An Exploration Mission (Closed; Att'n Vallermoore)

[Victorious Decepticons]

Outlands

Upon hearing this, the woman lowered the shotgun, but then adjusted how she was holding it so her hand was partway down the barrel with the butt end pointing at the ground. Then, she walked purposefully out of the door and came right over to Tariq, making sure she stayed out of striking range of the tail.

"Ha ha ha," she started off, before actually beginning to talk. "I thought you were one 'a them...them mutants they make over that the Biological Research Center! You know them robots; they're always tryin' ta make stuff huge like they are. So I thought you were a giant crawdad just waitin' ta be cut up and put in my pot!" Now, her look changed and became hard. "And the other thing you ain't, is a Decepticon!"

She didn't say how she figured that last part out, but instead, stood there waiting for a response as awkward, slightly hostile silence enveloped them.

~~~~~~~~~~

Farooq easily made contact with the boar, which let out a loud, piggy squeal before keeling over. He heard the other boars start running toward him out of the brush, but then, he heard something that might be far more dangerous: The hooting of a group of 4-6 male humans. Soon, he could hear them crashing through the underbrush. Just as the first boars began to appear, they heard the noise too - and to Farooq's surprise, they all scattered and hid again. These humans had clearly become associated with danger to the animals.

In a flash, Farooq made a decision. He grabbed the smallish boar that he'd killed and quickly took it with him behind the bush line. Instead of dragging it, he made sure to pick it up so it wouldn't leave a scrape mark right to his location. The 200-lb carcass was heavy, but not so heavy that he couldn't carry it a few feet. Using his tail, he quickly wiped away the few drops of blood that had fallen.

Soon, the humans emerged from another part of the brush. Long, sharp spears were held aloft by the warrior band, and their muscle tension was visible as they looked for who - or what- ever had assaulted their boars. Internally, Farooq grew angry as he realized that he'd been sent not just to "get a boar," but to actually steal one from a pack that was obviously claimed by some other tribe. Now he not only had to be concerned that the other boars would regroup, but that these warriors might find him. At least this group didn't appear to have guns.

The humans, all of which were dressed in animal-fur loincloths, looked around the clearing excitedly while keeping their spears at the ready. Finally, they turned and went back into the brush, but Farooq could hear that they weren't really gone. They'd only gone in a little ways, and then became silent. Most likely, they were hoping that whatever attacked their boars would show itself, at which point they intended to drill it full of spears. By the obviousness of their ambush setup, it was likely that they figured some other animal had taken one, rather than a highly sapient hunter.

Farooq remained perfectly still, hoping to wait them out - and also holding a tiny bit of hope that some other animal would show up and that they would kill it, instead of continuing to hold their own positions.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~

First Temple of Vallermoore

Rurik looked them all over, noticing Wealthy One's Decepticon Seal mark. He had to smile and also marvel at how these strange creatures had marks that pretty much identified their specialties! Yet, he also cringed at how such an obvious sign would surely draw the attention of everyone from schoolteachers to law enforcers as the so-marked pony grew up. If it was him, he decided, he'd paint over it and put something "nice" instead. He was glad that even as an obvious alien, he wasn't obviously a surefire criminal on top of it...even though he actually was a criminal.

"Nothing to it," he said when presented with the lock bit. He opened up a pincer and snapped the metal with a bit of effort. "These things originally evolved to chop open malanga shells," he said, referring to a form of giant clam found on his home world. "Those are so tough that they can also be used to make pilings for tall bridges, once ground up and mixed with cement."

"Great," said Chard. "Now, let's go back to the base so we can go over the plan."

As they left the Temple, the snappily-dressed human was loitering outside. He initially had a menacing expression, but when he saw that Rurik was indeed with a gang now, he slapped on a pleasant one. It was very obviously an intentional change, and Martin gave him a look that let him know that this had been noticed. Martin also put his hand in his pocket, letting the other man know that there was surely a gun in there. The nicely-dressed human simply nodded, and continued loitering against the wall.

Once they were far enough away to be out of earshot, Chard said, "We'll be taking an alternate route to the base. I'm not sure who that guy works for, but it's somebody - and that somebody ain't us. If he tries to follow us, we're gonna make him regret it. Got that, new guy?"

[Edited to fix cutie mark]

[Vallermoore]

First Temple of Vallermoore

Rurik looked the gang over-they were tough characters, and he inwardly marveled at how the mark on a pony flank matched up so well with what they were good at. This one got his mark before Megatron had become divine, a gleaming Decepticon Seal that seemed a bit unstratigic even on a Megatronist planet. "You like the mark? If I was doing something like a fraud, or a crime that would cause a lot of heat, I'd put a fake one over it, but if intimidation is needed, or I'm meeting with other gangs and want to show I am one of their kind, I show it proudly. Now more and more ponies seem to be starting to earn one, but back then it was almost unique." The cutie mark shimmered as if made of painted steel rather then pony fur.

He broke the lock easily with his claws, showing he could do the same to a lock that was doing it's job. "These things originally evolved to chop open malanga shells.Those are so tough that they can also be used to make pilings for tall bridges, once ground up and mixed with cement." "Great," replied Chard. "Now, let's go back to the base so we can go over the plan." The human, that was either an undercover cop or a rival gangster-bad news either way-was outside.

Chard said "We'll be taking an alternate route to the base. I'm not sure who that guy works for, but it's somebody - and that somebody ain't us. If he tries to follow us, we're gonna make him regret it. Got that, new guy?" "Certainly," replied Rurik, raising his deadly tail for a few seconds. The human started following and Rurik readied himself to kill if need be for his new gang. Killing a rival would be a major plus from their point of view, but if it was done too openly could still bring cops down on them. Murder was still illegal here, and whilst most Vallermoorians didn't snitch, some would in such a severe case. All the same, Rurik was willing to do it. He was learning by being in a gang how to be a good member of Decepticon society, where gangs ranging from powerful syndicates to small ones were as common as families on law-abiding worlds. In fact, for everyday purposes the gang there was far more important then the Line (although Line members would help each other out occasionally and often met at Christmas.)


Their route took them past part of the two mile long cemetery within Grand City, which was guarded by a unit of unsmiling and very well armed Vallermoorian soldiers. "The zombies will rise soon," Chard explained, "and they want to blast them when they break out of their graves. Those zombies are strong-but stupid. Obviously if any of them get near us, it's both legal and expected to bump them off, perhaps the only thing us and cops can agree on."

Rurik saw the stranger was still following at a distance.

Outlands

Farooq stung the boar that squeeled loudly as he died, prepared himself to face the boars but instead had to hide, with the boar, from several humans, inwardly cursing. There were several of them, so he hid. In a one on one, he would probebly have been victorious, but with many of them, hidding made good sense. He hoped they would get bored and go, or just leave one sentry that he could creep up on and sting. As luck would have it, a large python came near to where they were.

*****

"I said I was in the hope you woulden't shoot me on sight. I'm not after you or your land, I just want to move on and keep on moving, as to settle in an area would bring either the humans who live here or the Decepticons against me. I escaped from their captivity in fact. To them all biologicals are only fit to be slave labor," Tariq said.

[Victorious Decepticons]

Outlands

The woman was just about to say something back to Tariq when a groan came from behind the trailer. She got a disgruntled look on her face, and then hefted the shotgun back into the active position.

"That damned Jake. He's been dead for years, but every year around this time, he gets up and starts walkin' around. He's such a pest! Well, come on..."

She began to walk toward the side of the mobile home, and to Tariq's surprise, there was a well-hidden path. Without pausing to wait for him, she continued on around until she got to a spot where the foliage from the brush was just a little thinner. There, she raised the shotgun to her shoulder and got ready to fire.

"Well c'mon Jake, I haven't got all day," she groused quietly. Jake apparently didn't understand, or perhaps didn't hear, because she ended up waiting for 10 minutes. Finally, she let off a double-barreled blast and quickly racked a couple of more shells into position. Sure enough, she had to fire again soon. Tariq heard a nasty, mushy clunk and then silence.

After this, the woman barged through the branches and Tariq followed, his tail ready in case anything attacked. There on the ground was a very rotted corpse with several old bullet holes and shotgun blasts already through it. It reeked and was full of insect larvae.

"This happens every year. Been going on for years. I can only guess that them damned machines let out some kind of virus. The dead come back up and then they wander around bein' stupid. And if you try to talk to 'em, they just try to eat your head. Good fer nuthin'..." her grousing trailed off into an incomprehensible stream of grumpy muttering.

As Tariq was trying to comprehend this scene, the sound of Decepticon jets filled the air. They both looked in the direction of the noise, and could barely make out a group of approaching robots accompanied by a much-larger cargo-bot.

"Mine Number One!" The woman announced, not sounding sad to see them at all. "They hunt zombies. Use 'em as slaves until they fall apart. Too bad they never stop here. They always go to where there was some big battle, in the hopes of finding a lot of 'em. It still does some good. Keeps the zombie population down. Makes it a lot easier to go shopping over in Clewiston."

Tariq remembered that Clewiston was the decently-large settlement with the crazy laughing woman and the weird spirit-thing. "What's going on over there, anyway?!" He asked, and recounted some of the strangeness.

"Oh, that's just that wannabe Marie LaVoe callin' up filthy spirits again. She thinks they'll be able to take over some a' them robots and make 'em do her bidding. I don't mess with her. She's crazy. And if they find out what she's tryin' ta do to 'em, they'll send the Battalion over and that'll be that. We don't want that. Them Genocides are like a disease. You let 'em off in one spot, and then they wanna spread all over and kill everything."

By now, Tariq's head was almost spinning from all of the references to things that he couldn't understand, but at least this person wasn't trying to blast him anymore. Her nonchalance over having to shoot Jake, not just once but clearly many times in the past, however, was a bit disconcerting.

~~~~~~~~~~~~

The humans quickly barged out when they saw the python, and as expected, speared it mightily. However, when one got out a crude knife and cut it open, there was no boar inside.

"This ain't the thing that done it! Let's hide again and hope it comes out! Leave this stupid snake here as bait!" The ringleader said, and they all piled back into their hiding positions. Farooq waited, now with more patience. This had confirmed that they indeed had an animal culprit in mind.

