Game Over

Chapter 2 - Dust, Fog, and Death

-o-o-o-o-o-

The facility was just as quiet inside as it had appeared from outside... dead quiet.

In fact, just dead.

Swerve was the first to spot a corpse. The gangling organic native was sprawled out on the floor of a loading bay, a mess of desiccated flesh draped over a frame of broken bones. And then Whirl spotted the next two, another organic with a knife thrust upwards through his ribcage, and then a mech with his head taken off by a blaster. In the dead mech's hand was a blaster, still pointed at where his head had once been.

"This one jumped," said Chromedome, looking up at the catwalks high above. He was crouched beside yet another organic corpse, one of a different species from the first two. The thoroughly broken bones were all too obvious.

"Jumped?" Rodimus asked.

"I say pushed,"sneered Whirl.

"Of course you would,"answered a nervous Swerve. "Look, there's another one." He pointed to yet another corpse, organic again, dangling from a rope tied to one of the building's catwalks.

"There are two more over here," called Ultra Magnus from a short distance away. The others wandered over to find two mechs, their frames and paint marking them as factory workers, at least what was left of them. Their upper halves had been crushed practically into sheet metal by one of the cargo elevators.

"They look like suicides too," commented Rodimus grimly. "They just lay down in the drop zone and took it calmly, like they wanted to die."

"Or they were dragged here after dying," Whirl offered.

"Why would anyone drag them over here after they were dead," Rodimus asked, giving Whirl a bitter look.

"It's what I might do if I had time on my hands," Whirl said with a shrug.

Ultra Magnus sighed. "I'm not a crime scene investigator, but I do think it was a suicide. And given that the recording announced two—possibly more—suicides, there's a considerable likelihood of it."

Swerve, now staring at yet another organic corpse nearby, began to tremble. "This is awful! Everyone here is dead. Mechs. Organics."

Rodimus looked to Chromedome. "You used to be a crime scene investigator. What are you seeing?"

"This place wasn't attacked." Chromedome pointed about at the walls. "No weapons-fire. No violence other than that which could be self-inflicted. No indicators of an attack. Just some soot, it appears. It's like they all decided to off themselves."

"I probably would have too. This place is miserable," said Whirl, wandering over to Swerve. "I mean, just look at this guy's face." He picked up and displayed the corpse Swerve had been gaping at, the one with a gaping hole in its dried up body and a pistol still clutched in its hand like that of the first mech they'd found. "You don't die with that kind of a look on your face if you're leading a normal life."