It was a cold, drizzly October day, but the lights of Tokyo were still bright and glaring. Jack instinctively raised his right arm to brush his damp bangs out of his eyes, forgetting that the sleeve was empty. As he used his left hand, his mother looked over and smiled wanly.
"They made me check my electric razor," Agent Fowler said.
"Yes, Bill, your razor and my arm are the same thing," Jack snarled, "but they didn't lose the bag with your razor in it."
June put her arm around her son's shoulder, and quietly said "It's a hard day for all of us, Jack."
"Yeah, I just wish the ground bridge was working," Jack said, "I just wish..."
"I wish a lot of things," Bill said. "But wishing for things doesn't make them happen."
No one ever thought that hanging out with giant robots from outer space and helping them fight a war was going to be safe, but at the same time, no one actually thought anyone would get hurt. Looking back on it, it was willful ignorance.
The first casualty was probably Raf, who died from cancer. It might have been caused by the Dark Energon infusion, or the Energon used to treat it, or it might have just been plain, simple cancer - no one knew for sure.
It was before the Transformers were known to the world at large, and Raf's family had no idea of his involvement with the Autobots. His parents hadn't known they were burying a hero. Jack and Miko went to the funeral, but stayed in the back of the packed church, and said nothing.
Three years later, after the events in Chicago, when everyone knew about the Autobots, Jack and Arcee went to see the Esquivels, to tell them of their son's heroism, and what might have caused his cancer.
Raf's mother glared at Arcee and Jack with hatred. "How could you drag a 12 year old boy into that? How could you?" she demanded. "He could have done so much with his life."
The question stabbed into Jack's heart like a dagger, and he fumbled for something to say.
"He saved your world, Mrs. Esquivel," Arcee said, with far more sympathy and sorrow than defiance - although Jack could hear the defiance there as well. "He was a hero."
They had stayed for over an hour, telling the Esquivel's of their son's adventures, and returned several times to tell them more, but Jack couldn't really remember much of that. The dagger to the heart would stay with him forever though.
Bill Fowler pulled three silver and black envelopes from the pocket of his suit, and handed one to Jack and one to June Darby.
Jack looked at it, and was about to open it, when Bill stopped him. "It's condolence money," Bill explained, "it's a Japanese custom."
"Money makes it all better?" Jack asked.
"Hey, it's not my custom," Bill said, a little apologetically and a little defensively. "Seems a little crass to me, but it's what they do here."
"Thank you, Bill," June said. "Very thoughtful."
"Your tax dollars at work," Bill explained with a slight shrug.
Jack mumbled something that might have been thanks, or an apology. Bill looked over at Jack, and looked into the boy's eyes, welling up with tears. "Are you ok, Jack?" He asked.
Jack's only response was to squint his eyes a bit, and shake his head no.
"Ok, there's a bench across the street, under an awning and out of the rain," Agent Fowler said. "Let's go sit for a couple of minutes, we've got the time. I'm not sure I'm ready for this either."
"Thanks," Jack said, his voice cracking.
Sierra was the next casualty. Jack had been dating her for about three months when she learned about the Autobots. And although she never quite got along with Arcee, nothing was more exciting than giant robots.
Sierra was in the Autobot base when the Decepticon Flamefeather ran into the open Autobot ground bridge. Ratchet destroyed Flamefeather, but there was nothing left of Sierra other than cinders. She hadn't even had a chance to put up a fight.
Agent Fowler made it look like she had an accident when her car went spinning out of control down a ravine and exploded. No one liked it, least of all Agent Fowler, but it was all anyone could do so her parents could have some kind of closure.
It had taken two days to set up the accident scene, and those two days were some of the hardest of Jack's life. Sierra's parents were looking for her, the police were involved, and Jack had to lie again and again.
Agent Fowler brought in some federal agents to pretend to question Jack, just so he would get a break from the local police, who suspected he was lying and were trying to tie him to Sierra's disappearance.
Mr. Nakadia was a short, round Japanese man, dressed very formally. Jack never would have recognized him as Miko's father had he not just introduced himself.
Jack tried to extend his right hand to shake, flapped the empty sleeve slightly, extended his left hand which was holding the envelope, and then pulled it back and bowed.