Hours later, to Farooq's relief, a large black bear came moseying up to the snake carcass. It gave it a couple of cursory sniffs, and then looked up with what seemed to be a surprised expression. With a bit of "well, okay~" body language, it grabbed the snake by the head end and began to drag it away.

~~~~~~~~~~~

Grand City Cemetery, Vallermoore

Rurik and another of the gang noticed the strange man following, but before they could do anything, the ground in the graveyard near where they were walking began to shift. Immediately, some soldiers came within firing range, their weapons ready. Just as they expected, several zombies began to claw their way out of the ground. Apparently, cement cemetery vaults were not a thing here, because the putrefying creatures seemed to have no trouble with the digging-out.

[Vallermoore]

Grand City Cemetery, Vallermoore


A large number of decomposing zombies, clad in their burial clothes, pulled themselves out of the ground and started shambling forward, looking for humans to bite. A number of them wore amulets or other jewelery, and there were pony zombies too, in many cases with their cutie marks still unrotted. The Vallermoorian soldiers were tough and opened fire with AK47s at the zombies, gunning a lot of them down before they reached them. Just then a winged zombie, a Pegusus, came gliding down, teeth agape. Rurik raised his tail and it slit the zombie open and popped it like a balloon, bringing it crashing to the ground in front of Chard, who shot it through the head. Rather then reacting negatively to this, several of the soldiers grinned. "Halloween is the one time of the year when even the police and security forces have no problems with open carry at all," Chard explained. Another wave of zombies came at them and by now the soldiers had run out of ammunition. They took this wave down with grenades, scattering body parts and pieces of stone from graveyards everywhere, but a third, much smaller wave came.


"Let's help the military out," said Chard and he and his gang used their guns to kill a few more zombies, whist Rurik got another with his tail, only to have to break it's neck with a pincer when that didn't kill it. The last few were bayoneted by the military and had their necks broken with stomps from military boots. One soldier got kicked in the belly by a zombie earth pony in the fight, but was only winded, and one soldier was bitten in the neck, and his sergeant shot him with one of the last bullets. "Thank you, we would have lost more then one man dead and one injured if you hadn't got involved. Can we do you a favor?," the sergeant said to Chard. "Yes, don't let that man who is following us go down this road until we are well away from him, we don't like him." They were able to escape their pursuer and soon reached their hideout in a slightly seedy area of town. After a sweep with a bug detector that turned negative, Chard started explaining the plan he had for the gang to steal at least a million Chingchings from the Bank of Vallermoore.

Outlands

A loud groan was heard. "That damned Jake. He's been dead for years, but every year around this time, he gets up and starts walkin' around. He's such a pest! Well, come on..." Jake was probebly her boyfriend when he was alive, Tariq thought. After the woman shot him, Tariq saw a rotted, insect infested human. body. She explained about Madame Lavoe and about a Genocide Battalion who when it showed up, slaughtered everybody in sight. "Is there something I could do for you in exchange for hanging out here for a day or two?" he asked her.


*****

The python was swiftly speared to death and cut open, and soon enough a large black bear showed up. Farooq was able to get away with the boar whilst the fight went on and got it back to the gun armed tribe's territory, then called out "Here is a boar waiting for you, dead for only a few hours, fresh and ready for eating."

[Victorious Decepticons]

Cybertron

During this time of year, many gangs declared cease-fires in order to avoid having their foes possibly rising as zombies and kicking their asses with bodies that had become nearly invincible. When a battle happened anyway, the victor would quickly take the loser to the foundry, hoping to get him melted down before the zombification could occur.

This was the case with the extra-shiny yellow robot who was now stood in front of the foundryman, who was about to push it into the molten metal in his smelting pit, which was sunken into the floor for easy access. He didn't even bother to weigh it; it looked mostly intact except for the large hole blasted through its engine compartment, which had taken out most of the engine along with the battery and deactivated it.

"That pile of reject parts just couldn't stop insulting me," the winner of the fight had said, with some anger still in his voice. "He thought I'd be afraid of him coming back at me! Melt it down!"

The foundryman had agreed as long as the victor accepted a price of 2,500 Cubes, which was down 500 because the metal of the engine was almost entirely gone. Upon getting a nod, he moved around to the position he'd need to be in to give the body a good heave.

Right about then is when that body began to laugh. Its dark eyes showed that the energizing capabilities of its usual power system were still quite deactivated, yet it very purposefully shoved the foundry attendant out of the way and then began to blast at the one who had shut him down just moments before. Instantly, the fire was returned, causing the loss of the zombie's active blaster arm. He just laughed again, and continued firing away with the other one.

Though it wasn't the easy battle the zombie had been hoping for, it eventually went in his favor. Finally, the once-victor was disabled, but not killed. Without negotiating, the zombie activated jamming and then threw his foe into the pit, where said foe screamed and cursed before the foundrybot shoved him under the surface with a big pole.

"Guess you get the 3,000 Cubes," he said to the zombie, not wanting to be next. By now, the zombie was missing all of one arm and half of another, and had suffered much damage to his leg. Of course, he was still down an engine and a battery, as well.

"It looks like I need it," the undead Decepticon laughed. "But after I fix this damage, I'll be one of the most powerful gang leaders on the planet." He looked over toward the pit. "Thanks, sucker," he said to the floating paint that was now all that remained of the other guy.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Sinaloa Group Main Offices

El Chapo and 10 of his top operatives stood in a line as if they were about to be shot by a firing squad. Strong jamming was running, likely from some sort of dedicated machine rather than someone's onboard weapons system.

"We are the toughest, grittiest, delivery group there ever was!" El Chapo was speaking. "Now we will be even tougher!" He raised a hand slightly, and pressed the button on the remote that he held. As he did this, the entire group put on granite-like expressions of fearlessness and determination. As soon as the button was fully depressed, a barrage of artillery fire erupted and deactivated every one of them, leaving them as smoking, but relatively intact, heaps of metal on the floor.

Minutes later, each one got back up, eyes now dark. The smuggled-in Overseer's Zombie Powder they had blown throughout their interiors prior to this had done its job.

"Now we, the High Command of the Sinaloa Group, are all but invincible. We shall repair this temporarily-fatal, but otherwise minor, damage now. Then we will install new eye-lights which are not sensitive to our life-states. No one will know what they're up against unless we need to show them - and once we show them, they won't be seeing anything else..." El Chapo said as he menacingly rubbed his blaster. The others gave some cheers and rubbed their blasters as well, all ready for the moment when some unlucky sod would find out about the Sinaloans' latest strength - the hard way.


~~~~~~~~~~~

Vallermoore

Rurik was in his element as they discussed how to rob the bank. He hadn't dared to try a bank robbery before, because on his home world, it had been punishable by death. By their confidence, however, he could tell that this country didn't have such a draconian penalty. Of course, he had no plans on getting busted, but liked to know what the stakes were before doing something, just the same.

"Is this a branch office or the main one," he asked. "And...not that anyone is going to get caught, but...what happens if we do? It's smart to know what to expect from the police and such..."

~~~~~~~~~~

Outlands, Decepticon Earth

"Oh, I suppose you can hang out here," the trailer woman said to Tariq. "There's a shed over ta the side. Jus' follow that little path. Ya can't see the the place except by shape. Make sure ya keep it that way! Ya don't want them machines seein' it, unless ya want ta work in some mine fer the rest of yer life." She said the last part as if there was an actual possibility that he really might want to work in a mine forever. It was a strange quirk of long-term Floridians to act as if some totally nasty thing might actually be desired by whoever they were talking to. Maybe it was because at some point in their lives, they came across a few nuts who did want completely insane things like that.

Tariq assured her that he didn't want to be a mine slave, or any other kind of a slave, again.

"Good. At least ya ain't totally bonkers. As for something I'd need, right now I need to get Jake back into his danged hole where he belongs. Can ya hold a shovel?"

~~~~~~~~~~~

Immediately upon hearing Farooq's call-out, several humans came rustling out of the scrub oaks hooting and yee-hawing. Just as they approached, though, the little boar began to move. Then it turned to Farooq and gave him a dry-sounding, choked growl. Farooq noticed that its eyes still had huge pupils, were glassy, and even beginning to dry out.

"Dayum! I forgot it's THAT time of year!" One of the humans said, cursing. "You got yourself a zombie now, boy! Gotta cut its head off! Or smash the head! Then it's bacon time!"

[Vallermoore]

Vallermoore

"It's the main one. And if you get caught for bank robbery-not counting snitches who grass on all their mates-the sentence ranges from as low as a five to ten prison sentence if noone was killed or maimed, to as high as the death penalty if you murdered someone or permanently paralysed them whilst doing the robbery. If we do things carefully and avoid murder of anyone who is not a zombie, the chance of getting caught is moderate, but if we kill a police officer the cops will make it their mission above all to hunt us down. They do give us a chance to surrender before shooting, generally. One good thing of bank robbery not being legal here is that the banks are not quite as fortress like and don't have armed staff. Most bank staff will give in as long as they know they won't be murdered or maimed no matter what they do, and generally us robbers don't do that to surrendered staff as if we did, it would be very counterproductive on future robberies. If this works, we won't need to rob again for a year or more. We have an insider who gave us a copy of the bank's key to get inside. Then we force the staff at gunpoint to open up the vault-not shooting unless we have to-take the staff's phones and lock them in the vault, and get back here with the stolen Chingchings and share them out. The zombie threat means police patrols will be most likely very busy containing the zombies which will help us. Of course, zombies are perfectly OK to shoot, and on Halloween, open carrying even in Grand City is legal because of the zombie danger."


Outlands, Decepticon Earth

Farooq carefully reached with a pincer underneath the boar's neck and broke the neck bones, slaying the zombie before it could charge at him or at them. A man said "We'll cut you a slice, and you can stay here tonight without any of us trying to kill or otherwise hurt you, you've earned it. This pork will be delicious when roasted."
*****
"Yes, if I'm careful. Was Jake your boyfriend once." Carefully Tariq helped to dig a grave for the now inert former body, wary in case it suddenly sprang back to life again.

[Victorious Decepticons]

Vallermoore

Rurik nodded like a tough guy, but inside, he was ecstatic to finally be going on a real "job." He couldn't wait to hit this bank, enjoy the scared faces of all of the tellers and the manager, and get rich in an instant! However, he did think of a couple of things their initial plan hadn't mentioned.

"Do we stick the customers in the vault along with the wage slaves?" He said with some eagerness. "Or are we going to hit it at a time when there probably won't be any?"

"Also, I presume one of you knows how to disable the silent alarm those places always have," he said after thinking a bit more. "A lot of those are wireless, so there isn't even a line to cut..."

~~~~~~~~~~~

Outlands, Decepticon Earth

"I'll be glad to have some!" Farooq said, already secretly salivating. "It's been ages since I've had some proper, cooked meat.

It took several hours to roast the pig in the underground pit they set up. These pits had a fire in them, but only a small "chimney" dug in from one side. That let the heat build up much like in an oven. It was a traditional
Southern way to handle a pig roast, but it also had the added benefit of sending the smoke several feet away from its actual source. These humans had learned this part of the method very well, and had upgraded it so that the exhaust vent was a full 100' away from their locations. This not only gave them plenty of chance to hide if a Decepticon landed where the vent's outhole was, but in many cases, allowed the smoke to precipitate out and stick to the side of the thin tunnel before it ever did get out.

This was working great this time, and zero visible smoke was escaping. However, if anyone had a thermal sensor, the heat pattern would still be a giveaway that something was going on. No one was worried about that, though. Decepticons didn't come all the way out here just to look for humans. As long as everyone avoided making a clearing and letting on how big of a group there was, they'd be fine. Even General Carjack didn't stop when he noticed a single man out in the field one day; he just continued on to his raft and started swimming. Of course, this tribe had moved several thousand feet down the beach, and then further into the brush, the moment Carjack had left again. They weren't taking any chance of becoming the next "training group" for the Genociders to practice on!

