Mutual Fascination
by K. Stonham
released 5th February 2008

The day Sam learned to hate his government was the day he saw his... his friend being tied and held by government cables. The night his friend was frozen by government men and tanks of liquid nitrogen. Bumblebee hadn't done anything to anyone, hadn't done anything wrong, hadn't hurt anyone... the most anyone could accuse him of, Sam thought bitterly, handcuffed again in the back of a Sector Seven vehicle, was of being an illegal immigrant. And, hell, who even knew if the Autobots were even planning to stay. Once they had the AllSpark... maybe they would just leave.

It might be best, Sam thought, hitching back a breath. Humanity obviously wasn't ready for something like them. Something so awesome. Something from the stars.

Humanity... ruined what it touched. Because Miles was right, and they were mean and ignorant and primitive. The environment was going, the government was mired in the oil interests, and they'd taken Sam's parents, his dog, and his friend.

The glasses. He touched his pocket surreptitiously, eyes widening. The glasses were gone... Sam's breath hitched again, this time in realization. They'd fallen out of his pocket. When?

Mikaela's eyes met his. "They're gone," he mouthed.

"The glasses?" she mouthed back.

Sam nodded and pressed his mouth to her ear. "Maybe when we fell from the bridge?" he breathed.

She nodded. "Maybe," she breathed back, "maybe they already have them."

"What are you kids talking about?" the Sector Seven guy in the driver's seat demanded. His eyes, behind their Ray-Ban glasses, were looking at the pair of them in the back seat via the rear-view mirror.

"If you're going to give us a pit stop so we can piss," Mikaela immediately sassed. "Because I'm really starting to have to go."

The black guy in the passenger seat breathed a laugh. "Might as well," he opined, crooking down his own glasses to look back at them. "It's going be a long drive to hold it," he pointed out to his partner. Then he hitched back his jacket, revealing the butt of a gun. "Don't even think about running," he warned Sam and Mikaela. "You don't have any alien friends to save you this time."

"Yeah," Sam replied somewhat sourly. If the Autobots had the glasses, they had no more need for him and Mikaela. "No more alien friends." Except... somehow he didn't think they were like that. They hadn't felt like that, Optimus and the others. Jazz and Ironhide and Ratchet... even if they wouldn't come for Sam and Mikaela, they would come, they surely had to come, for Bumblebee. So Sam would maybe at least get to say goodbye.

And have had, for one moment, been part of something bigger than himself, something special.

Something better than human.

One moment.

He could live with that.

Smiling just a little, Sam prepared to be escorted under armed guard to the men's room as the SUV pulled off the freeway to a rest stop.