Not Much Of A Secret

Basement Level

The basement of Crystal City isn't really as pretty as the city is topside. It looks like a finished basement that is slightly more sparkly than usual, and that's about the only odd thing about it. There is a spiral staircase leading downward, to the storerooms.

Contents:

Redshift Fleet

Obvious exits:

Up &lt;U&gt; Down &lt;D&gt;

Fleet walks back and forth, tip-tap-tip-tap-tip-tap. Rather abnormally, he volunteered for this mission. Every once in awhile he does that, just so that people don't start perceiving him as useless. Still, he can't shake the thought that because he /did/ volunteer, things will go horribly wrong.

Redshift checks his ammo, and glances sharply at Fleet and his incessant tapping. "Nervous, Fleet?" Redshift says with a sneer. "Hopefully the Autobots have cleared out all of the /death traps/, so there really isn't anything to be afaid of."

Catechism is totally nosing around for the hidden Autobot glitter stores. Rodimus Prime and Patchwork's machinations have her paranoid. She looks about, worried, and opines, "The blasted city is so shiny, they could hide the glitter in plain sight, and we'd never be the wiser."

Fleet snorts. "I'm not relying on that," he answers Redshift, then he turns and frowns at Catechism. He tilts his head. "... Glitter? Why are we concerned with glitter?"

Redshift is relying on being fast enough to outrun both Fleet and Catechism should things get ugly. But they don't need to know that. "There probably sren't any death traps anyway. This is like... Storage facilities, old warehouses, old transit tubes." "Remember those TUBES with the lame trains in them? Whatever happened to all the tubes? Havent' seen one in ages."

Catechism throws her hands in the air and insists, "I have it on /very/ good authority that the Autobots aim to weaponise glitter in their unjust war against our righteous cause." She shrugs. "Astrotrain probably unionised them, and they're all off on energon break now." That is probably not what happened at all.

"Redshift, at one time or another, the Autobots used just about every underground spot as hide-outs. Being storage doesn't mean a place might not be trapped!" Fleet points out. Then he turns and stares at Catechism. He remains silent for a long moment. Then he straightens up and looks at the spiral staircase.

"Well!" he says brightly. "Shall we get started?"

Redshift snaps his rifle up into a ready position, and his formerly relaxed posture becomes that of a trained warrior. "Right. Let's get to it, sensors ready, weapons ready." He replies, and heads for the innocouous-looking staircase to the bowels of the city.

Catechism is always armed, as long as she has her arms (and arm-guns) intact. Makes being dangerous a hands-off affair, unless she wants to get up close and personal. Rather heedless, she barges down toward the /spiral/ staircase. Catechism mutters, "The staircase is obviously sinister."

You move to the Security Walkway.

Security Walkway

This security walkway doesn't seem like it gets much, if any, use. The lights are low, poorly spaced, and sometimes even flicker, but only erratically and not all the time. There is almost a strobe effect, but it isn't that reliable. When enough of it is illuminated that the walkway can be properly seen, it is just a narrow passage, perhaps behind other rooms, that a guard could use to check on the underground complex. There are a few doorways here, but opening them is another story entirely.

Obvious exits:

Northeast &lt;NE&gt; North &lt;N&gt;  Northwest &lt;NW&gt;  Up &lt;U&gt;

Redshift arrives from the Basement Level.

Redshift has arrived.

Fleet arrives from the Basement Level.

Fleet has arrived.

Fleet follows Redshift and Catechism down. Really, he wanted to be in the middle, but come to think of it, not being a spacer, he needs as much of a hedstart as he can get. He peers around the room, frowning at the flickering. "So, which way?"

"Huh. Neither of you have radar or infra-vision or anything, do you?" Redshift muses, peering into the dimly lit space, although there is little here to look at. "Pick one? I don't think it really matters at this point. See any signs of the 'bots who might've been here before us?"

Catechism rubs the back of her cone and admits, "Uh... my sensors as a jet are better than my sensors as a robot, but we don't have much room here, and uh..." She peers about, and the flickering lights gives her a mild headache. "...well, I don't see anything obvious, but I'm not Soundwave."

Fleet frowns and looks around, inspecting all the exits. "I have some decent long distance sensors, but they're in my alternate mode. I think just about everyone can see Northeast and Northwest, though. Seems like... a Disposal Area and some stairs?"

'Well, what's in the other direction, then? Waste disposal does ot sound very interesting." Redshift replies, frowning at the thought of crawling through a literal /sewer/ instead of just dim and dusty corridors. "Let's try this way, see what's beyond this door." He says, and heads north. If the door will open.

Catechism crinkles her nose and suggests, stabbing a finger in the air to make her point really pointed, "Stairs are better than /rubbish/."

Fleet watches Redshift approach the door. Then he watches the door not open. The pale yellow Seeker steps lightly over to the door, then attempts to pull it open. Then he tries to push it. Then he tries to slide it aside. Finally, he frowns and shrugs.

Redshift frowns, and kicks the door that refuses to open. "Huh, maybe it's mag-locked, or needs a voice instruction." He grumbles. He steps back, and glowers at the door. "OPEN!" Nothing. "ACCESS!" Still nothing. "I'm a member of the Decepticons who rule this planet! OPEN UP, DOOR!" "UGH. Catechism, maybe you can DEMAND this door to open?"

