An Absolute Zero

[Deleted]

Characters: @cosmos, Open
Location: Jasper, NV
Content Warnings: N/A
Plot Summary: Despite all evidence to the contrary, Cosmos can't find a single Autobot in Jasper, NV.

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He might attract an audience if he stayed up in the air any longer. Night had fallen on Jasper, preceded by a long day of Cosmos attempting to find any hint of the Autobots. Had he really done it, he asked himself. Had he been daydreaming for the past five years? It didn't feel like that, not with all the binge watching. Time itself just didn't feel right anymore, which Cosmos attributed to being so high up all the time. Was he going insane?! The mere notion that he was thinking such a thought was evidence enough! But no, he had definitely seen what was probably an Autobot riding around the cozy little town of Jasper. The questions were just who, where and why.

Sixteen hours in, and still nothing. It wasn't helpful that Cosmos was growing increasingly frantic and embarrassed, either. He had actually missed Optimus's message to regroup by five years. If he wasn't so unbearably lonely, he might've just kept on flying to avoid the shame. But no, he was a dutiful little-big Autobot, and he missed his friends; they just didn't know it yet. Cosmos just wanted it done and over with already. He'd been flying circles high above Jasper all day, gradually flying lower and lower as the sun set. Somebody was likely to see him at this rate, not that he minded it all that much. His reputation among the humans was well earned as Roswell, after all.

On a whim, and by asking himself why he didn't try it sooner, he began to emit a signal in morse code across any channel he could reach. The message simply said:

H E Y W H A T S U P

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Morse Code. Stepper had been learning it for moments like this and would attune the left optic of his visor in order to translate. H-E-Y-W-H-A-T-S-U-P...heywhatsup? He was confused for a moment before he blinked and adjusted the positions of the letters until it hit him.

He would type a binary code back to Cosmos through his left optical visor. It was simple and short.

01001110 01101111 01110100 00100000 01101101 01110101 01100011 01101000 00101100 00100000 01110111 01101000 01100001 01110100 00100111 01110011 00100000 01110101 01110000 00111111

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Just like that, Cosmos had his answer. His very short and non-descriptive answer, but then again, he hadn't given away much about himself. Somebody down there was listening, which was more attention than he'd gotten in the past few decades. The exploratory craft wasn't so sure why they'd responded in binary of all languages; maybe he'd accidentally hooked up to a sentient fax machine. Despite what old kitchen appliance he'd connected to, Cosmos was eager to get a dialogue going.

01000001 01110010 01100101 00100000 01111001 01101111 01110101 00100000 01101000 01110101 01101101 01100001 01101110 00101100 00100000 01101111 01110010 00111111

Over the past few decades, Cosmos had held many a conversation like this, most notably with a few human nutjobs who actually believed in him, or rather, aliens. He had his reservations, but whoever this was had responded incredibly fast, almost too quickly for a human. But maybe he was just dealing with another speed typer.

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Stepper paused. He then giggled, replying back almost immediately. He didn't even have to hunt and peck a keyboard as long as he was using his visor.

01000011 01111001 01100010 01100101 01110010 01110100 01110010 01101111 01101110 01101001 01100001 01101110 00101100 00100000 01100110 01110010 01101001 01100101 01101110 01100100 00101110 00100000 00100000 01000001 00100000 01110011 01101000 01111001 00100000 01101111 01101110 01100101 00101110

The truth was, if it was a human, he could play it off as a prank. A fellow Cybertronian and he could make a connection. He wasn't as anxious, knowing whoever this was knew code. They had something to start from. He didn't look stupid. He didn't FEEL stupid.

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Vindication. Or at least, he hoped so. Cosmos could very well be chatting with some Decepticon or another, but he wasn't sure just what kind of Decepticon would sit and talk to somebody in binary. Hopefully, no such Decepticon existed. Cosmos waited, thinking of something to say that wouldn't make him immediately come across as a potential Decepticon, or an Autobot, if he were a Decepticon.

01011001 01101111 01110101 00100111 01110010 01100101 00100000 01101110 01101111 01110100 00100000 01100001 00100000 01000100 01100101 01100011 01100101 01110000 01110100 01101001 01100011 01101111 01101110 00101100 00100000 01100001 01110010 01100101 00100000 01111001 01101111 01110101 00111111

This was it. If they were an Autobot, Cosmos had just found his new best friend; but if not, it might be time to break out the ol' laser cannons.