IHQ Time: Sat Oct 26 11:58:08 2024

NCC Medical Ward

The Crystal City repair bay is far larger than previous versions in Imperial Headquarters or Trypticon himself. Clearly it was designed by a medic, for a medic. The entire room is rectangular in nature with medical beds arranged in a neat grid pattern. The beds themselves vary, with some being precious little more than metal slabs, and others having full scanners and tools attached, as well as everything in between. In total, there are about twenty beds. There is room for more in an emergency situation. The cabinets line the walls, spaced out between medical terminals. Everything has a place, and organization is key. With battle mode being initiated, the huge windows are covered up as the bay is encased in metal for its own protection. Access can still be gained with the right codes, however. Red warning lights flash on and off.

Contents:

Scrapper

Scrapper's Art <SA> - Fourteen Pieces

MSE CO OFFICE (Earth)

Gumby Medic <NCC>

Obvious exits:

South <S> leads to NCC Central Command.

Southeast <SE> leads to NCC Central Hub.

East <E> leads to Mount R'Lyeh.

Long Haul walks in (in robot mode, of course, because he'd probably piss more than a few people off trundling into the medical ward as a dump truck), arms laden with boxes and boxes of... something. It takes him awhile to get in the door, as the stack is piled high enough that he's having trouble seeing. Luckily, as a Constructicon, he's a bit smaller than your "average" transformer, so that the pile doesn't bump against the top of the entryway. Even so, it's a somewhat precarious situation. "Scrapper!" he shouts. "You in here?"

Scrapper putters around the med bay. He ought to get back to Cybertron, soon, and finish up work on the war fleet. He winces, thinking about the mess that the rest of MSE is probably making of the construction. Aie... speaking of the rest of MSE, there's Long Haul. Not offering to help Long Haul with the boxes - why should he? it's not his job - Scrapper answers simply, "I'm here."

"Where'd'you want this scrap?" the dump-truck-former shouts, obviously grouchy. But that's just because he's generally grouchy, and not because he was expecting any help with the boxes. Why start now? Besides, it's not like they're enough to overload the transporter's considerable strength. Just blind him.

Scrapper gestures, pointing at where he wants the boxes to go. Then, it occurs to him that Long Haul can't see. That's terribly inconvenient. "Oh, over in the second storage cabinet, in the front. We go through Seeker parts so quickly." Scrapper says it almost accusingly, as if it's the Seekers' fault that Autobots damage them.

Well, it sure ain't Long Haul's fault! Hell, there'd be a lot less damaged Seekers if they let Long Haul get into the fight more often, is the way the transporter sees it. But what he says is, "Right, right. Whatever." He heads in that direction, guided by memory, and Primus help any unfortunate gumby who gets in his way.

Scrapper warns, "Do be careful with those. They may be mass-produced, but the parts themselves are not expendable."

Long Haul may not like his job, but he knows his job. He's been doing it for millions of years! Or ever since he was built in that cave, he's always a bit fuzzy on that. But the point is, he's been doing it for a good, long time, and he knows how to. So why does he seem to screw up so often? Really, he doesn't, normally. But his brothers just piss him off so much. For example, by constantly firking reminding him to be careful! Consequently, he is /less/ careful when his brothers are around. He reaches the cabinets (the gumbies wisely dodging out of his path) and then drops the boxes. Not really hard enough to damage anything, but just hard enough to /sound/ like he might have. "What was that, Scrapper?" he shouts back.

Scrapper rushes over to the cabinet, looking aghast. He protests, "I told you to be careful with those!" Now, maybe Long Haul can actually do his job and only acts like a klutz to get back at his fussier brothers, but this is just a vicious cycle, because it leads to Scrapper assuming that Long Haul is just a lunk-head, which leads to Long Haul getting annoyed...

Oh, yeah, like Scrapper wouldn't find excuses to annoy Hauler anyway. Let's face it. The Constructicons all do whatever they can to get on each other's nerves, and nothing short of the end of the universe as we know it is going to change that. And actually, as we once witnessed, even that didn't work. Long Haul crosses his arms and does his best to glare at Scrapper with his faceless face. "What? Nuthin's broke!" With that he opens the cabinet, removes the top box, and begins plunking the parts inside. And he's still not being particularly careful.

