In These Hands

The State of Things

"It's crazy. Populace pleasing, obviously, but crazy."

Orion turned from the data files he was filing out and looked toward his fellow cadet. Whirl was a servo-full in his own right, and more than rambunctious in his patrols and wiling service scenarios, but his blunt opinions more than thrilled his cohort in that he said things Orion was better tempered not to say. Right then, Orion couldn't quite understand what he was droning on about.

"The Captain finally cave to staff pressure and start serving ener-spheres in the break room?" Orion chuckled at the ongoing petition. Whirl seemed to brighten at the idea as well.

"That battle's not over yet," He pointed toward him before crossing his arms. "No, I'm talking about the recall. Haven't you heard about it?"

Orion looked at him quizzically.

Whirl motioned again. "You know, about the trials. The Council and Senate passed the Act and now the judicial courts are going through all those cases. It's like one giant retrial for all the ones involved in court casings since the past vorn. It's some kind of 'second chance' ruse to come off as the good guys. Yeah, sure. It's got the forensic department in a tiff, same with the detective division. Haha, serves them right. That'll make those afts work, but, you know in the end it's going to be 'bots like you and me they're gonna shirk their datawork on."

"Wait . . ." Whirl looked at Orion curiously. He could see that sharp processor of his ramping. "You said they're opening cases as far back as last vorn?"

Whirl nodded. "We're about to be up to our optics in proceedings. And here I thought you'd be as annoyed as the rest of the department."

Orion was quiet again, those optics of his bright, flashing with processing thoughts before they zoned in back toward Whirl. "Do you have a list of the cases coming into retrial?"

Whirl shrugged and then nodded. "Sure. Want to get a head start on your homework or something?"

The moment the list was in Orion's grasp the mech zoomed through the numbers and subjects, heading straight to the names of the 'bots involved. He scrolled so far back that Whirl assumed he was just going to go straight to the Case A junction of the list, instead he picked out a particular case and opened it. That was when he froze.

"By law these 'bots have to appear before a judge and jury in their sentenced jurisdiction." Though Orion Pax has said it Whirl didn't think he was particularly telling him as much as he was simply reminding himself. Whirl nodded regardless. "And that's going to be the jailer's processorache."

Whirl hadn't even gotten the chance to complain further with his coworker. Orion moved the next moment and left his desk, left the office, left the building and the department all together. Whirl hadn't seen how shock and disbelief and fright gripped the young mech to the point he had to leave so he could run to his friends, the ones he was certain would share in the same upset that was currently gripping him.

He met them in the middle. Thunderclash had found out first and shared his hysteria with Pharma who in turn contacted Jazz who was in the process of comming Orion who only appeared before the gathered. Without further stall they all raced off to the holding barracks where those under the heaviest sentencing were kept until their scheduled retrial. And it was there they saw the frame of the mech they've been so desperately trying to return to the city.

Ironically enough Prowl happened to be the stationed Guard and he had no qualms with letting the group move into the cell and wrap themselves around the pending condemned.

"Ratchet!" Where Orion Pax, Jazz, and even Prowl had the privilege of reuniting with their old friend, Thunderclash and Pharma had yet to properly reach out and wrap tight arms around him. Those two happened to be the ones nearly constricting him to death right then.