Trypticon Medical Bay

Several operating tables are set in a row here, and long benches line the walls. On these benches are assorted tools and equipment used in repairing damaged Decepticons. The benches near the door are for patients waiting their turn for treatment. Scattered throughout the room are various repair droids, awaiting the arrival of more wounded to repair. The room gives you the perception of being immaculately clean, with not a single tool out of place. Your olfactory sensors pick up the faint odor of the cleansing solutions used to keep the room clean and sanitary.

Contents:

Sign

Gumby Medic

Obvious exits:

East <E> leads to Trypticon Laboratory.

West <W> leads to Trypticon Main Hallway.

Soundwave has arrived.

Scrapper is just trying to get caught up on 'paperwork'. Them using fancy datapads and digital storage systems really does nothing to reduce the amount of bureaucracy and red tape. He sits at his desk, occasionally sighing at the random acts of stupidity these reports subject him to and growling softly at the really dumb cases.

Long Haul trudges in carrying several crates full of parts, enough to block his line of sight. This is normally not much of a problem, because most random gumbies know, when they see Long Haul trudging through an area loaded down like this, to get the HELL out of his way. However, one random gumby, Slapdash, is pushing a cart across the transporter's path and /not/ paying much attention to where anyone is. Scrapper might remember this gumby... he briefly assigned the guy to work FOR Long Haul. The transporter runs smack into the cart, knocking cart over, supplies over, and scattering crates and their contents all over medical. "SCRAP!" he shouts.

Scrapper continues to plug along through the reports. Ho hum, Long Haul's cursing, or is he? It's a bit vexing to have a name that abbreviates to a minor swear word. Scrapper glances over and exclaims, "I thought you were fit for hauling again!"

Ho hum, just another day for a tape deck in Trypticon. But this tape deck always gets the juicy info on people when they're at their most compromised, during a difficult repair. But then again, this is also a regular haunt for a particular Greenie.. and here he is, making a scene in Medical. The tape deck sits there, waiting to see what happens..

Long Haul is shorter than a Seeker. Long Haul also has no face to speak of. Despite this, when Long Haul turns to growl at the Seeker, the Seeker backs up. But then again, Slapdash is a bit of a dolt, which was why he had been assigned to Long Haul for that bit anyway. The transporter points. "You're picking this up!" Just because he can't /officially/ give the Seeker orders anymore doesn't mean he won't try anyway. Then Long Haul turns to his brother and, in a completely different, almost cheerful tone, answers, "Well, I'll quit if you don't want me to!"

Scrapper tilts his optic band upward, glancing at the ceiling. Oh boy, why does he bother with the canned dumbness of these reports when he can get fresh stupidity for far less effort? Then, his optic band narrows. Long Haul was sure a bit loud in insisting that he isn't Soundwave's pet Constructicon, only loud enough to, oh, break up Devastator! And now he's talking about quitting? This is fishier than a Sharkticon! So Scrapper snaps, "Just see that the mess gets cleaned up."

Long Haul gestures to Slapdash, who actually is doing what the transporter had ordered, if only because not doing so means he wouldn't be able to get on with his own job of randomly pushing the cart into people's way How strange that that was actually his assigned duty! "Well, I am!" The supply officer then turns his head and LOOKS at Slapdash working, so he can, indeed, say that he's SEEN to it, then approaches Scrapper's desk. "So, you seen the tapes?" he asks, almost eagerly. He is, of course, referring to the tapes from here in medical, which Scrapper WOULD have access to.

Seen the tapes? /Hello./ The blue tape deck continues to listen in. This little affair has proved to be worthwhile.

Scrapper nods enthusiastically and taps his desk, taking a hand away from his keyboard. He chuckles, having finally seen it for himself. The mess with the cart and gumby and the boxes momentarily forgotten, he says, "Oh, yeah! That's downright priceless."

Long Haul also bobs his head. "Yeah!" he chuckles at the memory, then trails off and shrugs. "Y'figger out how we're gonna figger out who did that, though?" he asked, genuinely curious. Great ideas were NOT in his job description. They weren't even in the job description of the job he actually wanted to do. He just carried stuff, and occasionally /tried/ to provide a bit of common sense to balance out all these insane /geniuses/ he always has to put up with. Not that they pay much attention to him, anyway, unless something needs moving, but... eh.

