l337 h4x0r

[Verity Carlo]

Characters: Verity Carlo , @stepper
Location: Alaska, Autobot Outpost Omega-1
Content Warnings: Potential Hacking
Plot Summary: Now that Verity knows that the war has somehow started back up again, she's determined to find the cause of all this to help out Springer. What she doesn't realize is that she's about to run into another Autobot digitally in the process.

[Verity Carlo]

How was this even happening?

Now that she'd met back up with Springer, she had learned that this whole war had started up all over again.  Out of nowhere!  What, did the Decepticons just sort of change their minds or whatever?  She'd been hoping to get away from it all with her friend, and here they were back in the middle of it.

Verity was determined to get down to the bottom of all this and figure out what was going on.  There had to be some sort of reasoning for all this.

As far as she knew, Earth was well aware of their transforming metal friends, so the first thing that came to mind was for Verity to check the internet.  It was the base hub of knowledge nowadays anyway.  However, what she quickly found was absolutely nothing.  No records about Autobots or Decepticons, let alone a transforming vehicle outside of the ones that were in development in Japan.  Pfft.  Close but not what she'd wanted.

....for now.

"Ugh.. There's nothing!  It's like the world forgot who they even were!"  Verity pouted in irritation.  What would her human friends have tried.

Wait.  Hunter!  He was the one who'd been researching the little green men and such, right?  If he could do it, then so could she.. but better.  Verity had just been looking for the wrong thing!  Next time she met up with Hunter, she'd have to thank him.

A few articles in, and the girl found exactly what she'd been looking for.  An alien sighting with a low quality image attached.  Usually these were all photoshopped and completely bogus, but this one.. this one looked too legit to quit.  It was a Cybertronian shape, but not one where she could make out exactly who it was.

Bingo!

[Deleted]

Stepper winced. Someone had caught not just any vehicle on camera. No, there were no bones about it, considering that there was no other way that any other bright blue vehicle with orange tint to the windows could be captured on photograph. Remember what Raf put there. Remember what Raf put there--an animated gif of a tap-dancing monkey.

"And upload...while backtracing that IP..." He muttered, his digits dancing along the holo-keyboard of his datapad.

He grumbled and grunted, starting to type out a little gotcha statement. Stepper's glossa seemed to stick out of the right corner of his mouth ever so slightly, like he was the biggest little troublemaker. When done it would read: "H0W D0 U L1K3 TH3M 4PPL3Z".

"How do you like them alloy apples?" He murmured to the screen.

[Verity Carlo]

...what?

In the time it had taken Verity to blink, suddenly the image of the car was gone and in it's place was an animated gif of a dancing monkey.  Was this just some sort of troll page.  Either way, the girl was by no means amused.  Just when she thought she was making some headway, her one lead was gone.

Or was it?

Suddenly leet speak began to appear with the image, a grin forming on Verity's face.  Now she understood what was going on.  Either someone was messing with her, or someone was trying to cover their own tracks.  "Is that how you want to play?  Let's see about that."  It took some digging, but Verity was able to track who was updating the web page she was on, getting all the information she could need.  No name or phone number.. but the IP was all she could ask for to begin with.

"Gotcha now, Sir Hacks-a-lot."

With a bit of coding, Verity sent a message that would appear on the suspect's datapad.  'Nice try, but I still found you.  How do you like THOSE apples?  Tell me.. what do you know about alien robots?'

[Deleted]

Stepper grimaced. The jig was up. Whoever this was knew what Cybertronians were--or else was a ranting lunatic. He'd have to bite sooner or later though. He had to and the words on the screen burned themselves into his optics.

'...more than you'd think. The question is: what do you know? That determines how this goes.' Stepper knew when to be somewhat authoritative. He thanked Primus silently that he had learned a little from his carrier about what to do, how to react in a situation like this.

"Damn it, looks like I'm not the only hacker..." He muttered to himself. "Kind of glad I don't have any Decepticon maps or anything on my datapad."

[Verity Carlo]

More than she thought?  Verity would count that as a yes.  Although it was smart on the mysterious one's part to try and pry her for answers first.  For all this guy knew she was hacking in order to do damage.

Not this time.  This time she wanted answers, and this was the best bet she had right now.

'A lot, actually.  Cybertron.  Autobots.  Decepticons.  A war that devastated the planet?  Heard the story a billion times if not more.  I know there's an Autobot base on Earth probably.. and the Decepticons hiding somewhere.'  Verity hummed to herself.  What more could this guy possibly need as proof that she knew a bit more about the war than she wanted to.

'A question for you now.  Do any of these names mean anything to you?  It's fine if it's no, but I just wanted to be sure.'  Verity paused for a moment.. then typed out the names that would one by one appear on the other's datapad screen.

'Ironfist'

'Impactor'

'Pyro'

'Springer'

'Guzzle'

'Kup'

And then one final name.  'Prowl'

[Deleted]

Well scrap. She knew about Autobots. She knew about Decepticons. She knew about the war and she was probably well-versed on it too.

'Well, then you know quite a bit more than I was expecting.' His digits were fast dancing along the keyboard, telling a tale as old as time. 'You've gotten in contact with an Autobot. That'd be me.'

Soon, another question would be fired at him. The first six he couldn't make heads or tails of. He'd never met any of them. The last however, that one was familiar.

'Prowl's one of command on base here. I'm vaguely familiar with him because he's here, in any case. Dunno the others. Sorry.'

[Verity Carlo]

Heh.  She'd caught him off guard.

But at least this guy wasn't freaking out over the fact that Verity had known about the Autobots and Decepticons and the like.  Wasn't something she felt like putting up with at the moment, but at the same time, she was sorta glad that this was an Autobot she'd been talking with.  Definitely made things easier and a little less awkward.

'Glad to know you're one of the Autobots.  You got a name to come with that position?'

She was well aware she should probably introduce herself first, but she wanted to know who she was dealing with first.  Besides, even if she did give her name, she had no intention of giving her real name.  It was something she'd done in the past, and it helped keep people off her trail at times.  Though if these weird shenanigans had anything to say, it seemed she and Springer were safe for the time being.

As long as certain 'spooders' didn't get involved.

'Prowl's here, huh?  Interesting.'  Verity bit her lip at that statement, remembering all too well the mess she'd gotten into in the past that lead to her reuniting with Springer in the first place.  Another one of those spider moments.  'That's kind of a shame you don't know the others, but maybe it's better that way.  Well... if you haven't heard of them, what about the Wreckers?  Surely that's a familiar name, right?'