Mr. Nakadai bowed in response, and smiled, "So you are the famous Jack Darby, you look different than I expected."
"Uh... the airline lost the bag with my arm," Jack replied.
"When Miko came back home, she spoke of you a lot. She made you larger than life, but when I see you - you are so very young, you are just a boy. Just a boy with the weight of the world on your surprisingly narrow shoulders."
Jack didn't quite know what to say. "Turned 24 last month. Almost a quarter of a century."
Mr. Nakadai smiled. "You do not know it yet, but that is very young."
Mrs. Nakadai stepped over to her husband and began speaking to him quickly in Japanese. Mr. Nakadai smiled slightly and said to Jack, "My wife has instructed me that I am not to embarrass you right now. Please, sit. Service will start soon, but we will talk later."
Jack turned towards Mrs. Nakadai, bowed, and said, "Mrs. Nakadai, I am so sorry for your loss."
"And I am sorry for your loss," Mrs. Nakadai replied, bowing again.
Jack sat down next to his mother and Agent Fowler. The funeral service was entirely in Japanese, and some of the rituals were odd, but Jack had been to enough funerals by now that he didn't have much trouble following along. There was some religious ceremony, some people spoke about Miko, some more religious things. Later, there would be food.
Jack's mind drifted and thought about Miko, and how much she would have hated this - it was so stiff and formal and everything that she wasn't. He quickly lowered his head so no one would see him smile.
The death of Sierra changed things in a way that the death of Rafael hadn't. It was easy to believe that Rafael's death was just normal and tragic, but that just wasn't the case with Sierra. After her funeral, Jack and Miko returned to the Autobot base, and found Agent Fowler sitting on the metal stairs, his shoulders slumped forward and his head in his hands.
"Get out of here, kid," Agent Fowler said, his speech slurred and breath smelling of alcohol. "I don't want to have to cover up your death too."
"Are you drunk?" Jack asked.
Miko stood behind him, and pantomimed him drinking from a flask.
"You too," Agent Fowler said, turning around and facing Miko. "And I may be drunk, but that doesn't mean I'm not right."
"How did you get here?" Jack asked. "You didn't drive did you?"
"He called for a ground bridge," Ratchet said, "and then he left a mess in the hall."
"Beats a taxi," Agent Fowler said, turning towards Jack, while Miko pretended to vomit. "It's not safe here anymore. It never was. You two need to leave and not come back."
"But, we-" Jack began.
"-did way more than anyone should ask of a 16 year old", Agent Fowler interrupted, finishing Jack's sentence. "Leave saving the world to the professionals, we'll get some. Go home, live a normal life. Get a crappy job at the burger shop or start a crappy band."
As he spoke, he tried to stand up and pat Jack on the shoulder. Instead, Jack ended up catching him, and gently easing him back to the stairs, and leaning him against the wall. Jack was surprised by just how heavy Agent Fowler was. The man might have been out of the field more often than not, and a bit out of shape, but he still had a lot of muscle on him, more than Jack would have guessed from the gut.
"I already have a crappy job at the burger shop," Jack said. "They keep firing me for not showing up, but then no one applies for the job so they hire me back."
"And I want to start a crappy band with Bulkie!" Miko said.
"I'm afraid I agree with Agent Fowler," Optimus said, entering with Arcee and Bulkhead. "It's become far too dangerous for you here. We can't protect you in the base, not with the Decepticons constantly probing for any weakness. It's only a matter of time before there's another tragedy."
"But, you need us, and you're our friends, and Arcee..." Jack began.
"Jack," Arcee said, "what kind of a friend would I be if I didn't let you have a normal life? You deserve more than this."
"But I don't want more than this," Jack said.
"Jack," Arcee said, her voice filled with compassion and a bit of regret, "you know that's not true. You've never wanted this, you've always said you wanted to go off to college and become an lawyer. I'll miss you more than anything, but go do that. Don't get caught up in all of this, go do that, and give us something worth fighting for."
"But-" Jack began.
"I'm sorry Jack," Arcee said, "but it's for your own good, and for ours. I can't lose another partner, and humans are so fragile." Jack could hear the sorrow and regret in her voice, but he knew that was an affectation the Autobots did so they could better communicate with humans. But he could see from the subtle changes in the shape of her brow that she meant it.
