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When Deadlock slinks into Decepticon base, he isn’t sure how long it’s been. He’s a lone agent on Earth, not in amongst the troops; but it’s been too long since he saw a medic, and the wear-and-tear of fieldwork has started to interfere with his efficiency. If that isn’t a rust infection brewing behind his knee joint he’ll eat his blaster, and his left shoulder’s gotten stiff enough to interfere with his aim. When he crosses onto the command bridge he is greeted by a Megatron in alarmingly good cheer.
“Deadlock, what excellent timing. We have a new warrior amongst us!”
For a stupid moment Deadlock’s spark jumps, because what could that mean but the defection of an Autobot? Perhaps a particular Autobot? He strangles that stupid naive hope as soon as it’s formed. More likely it’s some fool grunt who’s been captured and reprogrammed, or a drone Shockwave has sent over from Cybertron. “That’s good news, sir,” he says, as though his spark isn’t thrumming in his throat. “What’s his designation?”
“She is called Nightbird,” says Starscream from a nearby console, managing to make two of the four words sound like insults. “A human toy-“
“Starscream, if you say another word against Nightbird you will find yourself relieved of command!”
Fantastic. He’s been back for less than five minutes, and Deadlock’s already tired. He can only pray that this Nightbird is worth the snit she’s got the air commander in.
“Bombshell,” Megatron says into the P.A. system. “Bring Nightbird up to the command deck.” Turning to Deadlock, he adds: “I thought the two of you might compare combat notes. I daresay she’ll give you a run for your shanix!”
When Bombshell arrives with Nightbird in tow, the word that comes to Deadlock’s mind is uncanny. She moves like all her joints are ball-bearings, weightless and too smooth. You can tell by looking at her she isn’t weighted like the rest of them. Her optics are as dead as headlights and she’s human-shaped, but Cybertronian-sized. She must be the only thing of her kind in the universe. Deadlock wonders if she comprehends how alone she is.
“Go ahead,” Megatron says smugly, looking from Deadlock to Nightbird. Bombshell shuffles quickly out of their way.
Deadlock doesn’t fight hand-to-hand. He doesn’t carry blanks. He casts a look over at Megatron, gesturing with the gun already in his hand. Megatron merely smirks.
“Alright, Nightbird,” Deadlocks says, shaking out his shoulder joints. “Take me down.”
“Non-lethally,” Bombshell cuts in, as though this misunderstanding has occurred before. Nightbird flashes her optics once in acknowledgement and draws the pronged metal instruments attached to her forearms.
She gets into Deadlock’s space almost immediately, where his current weapon would be useless – unfortunately for her Deadlock has guns on guns on guns, and he subspaces it in favour of a pistol smaller than his hand. Not that it’s a particularly good idea to discharge a firearm in the command centre of an underwater base, surrounded by one’s coworkers. He aims for the elbows and knees, to disable but not kill, but she’s just so fast. She flows with his momentum instead of fighting against it, and her movements aren’t restricted by any sort of kibble.
Suddenly Nightbird goes on the offensive. As Deadlock lunges forward she traps one of his wrists between the tines of her sai and pulls. She gets him off-balance, but he has the size advantage, and knocks her down with a kick that dents her torso. She transitions smoothly into a roll and springs back up again. Suddenly there is a glowing laser-blade inches from Deadlock’s face.
“Isn’t she splendid!” Megatron cries. The blade is so close Deadlock can feel the heat of it on his faceplate.
“Nightbird, stand down,” Bombshell says. Nightbird retracts the blade and steps back without hesitation. She doesn’t seem triumphant, or frustrated. Her faceplate betrays no emotion at all.
-
Deadlock is cornered later in the officers’ mess by Starscream - not because of any particular bond between them, but because he hasn’t been properly briefed yet and Starscream never misses a good chance to complain.
Envy isn’t a good look on Starscream. This is a shame, because it is one of his default settings. Deadlock keeps his eyes on his data pad, sips his fuel, and does not acknowledge a single thing that is said to him. Starscream takes all this in stride, and Deadlock is told against his wishes about every failing of their new recruit.
