Transformers: Survival of Defective Products

Chapter 29 Normal Machine

The vector paused, then immediately turned its head.

The mech's outer armor, standing not far away, is predominantly light white, remarkably clean. The shoulders, sides, forearms, and lower legs feature stable blue structural surfaces, with subtle touches of red along the edges. It's understated, more like a few thin strokes of distinctive color applied to the entire suit, quietly residing there. The overall silhouette is smooth, neither unapproachable nor loose; standing here, I surprisingly feel a unique harmony with the archive itself.

It was as if he belonged to this kind of place by nature.

Yin Vector looked at him for two seconds, instinctively becoming a little wary, but his tone remained relatively restrained: "Were you responding to me just now?"

The other person glanced down at the mess of interfaces in front of her, which had been messed up by the search system. There was no scrutiny in their expression; they simply saw a machine that was about to be driven crazy by the system.

"If you're referring to the statement 'whether it's for finding information or for filtering out those with normal emotions,'" he said gently, with a slight smile, "then my answer is, they don't conflict."

Pointer vector: "..."

For a moment, she couldn't tell whether it was a complaint or a consolation.

Okay, at least it's not annoying.

Compared to the other machines she's been running into lately, this one speaks so normally that it makes the machine wonder if Cybertron really has this kind of model.

The other person moved closer and their gaze fell on the current search page.

"You've placed this keyword in the wrong category," he said.

Yin Vector glanced at the screen subconsciously, then looked up at him.

How did you know what I was looking for?

"Because you're currently looking at a public historical index." He pointed to the series of category tags in the upper left corner of her interface that she herself had overlooked, "and the items you've clicked on are clearly leaning towards the technical direction."

The vector was silenced for a second.

Then he looked down and carefully examined the line of text.

Wow, that's true.

She was so confused by this convoluted system that she didn't even realize when she had wandered into the public history index area.

"It's not my fault," she said, frowning as she tried to defend herself. "There were no warnings when it jumped between levels."

The other person seemed quite used to cleaning up these kinds of messes for newcomers, and their tone remained calm: "The hint is in the collapsed menu in the sidebar."

Following the direction of his click, the vector pointer indeed saw a small directory that she had folded up earlier because she found it in the way.

She was silent.

Okay, this time she dug her own grave.

The other person probably noticed her momentary speechlessness and considerately refrained from adding fuel to the fire, instead helping her scroll back through the search interface.

"If you're looking for machine structure, parameter logic, and technical files, don't go to the public history section first," he said. "That's suitable for background information, not for your current purpose."

When he spoke, his tone was gentle and his movements were steady. He didn't overstep his bounds by saying, "Let me check everything for you." Instead, when he saw a knotted thread, he would gently pull out the end so that you could continue untangling it yourself.

The vector stared at his few steps for a few seconds, then belatedly realized something: "Are you a machine operator here?"

The other person looked at her, amused by the question she had asked after going through so much trouble, and their lips twitched slightly: "You could say that. I usually do management and organization here."

The vector was momentarily stunned.

……administrator?

No wonder he could tell where the problem was just by glancing at her search interface.

She looked down at the path, which had been straightened out a bit, and it became much clearer. Most of the messy, tangled results had been filtered out, and although there were still many entries, they were finally all in the same direction.

The vector looked at the interface, then at him.

"Alright," she admitted honestly, "your method is much more useful than the system itself."

The other person hadn't expected her to praise so directly, paused slightly, and then smiled a little, making the machine feel very clean.

"The archive's system is indeed not very user-friendly for first-time visitors."

"Not too friendly?" The vector almost laughed at the polite remark. "I almost thought it was going to filter me out."

"That means it's been lenient with you," he said. "Some levels are even less lenient."

This time, the vector truly laughed, and it wasn't the cold laugh directed at the system like before.

She tapped the newly opened path twice, scrolled down a few pages, and finally found some decent technical directories. Some were still locked, but at least she wasn't getting lost in a bunch of useless results.

This made me feel much better immediately.

She paused for a moment before remembering the most basic thing: "...Oh, right."

She looked up at the other person and asked, "What's your name?"

The man looked at her and answered naturally, "Orion Parkers."

Yin Vector nodded, thinking it suited his face, which clearly indicated he was good at normal communication.

"Vector." She introduced herself, then added casually, "Thank you for earlier."