"What am I going to do in Jasper, Nevada?" Miko asked. "Giant robots are the only thing this town has going for it."
"Aww," Bulkhead said, "there's lots of good stuff around here. There's... uuh... the hamburger shop and the drug store and..."
"Yeah, it's boring and it sucks," Miko said.
"It doesn't suck, it's just kind of quiet..." Jack said, he voice trailing off.
"Masaki Nakadai, Miko's brother. And this is my wife Cindy, and our son Katsuo."
Masaki was a skinny Japanese man, about ten years older than Jack, and a bit stiff. Jack could recognize a bit of Miko in his face, but not in his demeanor at all. Jack tried to remember whether Miko had ever mentioned having a brother - he quickly decided that he must have asked at some point, and she must have mentioned him, but it was obvious that they were not cut from the same cloth.
"Jack Darby, I ...uh... served with your sister and the Autobots."
"She talked about you a lot when she was here a few years ago. She said you were her closest friend in America, after a football player she kept calling Bulkhead."
"Bulkhead is actually a 5 ton Autobot."
"We know that now."
"He would have been here," Jack apologized, "but the ground-bridge is on the fritz, and it's not easy to move a 5 ton Autobot across the world on short notice."
"I would have liked to meet him. A giant alien robot must be absolutely fascinating, with all the things they can do."
"Masaki," Cindy said, admonishing her husband, "the giant alien robot is a living, feeling being, and you couldn't just have him do tricks for you."
"Uh, actually, I think Bulkhead would enjoy it," Jack said. "Sweet guy, way more into action than thinking or talking, very protective and very passionate. He's taking this really hard, and showing off a bit would at least give him a break from all of it.
"We had a memorial service back home - in Jasper," Jack continued, "and Bulkhead just sat there staring at the ground. He was the closest to her, so he thought he should say something, but when he stood up to speak, nothing came out for what felt like ages, and then he finally just said 'I miss her' and sat down again..."
Jack's voice trailed off as he choked up. Cindy hugged him, which just left him feeling awkward.
"Come on Jack," Miko said, standing in front of the school, "we're going to go do something exciting!"
"We're not going to set something on fire or knock over a liquor store, are we?" Jack said, slightly warily and mostly joking.
"No, the pharmacy at the hospital. I'm betting your mother won't have the nerve to identify us."
"Have you met my mother?"
"Oh, fine. Sand dunes again?"
"Sand dunes," Jack said, a little weary of the sand dunes.
Jack's new motorcycle was a step down from Arcee. A rough beater of a Kawasaki, which Jack had bought after saving up the wages of his crappy job at the burger shop. Agent Fowler had suggested giving Jack a motorcycle courtesy of the US Government Slush Fund, but Jack's mother had somehow convinced him to put about ten times the worth of a motorcycle into Jack's college fund. Jack couldn't really argue with the economics, but a better motorcycle would have been a lot more fun.
As it was, the Kawasaki beater was pretty fun, tearing up and down the sand dunes, Miko pressed close behind him, hanging on for dear life and screaming at the top of her lungs.
Eventually, they spun out, tumbled down the dune, and lay on their backs, staring up at the early evening sky, playing a game Miko called "Shooting Star Or Horrible Decepticon Death Machine".
Later, had they put the dates together and checked the Autobot records, they would have discovered that it was a horrible Decepticon death machine after all.
Katsuo was about eight years old, as far as Jack could tell, with unruly hair, and a look that wandered between stern, bored and tired.
Jack smiled at the boy, and the boy smiled back. Jack crouched down so he was closer to Katsuo's level, and said "Hi, I'm Jack."
Katsuo said nothing.
"He can be a bit shy around strangers," Cindy explained. "Katsuo, say hi to Jack, he's a friend of your aunt's."
"Hi." Katsuo said softly.
"And that might be that," Cindy said.
Jack laughed quietly. "Let me show you a trick, Katsuo. Do you have a coin?"
Katsuo shook his head silently.
Jack tried to reach for his pocket to get a coin, and stopped. "Actually, the trick requires both hands, and the airline lost my luggage."
