Professional Massive Nerd

Rewind is an imperfect copy of a digital cryptid. Blaster copied himself a few times so he wouldn't be as lonely. Over time, Rewind and the others have taken on personalities and lives of their own. Rewind even made himself a passively convincing human body. He spends most of his time existing in physical space, documenting the more strange phenomena and locations of Earth with his partner Chromedome.

Chromedome was a human, he's currently a Grey. He assumed Rewind was a human too, right up until Chromedome was taken by a rouge Grey scientist.  After a rough adjustment period he decided to live away from the Grey, and spends his time traveling with Rewind. 

Rewind and Chromedome assisted in a botched attempt at capturing a Decepticon they found wandering around near another creature's territory. It was technically partially successful. 

Chromedome had learned a few consistencies in his functioning. One of the first was that no matter what, arguments would happen. It didn’t matter how well anyone got along with anyone else; arguments were an unavoidable part of social interaction. 

Being alone in tight quarters with a mech he barely knew was a good way for an argument to break out from even the smallest thing.

He was expecting some sort of fight to happen. But, he had expected it to happen over what type of ration they were eating, or argue about the day's schedule. Something small, or inconvenient, or maybe even annoying.

In Chromedome’s opinion, this was not a small thing. In fact, the subject of their argument was a rather large thing. A large giant monster that had almost dragged them into the ocean. He was calm. He figured that his almost demise hadn’t settled into his processor yet.

“Why wasn’t that thing in the files you wanted me to read?” Chromedome said. 

The two Mer they had been observing had vanished back into the ocean. Chromedome was eager to get away from the coastline. Away from whatever that thing was.

“I didn’t think we would actually see a prototype; they should be extinct,” Jazz looked out toward the ocean. He shook his helm. “I would have put it in the brief if I thought they were still around, don’t get me wrong. We’ll just have to be more careful near the shore.”

Chromedome silently stared at the back of Jazz’s helm.

“Just be more careful?”

Chromedome knew he should have been more upset. He should have been arguing more. It was just hard to express. Nothing ended up happening. He still felt distant anger. But it was muted.

Jazz’s shoulders dropped.

“Come on, I don’t know about you, but I’m freezing,” Jazz said.

Chromedome followed behind Jazz as they started the short trek back to their camp. 

“Are there any other potentially dangerous animals I should know about? Maybe a giant winged creature that will carry me off?” Chromedome said flatly.

“I didn’t know it would come out of the water; we’re both fine,” Jazz waved a servo casually. He started climbing back up the cliff face.

“Jazz, we could have been dragged off.”

“Probably not? It wasn’t able to go very fast on land.”

Chromedome groaned, “Please just let me know if there are any other horrible creatures that would eat us on this planet.”

“Anything else would be deeper sea life, and I’m sure you’ll be happy to know we have no way of going down into the actual ocean.”

“Why are they even called prototypes?” Chromedome hoisted himself onto an outcropping on the cliff.

“The Senate thought they were prototypes the colonists made before they made the Mer.”

“Descriptive name,” Chromedome said.

“Some Senate scientists that came after the colony fell managed to kill and dissect one; specifics are locked away, but the report concluded they wouldn’t be able to survive on Gelu long term, they couldn’t breed, and the temperatures here were too harsh,” Jazz said.

Chromedome couldn’t imagine why so many records related to this planet were sealed. He was almost tempted to reach out to some of his old coworkers to see if they had access to some of the sealed information. It was an urge he was already fighting back. He didn’t have any way to pursue a case here. Even if he did, he wasn’t an enforcer anymore.

“How pleasant,” Chromedome said.  “You ever wonder why so many records related to this planet were sealed?”

Jaz scratched at the back of his helm, “Not really. If I wondered about everything the Senate sealed, I don’t think I’d have time to think about much else.”

The two of them climbed to the top of the cliff. Jazz kept walking back toward their little camp building.

“I might try to look through some of the other buildings,” Chromedome said.

“Really? Why?” Jazz asked. “Don’t you want to warm up for a bit?”

Chromedome shrugged, “The cold isn’t bothering me much. I need some time alone to calm down from almost being eaten.”

“Fair enough,” Jazz said quickly.

Jazz shot him a look before they separated. Chromedome relaxed as soon as Jazz managed to push the door to their camp open.

Chromedome drew his plating in closer to his protoform. He hoped the inside of the other buildings would at least be a little bit warmer than outside. Chromedome walked quickly toward another building. 

