Nexus. Blue's Bar. A Meeting of Opposites

[lumina-mechnics.livejournal.com]

It was another late night for Random, another recharge-less night. It was on these nights that he got off his berth and walked down to the Engineering Labs to work on some unfinished project leftover from the day--or at least that's what he told whichever mech found him recharging in the lab one of those times when he was unable to make it back to his quarters.

As usual he had managed to pass through the quiet halls without being approached by the nightshift. If Red Alert heard that, he'd freak. However, when he opened the door to the lab and walked in, he found himself in a place that he didn't recognize as either Wheeljack's lab or the Ark.

At first he wondered if he'd missed a memo, like one saying "Wheeljack's working on something in his lab, ENTER AT YOUR OWN RISK," and searched over his memory banks to find such of a memo as he glanced around the bar to prevent extra thinking. When he doesn't immediately find a memo, his 'oh great, just what I needed' attitude began to fade to outright panic. Before it spread too far, however, something in his mind made a connection between "bar"--which this place obviously was--and "Nexus."

Hmm. Maybe . . . ? He began to take his processors off of finding the memo and to set them to the task of thoroughly searching the bar for anyone he's seen before in the Nexus . . .

Comments

[lumina-mechnics.livejournal.com]

"She's just worried about you." He takes another drink and realizes his cube's almost empty. "When organics get older, inactivity tends to act like a catalyst for the aging process. Once they decided not to do some physical activity and don't do it for a long enough time, they usually can't do it again because the muscles they would've used for that activity have wasted away. . . . If that somehow applies to 'bots as well, I don't know." He doesn't see that many older mechs in his reality.

[random_xtras]

"Tsk. It's not like I'm going to let myself rust." She nods to the cube. "Help yourself."

[lumina-mechnics.livejournal.com]

"No, no one would be stupid enough to expose themselves to cosmic rust. Now, someone infecting someone else with it on the other hand is a different story." He looks between his almost empty cube, her and her cube. "I think I'm fine."

[random_xtras]

"Cosmic rust?" He gets a puzzled frown. She's forgotten she had a drink.

[lumina-mechnics.livejournal.com]

O_o? She doesn't know what--NEXUS. DUH!

"You know how rust is basically a reaction between metal and certain elements found in the air? Well, not cosmic rust. 'Bots in my reality are immune to normal rust because of how Cybertronian alloys in my reality are structured, but those same alloys allow us to be exposed to a more dangerous form: Cosmic rust. Cosmic rust is a essentially a disease affecting only Transformers. It acts like normal rust: a reaction between the metal and the disease cause the metal to turn brown, flaky, and extremely brittle; but cosmic rust's not dependent on precipitation, atmosphere, or humidity. It's also highly contagious--nothing can prevent a 'bot from getting it--and infects a 'bot a thousand times faster than the normal rust would. If it's let go for too long, it can literary cause a 'bot to lose their limbs, or worse become a pile of rust dust!" He finally puts his hands down from where they'd been emphasizing his points by helping him give her a visual and reaches for his drink, which he casually finishes off. "Or so I've heard."

[random_xtras]

She stares for a moment, then makes a small, ill sound and shutters her optics.

"Bad image...."

[lumina-mechnics.livejournal.com]

"S'why I'm so glad I wasn't on Earth for that . . . " He shudders.

[random_xtras]

"Thank the Allspark we don't have anything like that where I come from. That I know of, anyway. I think being rusty is mostly a figure of speech, though I hear I once had a light case on some internal wiring after a stressful mission."

She frowns, optics searching the past, then nods slightly. "Yeah... that one's real."

[lumina-mechnics.livejournal.com]

O_o Naturally occurring internal . . . rust?

"Uh." Man, he really hated looking pessimistic or untrusting in this situation, but he feels he has to ask. "You mentioned winning a race earlier . . . that true too?"

[random_xtras]

She quirks a brow ridge, then nods toward a newspaper clipping stuck on the corkboard behind the bar.

[lumina-mechnics.livejournal.com]

He looks in its direction long enough to see what she pointed out, trusting her enough not to get up and take a closer look, then gazes sheepishly down at his empty. "Just making sure." Females were never gonna make sense to him.

[random_xtras]

A hand comes across the table and gently pats his, and then she takes out a smaller book and writes down the memory in it. "That's why Blue's taken to saving pictures of anything significant that happens to me lately. We've already verified several things from my past, too."

[lumina-mechnics.livejournal.com]

((*shoves the word "cube" into last post*))

As the hand comes to pat his, he sighs and traces the edge of the cube with his finger again.

"That's good," the words sound distracted, but he heard what she said and is aware of what she's doing.