Katsuo stared silently at Jack.
"It would have been a very good trick," Jack said, apologetically.
Katsuo stepped back a little, and then Jack stood up.
"I don't know what he understands about all of this," Cindy said, explaining. "He's a little too young for this, and he only met Miko a couple of times since he was an infant. Honestly, I don't know whether he'll remember her at all when he gets older... Oh, God, I'm sorry, that wasn't quite what I wanted to say."
"It's alright," Jack said, glancing over at the entirely quiet Masaki, "funerals are hard."
"Did you see this?" Miko said suddenly, thrusting a newspaper into Jack's face. "Right on the front page!"
Jack grabbed the newspaper, flipped it over and looked at the back page. He then flipped it back. The Jasper Daily was printed back to front, for reasons that he was still unclear about, and years of reading it had trained him backwards.
This was the Las Vegas Vagrant, a more conventionally printed, albeit more sensationalist, newspaper. And there, on the front page, was Bulkhead swinging his wrecking ball directly into Vehicon.
"Isn't it cool?" Miko demanded.
Jack's first thought was that the Autobots' cover had been blown, and that their lives would never be the same again. It scared Jack, until he saw that the article next to it was about Ronald Reagan being alive and well, living life as a Elvis impersonator, and there was another article about a pack of solar-powered self-driving cars that had escaped from the Google labs and were now terrorizing towns in the southwest.
"That's great," Jack said, smiling. "Good old Bulkhead. Vehicon never knew what hit him."
"The Vehicon knew it was 5 tons of Autobot!" Miko said, proudly.
Jack skimmed the article, which was wildly inaccurate and claimed that this was a United Nations plan to eliminate older, more polluting cars that the Cash For Clunkers program hadn't gotten off the road. He flipped to the inside, and saw an artist's rendition of Arcee shredding an SUV with a samurai sword.
"I wish we were there," Miko said.
"Jack was always an awkward child," June explained to Mrs. Nakadai. "Always about a head taller than the rest of the kids, and always so very serious and brooding. He didn't have a lot of friends growing up. Actually, he doesn't really have that many now."
Jack sighed inaudibly, and began looking for a corner of the room to hide in. June glanced over at him, saw the expression on his face, and continued. "Jack's always had a few very close friends, rather than a lot of casual friends."
"Miko could not have been more different," Mrs. Nakadai said, "she was always surrounded by friends. And she was always getting them into trouble, and their parents would forbid them from ever being with her again, and then she would just move on to the next set of friends."
Jack stopped looking for an escape route, and turned towards them, joining the conversation but not actually speaking.
"When she wanted to become an exchange student," Mrs. Nakadai continued, "her father and I joked that it was because every child in Tokyo and the surrounding area had been forbidden to be anywhere near her and so there was nowhere else for her to go. And her school, I think they were just getting tired of calling home, so they encouraged her."
"Jack never got into trouble, well, except for the time he told his teacher that he was an idiot. But, you know something, even when he was misbehaving, he was right - the teacher really was an idiot."
Jack smiled with a bit of pride. He hadn't called the teacher an idiot, he had used a much worse word, and there his mother was, bragging about it.
Being locked out of the Autobot base didn't actually make Jack and Miko any safer. Megatron decided the kids were just another tool to use to get at Optimus and the Autobots.
Jack sped along the highway on his motorcycle. The Vehicons were coming up behind him, and he had to do something. He'd pressed his panic button, the Autobots were on the way, but he didn't know when they would be arrive.
The highway was straight and flat. Jack knew he was an easy target, and there was no cover. Ahead there was some scrubby brush off the highway on the left, he would have to brake hard to make the turn, and try to lose the Vehicons in that, at least for a few moments.
It would have been easy with Arcee. She could have made the turn without having the slightest worry. All Jack would have had to do was hang on for dear life, but Arcee made that easy too - she always banked just right, so the centrifugal force pushed him into the seat.
Jack hit the brakes, turned the wheel and banked. The back wheel began to skid out from under him, and for an instant he thought he could see his life flashing before his eyes.
Instead, it was the flash of the ground-bridge. The tunnel of light was much softer for skidding out of control on than the asphalt. He had gotten very, very lucky.