~~~~~~~~~~~~

Jake's body stayed dead for most of the time, during which the Florida Woman told her story.

"Oh, only for a little while," she said with almost no sadness. "He was really my supplier." A drug dealer. "Way too unstable for keeping a real relationship with. But he was reliable when it came to his product. Always the legit thing. Too bad for him, he wasn't too reliable when it came to paying HIS supplier." She pointed at a few specific spots on the body. Tariq realized that he was looking at a row of several very old bullet holes. "That supplier didn't like that. Ventilated him real good."

She came around to the front of the body, preparing to grab the wrists in order to help heave it in the new hole.

"The heck of it is...the heck of it is, his supplier saw him through my living room window, so he blasted him right through it! The son of a bitch really screwed up my trailer!! All I was tryin' to do was buy some pot!" Now, she was as angry as the day it had happened. Jake himself was already forgotten, replaced by anger over the blown-out windows the event had caused.

"You probably thought all of our business disappeared after them robots came, but that's not true at all. At least not here in the South! We're proper capitalists, just like always. We got a whole economy going, right under them robots' noses. Those wimpy Northerners, now THEY got decimated. That's what they get for being a bunch of soft liberals! Couldn't live long without their cops and rules and made-up bullshit." She sneered with an air of high superiority. "Not only that, they made the stupid mistake of getting on the TEEvee and saying that they were oh-so-morally-better than LEADER MEGATRON himself because he was a dictator! And they were stupid enough to watch it and let high ratings for that garbage roll in!" She nodded firmly, while badly hiding a big grin. "My family has told the story for generations, of how they hadn't even had a chance to get off the air up there when what would become the Genociders were already on the way to California. And now, there AIN'T no California! It's nothing but an Imperial Forest!" She announced smugly, as if the US Civil War was won by the South due to the robots siding with it.

Of course, the Decepticons really didn't care at all about some historic war. It just blasted any area fool enough to think itself better than the robots, and that was that. The South just had more "horse sense" at the time of the Invasion.

"And you probably know that the Genocide of New York is how that one Decepticon got his High General stripe." The woman added. "They were the same as California, only colder and ruder. The Genocider took it upon himself to wipe them right during the Invasion. He knew what they were about!"

"At least those are the stories in my family. I wouldn't know. It's been Decepticon Earth since before I was born."

She gestured for Tariq to pick the body up by the ankles while she grabbed the wrists. At first, it still seemed inert. But then it suddenly yanked one leg back, and with an amazing amount of strength, pulled its arms free of her grasp.

"Oh for PETE'S s~" She said loudly, pulling a pistol out of her pocket. Now that she was at point blank range, it was no trouble to put a bullet through whatever was left of Jake's brain. The body jerked strongly one time, and then was finally re-dead.

"Hey~! Maybe he'll stay buried this time! Won't know until next year, though. Come on, let's heave him in and cover him up."

"Oh, and I don't think I introduced myself. I'm Ginger." She added.

[Vallermoore]

Vallermoore


Rurik managed to keep most of his excitement inside. Chard said "Luckily, our target is not inside the Closed Zone that has contained 95% of the zombies, or we couldn't do the raid as the military would be in the way. Each of us can take a revolver and we can rig up an AK 47 so you can use it, but hopefully you won't have to. There are eleven banking staff, of which only one is known to be armed. Luckily, he is our mole so he won't put up a fight when we grab him. Your job is to cut certain alarm wires and the outer door locks with those pincers of yours. We go in, round up the workers, the bank will be shut so we don't have loads of customers to deal with. When we make the manager open the vault, we don't spend more then a maximum of seven minutes getting the money in case a silent alarm has been triggered. We leave them shut in without any phones, laptops or walkie talkies, the mole included, get back here and share out the cash and then disperse for a year or so. Assuming we have not been caught, we'll meet again in a year to plan a new robbery with a different target. With your share, Rurik, you can either live in hotels for a few months, rent somewhere or buy a small place to live, but my advice is to leave Grand City as even with a mask on, there are very, very few of your kind here, probably about fifty in the entire country. It's cheaper outside the capital anyway. It's legal to carry guns in the street at Halloween but keep them out of sight anyway."

With gloved hands he handed out weapons, masks and sacks and they headed at the speed limit to their target. A few miles from it the Vallermoorian Army, beefed up with police units, opened fire on the zombies in the cemeteries and main morgue. There were a very few zombies outside the cordon, but there were enough armed citizens to dispatch most of them quickly. The first time the Zombie event had been caused it had brought chaos and death to Vallermoore but now the armed forces were ready for it. When they got to the bank and put their masks on-masks of the President Clever One- Rurik broke the alarm wires that he could see and the door locks, letting them n.

Far from the scene the real Clever One was in 10 Upping Street, coordinating the struggle against the zombies, a revolver by him just in case a zombie somehow got in.

Cybertron


To avoid what happened last time where a band of zombies ended up invading the Main Refinery because a Domintel agent messed up, High General Soundwave had sent out proper instructions this time. Cybertron was surprisingly peaceful for once, with many truces between the gangs and syndicates whilst the Zombie Event carried on.


Outlands, Decepticon Earth


Farooq was very pleased to have some well cooked roast boar and it tasted very nice indeed, and had been cooked well enough to avoid any parasites. They were so pleased that he had got it for them, they even gave him some real toilet paper for when he needed it rather then just leaves that might turn out to be poison ivy. As it turned out, his own bottom had a pair of tentacles that were used for wiping it after a toilet trip, since his pincers were not much good at wiping. They asked him about himself and how he ended up here, and admired his deadly tail.

*****
"Oh, only for a little while.He was really my supplier. Way too unstable for keeping a real relationship with. But he was reliable when it came to his product. Always the legit thing. Too bad for him, he wasn't too reliable when it came to paying HIS supplier."That supplier didn't like that. Ventilated him real good." She pointed at some bullet holes."The heck of it is...the heck of it is, his supplier saw him through my living room window, so he blasted him right through it! The son of a bitch really screwed up my trailer!! All I was tryin' to do was buy some pot!" She was furious but not with Tariq. "You probably thought all of our business disappeared after them robots came, but that's not true at all. At least not here in the South! We're proper capitalists, just like always. We got a whole economy going, right under them robots' noses. Those wimpy Northerners, now THEY got decimated. That's what they get for being a bunch of soft liberals! Couldn't live long without their cops and rules and made-up bullshit. Not only that, they made the stupid mistake of getting on the TEEvee and saying that they were oh-so-morally-better than LEADER MEGATRON himself because he was a dictator! And they were stupid enough to watch it and let high ratings for that garbage roll in!" She was clearly a Decepticon-In-Spirit.

"My family has told the story for generations, of how they hadn't even had a chance to get off the air up there when what would become the Genociders were already on the way to California. And now, there AIN'T no California! It's nothing but an Imperial Forest! "And you probably know that the Genocide of New York is how that one Decepticon got his High General stripe. They were the same as California, only colder and ruder. The Genocider took it upon himself to wipe them right during the Invasion. He knew what they were about! At least those are the stories in my family. I wouldn't know. It's been Decepticon Earth since before I was born."

After dealing with Jake, they chatted a bit, and Tariq said "I'm happy that you and your family escaped capture. He moved closer, ready if he had to, to use his deadly tail. Although he had shown no sign of targeting her, his scorpian brain had dredged up the maths of a successful tail-strike to her heart in case she tried to shoot him. "I really did escape but...I am hoping to pass a test. A test to become a Decepticon. If you like I could come here after my military service and fly you to the planet of your choce if you let me stay with you until my test time is over." She might, he thought, say yes, she might just ask him to go, which he would do, or she might go for her gun in which case he would sting her as soon as she tried to do that.

[Victorious Decepticons]

Vallermoore

With the military and police both busy trying to counteract zombies, and the gang staying to the back streets and alleys as they approached the bank, they had no trouble getting there. Still, the getaway driver made sure not to speed, since speeding might attract the attention of some random cop.

Soon enough, they were at their target. It was time to pull the heist. Rurik's heart beat strongly with anticipation as they approached, and soon, they were going around the building pointing out wires that looked like they could be worth snipping. Rurik hoped that none of the lines were overly electrified, since even though his pincers were strong, they were not naturally insulated.

Fortunately, he avoided electrocution, but by now, the staff inside realized that their hardwired phones were no longer working. While most wrote it off as some sort of a glitch in the PBX system, a few began to get nervous. It was right about now that the gang approached the back door, which seemed more likely to have pincer-cuttable locks than the front one. Like most modern buildings, the front door had a locking system that fit close together, leaving nothing important for Rurik to get his pincers around. Its handle was only meant for grabbing and pulling, and had nothing to do with the actual locking mechanism.

The rear fire door, on the other hand, had a single metal knob that offered some possibilities. But first, they would need to do something about the camera there, which was placed in a way that was meant to be obvious and intimidating.

"Be sure to check for hidden cameras too," Chard warned. "Sometimes, the obvious ones are just there to cause people like us to wreck the wrong one."

Inside, the images from the bank's entire camera array showed on screens, but no one was sitting and watching them. Instead, all of the staff were busy doing administrative tasks and counting the money for the day.

~~~~~~~~~~~~

Outlands, Decepticon Earth


Farooq told the group about how his home planet had been invaded and he'd escaped from Carjack Agriculture, leaving out just how he managed that. He said that he was now wandering the planet to try to get more familiar with it, as well as to evade recapture. He also didn't let on for a second that he thought it'd be great to become a Decepticon, or that he'd been a convict on his home world. Instead, he told them, he had been a regular guy and had just been caught up in the sweep after the military had fallen.

~~~~~~~~~~~~

Ginger looked absolutely aghast when Tariq said that he wanted to be a Decepticon! She didn't even think about the similarities long enough to feel doublethink or cognitive dissonance. Instead, she went on a long tirade against "them murderous things" who "ain't even human, hell, they ain't even beasts," and it was clear that she would aggressively badger him until he pretended to have been persuaded by her very unskilled and actually-unpersuasive argumentation. By this reaction, Tariq had just learned that not all of a longstanding Floridian's traits are endearing, and being a Decepticon-in-Spirit who had embraced his own nature, he considered silencing the woman with a tail to the heart and just taking over her trailer. However, he was concerned that other humans may come out of the wilderness and wage an armed battle against him if they found out.

As she went on, she eventually let it leak that her biggest problem with the Decepticons was that they were invaders, and not only that, "they wrecked everything they could get their blasters on!" This much was true, and as a human, she was also considered a member of a slave species and subject to being taken at any time. "Are you crazy?!" She demanded. "They would throw you back in the mines at any time! How could you want to be part of the enemy!"

She paused, but only to catch her breath. Tariq would have to talk convincingly and fast, or he would be told to get out. She looked like she might even decide to shoot him.

