[Consortium] Insufficient Funds
Jul. 11th, 2022 07:39 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
dracoqueen22Title: Insufficient Funds
Series: The Prime’s Consorts
Characters: Blaster, Steeljaw
Rated: K+
Description: In the wake of Soundwave’s departure and subsequent absence, Blaster worries.
Blaster is running out of money.
Worse, Blaster is running out of money and his best friend has let himself be sold to the new Prime all for the sake of the Sanctuary. Blaster can’t even do him the courtesy of not running it to the ground in Soundwave’s absence. Soundwave has sacrificed everything, and still, Blaster is running out of money.
Everything costs creds these days. It’s not just the energon. It’s the parts, the lubricants, the supplies. It’s bribing guards to look the other way when they’re sneaking refugees over borders. It’s paying medics for much needed repairs. It’s paying for new identities, and refitting frames so that they are unrecognizable. It’s paying for fares to colonies too far from Cybertron for the wealthy to reach.
It’s a lot of things that Blaster simply doesn’t have the creds to cover. His kin suffer, and Blaster can only do triage. Save this one over that one because it’s cheaper or easier or… or…
His tank churns.
Blaster shoves away his energon with the tip of his finger. Some of his kin are starving to death in the gutters. Others have been used and abused until they are nothing but shells of their former selves, empty slaves to the whims of the elite.
Soundwave’s fate now.
He’s spent his whole functioning trying to protect their kin from such an outcome and now, he’d walked with his head held high straight into the worst one of them all. Their new Prime. How can Blaster think of consuming energon at a time like this?
He can’t. Thus the reason he’s pushed away the energon for the time being. His levels aren’t near critical. He’ll save it for the bits to share. Steeljaw’s probably going to hit his last quote-unquote growth spurt soon. He needs it more.
There are a lot of mechs who need it, truth be told.
Blaster has only to stare at the datapad with its increasingly negative balance to know that much. More designations, more refugees, more carriers desperate to escape their circumstances. Used to be this small operation was enough. The odd carrier here and there found themselves abused, but it wasn’t so common. It wasn’t an everyday occurrence.
Rising costs were the reason Soundwave indebted himself to Ratbat in the first place. Ratbat had promised, in that simpering, greasy tone of his, that so long as Soundwave served him faithfully, the Sanctuary would receive a certain amount of funds on a monthly basis.
And he’s kept his word, such that it is.
Soundwave’s not here. Soundwave’s in the clutches of the newest Prime, offline for all Blaster knows, because Ratbat commanded it. Ratbat has made the deposit into the proper account, like he’s supposed to. It’s just not enough. Not anymore. And relying on Ratbat to keep his word is tenuous.
Blaster does his best. He wheedles his way into discounts. He makes back-alley deals with questionable suppliers. He waters down the energon and recycles the lubricants and grudgingly, achingly allows the medics to part out those who didn’t quite make it so that those who did can survive a little bit longer.
He keeps a ledger. Not even Soundwave knows about this ledger, but it’s a list of designations. Those who didn’t make it. The carriers. The cassettes. It feels like the list of the fallen is longer than the list of those saved these days.
Soundwave’s doing his best, and Blaster’s letting him down.
He knows he shouldn’t. It’s not helpful. But Blaster reaches into a locked drawer and withdraws the small datapad Ratbat had left in the dropbox, his only means of contact with Soundwave’s “special project” as he calls it.
Soundwave is keeping up his end of the bargain. Ratbat’s irritating simper comes through the glyph text without Blaster having to hear his voice. His obedience maintains our agreement.
It’s painfully brief and lacks any detail. Blaster assumes Soundwave is alive, but that means little given what Blaster knows of how Primes treat their Consorts. Zeta was infamous for going through his Consorts like they were disposable toys. No one had ever caught a glimpse of Nominus’ Consorts, and that, in itself, was cause for concern.
