damned_institute | Day 46: Lunch

The mere fact that she'd been susceptible to whatever hold the Institute had had on her yesterday was sufficient to leave Ayumu both upset and angry - no, not angry, downright furious, both at herself and whoever was responsible for that. But there was also the fact that because of it, she'd lost out on an entire day of work, and in several ways had ruined some of what she'd done already. That little conversation with Himura the day before, for instance, was something she'd sincerely prefer not to remember if she'd had any choice in the matter.

Unless the man was a complete moron, which, unfortunately, was one thing she couldn't believe of him, he had to have realized just who her brother was. After all the effort to keep that fact quiet (not exactly a secret, but certainly not advertised; half the Shinsengumi probably never even realized it because there was no reason to) she'd gone and chatted about it with him. Told him all about it, practically painted a bright target around a weakness that shouldn't have existed in the first place.

She'd spent the shift in the Sun Room pretending to sleep, while in truth forcing herself into calm. After years of practice she could shunt away the useless and distracting emotions, focusing only on what was important and needed to be at the forefront of her mind, and by the time the intercom signaled the lunch period she was feeling considerably calmer. The time to silently observe others had, as well, alerted her to something she probably should have noticed earlier: Mello was back. Would her previous objective be reinstated now? He seemed to have far less of a bulletin presence this time, so perhaps not. Still, though, it bore investigating.

None of her thoughts were visible, of course, as she moved through the line, examining the lunch selection somewhat dubiously. Now with the benefit of Yuuko's memories she might recognize the food, but she certainly didn't share the enthusiasm for it that her imaginary self apparently had. Ayumu skipped past that part and settled for the salad bar and some bread, then positioned herself in a place where she could watch both the door and the rest of the room, setting her journal open in front of herself as though planning to write something. There was far too much that she'd missed, too much work to do now.

[for Okita]

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

Lockdown was about to pick up his slice of pizza when he got distracted by the old meatbag's reaction. Oh yeah, he recognized that reaction. HK had it after the bounty hunter surprised him that one night by coming on to him. Lockdown hadn't said anything to the old relic, so maybe he'd just been surprised by the tattoos. Lots of meatbags had been surprised or frightened by his tattoos, after all. Lockdown couldn't help but smirk in satisfaction.

"Meatbags, predictable as ever," He mused to himself.

He looked down at his food, about to decide what to eat first, when his optics caught something. Looking at the human's arm, he noticed a bad scar on it. Hm, kinda reminded him of that one Autobot with the EMP... wait a nanoklik. The bounty hunter looked up at the human again and now noticed a scar across his left human-optic. Right about where he'd punched out... No, it couldn't be.

Once the human spoke there was no mistaking who he was. It also explained the shady individual on the message board who'd seen his crew in Detroit but couldn't recognize Ratchet's handwriting.

"You." Simulation or not (and Ratchet was having doubts about that), Lockdown rated very, very low on the list of people he wanted to see.

"Allspark, it is you!" That medibot with the EMP. The one who'd prevented him from turning in Optimus Prime and taken the trophy back.

When his question on the board had been answered with "pretty with twinkly lights", that had narrowed it down a little. All of Prime's crew had lights on their vehicle modes. First Prowl and now the old medibot. Were there any other Autobots here that Lockdown didn't know about?

"What are you doing here?" What Ratchet wouldn't have given for his magnetic manipulators right about now. What was he supposed to do with this worthless bag of guts? He was leery about using his hands to fight with, but they were all he had left, really.

He glanced at his glass. The rim had been ground smooth, but if he could break a piece off of it would it be sharp enough to pierce an organic...?

"I could ask you the same question," Lockdown was already remembering how the old bot had humiliated him before getting away. The bounty hunter didn't like it when his quary got away. However, if he was going to get revenge on this medibot, he'd have to keep it secret from Prowl. Allspark, this whole encounter was going to have to be kept a secret from Prowl.

He'd seen the old relic look at his glass and growled, "Don't even think about it."

"As if I know," Ratchet snapped, sounding a great deal more confident than he felt. He focused on slowing his ventilation, which had sped up a bit in preparation for...something. Running like a turbofox with its tail on fire, possibly, but Ratchet had his pride. Lockdown obviously didn't have his saw on him, so it was probably safer to hold his ground for now.

At Lockdown's warning Ratchet abandoned the glass idea, though it hadn't been much of an option to start with. "Look, I was sitting here first, so what do you want?"

"You think I'd wanna sit with a worn down old bot like you if the meatbag drones hadn't made me?" Lockdown snapped.

Normally Lockdown would have been smug and sardonic in the presence of a mech he'd hurt and taken mods off of, but right now was different. This old bot had helped not one, but two quaries get away, taken back that sweet EMP generator, and humiliated him.

"Please, you're not that much younger than I am," Ratchet grumbled, belatedly wondering to himself why he gave a damn about something so trivial. "Well, the parts that are actually yours aren't that much younger, anyway."

"Speaking of which," he added, "I gotta say, the organic look is an improvement for you." Maybe it wasn't in his best interests to antagonize Lockdown like this, but today had been too confusing not to take it out on someone.

Lockdown shrugged and said cooly, "At least I don't look like I'm past due for the scrapheap." The bounty hunter actually didn't mind if he looked ugly, he was mostly just jerking the medibot's chain. Why pay for a medic when you can do repairs yourself? And if it made you look scary, that was just a bonus.

He scowled at the other comment, but then smirked and said, "Same t'you. Then again, not like there wasn't much to improve on."

"Of course not," Ratchet returned, "You just look like you are the scrapheap." Likewise, Ratchet wasn't overly concerned about his appearance. If he'd wanted to look like he'd just rolled off the assembly line he wouldn't have gone into the line of work he had.

"Well, at least all my parts matched," he said, raising and optic ridge and trying to ignore how the scar pulled at the surrounding hide.

Lockdown couldn't help but laugh at the medic's insults. Was that the best he could do? So he looked like a walking scrapheap. It just meant that he got to scare the slag out of most bots he ran into. Plus he had more mods than most bots ever did, which was another added bonus of chopping and grafting.

Leaning back smuggly, the bounty hunter asked, "You done now?"

Ratchet glared, but took a moment to consider the question. "Yes." In all honesty, he had no levity to spare for his former captor. Part of him was still expecting to wake up in the programming ward of Central Infirmary, though, and he was hesitant about playing along with this place too much. There was still the very real possibility that this was a simulation brought on by a virus, and that this Lockdown was a composite from Ratchet's memory files. And his memory files regarding this bot were very well indexed, with multiple tags.

Day 46: Lunch

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