[Vallermoore]

Outlands, Decepticon Earth


Farooq told the group about the invasion of the planet where he lived and his capture, leaving out certain key parts-that he was a convict when captured and a Megatronist, just how he escaped from Carjack Agriculture, and most of all, that he wanted to become a Decepticon. Most of the group liked him and one of them suggested that he be allowed to stay with them in exchange for going out and hunting for them every now and then. His tail was greatly admired for it's deadliness.

*****
Tariq, realizing he had said the wrong thing to Ginger, decided to risk death or serious injury if he was off target and swing his scorpion tail at her heart. A direct hit there would kill her at once-although she would then come back to life within an hour or two or even sooner as a zombie so he would have to break her muscles or bones. A hit somewhere else that was a serious wound would give him a few seconds to either strike again or scuttle away as fast as he could before she regained full body control as the worst of the pain wore off. Unless she had anti-venom which was very unlikely, she would most likely die in agony in a day. But a flesh wound or an outright miss would be disastrous, as she could get her pistol out and start shooting. Of course if he killed her and other humans quickly appeared, he would have to flee, but if she lived alone, her home would be his. He decided to distract her, pointing with a pincer behind her. "Zombie!" As soon as she looked around, his tail flashed out, his aim being for that beating heart of hers.

Vallermoore


Rurik came up with an idea. He could insert his legs into where the slabs of carved rock met each other and climb along the side of the building, out of view of the camara, and brough his tail done on it, breaking it. He got back on the ground and started looking for a way to break the lock or the hinges of the door, dertermind to prove his worth to Chard and his gang-training, in a way, for Decepticon society, which he wanted to fit into. Whilst very different to other cultures, Decepticons did have a pretty unique society of their own, which was one of the less secret things about them.

[Victorious Decepticons]

Outlands

Some members of the group were hesitant to agree with the most welcoming one, but their bellies full of good meat helped to sway them to agree. Farooq also agreed, thinking to himself that he had hit pay dirt. As long as nothing major happened, like an inter-tribal war, he would have it pretty easy. He thought to himself how surprised they'd be when the time came for his survival test to be over, but didn't say a word. While Farooq didn't know for sure how that'd work, back at his old secret temple, the priest used to say that DomIntel would send someone quite obvious - a full-on Decepticon - to make a pickup.

~~~~~~~~~~~

Ginger spun around to face the "zombie," and had her gun out before she even completed the move. At this moment, Tariq's tail came forth like a viper's strike, expertly impaling her through the back and into her heart. She immediately fell to the ground with an angry, pained shriek. Rather than instantly ceasing all function, however, she would continue to be conscious until the oxygen that was left in her blood was used up.

"D...Decepticon! You...trai~~" Her voice trailed off as her residual O2 ran out and she became incoherent. A few moments later, she was unconscious. It would take 7-15 more minutes for her to be truly dead, but once she passed out, it no longer mattered. Tariq could get to work severing the spine at the neck and rendering the body immobile so that if it did try to reactivate as a zombie, it wouldn't be able to actually do anything.

"Hmph." Tariq grumbled. "She seemed so much like one of us, too. I guess she's one of those weird people who likes to stay biological, even if that means being under a boot forever!" Knowing that the body couldn't get moving again, he decided to enter the trailer and explore. Before going in, though, he made sure to get both the shotgun and the pistol. Even if he couldn't use them, keeping them would prevent someone else from getting them and using them against him.

Inside, the immediate impression was of a dwelling in desperate need of some housekeeping. However, he noticed that there was actually running water - in the form of a very old-fashioned, hand-cranked pump that had been installed indoors. Various forms of jerry-rigging had clearly been employed through the years, ranging from fairly decent welds all the way to unidentifiable makeshift adhesives. There was no electricity, however, and since Florida was never cold enough to naturally form block ice, there was no refrigeration, either. A few candles, likely made of natural beeswax, were set around haphazardly and were in partially-used states. Since it was day, they were all unlit at the moment. It looked like a rather dangerous setup the way she had it, so Tariq made up his mind to find some fireproof saucers for them all and set them farther from the piles of flammable randomness than she had them.

To his surprise, he did find what looked like a little food-keeping box. However, when he opened it, he didn't find anything to eat. Instead, there were a few containers of moonshine, kept in heavily-reused bottles that looked about 250 years old. As he should have expected from what she'd said before, there was also a fairly large baggie of pot. She'd obviously found another source after Jake's sudden end.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Vallermoore

Before Rurik could get down, he saw Wealthy One frantically waving his tail at a particular spot. Sure enough, hidden within a sign that said "Deliveries: 8AM - 12PM," there was a small, round glass item. A hidden camera. He quickly hit the spot with his tail, and this cracked the sign and brought the tiny cam to the ground. Wealthy One, not sure if anyone was watching or not, pretended to be a passerby and just "happened to" clop right down on it with a shod hoof, smashing it to bits.

"That takes care of that!" Chard said. "Now, it looks like the door handle is the only weak spot. The hinges are inside. Before you bust it up, Rurik, let William here give it a shot. He's quite good at picking door locks. Plus, this way we'll have two chances. If he can't pick it, then you can bust it. But if neither work, there'll be no other way than to bash our way through the front door, and that'll attract way too much attention for my liking."

[Vallermoore]

Vallermoore

As it turned out, the lock was picked with success by William-but that didn't make the gang think any less of Rurik. They rushed in and pulled out their guns, taking the bankers captive quite easily. Only one of the bankers had a gun, and being the secret mole, he surrendered without fighting. With Chard holding a gun to the manager's head, the vault was opened. "We have to assume a hidden alarm has been triggered, so don't try and break into the inner safes. Just take the sacks of banknotes in there," Chard warned his fellow robbers. Rurik and the others helped themselves to sack after sack of Ten Chingching notes, and after searching the bank staff for phones and walkie-talkies they locked them in the vault and got out of there before the police could turn up. As it turned out a secret alarm had been triggered but they got out in time and once back in their secret hideout, found that they had a haul of 1,200,000 Chingchings, 100,000 of which were set aside as the mole's share. It was time to share out the rest. Rurik was pleased-there would be enough to buy a small armed starship and some supplies with his share, and he could fly to Cybertron, take his chances with the raiders, and try and start the immigration tests needed to prove himself worthy of being a Decepticon. If he succeeded, perhaps the only thing he would miss as a Decepticon would be his tail with it's mighty sting.

Outlands

Farooq felt pleased with himself-he might need to fight in inter-tribal wars and hunt a bit, but apart from that he was safe and would have somewhere nice to sleep that was better then the bare ground. They would get a shock when a full sized open Domintel agent-open agents were used to stop attacks from random vigilantes on still-biological would be immigrants who could not yet be able to defend themselves with no Decepticon body yet-showed up later.

*****
As Ginger spun around, the tail of Tariq flicked forward and went straight into her heart. He had aimed well. She turned around with a look of pure hatred and a shriek of pain and horror. "D...Decepticon! You...trai~~"Her angry eyes went blank-her soul would now be in the Decepticon controlled afterlife and would probably end up enslaved. He broke her neck with a pincer-not out of nastiness but because otherwise the body would rise as a zombie which he didn't want to have to fight again-and hid the body out of open view. Taking her weapons, and removing the trigger guards by pinching through them to make them sort of useable by him if he didn't pinch too hard on the triggers, he went into her trailer looking for food, water and a bed. He found much needed water, some moonshine, and some pot. After having some water, he looked for food and found only a single joint of cured pork. He ate it, and decided the next day to look for food, knowing that if she were close to her family, then her brother/s or sister/s might show up and he would have to flee or fight.

[Victorious Decepticons]

Vallermoore

Rurik was quite pleased with his loot and what he could potentially do with it. "It's great that there were no dye packs in those bags," he remarked. "And they don't keep track of the serial numbers either? It's not going to bring a bunch of cops on me when I try to spend it?"

"You have to spend it with the right people," Chard said, as if Rurik must have just fallen off the back of a hay trailer. "Then they put it in with a bunch of clean money, and it generally goes unnoticed. You don't have contacts?"

Rurik reminded them that he was new, so he didn't have any good contacts for that. Chard groaned. He would have to hook this new guy up with one of his connections...

~~~~~~~~~~

Outlands

Farooq got along very well with the group now that they associated him with the ability to get better food, and for quite a while, life was quite chill. There wasn't much boar hunting, but there were plenty of gators, which Farooq soon learned had tasty tails. Unlike his own, gator tails had no stings, but they did have plenty of meat. In fact, they were, strangely enough, the meatiest part of the alligator.

One day, they all heard the roar of Decepticon jets. Farooq was worried, but the others seemed fairly relaxed as they ambled underneath the nearby tree cover.

"Oh yeah, you had to escape from Carjack Ag," one noted. "I had forgotten about that. Well, you'd better hide extra-well, then, because that sound you hear is Carjack coming out for a dip!"

Sure enough, before long the yellow-orange fighter with the red wing stripes and gold General's stripe came right overhead, and Farooq could just make out the pattern through the thick cover of live-oak leaves. Today, no Genocider Seals were showing, but the red Decepticon ones gleamed with a fresh wax job. Soon, the jet noise cut off, and in the distance, they could hear the signature sound of transformation. Then, there was a colossal splash.

"Come this way and get a load of this," one of the tribesmen said quietly, beckoning Farooq over. Together, they quietly made their way down a single-file path until the human gestured for him to take a position next to him behind some 20-foot-tall scrub trees. He moved one of the thinner stalks aside, revealing just a bit of the view.

Out in the ocean, Carjack was doing the backstroke and using his wingspan to provide a bit of extra anti-sinking power. Still, he was being careful to keep moving quickly, so his wings tended to hydroplane along the surface. Then, he flipped over and started in with a crawl stroke, and quickly ended up a bit below the water. It didn't seem to bother him any.

After quite a while, Carjack came shooting up out of the water, aided by his foot jets, and landed expertly on the dock. At this point, the large congregation of seagulls all took off. Carjack then used a blaster to bake part of the metal dock grating clean and sat down.

The two secret observers backed away from the bushes and went back down the path. Once back at their camp, the human said, "the facts have been lost to the ages out here, but there's an old legend that says he used to be one of us. A human, that is. I suppose it could be true. Some of the things he does are sure human-like! But then again, he is the Genocider. So maybe not so human after all."

Whether this human was using a double standard, or he really didn't know, the fact was that humans had been warring and genociding each other long before there was even a Cybertron, let alone Carjack. The activities he was (in)famous for were likely done so effectively because he had started out as a human. Human war code, despite their desperately-unfortunate results against the Decepticons, had been refined through over a million years of inter-generational practice.