There were only a few buildings left over from the settlement. The one they had claimed was on the smaller side. It only had one room. It was cramped, but the small space made it easier to keep warm. Chromedome imagined a mini con must have lived there. He couldn’t imagine a full-sized mech living there.

Besides that building, there were only two others. One was larger. A partially broken satellite tower stood on its roof. Elements of a climate control system peeked out under layers of snow and ice on the roof. 

The stairs were in good condition, but they were covered in layers of ice. Chromedome gripped the rail hard and ascended the metal stairs slowly. As he got closer to the entrance, he saw a darkened window. It reflected the midday sky. Chrome pressed his helm into the window and tried to look inside. He couldn’t make out any details. The glass was heavily tinted. 

Chromedome continued walking and stood in front of the door. It was sealed shut. There was an access panel, but without power, it was useless. Chromedome stretched his arms over his helm. He pried his servo into the door and hefted. He strained his frame against the door and heard a creak. 

He pushed harder, and the door started to move. After some time, and with too much force, the door was open wide enough for him to slip inside. Chromedome shuffled sideways into the building. As soon as he was in the dark space, he adjusted his visor. 

The room looked frozen in a panicked time. Smashed data pads had been left on the floor. Chairs were pushed over. Items littered the floor. It was like walking into a crime scene. 

His processor was already trying to spin up old protocols. He shut them down aggressively. He scanned over the room, looking over the crushed items. The data pads looked like they had been crushed or stepped on. There were terminals and desks in the room, too, but they were toppled over and crushed.

He saw a flash of light reflect from under one of the remaining desks. He kneeled. He saw another data pad; this one was still intact. It was ancient. It was older than him, and it was probably older than the bots that designed him. He felt like he was holding something that belonged in a museum.

Chromedome delicately held it in his servos. He dragged a digit around the edges of the device and found a button. He tapped gently against the datapad. He never quite pressed the button down. He stared down at the screen and into his reflection. 

He contemplated the chances of the device even holding a charge after all of this time. He swept a look around the room. He wondered how it was still there. He was surprised there was anything left. He would have thought the Senate would have taken any equipment to figure out what had happened to the colonists. 

Curiosity won out. He depressed a digit into the button on the side of the data pad. He heard a quiet click, and the device let out a shrill noise before the screen flashed. Chromedome was shocked to see the device actually power on. 

It was locked, but the data pad was practically an antique. Any algorithm used to encrypt it would long be considered defunct. He flipped the data pad towards his visor and scanned the edges. He transformed one of his digits and plugged into the only port he could find. His processor tore into the encryption with ease. 

It wasn’t one he was familiar with directly, but a newer version was used by his instructors to demonstrate breaking weak encryption. The key was short, and there were only so many options for it to be. Chromedome removed his digit and watched as the device unlocked. 

“Rewind, huh?” The bot who had owned the data pad had his name and colonist profile in the top corner. 

It was a little morbid to imagine how long ago this mech would have died. Long before Chromedome came online. Drowned beneath the waves of this icy planet, along with however many other bots where assigned to live here. 

He flicked through file names absentmindedly. He tapped on a random one. He let out a frustrated huff through his vents when he was met with another layer of encryption. 

Chromedome thought it was going to be a minor inconvenience. He was surprised to find the secondary encryption to be much stronger than the first method. The algorithm looked custom-made. It should have been easy to crack with how old it was, but his programs were struggling with it.   

Chromedome unplugged and gave up on accessing it that day. But he stored the data pad in his subspace. He hoped to keep working during his downtime. He thought it would be a good way to take a break from working on the documentary. If he learned anything about what had happened to the colonists, he would consider it a nice bonus.  

It was enticing to have a mystery to solve. Chromedome didn’t miss his old function. He didn’t. He wasn’t supposed to miss it.

He shook his helm and diverted his attention away from thoughts that would go nowhere. He kept scouring the abandoned space. He found other data pads, but they were all destroyed. Broken into small pieces. Any other piece of computer equipment was similarly destroyed. 

Chromedome jerked when he heard quiet pede steps echoing on metal. He twisted around and saw Jazz standing in the doorway. 

“Find anything interesting?” Jazz asked.

“Lots of broken computer parts, some broken data pads.”

Jazz walked fully into the space. He kneeled and held one of the destroyed data pads in his servos.