She required a heavily modified recharge bay in the crew barracks, on account of being incompatible with standard Cybertronian charging slabs. Starscream was required to assist in the adaptation of this recharge bay, "in my off-shift, no less!" as punishment for some tiny slight against our great leader’s unworthy fixation. (Deadlock wonders what exactly that tiny slight was; violence, verbal abuse, or mere negligence?)
“Of course she’s a monoformer, not that I’ve got anything against them. But it presents a certain disadvantage in the field.”
Deadlock opens a stupid little game on his datapad. It came pre-loaded and he does not enjoy playing it. He taps disinterestedly at the controls, to demonstrate exactly how much of a frag he gives about Starscreams’ opinions on monoformers. It occurs to him that Starscream may simply be saying the most provocative thing he can think of, in some asinine attempt to manipulate Deadlock into doing Primus knows what. Contemptible. It’s so fragging complicated working with him.
You wouldn’t call it “free time”, but there are periods of waiting aboard the Nemesis. Dead time the troops spend drinking and gambling and fighting, sneaking off to quiet corners with one another, butchering old songs and cheating at old games. According to Starscream, Nightbird is periodically dismissed to the would-be rec room when her handlers are otherwise engaged. (The insecticons seem to be her primary keepers, for no reason Deadlock can fathom.)
Nightbird spends most of her recreational time standing in place, waiting for instructions. Some gregarious souls have actually invited her to participate in a game of five-die before, and although she demonstrated no sign of enjoyment she threw the die when it was her turn and eventually won a ration chip.
“It’s a game of simple chance, of course,” Starscream sniffs, as though Deadlock didn’t know that already. “It requires no actual intelligence to play.” Apparently her refusal to give up her paltry winnings after the game was over cemented her as at least person-like in the minds of her fellow players.
“Perhaps she could be compared to a mechanimal on two pedes,” Starscream allows, watching Deadlock slyly for a reaction. Deadlock wishes he’d brought his maintenance kit with him. The sight of Deadlock cleaning firearms tends to shut people up. If Starscream carries on like this Deadlock may have to settle for cramming the emergency pistol down his throat.
When it’s clear his jab isn’t going to get the desired response Starscream goes on. “Two cycles ago one of the Coneheads tried to give her Engex and had his cockpit shattered. One of my airforce, vital to the war effort, assaulted in the middle of the mess for all to see. Any other mech would have been scrapped for parts, but no, not precious Nightbird!”
Apparently the official line is that Nightbird will not be punished for having been given faulty social programming by her pitiful human creators. (Deadlock suspects her safety was largely secured by public apathy towards the wellbeing of coneheads.) Starscream, personally, would like to see proof of this faulty social programming before he’s willing to believe this was not an act of flagrant anti-seeker sentiment.
“Does she ever talk?” Deadlock interrupts.
Starscream scoffs. “She hasn’t even got a vocaliser. We checked. So good luck wrangling her out in the field.”
Oh, fantastic. So she’s his problem now. Deadlock finishes his cube in one long swallow and rises to leave. When Starscream opens his mouth to say something else he walks a little faster. He’s got to have a word with Bombshell.
-
“Teach her spec ops sign at least,” is what Deadlock orders, and Bombshell complies. Of course, the list of signs can’t simply be uploaded into her brain module the way it could be for the rest of them. She has to learn what humans called “the old-fashioned way”, mimicking signs as they are shown to her, one-by-one. Deadlock makes a point of sitting in on the sessions. He’s not about to let a mission be sabotaged by one soldier’s faulty instruction.
Nightbird is a fast learner, it turns out. By the end of the second session, they’re actually conversing, inasmuch as one can converse in spec ops sign.
Question: ally? Question: Designation?
Ally. Designation N-B. Question: designation?
Designation commander D-L. Condition?
OK. Condition?
OK.
-
After the second session, Nightbird shows up at Deadlock’s hab an hour into his off-shift.
“Out,” Deadlock snaps, getting to his feet. “One warning.”