Late into the night, a transformation noise was heard at the dock, and Carjack's jets were heard flying overhead once more. Now, only a set of flight lights marked him out from the darkened sky, but Farooq still shrank back. It was a good move on his part, because Carjack had detected that he was being watched by something sapient and had run a quick heat-signature detection pass over the ground. Farooq had moved just in time. Carjack might not have bothered with a human or two, but if he'd spotted the shape of one of his distinctively-bodied escaped slaves, he would surely have landed to try to get him back.

~~~~~~~~~~~~

Tariq was just digging in to the pork he'd finally discovered when he heard a female's pained moan. Ginger had indeed reactivated as a zombie! However, thanks to his good thinking, the body was unable to move. He wondered if he should go out and blast its brains out in hopes of shutting it back down completely, and realized that the shotgun was the weapon most likely to cause enough damage - at least, if fired at the proper range.

~~~~~~~~~~

After looking through the trailer some more, he came upon a few handmade greeting cards from Ginger's family. He noticed that one came from a sister, while the other was from her mother. The sister had written a long letter full of well-wishes, indicating a decent relationship at the time it was made. However, the other one was simply signed "Mother" and had a very short greeting. There was clearly some friction in that sector. No other family had left any written evidence of their existence, but that could have been because they didn't know how to write.

By this, Tariq guessed that the sister was more likely to show up, though he realized that there could be an exception. He decided that if they did come, he would try to quietly dispose of them instead of giving up this pad.

~~~~~~~~~

After a few days, Tariq was awakened shortly after dawn by the sound of two raspy, raucous female voices. He peeked out the window only to see two very washed-up looking, possibly already-drunk women of obviously-different ages. The sister and the mother had come together!

By now, the zombie season had already ended. Like on his home world, it only lasted a few days. This meant that they would stay dead if he killed them, but they still wouldn't die on their own. He got the guns ready, and his tail also became tense by instinct. As the two approached, oblivious to the danger, he realized what his priest back home had meant when he said "there is no homeless problem on Cybertron, because real Decepticons will either take over a house, or kill the guy trying to take over theirs. Either way, the end result is one less person looking for a house, because one side or the other is going to die!"

Of course, this was a slight oversimplification, because one side or the other could also chicken out and cede his position. However, it was highly unlikely for the one inside the house to be driven off, because he would be using the house as a fort and have a massive defensive advantage. This was the advantage that Tariq now held.

[Vallermoore]

Vallermoore

For a couple of seconds, Chard turned his head away from Rurik, so that he could roll his eyes without causing any offence. "In armoured cars, as other gangs have found out to their cost, they do have dye packs, but only rarely in bank vaults. And you are new here, so you clearly have no contacts other then us. I'll drive you to a contact in Whitstable City who can help you launder your gains properly. It's best to stay clear of Grand City as there are not many of your kind, although if you are lucky they'll think you are a changeling taking an exotic shape." On the way there, in a fast two-person sky-cutter, he asked "So, what are you planning to do with your share of the haul? Myself, I'll wait until the worst of the heat dies down, then buy myself some fun stuff. I've never been caught for my crimes, so I can buy guns legally if I want." They were far enough away from any flying pegusai and other sky-cutter users to speak freely. Since passenger planes (but not starships) had been banned, there was far more room in the air for pegusai, changelings, sky-cutters, small two-person planes, and military jets to move around in.

Outlands

Farooq made himself and his deadly tail useful, and was soon living a very good life indeed, well fed on gator meat, often gators that he had stung to death himself. One day he got a surprise-he was able to view High General Carjack having a swim in water! If any other Decepticons had seen it, they would be utterly shocked, as it would be to them like if a human saw another human swimming in an acid lake with not a bit of damage caused. Water normally shorted out Decepticons and even Megatron didn't swim in it, but here he was, a smile on his face, his eyes a warm red and his engine running smoothly as he swam around in the ocean before flying up, baking his metal dock grating clean, and sitting down. Later, perhaps because of his Megatronist Blessing or just good luck, Farooq escaped Carjack's quick heat-signature detection pass.

*****
Tariq went out and with some difficulty managed to use the shotgun to shoot Ginger in the head. When the mother and the sister turned up to meet Ginger, both of them possibly drunk, he remembered what his Acolyte had said once "there is no homeless problem on Cybertron, because real Decepticons will either take over a house, or kill the guy trying to take over theirs. Either way, the end result is one less person looking for a house, because one side or the other is going to die!" Now he was going to put that into practise. He readied the pistol, which he could wield in his pincers better, and his long deadly tail tensed up whilst he ran the maths of how best to use it in his head. He left the door ajar, planning to use his tail on the first woman, and the pistol on the second. If he won, he would set them up a little way away as if they were alive-although, it being Florida, they would be rotting within a day or two and bones within the month. He wasn't targeting them because they were women-on his home world he had once had a girlfriend, a pretty (to him) scorpion woman, and had no problems with womankind. He was targeting them to hold onto the trailer.

[Victorious Decepticons]

Vallermoore

Unlike the other two scorpion-people, Rurik didn't have to hide his true intentions. He was talking to people he had first met inside this planet's main Megatronist Temple, after all!

"I plan to finance an attempt to get the Ultimate Upgrade," he said. "I just want to make sure I'm fully ready before I do. From what I've heard, there's a really challenging survival test as part of it."

Chard was both happy and disappointed at the same time. He was happy because, like most religious people, he enjoyed seeing others who shared his views in that regard - and Megatronism preached that everyone should eventually try to become a full-fledged Decepticon. However, he was disappointed that his lock-breaking, camera-smashing new gang member wouldn't be staying a member for long. That meant that he would end up having to look for another new guy, and whoever he found next probably wouldn't have a body that was as naturally suited for this unique profession.

"So you want to go to Cybertron...when do you plan on doing it?" Chard asked.

~~~~~~~~~~

Outlands, Decepticon Earth

Tariq's plan worked perfectly, and before long, the unsteady women were completely deactivated. As he moved the bodies, his suspicion of their intoxication was confirmed as moonshine fumes rose from them. "It's only about 7:30 in the morning!" He marveled to himself. On his world, only alcoholics would drink then. That's when he realized that that's exactly what they were: alcoholics. Remembering the pot he'd found in the trailer, he decided to check them more carefully to see if they had anything else. He went through their pockets, and soon found a couple of joints and several strange leaves from a plant other than marijuana.

Quickly, he dragged both of them far away and set them up. It was unclear why he chose to pose them as if they were alive, especially since they'd be clearly rotten and stinking (and obviously dead) before long, but he did. Then, he returned to his trailer. As he walked home, he spotted a Florida panther in the brush, but it slinked into the foliage before he could get a closer look. For just a moment, he thought he caught a whiff of Decepticon exhaust, but decided that it had to have been either imaginary or something natural that happened to smell that way.

~~~~~~~~~~~

On Cybertron, reports were coming in from Earth-based DomIntel "wildlife" agents in two places. One report talked of an alien who had quickly set himself up to have a fairly cush time of it, while another spoke of someone who would likely be good as a front-line soldier who was not hesitant to do violence. Another report came in from a location far from Earth: Vallermoore. It said that its subject was already the target of a nationwide "man"hunt due to his part in a bank robbery, and expressed some misgivings about his ability to reach Cybertron if he didn't make the trip in a hurry.

[Vallermoore]

Vallermoore

"As soon as possible, because there are so few of my kind here, so although I was masked during our robbery, that only gives me temporary protection. I want to go to a gun shop, a survival gear shop, buy what I need and then buy a starship and leave Vallermoore for Cybertron before I either end up nicked or shot by the police. There I will take my chances with the ferocious raiders of the place and the tests, and either end up dead, or with the Ultimate Upgrade. After my first stint of Cybertronian military service I'll go and raid until I figure out what I properly want to be. Maybe one day I'll earn enough knowledge upgrades to become a scientist helping the Decepticon Race as it upgrades itself, but that will take a while." They stopped at an out of the way shop called "Huggets Gunz and Survival Stuff" and Rurik brought an adapted AK 47, a tent, and a few other needed things that would fit in a couple of saddlebags. Hugget was a human who seemed a bit of a tough guy and had a Decepticon tattoo on one arm, and asked no questions to Rurik about who he was or why he was buying these things.

"I know someone with a starship, but he's quite high in the underworld, so we can't just steal his craft. You have the money to buy it though, so it should be easy to get it. Cybertron, from the accounts I have heard, ranges from dangerous to really dangerous for biologicals, and only one hotel is genuinely safe. You are taking a risk, that's for sure, but I wish you luck. Let's get you to that guy now...the sooner you are in space the better."

Outlands, Decepticon Earth

As the two women were drunks and were taken by surprise, it was easy for Tariq to sting one and shoot the other. Had they been sober it would have been harder. They had drugs, but no food. Setting them up as if alive would only fool people for a short time before they rotted and then became piles of bones. He then went looking, with care, for a food source of some kind as he was getting hungry. His violence had been noted and meant he would be good as the equivalent of a front line infantryman assuming he passed his test.

The other alien at least for now was having a pretty cushy time of it and had no problems staying fed.

[Victorious Decepticons]

Vallermoore

Hugget turned out to be a rather huge guy, about 1 foot taller than average, and he didn't seem the least bit taken aback by the strange-looking alien in front of him. He also flaunted his own Decepticon-ness, wearing a Seal on one arm as a tattoo. Rurik wondered for a moment if he was an actual Decepticon.

It turned out that he wasn't, but when they arrived at the fortified compound belonging to Simon Michaelmore, they did indeed find themselves talking to a real Decepticon - that is, after they talked their way through several layers of security personnel. It was clear that if anyone attacked this base, it would be very hard for them to avoid death, let alone win.

Once finally inside, they met a well-dressed human in designer business attire, who was quick to offer everyone a glass of wine. Everything was very posh, including the way their host acted. No one would guess that he was actually behind one of Vallermoore's biggest syndicates, and many of the most labyrinthine schemes currently in operation, as well. It would take following his money down a whole lot of rabbit holes to discover that, just maybe, not everything was on the up-and-up. Publicly, he presented himself as an astute real estate investor, and he owned several expensive skyscrapers as part of this cover.

Once Rurik told him where he wanted to go, the man grinned, but his face took on a warning expression. "The Metal Planet is not for mere biologicals," he said. "You will have a hard time even making it down to the surface. Plenty of raiders will be glad to steal the ship, and as for you, chuck you out into space. Or even sell you to Carjack Biofoods. Such sales are great for getting rid of pesky meat creatures without having to take them all the way to one of the mining asteroids for rendering."

It was said in such a way that a non-gangster wouldn't think it was anything besides a warning. Rurik, however, got the idea that many of this person's enemies had ended up in the highly-processed products of Carjack Biofoods on Cybertron.

"I'm willing to chance it," Rurik insisted. "I believe it is my destiny to get the Ultimate Upgrade, and take my place among the mighty! I presume you are willing to sell me a ship?"

As soon as Michaelmore realized that Rurik was looking to buy a ship outright, instead of renting one and leaving him stuck with the loss when it got captured, the mobster's attitude improved greatly. He quoted an outrageous price, as was his custom, and negotiations began. At the end, Rurik was left feeling like he got a deal by "only" spending 3/5 of his loot on it, while the syndicate boss was thinking that Rurik was a giant sucker. Chard didn't dare say anything, lest he be the next one to "disappear."

Soon, an arrangement was made to meet at a particular hangar to exchange Rurik's payment for Michaelmore's spacecraft. On their way there, out of earshot of any of Michaelmore's security people or the mobster himself, Chard noted that Rurik had paid too much. Rurik, however, was just glad to get a ship in an "off the radar" sort of way.

"Did you hear what he said about selling people to Carjack Biofoods?" Chard asked Rurik. "Better be careful about that 'bio-compatible food' they sell! Or, maybe you don't care, since he'd be selling humans and ponies, and it's not cannibalism for you to eat either of those species..."

Rurik didn't say much, other than to mention that it'd be hard to ship enemies to Cybertron all the way from Vallermoore just to disappear them. "It'd be easier to just chuck 'em somewhere in space," he mused. Still, he made a mental note to try out this food as soon as he had a body that could use it. He'd always wondered what a human would taste like. He had already had horse at some points in his life, though, so he wasn't interested in pony, figuring that the meat would taste the same.

Soon, they arrived at the hangar, where Michaelmore was waiting for them next to a luxury skycutter that he had flown over. The hangar door was opened, revealing the spacecraft...