The Constructicon foreman's optic band widens with alarm, and he frets, "The parts are making 'plunking' noises! They shouldn't do that. Now, look." Scrapper picks up one of the parts himself and carefully, quietly puts it down in the box himself. "See? Isn't that easy?"

Times like this, Long Haul wishes he had optics to roll. Except that you can't actually roll optics anyway. He does shake his head and tilt it skyward, however, giving a definite impression of eye-rollingness. "Whaddareya now, Hook?"

Scrapper looks rather offended, shovel raised defensively. He chides, "Now, there's no need to get rude!" Scrapper looks pensive for a moment and then laughs, "He'd probably complain that you aren't stacking them in an exact honeycomb matrix. Or something."

"Right..." grumbles the transporter as he goes back to plunking the parts where they belong in the cabinet. A little bit more gently this time, but there's still a definite plunkiness to the motion. He pauses a moment to scratch his head, looking at the part and then looking at the cabinet. Now, Long Haul doesn't know thing one about Seeker parts, but then, supply doesn't have to understand how to install or replace a part in order to set it where it needs to go while being stored, and Long Haul is familiar with storage methods. But this... this makes no sense. "Who the blazes do they have in charge of organizing this scrap?"

Scrapper takes a step back to get a better look at the cabinet system and then opens and examines a few other cabinets to see their arrangments, too. The Constructicon's expression increasingly shifts from 'upset with Long Haul because he's clumsy' to 'what the frag is going on with the cabinets here?' His shovel is actually skewed at an angle, and his optic band is scrunched up with bafflement. Scrapper says slowly, "I... have no idea."

Long Haul mutters to himself. "Great, just great!" He searches through a few more cabinets, trying to figure out where to place the parts in hand. Finally he throws up both hands. "Gha! What kind of twisted mind could come up with something like this!"

Scrapper covers his optic band with his hands and runs through various sorting algorithms in his head that might make some sense of this madness. None of them work. He glowers and stalks over to a terminal. "I'm sure the organization scheme is on file somewhere."

"Yeah, well let me know if you find it. This is gonna take forever otherwise," he grumbles, finally finding where the current part goes and then moving on to the next one. He's able to make a bit of progress now, since we're talking about several of the same part, but every time he runs out of a type he's forced to stop and search again. Each time he stops he gets more and more irritated. Soon he's going to have to stop and go break something, just to keep from breaking parts.

Scrapper sifts through the various MSE files, trying to find the organization set-up of the med bay. He's not having much luck. He has, however, found a repository of recipes for energon mixers. Hrm. Looks like the MSE filing systems are just as much of a hopeless melange as the cabinets are.

Long Haul's grumbling is slowly becoming louder, and as time goes on it goes from just plain grumbling to the occasional growl. If he had teeth, they'd definitely be bared by now. But he doesn't even have a mouth (although not too long ago he was sporting a nice Grimlock-fist-sized dent where one belonged). Finally he steps back and snarls, minus the nifty lip-curl that's usually associated with the sound. He jabs an index finger at the nearest gumby. "You finish!" Does he have any authority to actually give that order? No. Is the gumby going to argue with an enraged Long Haul, considering the fact that his strength is fairly well known? What do you think? He looks at Scrapper. "I'm goin' back to Cybertron for the next batch! Might be awhile!" Something about his stance and voice dares Scrapper, just dares him, to try and contradict him, superior officer or not.

Scrapper continues looking for that file, his curiosity out. Trucking supplies around is not his thing. He has only a dim idea that it somehow gets material from point A to point B and usually takes far too long. So it's with a vague response that he answers his brother, "Uh-huh. Right. Don't take too long."

It only takes too long because someone let Mixmaster organize things once the parts get to B! Long Haul turns on his heel and marches out, grumbling something that sounds a bit like, "Whatever."