'm happy to hear that. I can get some copies of that Enforcer footage to you- and maybe I can get some new footage as well." He then freezes at the mention of Harbinger. "...Harbinger?!" His optics widen a bit. "She's going to... to see me soon?" He sounds slightly nervous.

Hot Rod nods with enthusiasm, but as Rewind freezes, he hesitates. "Uh, yeah?"

Rewind blinks and looks up at Hot Rod. One of those hands comes up to scratch at the back of his helmet a little sheepishly. "Heh, well... I /guess/ that's Ok. I... uh, I met her once. She... well, she was /interesting/, to say the least." His hand comes down to rub at his neck, where there might still be a small mark from where she bit at him. Kind of.

"Is there a problem?" Hot Rod asks with a tilt of his head as he considers Rewind's gesture. He studies Rewind's neck with a vaguely mystified air, then looks back with a smile. "If you aren't comfortable working with her, someone else can. You know as much as I do that Insecticons aren't what we're told, though."

Rewind sets his jaw a bit. "No, I'm fine." He's BRAVE, darn it! "I'll be fine. I'll just let her know if she... she oversteps her bounderies, that's all! I'm sure she'll be reasonable." He hopes. "Anyway, she actually gave me a bit of good advice. To stand up for myself! So... yeah, that's what I'll do, if I need to. And yes, I realize Insecticons are people like anyone else. I'm a disposable- I want to be the last person in the world to judge someone solely on who or what they are."

"If she oversteps your boundaries, remember you've got a whole team of people who will back you up." Hot Rod's smile lingers as he watches Rewind, and he nods encouragement. "But you can handle it. Does it ever bug you, the way some of the other disposables and low castes don't care? I mean, the middles, I get it -- they live okay, but I'll never understand when other people like us don't think things need to change."

Rewind hehs and nods. "Yes... I understand what you're saying, and I really believe the only way we'll ever make things right is if we're /willing/ to care, willing to do our parts. But I think it's also true that people like us- people on the edge, the disposables.... we get used to being powerless. We can get so NUMB to it all that we think we can never make a difference, so why bother?"

Smile quirking, Hot Rod says, "I just haven't been around long enough to get used to it, huh? I'm glad /you/ aren't numb, anyway. Of course, a lot of people who /do/ care head off to Kaon." He makes a grumpy noise and sinks back into his corner of the couch. "Well. If that's where the truth takes them, I guess that's where it takes them. Better than the Autobots." No offense, Whirl.

Looking thoughtful, Rewind agrees. "Yeah. The Decepticons are trying to fight the corruption, though they seem to want more... well, "fighty" types, and that's something I'm /not/. I still can't understand why Whirl went to the Autobots... they work for some terrible people, you know?" He pauses a moment, then adds, "Though I do hear of Autobots who I think \*are\* good people, trying to do the right thing. Like this mech I've heard of called Orion Pax. I'm actually hearing a lot of good things about him- he's got a certain charisma to him, from what I hear. You ever heard of him?"

"He's /great/," Hot Rod somewhat embarrassingly enthuses. His eyes light up. Well, they light up /more/, given that they are already pretty bright. "I wouldn't have trusted Shiftlock in the care of any other Autobot, but Pax is -- he's good," he says, cutting himself off before he can get any worse. "There are enough good ones in with the rest that it just makes how /bad/ they are all the worse, you know? If Pax and all of the rest of them can't change things, just how bad is it? Pretty bad!"

Rewind apparently hit a nerve- a HAPPY nerve. He watches, sort of amused, as Hot Rod gushes about Orion Pax. "Ha, tell me how you /really/ feel, Hot Rod!" He jokes, then turns more serious. "...Yes. Well, I'm HERE, aren't I? I worked with a lot of Autobots. Some of them are decent people, but ... they get lost in the shuffle. Overwhelmed by greater, less decent forces. And none of them really know how to combat it."

Hot Rod tries to scowl when Rewind teases, but he just can't when he's still wrapped up in how great Orion Pax is. "Yeah. That's the question, isn't it. How to combat it. How censored is your access at the archives, do you think? Is there much in there that you could find about that kind of thing?"

Rewind grins a little, then hmmms. "I can get in fairly deep, but... I /am/ just a disposable. They don't let me have access to anything really sensitive. That said, though, you can still find interesting things sometimes if you know where to look, and how to put pieces together."

"See what you can find about that kind of thing, would you? Or just -- in general. People keep expecting me to have ideas about how to fix things," Hot Rod admits with a cramped sort of expression. "And it's not like one or two people, and I don't know /anything/. I know what we're doing is just a start, but it really makes me realize how much more there is to change."

"Yeah." Rewind starts swinging his legs again, and he tilts his head down to look at them go. "I'll do that and let you know what I find. Heh, well, you know, Hot Rod... you're pretty... charismatic yourself. You inspire confidence, and people around you feel like... like something good will happen if you get involved. You... you're a little like Orion Pax that way, actually."

"Maybe I shouldn't be admitting I don't know anything, then," Hot Rod ha-ha-just-kidding teases Rewind with a smile that's just a touch too bright. "That's a real confidence-shaker." His smile fades to something more sincere, and he says, "Thanks, though." He'll just save that memory forever: compared to Orion Pax. Best day ever. <3<3<3

Rewind smiles back at Hot Rod (again, under that faceplate, but his cheer can probably be felt). "Ha ha! Well, I think being honest is part of your "charm", too. You seem to have that balance... between honesty and earnestness, and knowing when to mech up and just get something done." He grins wider. "Just /don't/ let that go to your head, Ok?" Another chuckle and the small mech hops down from the couch again. "Ok, I should keep cleaning out Whirl's room. Gonna do my part here."

"I'll come help." Hot Rod follows Rewind's lead in getting to his feet and gestures for him to further lead the way out. "No promises about it going to my head, though." His tone is lighter than it was when Rewind entered, and he goes to lend a hand with cleaning out Whirl's room in a better mood.