What does Soundwave suffer? It is impossible to know. The Prime has been on his “honeymoon” for close to three weeks now, and there’ve been no updates, no pictures, no reports. Nothing but silence. Oh, the speculation has been rampant, and Blaster admits his attention has been glued to every news article hoping for a hint of what’s happening behind those doors.
Primus, he’s exhausted. When was the last time he recharged? Maybe before he watched Soundwave get on that transport along with the eight other Consorts and those doors closed behind him. The last time he’d seen his dear friend intact.
A gentle tap alerts Blaster to Steeljaw rousing, so he pops his dock and lets the feline cassette emerge. Steeljaw transforms and lands on Blaster’s desk with a jaw-cracking yawn and a long stretch of his spinal strut.
“Feel better?” Blaster asks with a scritch behind Steeljaw’s mane that he only allows from Blaster and no one else, not even his siblings.
Steeljaw flicks an audial. “No. Your brooding was too loud.”
“I was not brooding,” Blaster huffs. He shoves the datapad with Ratbat’s message back into the drawer where it belongs. “I was administrating.”
“You were brooding. Worrying, actually, about Soundwave,” Steeljaw says with that long, felinid stare that tends to look right through Blaster. For all that he’s the youngest of Blaster’s cassettes, he’s often the most wise. “You’re doing the best you can, you know.”
Blaster nudges the energon cube he’d abandoned earlier back toward Steeljaw. “Drink this,” he says, avoiding the compliment. “You’ll need it.”
Steeljaw sighs but accepts the cube and diligently drinks it without any further coaxing on Blaster’s part. A tiny bit of tension unkinks from between Blaster’s shoulders, though he only has to glance at the expense report on his desk to feel his cables twisting into knots once more.
What the frag is he going to do?
Ping.
‘You have a new deposit in your account.’ The announcement in a tinny, mechanical voice emerges from the console speakers, barely audible in Blaster’s office. Usually, he has it on mute because the constant notifications from his many apps and communication programs start to get irritating.
Blaster grumbles subvocally and hits the mute button until he rewinds and replays exactly what the notification had said. He’s got a new what now?
Blaster sits up in his chair, feet hitting the floor, and navigates to the pop-up. A new deposit. That doesn’t make any sense. Ratbat’s already given his contribution for the month and they have no other donors. Is it a mistake?
He pulls up the account, and his spark drops into his tanks. He sits back in his chair and stares at both the screen and the amount. A few minutes ago, he’d been inching toward a negative balance as he debated between two separate purchases. Now there are enough creds to cover the monthly costs and then some. It’s three times the amount Ratbat deigns to donate.
No. This can’t be right.
Blaster investigates further. The donor is anonymous, which is impossible. No one knows about this account. Even Ratbat’s donations are made through proxy accounts that Blaster has to manually transfer into this particular account through secure servers that Soundwave and he worked together to protect.
They’re supposed to be impenetrable. Why would someone hack an account to deposit money into it? This doesn’t make sense. Is it a trap? An accident?
Blaster clicks on the deposit. He doesn’t recognize the account number’s origin, save that it’s a bank in Iacon. He doesn’t personally know anyone in Iacon. It’s the political seat of power for all Cybertron with plenty of faces to recognize. Yet, Blaster can’t think of a single mech who both knows about The Sanctuary and cares enough to anonymously donate tens of thousands of creds to keep it going.
Wait.
All digital cred transfers allow for small notations on the transactions. Most of the time, mechs don’t bother, but this time, someone did.
It’s a nonsense stream of glyphs. Anyone else would look at it and see gibberish, but Blaster doesn’t. He picks them apart, imagines the separating dashes only he or Soundwave would know to slide in between the glyphs.
“Boss?”
Blaster looks up at Steeljaw, something like hope brimming deep in his spark. “Grab our copy of the Covenant of Primus, would you, kiddo?”
“Really?” Steeljaw’s field bursts with surprise, but he leaps down from the desk and digs in one of the crates for the datapad.
“I hope so,” Blaster says. He drums his fingers on the desk, one foot tapping as he waits. It only takes a few minutes of rummaging before Steeljaw returns with the datapad clamped between his denta.
