Transformers: Survival of Defective Products

Chapter 14 The Jerk!

The door to the private department closed behind me so quietly it was almost inaudible.

The already quiet sounds of the equipment running outside were immediately completely shut out.

She stood still, her gaze sweeping over the scanning equipment inside, which was clearly more sophisticated than the ones outside. The tension she had just suppressed slowly resurfaced.

There was only a narrow, elongated inspection table, two sets of floating control panels, and a few robotic arms retracted into ceiling tracks. Everything was austerely neat, and the lighting was all cold.

Red Spider did not speak immediately.

He simply stood in front of the control panel, brought up the abnormal projection of the chest area again, zoomed in, rotated, and dissected it, looking at it layer by layer.

His eyes seemed to be reassessing something that had suddenly become interesting.

A few seconds later, he finally spoke, his gaze still fixed on the projection.

"Stand up."

Following his gesture, she looked over and saw that the scanning table in the center of the room was spotless. As she walked over and stood still, a thin white light band silently illuminated the edge of the table.

Only then did Red Spider raise its hand to connect to the new scanning program.

"Let's start from the beginning," he said. "What happened between the first activation of the spark and the growth of this structure?"

"When the first spark was activated, my body was in very poor condition." She spoke calmly, trying to make it sound like a normal thing. "Many parts were on the verge of breaking, and I didn't think I could make it through."

Red Spider didn't interrupt; she looked at the structural projection on her chest.

"Then?"

"Then an abnormal energy feedback appeared near the chest." The vector looked at the projection, not at him, "Some parts that were already broken started to reconnect when activated."

She paused for a moment before adding, "It's not an external component."

Red Spider then looked up at her.

"Do you even know what that is?"

"I don't know," the vector replied crisply. "I only know that it wasn't something I added later. It grew out of its own after the spark was activated."

The office was silent for a few seconds.

Red Spider lowered the light mirror and projected the layers of structure back together. His tone softened considerably, but it made the vector seem a little uneasy.

"This is not a typical replacement part."

He lightly touched the edge of the projection with his finger, and the abnormal structure on the chest was marked as a separate layer.

"Your body underwent an unconventional reconstruction after the spark was activated."

The knuckles tightened slightly.

She didn't continue the conversation, stopping short of asking the most practical question: "Can it be repaired?"

Red Spider glanced at her.

"Yes," he said, "but with your current budget?"

This statement was not unexpected for the vector, but the core still sank down.

Red Spider continued speaking.

"With the funds you have, you can only do basic stabilization and local survival measures at most."

"Your chest, right leg, and this forearm linkage that's almost beyond repair. I can keep you from falling apart at any moment, but that's far from a complete machine repair."

The vector remained silent.

Of course she knew.

A few seconds later, Red Spider slowly added:

"However, there are other ways."

The vector finally looked up.

Red Spider leaned against the control panel, his tone as calm as if he were discussing an ordinary technology outsourcing deal.

"I can offer you a job as an assistant. Your hours can be paid in lieu of payment."

His gaze fell on her, and his eyes revealed a hidden curiosity and interest.

"You stay here and do your job properly as I ask. I can turn your repair plan into a complete machine repair. It's not just about keeping you barely alive."

The vector did not immediately agree; this was no easy bargain.

The fact that Red Spider is offering such terms means it's definitely not just because they lack an assistant to deliver tools.

But she really wanted to fix the entire machine.

While she remained silent, Red Spider had already connected another set of higher-precision scanning programs.

"You can take your time to think it over." His tone was calm, and he was quite confident in the conditions he had offered. "Before that, I'll finish the remaining tests."

A new scanning beam slid down her back from the back of her neck to her spine, displaying data layer by layer.

The next second, Red Spider's fingers suddenly stopped.

Vector noticed that his gaze was fixed on a very small signal point, located near the junction of the back of the neck and upper back, so well hidden that it was difficult to distinguish from the old wound's mixed signals.

The spider zoomed in on that area and scanned it a second time.

Then he looked up at her.

"Do you know you're wearing a listening device?"

The vector was stunned for a moment: "What?"

Red Spider didn't explain, but showed her the partial projection and casually remarked, "You're more lively than I expected."

The small foreign object embedded near the old wound was so well hidden that it was almost ill-concealed, and its rounded structure made it difficult to detect.

The vector stared for two seconds, and then the corner of its eye twitched.

...Zhen Tianzun.

She paused for a moment, then squeezed out the words through clenched teeth, whispering, "I think I know who's pretending."

She took a deep breath and said, "I need to make a communication call."

Red Spider casually waved at her.

-

The call was connected to Zhen Tianzun very quickly.

"You found out?"

Yin Vector laughed in exasperation: "You really dare to pretend."

"Otherwise what?" Zhen Tianzun said calmly, chuckling, "I lent you two hundred thousand and let you go see Red Spider alone. Did you really plan to live on trust?"