~~~~~~~~~~~

Outlands

For a few weeks, Tariq had it pretty easy. Gators and snakes were never too far away, and a quick sting got him dinner every time. One night, however, he was jarred to alertness by loud banging on the trailer door.

Tariq sneaked a peek through one of the somewhat-ratty curtains, and saw a thin, unkempt man standing outside with obvious impatience.

"C'mon, Ginger, don't you want yer danged pot?!" The drug dealer yelled out roughly, as if he was delivering nothing more unusual than a package of toilet paper and he had other stops to take care of next. With no more anti-drug laws, and no cops, he had no reason to think of his product as "contraband" or anything to hide. The whole idea of drugs (or anything else) being "illegal" or anyone being "busted" had long faded into scary legends that old people would tell their grandkids. Still, the guy did give off the impression that he'd used at least some of his own product, hence his ragged and slightly unhealthy look. He also seemed like he could get dangerous if he thought the situation called for it.

Tariq considered giving the guy a big sting for his delivery efforts, but he also wondered if he could work something out with him. Drug dealers, after all, weren't exactly known for loyalty. He probably wouldn't give two hoots that Ginger and her family had bitten it, and just try to sell his pot to Tariq instead as if nothing had happened. Drug users were not the most stable of clients at any time in history, so he was probably used to them meeting unsavory ends.

All of this meant that if there was something that Tariq wanted, even if not drugs - and he could come up with something to trade with the dealer in exchange - they could probably work out a deal. However, Tariq did have plenty of food, Ginger's manual water pump still worked, and he knew he'd likely be getting off of Earth in just two more months. Whether he would want to get the guy to deliver anything else to him was far from certain.

[Vallermoore]

Vallermoore/Cybertron

Hugget, although not an actual Decepticon, was very much one in spirit, and he had obviously met the stranger kinds of aliens before. He knew Chard well and between the two of them they got the OK to enter the fortified compound of the leader of one of Vallermoore's largest syndicates, a man named Simon Michaelmore. He had a more-or-less legitimate business as well to launder any money that was raided or otherwise illegally obtained. He was friendly enough-he and Chard got on well together and had helped each other out several times in the past. When Rurik explained where he wanted to go if he brought a starship, Simon warned him "The Metal Planet is not for mere biologicals. You will have a hard time even making it down to the surface. Plenty of raiders will be glad to steal the ship, and as for you, chuck you out into space. Or even sell you to Carjack Biofoods. Such sales are great for getting rid of pesky meat creatures without having to take them all the way to one of the mining asteroids for rendering." Decepticons were deceptive and conniving about a lot of things, but not about the dangers of their home world, which if anything was something to boast about, and put off many would be challengers.

"I'm willing to chance it," Rurik insisted. "I believe it is my destiny to get the Ultimate Upgrade, and take my place among the mighty! I presume you are willing to sell me a ship? I don't want to hire it, I want to buy it. It may well be that I end up in the Room of the Three Screens, but the chance to earn the Ultimate Upgrade is worth it."

The mobster grinned, and negotiations began, leading to 3/5ths of the newly acquired loot being used to buy the spacecraft. Rurik thought If I fail, I'll either be dead or enslaved with no way out, and if I succeed, I can raid new loot after-and in some cases, even during-my time in the Decepticon Military. There is one thing I'll miss as a biological-my tail with it's deadly sting. But blasters will make up for losing it, and my sting would be no use against metal anyway.

The spacecraft was impressive, with front and rear facing blasters, armour ( all of it in fact legal when it came to spacecraft) a force field that could be blasted for thirty seconds by an average Decepticon blaster before it winked out and broke, FTL capacity, and a manual. A few of the controls had even been changed so that they could be used easier with pincers. After getting his stuff on board, and thanking Simon and Chard, Rurik set off out of Vallermoore's atmosphere. After looking for a little at the gas giant Vallermoore orbited from a safe distance, he activated FTL and soon enough was at the gleaming Metal Planet. He didn't gaze at it's beauty for longer then two seconds before announcing to Decepticon Customs why he wanted to enter, and setting off as if he was in a dogfight already, never flying strait and level for more then a few seconds, sure that soon he would be blasted at. The craft had no cloaking device, so he would need a lot of luck to get through the raiders who were entering, leaving, or just hanging around in space chatting in Binary with their gang members and looking at the planet as they chatted. To Decepticons, there was a beauty about the Metal Planet-it was prized in the same way changelings generally prized their Hives, and treated accordingly. Alone in the universe as far as they knew, it was designed just for them, without the nasty seas of other planets that could short them out-and this was one of the reasons that they were xenophobic towards biologicals who showed up here.

Outlands

Tariq had it easy-his sting made short work of gators and even the larger snakes, and he was able to eat the meat without having to cook it or be poisoned or filled with parasites by it. There was a bang on the door, which turned out to be a drug dealer. He thought of stinging or shooting him, but decided to do that only if violence was offered. He opened the door, wanting peace but ready for battle. "Ginger doesn't live here anymore. How does the economy work on this world now? I'm new here." Perhaps the dealer could get him some tasty cooked meat and/or fruit, assuming he could offer him what he wanted in return.

[Victorious Decepticons]

Cybertronian Space

Decepticon Customs answered the hail, and directed Rurik to land at the Main Space Port. It so happened to be dark on that side of the planet at this time, so the person on the radio helpfully mentioned that it was just about 1,000 miles from the Main Refinery - "that beautiful glowing spot, you should be able to see it from there."

Sure enough, he could see the golden glow of millions of barrels' worth of Energon in process, and looking over about the distance of what would be half a continent on a planet with seas, he spotted the white-light glare of the Main Space Port's spotlights. He looked up, intending to set his course, when he caught a far more disturbing sight in his peripheral vision. A robot, surprisingly in robot mode, was now pointing at him. Two others had turned their heads to see what the first one was gesturing at.

Then, they transformed into plane mode, and Rurik saw their space-propulsion systems kick in. The chase was on.

~~~~~~~~~~~

Outlands

The dealer didn't miss a beat upon being told that his client "didn't live there" anymore. His expression showed that he figured full well that she didn't live anywhere else anymore either, but he barely paused before he started to talk as if this was nothing unusual.

"Well, there ain't any MO-ney," he said as if the word itself was strange. "You gotta do somethin' ta make a trade. Ginger, she used to provide some...basic services. Y'know." He grabbed his crotch through his jeans. "But I'm only interested in humans." He did not know the gender of this alien, and wasn't interested in even asking. "Usually I have guys fix stuff fer me. In exchange, they can get my POT here! You want some pot?!" He showed a fairly large baggie full of some amazingly large bud. In fact, closer inspection showed that it held one, giant, bud. "My supplier gets it right outta Carjack's fields. Of course, hardly anyone can get an entire bud at once. Usually, I cut it up."

"I've also got these." He put the pot baggie away, and got out another baggie full of serrated leaves. "Raw coca. If ya refine it up, it'll rev ya up like nothin' else. But we usually don't do that here because it's a big job. It also draws some real mean fellas. If ya chew the leaves raw like this, it'll perk ya up like double-strength coffee. Almost everybody does it before they have to do some big job."

"As fer you, it looks like you can do some special work with those pincers a' yours. I have some trees that need cuttin' and I bet you could chop 'em off with just a few snips." He imitated pincers with his fingers and made a snip-like motion. "It'd be even better'n usin' an axe because it wouldn't look like some human tool did it. Help keep them damn slavers away, ya know."

He paused for a moment, and his eyes managed to brighten. "Saaayyy, I bet yer from that planet they all took off to a while ago!! Tried to stick ya in the mines, did they? Well, con-GRAT-U-lations! Con-grat-ulations on gettin' yerself outta that!"

[Vallermoore]

Cybertronian Space

Rurik saw where to go-a golden glow-but at about the same time, the bots saw him. Any craft that was not a Decepticon, even if it were friendly , was not going to last very long up here. He switched the craft to manual, happy that it's controls had been adapted to be perfect for pincer use, and set his rear blasters to blast any craft that was clearly on his tail. Wondering if he would still be alive in a short time, he set off, zig zagging like a fighter pilot. He was helped, oddly, by the sheer number of bots up here, as if his foes blasted them by mistake, they might get blasted back in there turn whilst their quarry escaped. He was able to enter the atmosphere before the blasting against him began, with his rear blasters blasting back. His force field held for a bit but went down, but by that time he was in the streets, flying just above the heads of bots in robot mode, wondering if he was fated to die here. Until he made it through the doors of the Ministry of Immigration he was fare game-but once inside, for them to carry on the attack would be an attack on a Ministry-which counted as treason.

Outlands

Rurik smiled. "I'm not interested in drugs, partly as it would be dangerous to get drugged on this world and fall prey to humans, animals or Decepticons. But I am interested in some plain, undrugged cooked meat or fish and some fruit. Now that would be really worth helping you out for. I've been eating raw snakes and gators for days in case the smoke or the flames of a fire gave me away to Decepticons who then tried to enslave or blast me, or just stomp on me."

[Victorious Decepticons]

Cybertron

DomIntel agents in the area, and some at distant surveillance screens, watched the action as the alien craft came barreling into the lower atmosphere with a raid gang on its tail, blasters blazing in both directions. They quickly took bets, not only on whether the craft would make it, but on how long it'd take for the foreigner to be seen as a danger by those on the ground and shot out of the sky so it wouldn't keep attracting fire so close to them.

A few pedestrians looked up, especially as stray blasts from the raiders began to rain down among them. As DomIntel expected, the people figured that shooting down all involved would be a great way to get rid of the annoyance and risk, and some began to raise their blasters and take aim.

The raid gang, seeing this and knowing what would come next, quickly broke off the chase and gained altitude as fast as they could. To Rurik's surprise, they then roared past him far above, leaving him in the virtual dust. Blue swirls appeared around each of them, and then they were gone.

Rurik thought that maybe it would be a good idea to do likewise, but just before he hit his craft's FTL lever, he noticed the sign above the doors on one of the buildings: "IMMIGRATION DEPARTMENT." As fast as he could do it without crashing, he banked toward the doors. Just as he did so, a couple of blasts scorched past his craft from the ground, sent by still-irked pedestrians who had been a bit too close to the prior firing. Luckily for Rurik, the doors were automatic, and they opened to let him in without the need for active intervention.

Despite the prohibition against firing towards government offices, one more blast came his way just after he had entered. It was very effectively stopped by the now-closing door, which Rurik saw was made of a 6" thick, clear, blast-proof material.

Before he could even say anything, he heard a mechanical noise coming from behind him, seemingly from the building itself. A loud energy noise came next, followed by the clanging of large steel bits outside and the sizzling of coolant turning to steam.

"Automatic cannons." A voice said proudly. Scope stood up and began to make his way to Rurik's craft, which was now hovering as its pilot tried to catch his breath. "Idiots get too excited around this office every so often. The cannons detect where any fire came from, and return it - at about 100x the original strength. If it was a deliberate attack on our office, the spares and saves of the attacker would then be tracked down and deleted, but usually it's just some hothead trying to nail someone who is getting out of range. Someone like you. You're lucky you haven't become an official Decepticon just yet, because if you were, we'd have just pushed you back out and told you to fight your battles like a proper robot!" Despite the last part, Scope seemed quite jovial, perhaps enjoying how easily his office's cannon had dispatched the troublemaker outside.

Rurik looked around, and saw that the room contained a giant counter and about three Decepticon-sized office desks. Another agent, who would turn out to be Gatekeeper, was just getting up from one of them. Of course, he also saw the massive Scope right in front of him, with his gleaming wax job and his Immigration seals showing to the outside of each Decepticon one.

"I presume you came all this way to attempt to join us?" Scope now said. "Otherwise, the Cultural Liaison's Office is a better bet."

