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[deadpartners]

Who: Arcee and YOU!
Where: All around L.A.
When: THIS WEEK
What: Arcee's scouting out the city, gathering information and getting to know humankind.
Warnings: idk robots

Nothing about this mission has been easy. Not spending the terse weeks in the cramped Rod Pod with Rodimus, not trying to keep her troops in line, nothing to do with Optimus -- no, Orion now. It had been hard to let him go, to watch him walk away when she knows that she and the other Autobot pose the least threat to him. If he goes back to Megatron, Arcee's not sure what'll happen with the war. And the fact that Megatron's on this planet at all is cause for concern.

That, and the considerably more local threats. Orion's terrifying bout of mind control hadn't come at the hands of the Decepticons, but something Earth-based. Something deeply sinister. Arcee knows a bit about this planet, but not enough. It's starting to look like they might be here a while, so she decides it's time for some serious recon.

She has a holomatter avatar for precisely this reason -- blending in with the local populace, maintaining a low profile. It's a remote projection, solid enough to interact with its environment and relay data back to Arcee. She can learn a lot just by driving around, but certain information is a lot easier to come by when you get up close and personal. She can be found around the city either as her human avatar, who's gathering any information she might be able to find about Megatron's whereabouts and the strange happenings in L.A. of light, or as a sleek motorcycle on the city streets, either bearing a holographic rider when on the move (because a motorcycle moving on its own would definitely be cause for suspicion), or unattended while parked out of the way to watch passersby.

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Comments

[deadpartners]

Arcee's gotten a few interested looks and questions from human passersby, so it doesn't seem too far out of line. Unfortunately, she hasn't been the best at coming up with ready, believable answers -- when she'd first started venturing into the city with her avatar, she hadn't given the persona much thought, but sooner or later she'd realized that she needed a cover story. At least a vague one.

She'd pored over her research from the human data networks and cobbled together a bit of a backstory, so to speak, in case any of her dealings with humans required she give any personal details. She'd chosen familiar elements to her human backstory, things she could connect with. At least their law enforcement structure bears some similarity to that of pre-war Cybertron.

"I was in the force," she says, quite believably. It's been a long time since Arcee was actually a cop, but she's never really forgotten that. The avatar doesn't quite dismount, just looking over at the woman questioning her. "You get pretty good at navigating around tight corners when you spend a lot of time chasing down criminals."

Arcee's filtered through dozens, maybe hundreds of human vids about police activity. Some of them seem dramatized, but it's honestly hard to tell. Either way, human police chases on motorcycle are totally a thing that happens all the time. Right? Right.

[airachnoid]

The woman's answer only serves to heighten Airachnid's suspicions, despite the very real possibility that she is just a normal human ex-cop. Arcee used to be a cop too, after all. In fact, that's how the two of them first met. One could say they've always had clashing interests.

"Of course," she says, keeping her tone conversational. "You know, I've always had a bit of an interest in the relationship between criminals and the police. Have you ever encountered any noteworthy or particularly elusive criminals?"

The test benefits Airachnid either way. If the woman mentions anything familiar, Airachnid can put down another mark in the Might Be Arcee column. If the woman mentions any unfamiliar human names, Airachnid can start looking into making contacts in the human criminal underworld.

[deadpartners]

Arcee doesn't have to be human for that to register as an odd question. She raises her eyebrows, peering suspiciously back at the woman. Her tone had been casual, but the question had been anything but. What kind of person asks a random ex-cop for an account of the most difficult criminals she's met? It seems a little too...ready to Arcee.

"I'm sorry, who are you exactly?"