Catechism stalks over to the door and looks it over critically. She points at her conical head, a grim expression on her face, and she proclaims, "The key that unlocks all doors. Now unless you wanna get REAMED, you antiquated hunk of ju-" -that would be when Catechism falls through the now-open door.

You move north to the Overseer's Room.

Overseer's Room

The captain of any hypothetical guard team could easily supervise many storerooms from here, as there is a bank of monitors set up with viewing areas that would cover much of the underground... if they were active. Most of the screens shown only static, as if the security cameras conked out, and some of the screens are burned out entirely. The few that do function only show silent storerooms and corridors, blurred by the dust of ages. There seems to be a voice-activated door leading to a small office.

Obvious exits:

North &lt;N&gt; South &lt;S&gt;

Redshift has arrived.

Fleet has arrived.

Catechism picks herself up off the floor, dusts herself off, and looks over her shoulder, explaining, "You just need to know how to talk to these lesser machines; put 'em in their place."

Redshift tumbles in after Catechism, catching himself on his agile feet before he hits the floor. He looks around briefly, but for all the work, there isn't much here. "Huh. Broken monitors aren't much good. BUT what will be behind door number two?" He asks, and checks the door at the rear of the security room.

"I shall keep that in mind, Wing Commander," Fleet answers as he walks in gracefully behind Redshift and Catechism. He tilts his head and smirks faintly as Redshift immediately darts ahead, then shrugs and starts to tip-tap-tip-tap after.

Redshift moves north to the Small Office.

Redshift has left.

You move north to the Small Office.

Small Office

The office is cramped and not built to be very comfortable to anyone with a lot of bulky alternate mode parts. There is a desk and chair, with two chairs across from it, closer to the door. Most of the more interesting files seem to be have been cleared out of the room before it was abandoned. A few old reports detailing boring shipping manifest remains, and some old office supplies.

Contents:

Redshift Desk

Obvious exits:

South &lt;S&gt;

Fleet has arrived.

Redshift struts in liek he owns the place, and being head-and-shoulders shorter than the Seekers, he kinda fits in the small space a bit better anyway. "An office, no doubt secured against prying optics by the intlligent door, which has clearly seen my GREATNESS and allowed me passage!" "If only there was something useful in it."

Fleet follows the others in (again) and looks around. "Well, at least boring is generally safe," he observes softly.

Desk

The desk of ordinary enough and quite old and dated. There is a filing cabinet attached underneath it. The top two drawers are empty. The bottom drawer is locked. Shaking the desk makes a rattling noise, like something is left inside.

Catechism has no trouble with the door. Perhaps the doors in this block of the unnderground are now all terrified of her. She snorts and glares, grumbling, "Well, this is boring. There isn't even a mirror in this office, to check if Fleet has become a vampire." She shoots an apologetic glance at Fleet. "Sorry. I mean... to check if any non-Fleet visitors are vampires." She static-coughs.

Redshift decides to make himself comfortable in the chair, as it's been a log time since Redshift had his own office. He kinda misses it. Rummaging through the desk proves fruitless, as the upper drawers prove to be empty. Tantalizingly, the bottom drawer is firmly locked. "After the trouble with the doors, I figured there'd be /something/ left unplundered in here! Clearly not any old mech is going to get in. Maybe your freezy knife can break the lock, Fleet? Or Catechism could rip it open? We'll split the contents, 50-50!"

Fleet gives Catechism a long and silent look for a moment. Finally, he shakes himself out of it and turns to Redshift. "There's three of us," he points out, then tiptaptips over to the desk drawer and kneels, slipping his knife out. The Seeker tries to slip the cold-energy blade between the drawer and the desk itself and pry it open. "However, I'll see what I can do anyway."

Combat: Fleet compares his Technical to 50: Success!

Fleet pries the desk drawer open. "There we go."

Catechism brings up her right hand and rests it on her left upper arm, feeling distinctly uncomfortable. She said sorry! And it's true anyway - Fleet makes all these weird pacts with dark powers. She says loudly, trying to change the subject, "Uh, good job opening that drawer! Hope it doesn't explode in your face."

"Yes, of course there are three of us. But It's MY desk, and YOU are getting the drawer open." He smirks to Catechism and shrugs apologetically. "You can have half of what's in the NEXT locked mysterious desk drawer we find." "Have you found anything?"

Fleet peers in. "No, no explosion." Then he reaches in and withdraws two flasks. He sets one on the desk, then opens the other and sniffs it. "Although I suspect it wouldn't take much to cause this to explode. Seems very... well-aged, I'd say."

Catechism grouses, "Blueshift probably poisoned it, anyway." She shifts into full-out disgruntled crossed arms.

Redshift greedily snatches up the flask Fleet puts on the desk, in case anyone has second thoughts about Redshift's shady dealings. "Blue wouldn't be able to get past the door! Anyway, I think we've explored this area enough, unless you see any secret door or anything..." Redshiftm uses, checking the corners for hidden switches as he pockets the possibly volatile flask.

"If I did, it wouldn't be much of a secret," Fleet observes quietly. He sniffs tentively at the flask again.