Blaster sucks in a deep ventilation and starts to translate. He and Soundwave spent a long time on this code. Soundwave picked the book, but Blaster picked the codex. Chapter number, page number, word number. Bit by bit, plucking out a message that no one else can understand, for when they need to communicate semi-publically. When there’s a risk of their communication being intercepted.
Safe.
Relief crashes down on Blaster, and he sags in his chair like he can’t hold himself up anymore. Safe. Soundwave’s safe. For whatever definition of the word, he’s safe enough to send Blaster this message.
He keeps going, referencing the datapad with every transmitted glyph in the transaction’s notation, for the three remaining words.
Donation. Mine. Recurring. Trust.
Heat prickles at the back of Blaster’s optics. He sets down the datapad and tilts his head back against the chair, offlining his optics. He cycles several slow ventilations, letting himself soak in the relief.
He can trust the creds. He doesn’t know what Soundwave did to earn them, but he trusts Soundwave when he says he’s safe. He trusts Soundwave to only give what he can afford to spare.
“Good news?” Steeljaw asks as he bumps up under Blaster’s dangling hand, giving it a nuzzle.
Blaster manages a smile and onlines his optics. “The best news we could have hoped for.” He looks down at his symbiote. “Soundwave is still alive, and we have enough credits to keep going.”
Steeljaw purrs and says, “Very good news.” He bumps Blaster’s hand one last time before trotting toward the door. “I’ll tell Rewind and Eject so both of them stop fretting. Maybe think about taking a nap, boss.”
Blaster barks a helpless laugh. “Since when did you turn into a nannybot?”
“Always been,” Steeljaw says with a flick of his tail before he’s gone out the door.
Well, he’s not wrong.
Blaster scrubs the heels of his hands against his optics and cycles several more ventilations. Four words. That’s it. Four words and his world puts itself back into order. The Sanctuary isn’t doomed to failure. He can keep helping his kin. He can keep going for a little longer.
And Soundwave is as safe as he can be.
Thank Primus.
***
Series: The Prime’s Consorts
Characters: Blaster, Steeljaw
Rated: K+
Description: In the wake of Soundwave’s departure and subsequent absence, Blaster worries.
Blaster is running out of money.
Worse, Blaster is running out of money and his best friend has let himself be sold to the new Prime all for the sake of the Sanctuary. Blaster can’t even do him the courtesy of not running it to the ground in Soundwave’s absence. Soundwave has sacrificed everything, and still, Blaster is running out of money.
Everything costs creds these days. It’s not just the energon. It’s the parts, the lubricants, the supplies. It’s bribing guards to look the other way when they’re sneaking refugees over borders. It’s paying medics for much needed repairs. It’s paying for new identities, and refitting frames so that they are unrecognizable. It’s paying for fares to colonies too far from Cybertron for the wealthy to reach.
It’s a lot of things that Blaster simply doesn’t have the creds to cover. His kin suffer, and Blaster can only do triage. Save this one over that one because it’s cheaper or easier or… or…
His tank churns.
Blaster shoves away his energon with the tip of his finger. Some of his kin are starving to death in the gutters. Others have been used and abused until they are nothing but shells of their former selves, empty slaves to the whims of the elite.
Soundwave’s fate now.
He’s spent his whole functioning trying to protect their kin from such an outcome and now, he’d walked with his head held high straight into the worst one of them all. Their new Prime. How can Blaster think of consuming energon at a time like this?
He can’t. Thus the reason he’s pushed away the energon for the time being. His levels aren’t near critical. He’ll save it for the bits to share. Steeljaw’s probably going to hit his last quote-unquote growth spurt soon. He needs it more.
There are a lot of mechs who need it, truth be told.
Blaster has only to stare at the datapad with its increasingly negative balance to know that much. More designations, more refugees, more carriers desperate to escape their circumstances. Used to be this small operation was enough. The odd carrier here and there found themselves abused, but it wasn’t so common. It wasn’t an everyday occurrence.