~~~~~~~~~~~

Outlands

The dealer looked put out when Tariq said that he didn't want any drugs, even though the reasons he gave made perfect sense. Drugs were addictive, and that meant a customer for life. With anything else, he would actually have to do something other than grow things and then walk around making deliveries.

"You haven't figured out how to hide your fires? Well, I suppose I could spare some cooked gator tail or somethin'. C'mon..." the dealer said, now being friendly, but still wishing he could get this guy hooked enough to make him do a whole lot more work.

Tariq walked out, being sure to take the key he'd found and lock the door behind him. Together, they went through a path that Tariq hadn't even noticed before. It led right up to the property, but was hidden by a bank of saplings that had grown in the way. Once these were barged through, the barest hints of a trail of mashed-down wild grass appeared.

"Ya might as well call me Mark," the dealer said after a while. "Everyone else does." It was clear that this wasn't his real name, though with no law enforcement around, the reason he was hiding it couldn't be guessed. It was entirely possible that he just didn't like his real name, though judging from his usual business, he was probably trying to avoid being tracked down by someone or other.

After about 10 minutes of brisk hiking, they arrived at an area with tall trees. Here, the trees seemed to coincidentally let enough light in to grow what was planted near their bases - countless marijuana plants. To Tariq's surprise, some of the plants were almost as big as the trees, though most of them were regular sized.

"Ha ha, those ones came from Carjack Agriculture. Jacked 'em myself! It's hard ta get things outta there!! But even the yappiest dogs'll shut up when ya feed 'em some brownies and then come back in an hour or so." The brownies in question clearly had some of Mark's usual product baked in, which would make the dogs super mellow once it had a bit of time to digest. As for beforehand, they would be quiet because hey, there's a guy feeding them sweets, and who's going to complain about that?

"Those giant plants are ridiculous, though. They need a whole cow patty every week or else they turn yella. An' look how they drink up water!" He pointed to a steel pipe that was trickling water to each one. "Piped it over from the river myself. Don't drink it, though. Them pipes are made outta lead."

"Cows?" Tariq said. "There's some cows around here?!"

"Oh yeah," said Mark. "They...oh, I suppose ya wanna eat 'em! Well, we can't do too much a' that. They give MILK! And fertilizer! But sometimes there's an extra. Still, them are so big that it's hard ta cure all of the meat in time, and too heavy to pull down ta th' town ta say-yul 'em."

"Anyway," Mark went on, "here's what I got right now." He led Tariq over to an area dug into the ground with what appeared to be nothing but a pile of vines for a door. However, upon being pulled, it became obvious that this "pile of vines" was woven together very well, with openings small enough to exclude even mice. The art of stealth was well-practiced in these parts, and Tariq wondered how many hidey-holes, secret paths, and even entire families he had passed by as he walked his way to this general area.

Inside the dugout, several gator tails were hanging as well as a few gutted opossums and several pieces of decently-large animals that Tariq couldn't recognize. The smell of smoke hung thickly in the air despite the area's visual clarity, letting Tariq know that all of these things had been smoke-cured right there at some point in the past. They were safe to eat now, but to taste cooked, they would all still need to be exposed to some sort of direct heat.

"Now what I need is them bigger trees outside thinned out," Mark said before Tariq had a chance to take a liking to anything. "Gotta let more light into the farm! But it has to be done very carefully, so it doesn't provide much of a view from the air. Most of Them fly over, you know. But even if They walk up, they're lookin' down from a height. An' the farm has to be hidden from that view. I'll tell ya exactly how ta do it, since yer new around here."

"Well, you decide what you want, and then I'll tell ya how much work it's gonna cost ya. An' I'll cook it up real nice, too, once yer done!" Mark kept his eye on the biggest hunk of meat, hoping that Tariq would get the idea that, that one was the one to choose. If he took the cue, Mark could demand a whole LOT of tree trimming in exchange. If Tariq took a smaller piece, Mark would have to demand less labor.

[Vallermoore]

Cybertron

Rurik, watched now by Domintel, barrel-rolled at full speed into Cybertron's atmosphere with raiders on his tail blasting away at him whilst he blasted back. When he got down low the pedestrians looked up and several raised their blasters-something that made the raid gang break off the attack. He was about to do the same thing when he noticed a sign that was in English rather then the normal Binary "IMMIGRATION DEPARTMENT." He banked towards the doors, nearly being blasted twice by annoyed pedestrians. Luckily for him they opened automatically. One more blast followed him in, but the closing doors blocked it. Outside, several cannons emerged from the walls. Whilst one was allowed to blast at most targets, government ministries were one of the very few things on the blast-ban list. The unfortunate pedestrian lost a body as a result, which clanged to the street outside. In his case, that would be the limit of the punishment. Had it been rebellion that made him blast where he did, a firing squad would have been in his future. Rebel Decepticons were not tolerated.

Looking around, happy to still be alive, Rurik saw Scope and Gatekeeper, and marveled at their sheer size and power. "Automatic cannons.Idiots get too excited around this office every so often. The cannons detect where any fire came from, and return it - at about 100x the original strength. If it was a deliberate attack on our office, the spares and saves of the attacker would then be tracked down and deleted, but usually it's just some hothead trying to nail someone who is getting out of range. Someone like you. You're lucky you haven't become an official Decepticon just yet, because if you were, we'd have just pushed you back out and told you to fight your battles like a proper robot!" Scope's eyes were clear and red and his engine was running smoothly-symbols of a happy Decepticon. "I presume you came all this way to attempt to join us? Otherwise, the Cultural Liaison's Office is a better bet."

"Yes, most certainly. I hope to earn the Ultimate Upgrade." The sensors showed breathable-by biologicals-air inside, so Rurik landed his ship on the table, got out, and bowed low to the huge robots to show respect. Rurik could normally handle himself in combat, but his deadly tail was useless against Decepticon Steel, and these bots towered over him in the way he would tower over a normal sized scorpion. "My name is Rurik and...and, not wanting my tail amputated, I escaped from one of your Empire's mines and after several adventures found my way here to join you and serve in your Military. I'll happily answer any questions you ask of me."

Outlands

"You haven't figured out how to hide your fires? Well, I suppose I could spare some cooked gator tail or somethin'. C'mon..."

Tariq walked out. He decided that if he could earn some meat, he most certainly would, but if he felt seriously at risk of being killed or maimed, he would put that deadly tail to use again. He also took a loaded pistol with him in a gunbelt, leaving the shotgun in the trailer. Going too heavily armed could easily spook the dealer and result in a gunfight that he really didn't need right now, but going unarmed could be very dangerous. He imagined himself in the front line Decepticon Military equvilent of the infantry, facing the SAMs and tank blasts of biological foes, maybe becoming a trainer some day. He was surprised that the dealer managed to steal from General Carjack without being blasted. He chose a middle of the range bit of smoked meat, that would be cooked once it was earned, and at the dealer's direction put his pincers to use. Whilst he could have tried to murder the dealer and jack all his food, he didn't want to get shot if he wasn't quick enough, as even a flesh wound would leave him open to insect, fungal and bacterial attack. As long as he wasn't attacked or cheated, it made good sense to earn meat rather then raid it.

[Victorious Decepticons]

Cybertron

Upon hearing this, Gatekeeper went over to the main computer console and jacked in using a cable attached to a fingertip. Soon, Rurik saw a file come up, written completely in Binary, that featured his picture. The screen switched a couple of times, and to Rurik's shock, he saw images of himself in Domina Fascista, several taken from inside the spaceship away from there, another at the port where he was dropped off, and then walking toward the bank in Vallermoore with the gang.

Gatekeeper turned to him and noted his astounded expression. "DomIntel knows all, but ForIntel isn't exactly blind itself," he remarked. "Nice job on getting out of that mine. However, you might want to keep that quiet, assuming you become a citizen. That overseer got fired for missing your absence, and he ended up being so broke that he had to take a different mining job. You probably don't realize it, but for a Decepticon to do a slave's job is a sign of absolute desperation - and failure. He is, as you might have figured out, no good at raiding. Now, he wants nothing more than to grind you into a raw meat slurry so fine that it's suitable for press-forming."

"As for that Domina Fascista country you were in...ForIntel has a huge presence there. We're actively Decepticonizing it. I'm sure you noticed how they're xenophobic against everyone except robots? Strange little exception, that, isn't it?" He intentionally flashed one eye as a wink. "I wouldn't be surprised if they ended up feeling inferior for being biologicals after, oh, a few more decades or so, and even agreeing to be anschlussed into the Decepticon Empire!" Gatekeeper speculated, not actually knowing whether or not this was really ForIntel's plan.

Scope took a close look at Rurik's body, which was like none he had ever seen. "That's a fascinating system you have there!" He said, peering closer, oblivious to whether or not Rurik might be a bit creeped out by the staring. "How does it work? Do you have one processor, like most biologicals, or several running down the length like one of the common alternate patterns?" He looked even closer now. "And it seems you have a natural weapon! So that's why they were going around cutting tails off - and explains why you were so desperate to keep yours. That would be like trying to torch off one of our blasters!"