Question: ally? Nightbird signs.
“Commander!” He signs it, along with retreat, although she’s shown that she understands spoken language just fine. “And you don’t trespass into command’s quarters.”
Commander – question – ally?
“What? D’you mean – I’m not your friend!”
Deadlock hasn’t had to say that to anyone in – ever, really. Usually the body language is enough to get the message across. Now Deadlock is in Nightbird’s space, looming, taller and broader and heavier, blocking the doorframe. His engine rumbles low in warning. Nightbird hasn’t moved.
Troops – incommunicado, she signs.
His facial recognition software spins in circles trying to make meaning of Nightbird’s blank stare. Stubbornness? Incomprehension? The ambiguity is distracting. Deadlock feels wrong-footed, even though he has a loaded gun on each hip, even though could have her hauled out for punishment right now and suffer no consequences.
NB – alone.
Weakness is antithetical to the Decepticon movement, so Deadlock does not allow his expression to soften.
“Go recharge or something,” he growls, turning away. “Don’t come here again.”
When he’s alone, Deadlock boots up the computer terminal built into his desk and types out a missive to Megatron.
Get her a soundboard. DL.
-
Out on sabotage duty, Nightbird is everything Deadlock could have hoped for. She keeps her mind on the mission, she’s efficient, she’s silent. No stupid grabs for glory or pointless destruction. She seems entirely willing to leave him behind, which shows initiative Deadlock is pleased with. He feels a pang for the early days of the movement, when it had been a passionate revolution and not a millennia-spanning war of attrition.
“Anyone actually told you why we’re fighting?” He asks, on the way back to base. Nightbird’s lack of alt mode means they are forced to walk to a safe pick-up point, where Astrotrain can retrieve them without being seen. (It’s either that or her sitting on top of him as he drives, which would lack a certain dignity.) Nightbird flashes her optics in affirmation.
“Who told you?”
There are fools and bad actors among them in droves. Mechs like Shockwave and Starscream and blood-hungry opportunists who don’t even remember the old Cybertron. Mechs with a skewed view of the cause, who have reason to mislead a friendless newbuild.
Nightbird signs: commander. M.
This should soothe Deadlock, but it doesn’t. A worming doubt has been plaguing him lately. There have been more and more signs that Megatron is losing sight of what’s really important. He’s been more focused on revenge against Optimus Prime than the utopia they were supposed to bring about by overthrowing the Senate’s lackeys. Deadlock wonders what exactly Megatron told her, and if it is the same thing he told Deadlock when he was recruited all those lifetimes ago.
“I was there on old Cybertron. Came up in the Dead End.”
Any other mech’s EM field would ebb and flow to indicate attention and reaction. Not Nightbird. It gives the off-putting impression that Deadlock is talking to a statue. This is not a fair thing to think of a mech who did not choose her specs, who has no choice but to be silent and stare. He does not like hearing the sentiment inside his own processor. It’s the sort of thing mechs used to say about the empurata.
“A lot of mechs fell through the cracks. Mechs like you. We rusted on the sidewalk and the Senate did nothing. That is why we’re fighting the cowards too comfortable for real change.”
Nightbird regards him impassively. If only they’d given her a mouth to frown with. If only she could crinkle the edges of her optics the way mechs with battle-masks do to mimic a smile. All she can do is flash her optics. Yes. It could be emphatic agreement, or disinterested acknowledgement of her superior officer. Deadlock can only guess at what she truly thinks.
“It won’t be like that after the war,” he says. And there will be an after.
Nightbird signs three glyphs. Request: intel – location.
“Cybertron?”
Nightbird flashes her optics. Yes. Request: intel.
Deadlock has no truly good memories of Cybertron. Only of the inhabitants, and even those are in short supply. He wishes he could tell her it was beautiful. Off your processor on neurotropics, looking up at the stars with your head in the lap of the only mech you’ve ever trusted, it sometimes got close.
“You’ll see it one day. There will be a place for you.”
Nightbird is unreadable as the sound of Astrotrain’s motors approaches. She flashes her optics at him. Yes.