Note: I do not own Transformers in any way. They are owned by Hasbro/Takara/Tomy, whoever. The only exceptions are the OCs here. This story began as just something for fun, so it's here to be shared.
02/03/2011 - Looking back, I've decided to revisit this story. I was never entirely happy with a lot of aspects of it, and I finally decided to heck with it, let's make some changes. Most notably, I screwed up my OC, Allison, in a lot of spots, and I feel as though I didn't do her justice. I went over the top. It wasn't my original intention and I wanted to make it right. I strayed, and possibly even crossed into Mary-Sue territory and I wanted to fix it. Writing chapter to chapter, I didn't notice it, but reading straight through I thought "Wow, what did I do?" Maybe not all of it can be fixed, but perhaps that's a chance for the character to grow moving forward. This is my first real serious fanfic, so I need to learn from my mistakes. After a few great critiques I decided that I'm going to start from the top and make some edits, some heavier than others. Some parts of the story might even get removed entirely if I feel they need to go. As I'm working on a continuation to this piece, and trying to learn from the silly things I did, I wanted to give this one a fresh look. If I'd written it too deeply into the story, it may be something I can't fix so it'll get left. If you've already read the story, I'm not going to be making such huge changes that it severely alters how things turn out. I'll publish notes for the edits in little tidbits at the end of each chapter that gets edited for those that are interested. Hopefully, I'll make things a little bit more bearable. I'm about 1/3 of the way through the edits so far, but I'm going to post them all in one lump for the sake of continuity. If it doesn't have a note at the end stating otherwise, it hasn't been edited. If you're reading this for the first time, please keep in mind that some things are under construction. I know, I should have perfected it before I posted it, but here we are.
Prologue
It was raining again. Not the aggressive type of rain. The type that happened only a few times a year, a torrential downpour of drops the size of small boulders to remind everyone that yes, the earth was still very much in charge, and that driving was merely a human preference rather than a necessity. It was the soft pattering kind of rain that misted in just at summer's end, complete with a cool breeze to match. It was rain that just barely dampened your face and frizzled your hair; the kind that made you wonder why it even bothered to rain at all.
But such was the story for the past week or so. As summer had come to a close and the regular hum-drum of city life got back into full swing, the usual cold, grimey weather came back just as casually as it had left. This was the typical year for Sealth City, and the town welcomed it back with its usual flurry of umbrellas and pea coat purchases. Those who had lived in the city all their life chose to stick it out gung-ho, barely adjusting their attire with so little as occasionally wearing a sweater with a hood. People would always complain of course, but as soon as the summer sun kicked in they'd only begin complaining about the lack of rain.
It was enough to make any disgruntled observer with half a brain wonder why people couldn't just deal with the fact that the world wasn't constant, that it was always changing, and that while something could happen to you at any given moment, such a thing was part of being human in the first place. It was called living. But then most living people alive on the planet right now don't really seem to like living very much anyway.
It was sort of a trademark of the city, the rain. Due to its coastal location the weather tended to rarely fluctuate. Rain, clouds, maybe a sun-break or two during a majority of the year. A week of straight sun and temperatures over seventy was pretty standard. Despite what a visitor would call a mostly gloomy atmosphere, with all the muted grays and warmer colors of the city proper, the city was very much teeming with activity and a thirst for human achievement.
In truth it was a city whose economy depended very heavily on an industry colored with the most advanced scientific, technological and engineering firms the world over. Major airline and Internet companies held their corporate headquarters there, as well as some of the leading manufacturers of computer hardware and software. It was a vicious industry, cut-throat and highly competitive, but it was also extremely lucrative, and so greatly desired by anyone with an interest in one of literally thousands of various careers within an immense variety of fields.
Anyone who managed to snake their way into any part of it was pretty much considered to have it made for the rest of their lives. It didn't really even matter what you did, so long as you were in the company of the best and the brightest. Even the interns and lowly assistants received on-the-job training and experience, taking home a gracious paycheck at the end of the week. The people in the industry were often considered to be in safe hands, and nothing and nobody could stop them or stand in their way. The world over craved the product they could supply, so the city had become the supermarket to the world's need of electronics and circuitry.
The reality of such a thing, however, was an ideal that was the subject of furious debate amongst both political and economical panels. Should so many vital resources be stuffed into one small space? After all, Sealth City was humble at best. Its size, while large for its region, was easily dwarfed by the glamor and hustle of cities such as New York and Los Angeles and even Detroit (which shared its own generous offerings of technological firms). Some form of attack or catastrophe that could befall the city would easily cripple a large part of the national economy, and one of the world's richest technological sources.
Yet at the same time, isolation was the principal key to its success. The city itself sat in the hub of many neighboring small towns, themselves bordered by mountains and forests. It was a natural boundary that geographically separated it from the rest of the world. New technological development demanded secrecy, and privacy was paramount. Particularly when things went wrong, as they sometimes did. Things could easily happen there and quickly be contained just as easily. This near perfect arrangement suited the purposes of every major industry leader with an eye for destiny and a little extra change in his pocket.
To say that everything that went on in the city was completely kosher, however, would be a lie. As careful as upper management was, and while there existed people, groups and even organizations designated to contain them, secrets occasionally got out. Projects that had barely begun got leaked; word spread, and a dozen rival companies immediately sought to gain the upper hand by jumping onto the back of existing research, to claim it as their own product to market. With no real laws designed to protect new technology, it was free game.
However, most of the methods and tools used to contain these secrets and inner workings were the best designed in the world, and aside from the occasional leak, the majority of projects developed by Sealth born companies survived infancy, and eventually developed into technology that would reshape the world with every iteration.
And what better place to hide information, particularly when the safety of the planet depended on it.