The tape deck ponders this. He should be able to find which was the most recently accessed tapes, and probably by whom as well, since surveilance data isn't available to just anyone. Of course, Soundwave knows the answer to that, but his player doesn't, hence the 'probablies.'

Slapdash, meanwhile, is eager to get back to pushing his cart around. But that's because he's binary bonded to it. Well, not really, but that's his excuse when anyone asks why he pushes it around all the time. But to hasten this, some of the parts find themselves in boxes with far different labels.

Scrapper sobers up quickly from that laughing spell and shuffles his stack of datapads and disks. He explains, "Yeah, I've seen the tapes of him - and they're great, but I haven't tracked down the tapes of who did it. It may be that it wasn't done in medical, in which case it'd be out of my jurisdiction, and..." Scrapper trails off. Surely, even Long Haul understands why this is a bad, bad thing.

"Well... yeah. Of COURSE it wasn't done in medical. 'Cos Hook stumbled INTO medical while he was all half pink!" explains Long Haul slowly. See, that common sense thing. And he already KNEW about the other problem, because he was the one who pointed it out to Scrapper... but considering Scrapper was pretty slagged at the moment, it's not too surprising he didn't remember. "But there's gotta be another way, right? I mean, we can't just have folks runnin' around thinkin' it's /okay/ to do somethin' like that to a Constructicon!"

Well, calling a Constructicon inferior isn't a good thing either, but the blue tape player did it anyway. Nevertheless, an opportunity is forming for this transmitter of an obsolete recording medium to exploit.

Slapdash, meanwhile, has put all of the smaller parts in the bigger boxes, thus meaning he has a rather large (and rather difficult to manufacture) piece of chest-chassis for a Seeker, and far too many smaller boxes. Proving to be able to handle his own situation, he leans the chassis up against the bench, then striking it with his foot, snapping it into two pieces of about the same crude size, both of which can easily fit into a single box. Hurray!

"He could have stumbled out and then back in!" Scrapper says defensively. Okay, Occam's razor says that's a bit silly, but it is possible, although it isn't plausible. Scrapper puts the stack of 'paperwork' aside to get a better look at Long Haul and says, his tone serious, "Then I file the paperwork and jump through the hoops to see the tapes from elsewhere. I can't think of any other sane plans, and I doubt the sanity of this one."

Gee. A Constructicon can't think of any sane plans. Nothing unusual there! Long Haul shrugs. "Well, yeah, but..." he sputters a bit, stops, and tries to think about what he's going to say. He does this slowly, to prevent strain. "But if he hadda been painted in medical, you'da found it already!" Nicely bringing them back to Scrapper's original point. Good job.

Scrapper picks up a datapad and scowls at it, as if the datapad is at fault for this whole debacle. My, wouldn't that be a plot twist! He says, hating it all as he says it, "Right. And going through anything but proper channels will just make the situation worse."

"Worse than what?" Long Haul asks a little obliviously, deciding that it's finally time to check up on Slapdash. And Slapdash has now put all the parts back into boxes! Wonderful! So now Long Haul can pick them up and put them away! ... Oh. Ugh.

Oh well. The transporter walks back to the boxes and picks them back up, heading to the appropriate cabinets to put them up.

Slapdash's last part destruction notwithstanding, he's got some more stuff to put in smaller containers. Hey, here is something brass. And curved. It's got a large number 65 on it. It's Secret Constructicon Trumpet #65! Obviously it's location was compromised, so it needed a new hiding place. But the boxes are still too small! Slapdash fixes that by mashing the horn-end of the trumpet on the ground repeatedly until it's dented enough to fit into the container. Or until someone stops him.

"When things aren't done properly, people get in trouble," Scrapper explains in relatively small words, sounding tired. Then he hears a brassy noise, but this isn't pretty. It's not even ugly like what happens when one of his brothers mangles a trumpet. It's ugly in a way that Bonecrusher would be hard-pressed to manage in an overcharged rage. So Scrapper has to look over at the source of the horrible sound, just like a train wreck, and sees a gumby Seeker bashing a trumpet against the floor. Scrapper bolts away from his desk, knocks over his chair, and cries, "Oh no, you don't!"