Orion glanced at her, his tone soothing.

"You've already thanked me once."

"Thanks again, it's worth it," said Vector. "After all, I almost took this retrieval terminal apart just now."

This time, Orion clearly smiled.

"Don't take it apart," he said. "It's annoying, but replacing it won't make things any better."

Yin Vector looked down at the terminal in front of her that had almost driven her to the point of wanting to dismantle it, but in the end she held back.

Out of respect for the administrator, I'll let it go today.

She glanced down at the documents, flipping through a couple of pages, following the path Orian had just laid out for her. The interface was indeed much smoother. As she flipped through, she asked, "Orian, do I have to apply for access to all the semi-open technical layers here separately?"

After she finished speaking, she paused for a second.

Because she belatedly realized that she seemed to have called the other person by their first name. She had never seen Cybertronians with such long names before, and she didn't know whether Cybertronian culture distinguished between surnames and first names.

The vector looked up and glanced at Orion.

The other party seemed completely oblivious to anything amiss, continuing naturally without the slightest hesitation: "It needs to be viewed in layers. Basic technical files can be requested directly, while higher-level files require the purpose of access and the scope of retrieval."

He didn't correct it. Since the person involved had no objections, she assumed there was no problem.

Moreover, "Orion" does sound much better than other names.

Orian didn't stand by her side the whole time to help her search or act too familiar. After helping her sort out the search portal, he casually explained the commonly used classification logic, the path to request access, and some of the most common traps for mis-searching, before giving the space back to her.

This sense of proportion makes the vectoring process very comfortable.

Later, as she sat down at the search counter and continued scrolling through the results, she unusually felt that her trip that day had been worthwhile.

At least she wasn't just staring blankly at a system invented specifically to torture machines.

And Orian is right.

This place is annoying, but there's a lot of information there.

The more she flipped through the pages, the more she realized how superficial her previous research had been. Many old structural names, parameter compatibility theories, and technical branches mentioned by Red Spider but not elaborated upon could be found more comprehensively here. Even without seeing the full text, the table of contents and abstracts alone were enough for her to delve deeper.

As darkness slowly descended, the vector finally emerged from a vast sea of ​​data and indexes. Its brain module was throbbing with exhaustion, yet its core felt strangely fulfilled.

As she looked down to close a page of her temporarily saved catalog, her gaze casually swept over the few private channels at the top of the terminal on her left forearm.

Red Spider's, Knocked Down, Heavenly Venerable's.

Further down, there's that new frequency band from sound waves hanging quietly.

It has remained unchanged since it was established.

The vector stared at it for two seconds, swiped the interface down, checked the outer protection system, and then closed it again.

Good, no new crazy tricks today.

As she stood up, she caught a glimpse of Orion on the other side of the data layer not far away. Orion was still checking some data on another administrator terminal. His light white main armor looked very quiet under the cool lights, and the blue accessories made the lines of the whole body look very stable. The little bit of red in the area made him look more like a real living machine in this environment, rather than an extension of this archive itself.

It suits this place perfectly.

It's also very different from the other machines she's encountered recently.

Yin Vector withdrew his gaze, picked up the borrowed data board and temporary access records, and was about to walk out when Orion's voice suddenly came from behind him.

"Attraction vector".

She turned around.

Orion took two steps closer, speaking in a calm and unhurried tone.

"If you continue to look up this kind of information in the future, you will probably encounter the same problems you have today."

Vector's lips twitched: "Your system certainly has that capability."

Orion seemed to smile.

"If you don't mind," he said, "I can send you a few commonly used search paths and access points. At least it will save you some time from continuing to torture each other with the terminal."

The vector paused for a moment.

This reason is valid and useful. She certainly has no reason to refuse.

"Okay," she answered readily. "Thank you for your help, Orion."

Orion looked at her, still not correcting her, and gently raised his arm, handing over the private channel interface.

This time it was a normal, clear, and quite polite connection.

Yin Vector raised his left forearm and bumped it with his.

The frequency band establishment notification flashed briefly before quickly going dark again.

She glanced down at the newly added private frequency, and when she looked up again, Orion had already withdrawn his hand.

"If you come again later," he said, "you can just look for me."

The vector nodded: "Okay."

After she finished speaking, a very inappropriate thought popped into her mind.

...This is what it looks like for normal machines to reserve frequency bands.