Rising costs were the reason Soundwave indebted himself to Ratbat in the first place. Ratbat had promised, in that simpering, greasy tone of his, that so long as Soundwave served him faithfully, the Sanctuary would receive a certain amount of funds on a monthly basis.
And he’s kept his word, such that it is.
Soundwave’s not here. Soundwave’s in the clutches of the newest Prime, offline for all Blaster knows, because Ratbat commanded it. Ratbat has made the deposit into the proper account, like he’s supposed to. It’s just not enough. Not anymore. And relying on Ratbat to keep his word is tenuous.
Blaster does his best. He wheedles his way into discounts. He makes back-alley deals with questionable suppliers. He waters down the energon and recycles the lubricants and grudgingly, achingly allows the medics to part out those who didn’t quite make it so that those who did can survive a little bit longer.
He keeps a ledger. Not even Soundwave knows about this ledger, but it’s a list of designations. Those who didn’t make it. The carriers. The cassettes. It feels like the list of the fallen is longer than the list of those saved these days.
Soundwave’s doing his best, and Blaster’s letting him down.
He knows he shouldn’t. It’s not helpful. But Blaster reaches into a locked drawer and withdraws the small datapad Ratbat had left in the dropbox, his only means of contact with Soundwave’s “special project” as he calls it.
Soundwave is keeping up his end of the bargain. Ratbat’s irritating simper comes through the glyph text without Blaster having to hear his voice. His obedience maintains our agreement.
It’s painfully brief and lacks any detail. Blaster assumes Soundwave is alive, but that means little given what Blaster knows of how Primes treat their Consorts. Zeta was infamous for going through his Consorts like they were disposable toys. No one had ever caught a glimpse of Nominus’ Consorts, and that, in itself, was cause for concern.
What does Soundwave suffer? It is impossible to know. The Prime has been on his “honeymoon” for close to three weeks now, and there’ve been no updates, no pictures, no reports. Nothing but silence. Oh, the speculation has been rampant, and Blaster admits his attention has been glued to every news article hoping for a hint of what’s happening behind those doors.
Primus, he’s exhausted. When was the last time he recharged? Maybe before he watched Soundwave get on that transport along with the eight other Consorts and those doors closed behind him. The last time he’d seen his dear friend intact.
A gentle tap alerts Blaster to Steeljaw rousing, so he pops his dock and lets the feline cassette emerge. Steeljaw transforms and lands on Blaster’s desk with a jaw-cracking yawn and a long stretch of his spinal strut.
“Feel better?” Blaster asks with a scritch behind Steeljaw’s mane that he only allows from Blaster and no one else, not even his siblings.
Steeljaw flicks an audial. “No. Your brooding was too loud.”
“I was not brooding,” Blaster huffs. He shoves the datapad with Ratbat’s message back into the drawer where it belongs. “I was administrating.”
“You were brooding. Worrying, actually, about Soundwave,” Steeljaw says with that long, felinid stare that tends to look right through Blaster. For all that he’s the youngest of Blaster’s cassettes, he’s often the most wise. “You’re doing the best you can, you know.”
Blaster nudges the energon cube he’d abandoned earlier back toward Steeljaw. “Drink this,” he says, avoiding the compliment. “You’ll need it.”
Steeljaw sighs but accepts the cube and diligently drinks it without any further coaxing on Blaster’s part. A tiny bit of tension unkinks from between Blaster’s shoulders, though he only has to glance at the expense report on his desk to feel his cables twisting into knots once more.
What the frag is he going to do?
Ping.
‘You have a new deposit in your account.’ The announcement in a tinny, mechanical voice emerges from the console speakers, barely audible in Blaster’s office. Usually, he has it on mute because the constant notifications from his many apps and communication programs start to get irritating.
Blaster grumbles subvocally and hits the mute button until he rewinds and replays exactly what the notification had said. He’s got a new what now?
