by cybercat » Wed Dec 02, 2009 7:03 am
Barricade and an OC. Oh, the mindgames.
XXI
Tunguska
The humans had an expression about not being able to trust someone as far as you could throw them. Looking down at his human counterpart, Barricade mused that he could probably throw him plenty far. Trusted Pyotr Alexeievitch Suvorov much less, by any conversion. He wondered if he’d misheard, and the expression was ‘don’t trust him as far as he can throw me.’
The human might not have been able to shift even a small bot like Barricade by an inch, but he was determined to try his hard-headed best.
“We hope,” he was saying with a slightly oily smile, “you can see the benefits of allying with us.”
“Excuse me if I don’t, immediately,” Barricade said. Nice was going to get him walked all over, here. “How ‘bout you spell them out for me.” He was vaguely amused that the Russian negotiator spoke to him in English. He decided to keep it going. Never know when it would come in handy that they DIDN’T know he could understand that savage garble of syllables they called the Russian language.
Pyotr (he had insisted Barricade call him that, even as he insisted on pronouncing Barricade’s name as ‘Bo-ree-cod’) tilted his head, just sliiiiiightly patronizing. “We have natural resources, which you obviously need.”
“Which we seem to be taking, quite handily,” Barricade gestured over the hill to the LZ where Vortex had swapped out with Blackout as the loading copter. “Not sure why we need give anything to you.”
“Oh, come now. Surely you need a base, no? Tedious, and costly, dropping down from…wherever it is you say your ship is.” His eyes got sly.
Thought of that all by yourself, have you? “Can’t put a price on security,” Barricade said, blandly.
Pyotr gave a well-staged, showy laugh. “True, my friend. But who would be rash enough to threaten your security?”
Barricade let the question hang in the air between them. Who’d been sending the fighter jets that Starscream had been intercepting all afternoon? He added, “Could ask you the same.”
Another showy laugh. “We know well this feeling of security, here, Barricade.” The bot grunted, non-committal. “That is why we should ally. Neither of us has anything to fear from anyone else….”
“Except each other?” Barricade finished for him. He spun his wheel into its slicing-blade mode, idly. Actions, the humans said also, speak louder than words. He looked over at Pyotr. “Sorry,” he said, “Do this when I get bored.” The human’s face went through about thirty different expressions as he tried to master his response: annoyance, fear, worry, anger, finally subsiding to bland.
“I am sorry that you are bored with our discussion,” Pyotr said, tightly.
“No big deal. I get bored a lot. Short attention span. You were saying?” Proved your point, Barricade. Put it away. He spun the blades back into their tire.
“I was saying,” Pyotr said, his eyes narrowed, “that an alliance between us would be advantageous for you.”
“Right!” Barricade said, brightly. “And I was saying that it really wasn’t all that great for us, but was wondering what was in it for you. Because, I have to say, we wouldn’t ally ourselves with anyone who doesn’t feel a real…need for the commitment.” He flashed a smile. He knew his facial structure was somewhere in the ‘terrifying’ to ‘hideous’ range, and this time he intended to make use of its peculiar charm.
Pyotr’s face took on a look of real respect. Grudging respect, but real. Had he thought that because he was talking to robots this would be easy for him? Fleshling, Barricade thought, I’ve been messing with minds before your ancestors grew legs. “Yes, of course,” he said, smoothly. Couldn’t hide from Barricade the fact that under the smooth voice, he was grabbing for control. Only knew that by feeling it yourself at some point. “It is true,” he said, opening his hands in a gesture of submission, as though Barricade had really wrested something from him, “that we would gain from your partnership.”
“And what is it you would gain, exactly?” Something wonderfully effective in making the enemy spell out his stupidity.
“My friend, we have similar political aims.”
“Bzzzzzz. Wrong. Human, we have no political aims.” None that pertained to or required collaboration with humans, at any rate. He enjoyed the slight snarl that flashed across Suvorov’s face.
Pyotr tried again, forcing a jovial laugh. “My friend, you are right. I concede defeat. We do seek something: an alliance with you would give us access, we would hope, to some of your technological…advancements.” Meaning: weapons. Barricade grunted. “You know that our chief rivals, the Americans, have had access to the technology and aid of your Autobot enemies.”
Ah, playing the good old ‘enemy of my enemy’ line. Still, it wasn’t a cliché for no reason. “I thought you had no enemies.”
“A…mistranslation, perhaps.” Right. Blame the translation. “Anyone, anything, any institution that suffers from success also suffers from a surplus of enemies. It is simply a matter of which enemies are actually fear-worthy. The Americans were not, but with the aid from their Autobot allies….” He threw his hands open again.
This made sense—well, minus all the overblown ‘we fear no one’ rhetoric. The Soviets hadn’t even been invited to the alliance party. They’d been left out of the loop for years now. Probably figured that in the interim the Autobots had handed the Americans a half-dozen different doomsday devices. Barricade knew better. He’d studied the Autobots long enough to know that their principles wouldn’t allow them to up-armor even a bosom ally. Some stupid ‘balance of power’ ‘prime directive’ nonsense from the dusty ancient times of the High Council. Ironically, exactly that sort of thinking had created the warrior class in the first place. Had created the Decepticons, if you thought about it.
To be honest, Barricade wasn’t inclined to hand over the keys to the armory himself. A weapon the humans could use against other humans could very easily be used against the Decepticons themselves. And Barricade hadn’t gotten where he was by handing anyone a weapon, loaded, safety-off. Especially not the Russians.
Pyotr waited patiently for an answer.
“I see,” he replied, neutrally. “I think we may be able to work something out.” Just delay him long enough to finish uploading Tunguska, he thought. A few more cycles. Maybe a solar. That’s all. “I will have to, of course, consult with our leader.”
Pyotr feigned disappointment. Overacting a bit. As if Barricade couldn’t read human emotions. “I came here in good faith with the belief I was negotiating with someone who had real power.”
Low blow, Pyotr, Barricade thought. Make you pay for that one. He smiled back. “I do. But I do not want to make promises without at least keeping my leader informed of what he’s agreeing to. We had discussed options,” he lied so easily sometimes he scared himself—he hadn’t spoken a syllable to Megatron, “and this is scraping the high upper end. You know how it is—formality.” Actually, serve Pyotr right if he sent Megatron down to finish these negotiations himself.
“Ah yes,” Pyotr smiled thinly, oozing sympathy. “The life of a bureaucrat.”
If only, Barricade thought. He suspected Pyotr wouldn’t be offlined if things fell through. Then again, he’d heard stories about these Russians. “Right.”
“We shall await your return.” Right on that line between gracious and impertinent.
Yes. Barricade thought. You sure will wait. Until I can be bothered to hop another atmospheric. Barricade nodded and turned back to the hill where Vortex sat, loaded, waiting for him. “Go okay?” the copter asked, kicking on his rotors.
“Fine. Stringing ‘em along just fine. Be curious,” he said, “to know what they’re offering the Autobots.”
“You think they contacted the Autobots, too?” Vortex sounded surprised. There was a reason Vortex was a combat guy and Barricade was intel. Had something to do with living and breathing paranoia.
“Don’t just think it.” He hopped into the copter’s open door. “Just have to figure out how to use it against both of them.”