Yin Vector gritted his teeth and muttered in a low voice, "You really think of me as something you can just casually install a locator on?"

Zhen Tianzun's side, however, remained calm.

"Don't put it that way." His tone was even a little lazy. "I'm just insuring that two hundred thousand."

The guiding force of the energy caused the sparks to leap.

"Does your insurance policy also come with an eavesdropping function?"

"If we're going to pretend, we should pretend to be as complete as possible," Zhen Tianzun replied confidently, without the slightest hint of guilt.

For a moment, Yin Vector didn't know which insult to hurl at him first.

A few seconds later, she clenched her fist and squeezed out through gritted teeth, "You're so annoying."

Zhen Tianzun seemed to chuckle softly, clearly not taking the insults to heart at all.

"After you're done yelling, put your things away properly." His tone softened, becoming calm again. "Don't leave them lying around. Keep them with you when you come back."

Her forehead twitched, and she raised her hand to rub her head.

That damn thing!

"Are you still going to pretend?"

"Otherwise what?" Zhen Tianzun retorted naturally, "Do you think you're making things easy for Ji now?"

He closed the optical mirror, barely suppressing the urge to punch the machine along the frequency band.

"There's one more thing."

"explain."

"Red Spider wants me to stay and work as his assistant, with payment deducted for my hours." She paused for a moment, "That way he can do full machine repairs for me."

There was a brief two-second silence on the other end of the frequency band.

When he spoke again, the casualness in Zhen Tianzun's tone had faded considerably.

"He's keeping you on, not just because he needs an assistant."

"I know."

"You knew that, yet you still agreed?"

Yin Vector looked up at the red spider not far away, still flipping through her scan data, and spoke calmly.

"Because I want to fix the entire machine."

This time, Zhen Tianzun remained silent for a longer period.

Finally, he coldly said, "Fine."

"You can stay if you want. But you'd better remember, you're going to repair the machine, not to sell yourself to him."

Yin Vector slightly twitched the corner of his mouth.

"Coming from the mouthpiece that installed the listening device on me, those words are quite convincing."

Zhen Tianzun seemed to scoff.

"Stop talking nonsense. Bring the equipment, including the brain module. Don't let him dismantle it and then you'll be counting the parts for him."

Vector sneered: "I know."

"Next time you try to put something on me, you'd better pray you don't find it yourself."

Zhen Tianzun sneered, "If you can really figure it out yourself, I'll be much less worried."

Without wasting any more words with him, the vector controller cut off the communication.

She stared at the darkened interface of the terminal for two seconds before slowly exhaling and putting the discovered listening device back into her palm.

When she looked up again, Red Spider was still standing there, seemingly unconcerned about who she had just talked to or what she had said.

"Have you finished giving your opinion on the monitoring device?" he said casually, but with a barb.

Yin Vector Core silently rolled its eyes.

This nozzle is definitely not useless.

She suppressed her lingering anger and looked up at him.

"We're done talking." She paused for a moment. "I can agree to your conditions."

Red Spider didn't speak, waiting for her to continue.

"But I need to clarify the details first."

This time, he finally had some patience and raised his hand to project a new image between the two of them.

"Can."

The semi-transparent repair plan floated in the air, and the projections of the chest, legs, forearms, and several energy channels lit up one after another.

"The complete machine repair is divided into four stages." When Starscream spoke, it was still as if he were handling a very ordinary work order. "The first stage is to stabilize the basic structure and suppress your most dangerous points of failure. The second stage is to deal with the critical structures, pulling the chest, legs, and forearms back from the brink of scrap. The third stage is to do fine calibration, dealing with the compatibility issues between your unconventional reconstruction and the conventional structure. Finally, there is the integration of the entire machine."

The vector nodded as it looked at the proposal.

"How are working hours calculated?" she asked directly.

"It will be calculated based on the length of time you're present, your cooperation, and the amount of work you do," Red Spider replied quickly. "During the repair phase, I'll give you a fixed window of opportunity to be present. You'll have one day off each Star Week, and the rest of the time you'll be on schedule."

He glanced at her before adding casually, "However, I will decide the specific schedule."

The vector narrowed its eyes slightly.

"My vehicle mode isn't suited for long-distance travel," she said, lying without a single slip-up. "I can only take public transportation. I can't catch the early or late departure windows."

"That's your problem," Red Spider replied casually, but still adjusted the scheduling window a notch further in the middle. "However, as long as it doesn't affect my arrangements, I can tolerate you including train timetables in your survival criteria."

Yin Vector stared at the projection that had begun automatically generating terms, and after a few seconds, he whispered, "Okay."

Red Spider raised his hand and brought up the last layer of binding authentication.

At the bottom is a protocol interface that requires both the main body identification code and the fire signal identification to confirm.

Vector watched the slowly glowing authentication light. Once she signed, she would have to follow Red Spider's rules for a long time to come.

She had no better path.

A few seconds later, she raised her hand and pressed the recognition interface.