Blaster sits up in his chair, feet hitting the floor, and navigates to the pop-up. A new deposit. That doesn’t make any sense. Ratbat’s already given his contribution for the month and they have no other donors. Is it a mistake?
He pulls up the account, and his spark drops into his tanks. He sits back in his chair and stares at both the screen and the amount. A few minutes ago, he’d been inching toward a negative balance as he debated between two separate purchases. Now there are enough creds to cover the monthly costs and then some. It’s three times the amount Ratbat deigns to donate.
No. This can’t be right.
Blaster investigates further. The donor is anonymous, which is impossible. No one knows about this account. Even Ratbat’s donations are made through proxy accounts that Blaster has to manually transfer into this particular account through secure servers that Soundwave and he worked together to protect.
They’re supposed to be impenetrable. Why would someone hack an account to deposit money into it? This doesn’t make sense. Is it a trap? An accident?
Blaster clicks on the deposit. He doesn’t recognize the account number’s origin, save that it’s a bank in Iacon. He doesn’t personally know anyone in Iacon. It’s the political seat of power for all Cybertron with plenty of faces to recognize. Yet, Blaster can’t think of a single mech who both knows about The Sanctuary and cares enough to anonymously donate tens of thousands of creds to keep it going.
Wait.
All digital cred transfers allow for small notations on the transactions. Most of the time, mechs don’t bother, but this time, someone did.
It’s a nonsense stream of glyphs. Anyone else would look at it and see gibberish, but Blaster doesn’t. He picks them apart, imagines the separating dashes only he or Soundwave would know to slide in between the glyphs.
“Boss?”
Blaster looks up at Steeljaw, something like hope brimming deep in his spark. “Grab our copy of the Covenant of Primus, would you, kiddo?”
“Really?” Steeljaw’s field bursts with surprise, but he leaps down from the desk and digs in one of the crates for the datapad.
“I hope so,” Blaster says. He drums his fingers on the desk, one foot tapping as he waits. It only takes a few minutes of rummaging before Steeljaw returns with the datapad clamped between his denta.
Blaster sucks in a deep ventilation and starts to translate. He and Soundwave spent a long time on this code. Soundwave picked the book, but Blaster picked the codex. Chapter number, page number, word number. Bit by bit, plucking out a message that no one else can understand, for when they need to communicate semi-publically. When there’s a risk of their communication being intercepted.
Safe.
Relief crashes down on Blaster, and he sags in his chair like he can’t hold himself up anymore. Safe. Soundwave’s safe. For whatever definition of the word, he’s safe enough to send Blaster this message.
He keeps going, referencing the datapad with every transmitted glyph in the transaction’s notation, for the three remaining words.
Donation. Mine. Recurring. Trust.
Heat prickles at the back of Blaster’s optics. He sets down the datapad and tilts his head back against the chair, offlining his optics. He cycles several slow ventilations, letting himself soak in the relief.
He can trust the creds. He doesn’t know what Soundwave did to earn them, but he trusts Soundwave when he says he’s safe. He trusts Soundwave to only give what he can afford to spare.
“Good news?” Steeljaw asks as he bumps up under Blaster’s dangling hand, giving it a nuzzle.
Blaster manages a smile and onlines his optics. “The best news we could have hoped for.” He looks down at his symbiote. “Soundwave is still alive, and we have enough credits to keep going.”
Steeljaw purrs and says, “Very good news.” He bumps Blaster’s hand one last time before trotting toward the door. “I’ll tell Rewind and Eject so both of them stop fretting. Maybe think about taking a nap, boss.”
Blaster barks a helpless laugh. “Since when did you turn into a nannybot?”
“Always been,” Steeljaw says with a flick of his tail before he’s gone out the door.
Well, he’s not wrong.
Blaster scrubs the heels of his hands against his optics and cycles several more ventilations. Four words. That’s it. Four words and his world puts itself back into order. The Sanctuary isn’t doomed to failure. He can keep helping his kin. He can keep going for a little longer.
And Soundwave is as safe as he can be.
Thank Primus.