Gatekeeper spoke up. "It'd be even worse. We can make more blasters. I'm assuming, however, that those tails don't regrow..."

After some more chit-chat, they got down to business, explaining that Rurik would first have to pass two psych tests. Usually, they explained, there would also be a survival test. However, for him, they would consult with Combined Intelligence to decide what weight to give to the experiences he'd already had. "You did manage to get off of the mining world on your own, and though you ended up on a world that was quite hostile, you got out of that too. And then, you found your way to Vallermoore, where you immediately immersed yourself in highly Decepticon activity! All of these things are much more indicative of a proper Decepticon mindset than managing to live off the land on Earth for a few months. Still, we have to discuss your case with others before we can waive that requirement entirely." Scope explained.

Soon, he had Rurik set up with a suitably-sized desk, and put the psych test questionnaires and blank essay papers in front of him. "Just remember that a code-read is part of the process, so don't bother to lie for these answers. Otherwise, you may find yourself mind-transferred to dev/null instead of a new body," Scope cautioned as he started the timer for the first test.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Outlands

To his surprise, Tariq found that the work wasn't just mindless chopping like he partially expected. Mark pointed out very specific branches, and instructed carefully in how to partially snip, then rip them the rest of the way off, so it looked like random damage by bears, wind storms, and other natural things. After just a couple of hours, Mark said, "great, that's it." When Tariq looked around, he saw that the area was now over twice as bright, yet there were still enough leaves to provide good cover - at least when viewed by someone who would be, at a minimum, standing at 3x the height of the tallest tree.

"I also need someone to go way up there and 'blow down' the tops of the tallest trees so it doesn't seem like such a good idea for some danged bot to move them aside, but that's a whole lot more work. Maybe if you asked for a whole bear carcass I could send you up there...well, never mind for now, I ain't got a bear. Ya selected the deer quarter, so let's get it cookin'."

Mark went into his meat area and came out with the chunk of meat Tariq had pointed out. Then, he walked over to a small pond without even beckoning the alien to come along. Tariq followed anyway, and would soon be shocked at the ingenious fire-hiding method.

First, Mark opened up a concealed pit and shoved the meat in. Inside was a bunch of rocks that served to keep the flesh off of the bare sand. Then, he walked around and gathered up a bunch of naturally-fallen branches and other burnables, which were thrown into the pit after the meat. Finally, he used sticks to ignite the top part of the pile. A few wisps of smoke came up, but he blew hard on the pile both to disperse those and to get the fire going better. Soon enough, he deemed it sufficient to keep going on its own.

This is when he slammed the wet-vine cover back down over the hole, and quickly picked up what looked like a crude musical instrument. He began to blow into this digiridoo-looking thing, and some fairly garbage-tier music softly emerged. It was quite clear to Tariq that the point of this was not to make a calming melody.

In between long, off-key tones, Mark pointed at the pond. "See them bubbles?" Tariq looked over. The water was indeed bubbling, but only a bit. It looked like perhaps some carp or other bottom-feeding fish were dabbling about and creating occasional air pockets. "They're the exhaust from this here pit!" The drug dealer revealed.

Over the next several minutes, and with quite a bit of prodding, Mark explained that he had a set of pipes leading out of the back of the pit to the bottom of the pond. As he "played his flute," it sent air through that kept the fire going. By the time the air made it back up through the pond water, the water would absorb all of the visible smoke.

"None 'a Them really care about some guy 'playing his flute,'" Mark laughed, continuing to blow between words. "IF they notice me at all, and they usually don't, they figure I'm no good for labor since all I'm doing is just settin' here." His eyes flashed triumphantly.

After enduring the crappy noises for another 10 minutes or so, Mark put down his pipe, which wasn't really like a flute at all except for the fact that it was wind-powered. He opened up the pit's lid, which now smelled a bit like cooked vegetation, and the delicious smell of medium-rare meat rushed out immediately.

"Mmm-MMM!! Now that there's some good eatin'! Ya'd better take it and get outta here, before *I* decide ta have it!!" Mark tossed over a bag made of some fairly crude, handmade fabric and then stepped back.

Just that fast, the interaction was over. Tariq didn't ask twice. He used a stick to pull the still-hot meat out and quickly jammed it in the sack, blurting out a "thanks" as he put some distance between himself and the now-hungry Mark.

"Oh, by the way," Mark said as Tariq made his way toward the path. "Ya don't swipe entire plants outta Carjack Ag. Ya just gotta get the seeds!" He was chuckling, thinking that Tariq might have originally thought he'd transplanted entire tree-sized pot plants. "It still ain't easy, though!" He hollered as he gave a goodbye wave.

On his way back home, Tariq now looked around himself much more carefully. He noticed quite a few "almost perfect" little areas that could have been hidey-holes, either currently or at some recent point - or, they could have just been possum holes or maybe dens for some other kinds of animals. Now, he wasn't sure...

[Vallermoore]

Cybertron

Rurik was a bit surprised to see that he had been watched the whole time by Forintel, and made a mental note to keep his adventures quiet on Cybertron, as that ex-overseer might seek revenge if he could. The unfortunate bot had ended up having to take the humilating job (humilating for a Decepticon) of mining ore, something normally reserved for slaves. Scope asked Rurik about his body and he said "It has one mind, which is in my head-and the only thing I'll miss if I become a robot is having this tail." He swung it in the air. "Against biologicals, it's a potent weapon-not that it would be much use against you, even if it were your size. Having Decepticon blasters will make up for losing it. When I was told it would be amputated, I decided to escape if it killed me rather then lose it." After chatting a bit, Rurik took the needed written tests. As a subject of a dictatorship before his world had been invaded, Rurik didn't mind it-even more so because unlike most dictatorships, it wouldn't be in his face for every tiny thing, as long as it didn't feel threatened by whatever that thing was. If he wanted to raid-or domestic raid if he was strong and brave enough-or even kill other Decepticons if they were foes, it didn't normally mind. It was at least possible that he might not have to go through a dangerous survival test on Decepticon Earth, having escaped captivity, got off the world he was on, and then got off a highly hostile world-and from there he had joined a human raid gang and pulled off a successful robbery.

Normally, nations didn't want anything to do with bank robbers and often extradited them to face justice, but the Decepticon Nation was a nation of space pirates and a successful robbery was a major plus when it came to new citizens and was a sign that they could fit in very well. Extradition was not something that the Decepticons did-indeed, their Military would defend Cybertron from any attempts to rendition their own citizens. Galactipol had discovered that the hard way. Their society was a strange one-but like all functional societies, it worked perfectly.

Outlands

The work was more intereting then it seemed and Tariq indeed earned somr tasty meat and even had it cooked, and thanked Mark. Ignoring the hidey holes, he went back and ate the tasty cooked meat, something that tasted really good. He later told himself a story-not an anti-Decepticon story-to himself to give himself something to do, and then checked the trailer to see if there was anything interesting that he had not yet found.

[Victorious Decepticons]

Cybertron

Gatekeeper thought for a while after Rurik told them about his tail and showed how it worked.

"You know, you should make a mod shop one of your first stops after you get yourself some good money," he said to Rurik. "They can make all sorts of specialized things for Decepticon bodies - or even entire bodies, for that matter. There's no reason to stick with the standard one you get after you're ported. It'd be easy enough to add a tail, or use a scorpion as your alt mode instead of a plane, or...well, there really isn't much of a limit as long as physics will abide the design and you've got the money to pay for it! Or, even better, use your money on the Advanced Educational Data Packs for Physics, and then you can design your own. Of course, if you DIY, you'll also need a shop full of machine tools to make your own parts, and it'll also be a hassle every time you get a Military stint, but it's really up to you (and your vault). One of the greatest things about the Ultimate Upgrade is its changeability. The only time you have to use a standardized body is when you're in the Military. If you get damaged on the battlefield, there aren't going to be any custom parts around, at least not unless you make High General."

Scope then added his two bits. He showed a projection of a fairly old-fashioned tape deck, circa Earth Year 1980, and then a very modern player that looked like it was made mostly of a speaker and had a slot for a thumb drive full of music. "Those are both General Soundwave," he bragged. "Soundwave likes his older body best, but it's too obvious for field use nowadays. Because of that, if he does a foreign job, he usually uses that newer one. They say that it's almost impossible to find all of his spares for an assassination attempt, not because they're hidden in all that weird of places, but because it's almost impossible to tell that they're HIS spares." He flashed images of a few other known possibilities, ranging from huge rock-concert amps all the way to military drone planes. "Of course, his best bodies are highly secret, and even we don't know what they look like. There's plenty of speculation, though."

~~~~~~~~~~~

After finishing his paper tests, Rurik handed them over and the two Immigration agents began to look them over. They appeared pleased, detecting no deep-rooted anti-dictatorialism, and seeing that the main beef he had with his old government was that it had busted him and sentenced him to a few years of mine labor for something that the Decepticons wouldn't even consider a crime.

Meanwhile, on Vallermoore, the TV stations were showing sketches of all of the bank robbers and advertising an award for information leading to their arrests. While their faces were all masked, the body shapes were also included. This wouldn't do much good for trying to find the humans, but the very uniquely-shaped Rurik was easy to spot. The pony wasn't quite as one-of-a-kind, but his Decepticon Seal cutie mark was noted along with his hair color, making it so that he would have to disguise his mark until the heat was off.

Soon, ForIntel would update the Immigration Office with this latest information, where it would be a big plus factor in Rurik's immigration application. Not getting busted was a great plus, and to avoid a bust while also generating proof of a claim of prior Decepticon activity was even better. The fact that he had avoided being busted by taking off to Cybertron was another big plus. It was unlikely that any pursuing law types would even look there.

~~~~~~~~~~

Outlands

Tariq greatly enjoyed the meat, and then began to poke around the trailer hoping to find something that was at least interesting. As it turned out, there were plenty of odds and ends, most having no obvious use but being notable just the same. He found a few disused cleaning implements, a dried-up rattlesnake rattle (sans snake), a broken bong, a smaller intact bong, a handmade bed comforter, and some random tools. Then, he noticed a trap door in the bathroom floor, and - tail tensed and ready for possible action - opened it up.

To Tariq's disappointment, there wasn't a huge hoard of loot down there, though he was also relieved that a body wasn't there either. Instead, there were several bottles of moonshine and what appeared to be a bushel basket full of sweet potatoes. A few wild pineapples were also present. Tariq noticed that some of the sweet potatoes were molding - the underside of a trailer might have been dark, but since trailers are built raised up, it was just as hot under there as anywhere else.

Despite seeing the mundane stuff sitting there quite visibly, Tariq climbed down into the space. Now, he could easily see that this part was really the same area that could be reached by taking off a piece of the skirting around the outer edge of the place and going in that way. However, there was one part of the ground that was just slightly more disturbed than the rest. He figured that it could be a hidey hole, or just an armadillo den of no consequence. Alternatively, it could be a trap. Tariq crept over, hunched down due to the limited height of the under-trailer space, to investigate further...