Long Haul steps OUT of Scrapper's way. Wow. A Seeker has managed to come between a Constructicon bicker-session! By proving Scrapper's point no less! Oh, wait, that's a bad thing... Long Haul looks down at what Slapdash had been trying to do, then covers his optic band with his right hand. "Slaggit!" he groans, realizing he's probably going to have to dump all of those boxes BACK out and sort through them. Wonderful.

Slapdash has nearly gotten the trumpet down to size so that it'll fit into the box. This sudden interruption of what he was told to do confuses him.

Scrapper does his best to loom over the Seeker, despite being shorter than him and holds out a hand. He demands, ire flashing in his optics, "Hand. Me. The. Horn." Scrapper doesn't say 'trumpet', because he remembers this particular Seeker, and he doesn't want to confuse him with big words.

Meanwhile, Long Haul is gathering up the boxes and the parts that haven't yet been returned to boxes, occasionally taking moments to glower as threateningly as he can at Slapdash given his lack of face. Dammit! First this Seeker has the gall to get Long Haul's way with that cart, then makes more work for Long Haul (and Primus only knows the transporter has enough to do)! Once Long Haul has gathered up everything he stalks to the back, grumbling the whole way.

Just as Scrapper says that, the front end of the trumpet breaks off and hits the ground. It looks more like a brass wheel that was driven over loose gravel more than the front piece of a trumpet. Slapdash picks that part off and hands it to Scrapper. "Here you go then."

This casette player has found out everything he could have hoped for.. now it's just time to wait for these two to leave. And if it doesn't happen soon, he'll just have to manufacture something for the two green ones to be distracted with.

Scrapper picks up the beaten bell and makes a grab for the rest of the trumpet. He's muttering something that sounds a bit like, 'my poor baby' and his demeanour vacillates between horror and anger. Scrapper's half tempted to ask Slapdash if he likes art, but at the moment, he's got bigger concerns, namely the poor little trumpet.

Long Haul is now in the back of the room at the moment, putting away parts and cursing, thank you very much. He'll leave when he's done. Well, unless something comes up to distract him.

Slapdash peers at the remains of Secret Constructicon Trumpet #65. You can't really tell it's #65, since the part with the number is mashed up bad-like and in Scrapper's hands. The numbers are so badly distorted that it could possibly be Secret Constructicon Trumpet #88. But that's just rediculous, as it looks nothing like it. "It wouldn't fit!" He says, as a pathetic means of defense.

"That is no excuse!" Scrapper seethes. He lectures, "Trumpets are to be treated with the utmost care at all times, and that means getting a bigger box, not making a smaller trumpet! Now, give me the rest of it so I can see if that poor trumpet can be salvaged." And he'll need 30 CCs of valve oil, stat!

And... oh, dammit! Look what that idjit did to that Seeker frame! Now it's just useless, and Long Haul's going to have to go get another one! But aside from that one detail, the transporter has finished putting away the rest of the parts. So he stalks out with the broken part under one arm, not bothering with another word. Well, another word that you could repeat in polite company, anyway.

Slapdash, not knowing what the big deal is about, hands him the rest of the trumpet. It's more or less in good order, except for the fact that it's missing the rest of the trumpet. At least it isn't mashed up.

Scrapper snatches up the desecrated remains of the trumpet and rushes off to the lab to enact experimental emergency surgery! Or just to stick it on a table, fret for a while, and then forget it for the next month or so.

Scrapper leaves to the Laboratory to the east.

Scrapper has left.

Two Constructicons gone. The tape deck sends out a brief command to the camera transmissions. Not a very friendly one. In the surveilance room, there is a brief error in the medical bay cameras. The DCI-based monitoring officers curse as they have to reboot the entire system. The medical bay has no video documents for the next two minutes.

And it's then that this innocuous blue tape player jumps into the air, grows exponentially in size into none other than Soundwave. He has his information, now it's time to depart and make use of it. Soundwave was never here.