“Wonder if the colonists did it on purpose,” Jazz mumbled. 

“Why would they do that?” Chromedome asked. 

Privately, he couldn’t help but wonder the same thing. The destruction did seem intentional. 

“Wish we had someone to ask,” Jazz said. “I’m not a fan of the conspiracy documentaries that have been done for this planet, but I do wonder what happened to all of the mechs here.”

“I do too,” Chromedome said. 

He didn’t mention the intact data pad he had found. He wanted to keep it to himself for the time. A private thing to look into. It wasn’t a case. He told himself. It was a personal project. Thinking about it like that almost made him eager to get started. He hadn't felt this mentally excited to do something in a while. He didn’t want to think about the last time he had felt like this. It was already giving him a processor ache. 

He wanted to start working on it, but he wanted to do it in private. He didn’t want Jazz to take the data pad from him. He was worried Jazz would take his project away. Chromedome promised himself that when he got it unencrypted, if there was anything of interest for the documentary, he would share it with Jazz.

Chromedome racked his processor for an excuse, or a way to be alone even for a little bit. His visor dimmed when he came across an idea. 

“Is it all right if I borrow the drone?” Chromedome said. “I think I might try to take it for a spin.”

“You want some company?” Jazz asked. 

The other mech was still looking around the ruins of the room. 

“No, it should be boring anyway.” Chromedome paused, “Besides, maybe you’ll find something in here that I missed, could even be some intact hard drives in here, maybe some data sticks if you look hard enough,” He said.

“Maybe,” Jazz said, “You sure you want to head off on your own?”

“Positive, besides, there had to have been some record the colonists kept on the wildlife here, right?” 

Chromedome was trying to get Jazz to take the bait. He just hoped he wasn’t overselling it. 

“Some of that information could have been kept here,” Jazz traced a digit along one of the desks that lined the room. “This does look like some sort of communication center. They would have kept a lot of data here.”

Jazz seemed to already be looking into the ruins on the floor. 

“I’ll meet you back at camp soon,” Jazz said. 

Jazz waved him off as he pushed through some debris. 

Chromedome felt a call. Or maybe he thought it was just an urge to be alone. Either way, he felt like heading back down to the shoreline. Or at least near it. It was secluded; it was private. Chromedome just promised himself to stay far away from the shore in case the large creature from earlier decided to come back. He sat down on the last outcropping that led down to the shore. When he sat down, his pedes almost touched the beach.

Chromedome itched to dig into his subspace and to pull out the data pad he had found. As soon as he was sure he was alone, he pulled it back out. He passed the first screen with ease and made his way back to the spot where he had gotten stuck. He wasn’t built for this type of data work, but he had hoped since the algorithms were older that he stood at least some chance of breaking the encryption. 

He got more lost in the work than he would have liked to admit. 

He flinched when he heard something near him. He flicked his helm up and looked around. His first assumption was that Jazz had snuck up on him. 

He was not mentally prepared that one of the two Mer had snuck up on him. The smaller white one. It was practically right next to Chromedome. Staring up at him from the base of the stairs. Chromedome could almost feel its gaze on him. Or more accurately, on the data pad in his servos. 

Chromedome slowly moved the data pad, and the Mer followed the motion. He slowly moved to put the data pad back in his subspace. He hoped that if it wasn’t in his servos anymore, the Mer would loose it's attention on him and go back into the ocean. 

The Mer pushed itself up as the data pad went into his subspace. He hoped it was going to turn around. Instead, it almost glared at the boulder Chromedome was perched on top of.  The Mer pushed itself forward and started to drag itself up. Chromedome scooted back.

“I don’t think that’s a good idea,” Chromedome said to himself. 

The Mer slipped and fell back down. It screeched as it landed.

Chromedome laughed. 

The Mer rolled over. It dragged its claws against the ground. Chromedome watched as it grabbed a rock. Then he winced as it reared its arm back and threw it. It knocked against his helm. 

“Hey!”

Chromedome wasn’t about to chase an animal down. But he did watch it as it almost seemed to laugh. It pushed itself across the beach and slid back into the water. Chromedome didn’t move to follow it. 

Optimus

Prowl

Jazz

Blaster (Rewind, Eject, Steelejaw, and Ramhorn)

?????

Perceptor

Wheeljack

Red Alert

Mirage

Smokescreen

Bluestreak

Hound

Sideswipe

Sunstreaker

Inferno