He could see Bulkhead and Bumblebee leaping over him, charging into battle.
Arcee jumped over him, dug her heel into the asphalt on the other side of the ground-bridge, and then sprang back towards him as fast as she could, pulling him off the motorcycle, grabbing him in her arms and protecting him as she bounced through the ground-bridge again, landing in the Autobot base.
The motorcycle continued and smashed into some equipment at 80mph.
"Cheating on me, Jack?" Arcee said, gesturing to the motorcycle as she set Jack down.
"She meant nothing to me." Jack replied, looking at the shattered motorcycle.
"I've got to go smash some Decepticons, Jack, I'll be right back," Arcee said with an almost gleeful smile.
"Corporal Stevens," Agent Fowler barked. "Check the boy out, make sure he's alright. Corporal Johnson, your team is up next on the ground-bridge. If the Decepticons are after Jack, they might be after his mother or Miko, I want boots on the ground, and eyes on the target."
Corporal Johnson, a middle aged medic with dark hair and graying temples, quickly ran over to Jack.
"I'm fine," Jack protested.
"That was quite a tumble, son, you could have internal bleeding and not even know it." Corporal Johnson began poking Jack's stomach.
"Hang on," Ratchet said, distractedly while working the ground-bridge controls. "Corporal, stand back."
As the corporal stepped back, Ratchet waved an imaging scanner in Jack's general direction. "He's fine," Ratchet proclaimed barely looking in Jack's direction.
"Good job staying out of harm's way, Jack," Agent Fowler called out. "Basic training starts next week."
"Basic training?"
"You've just been drafted, son," Agent Fowler said. "We can't leave you out there on your own anymore, it's too dangerous."
"Crap," Jack said.
Mrs. Nakadai looked up at Jack. "Sit down, sit down, I can't be looking up all the time, I'll get a crick in my neck."
Jack obediently sat down, and Mrs. Nakadai sat next to him. "You knew my daughter well in America. Tell me something about her. "
"To be honest," Jack said, "Miko and I hadn't been that close the last few years. We had a falling out, she left the Autobots for a while, and when she returned, we always kept a bit of distance. We were friends, but not like before."
"She was never as good at fixing things as she was at breaking things. I think she was a little bit afraid of you."
"Afraid?" Jack asked, surprised. "I never saw her afraid of anything. She would charge into den of Vehicons without hesitating."
"That's because she never stopped to think and consider the consequences. When she was a little girl, she could not have been more than six, some older girls were picking on her friend, and without pausing for an instant, she marched right over and punched one of them in the nose. There were four of them, and they were all three years older than her, but she wasn't going to stand still.
"She had a black eye, and a scuffed knee, but those girls never went near her friend again," Mrs. Nakadai said proudly.
"But, when she was fourteen, there was a boy. Hideo. He was very, very pretty, and Miko could see nothing but him. But he could not see her. He looked right through her and never noticed her. And Miko, poor Miko, she didn't know how to get that boy's attention, and she was so afraid of failing that she just wouldn't try."
"What happened?" Jack asked.
"She punched him in the nose," Mrs. Nakadai said.
"I'm glad she never liked me," Jack said, "she has a pretty mean punch."
"Yes," Mrs. Nakadai said, "that was her solution to everything."
The mission went well, but there were risks. Unnecessary ones to Jack. Miko kept getting in harm's way, and having to be rescued by Bulkhead.
"You're running into things without thinking!" Jack yelled. "It isn't safe. You're going to get yourself killed. You're smarter than that, stop acting like an idiot."
Miko crossed her arms and stuck out her chin. "You can't play it safe, Jack. Nowhere is safe. I'd rather die being a idiot than being a victim like Sierra."
Jack was furious. He turned and stormed out, punching a piece of Ratchet's scattered equipment. It was the first time he had thrown a punch in anger since he was twelve.
When Jack finally calmed down, and went to talk to Miko, he discovered that she had set the ground bridge to Tokyo and left. He didn't follow.
Jack figured she would return when she got it out of her system, but she didn't. He figured she would apologize, but she didn't. A few days later, he sent her an email apologizing for getting so angry, and saying that he knew she didn't mean to hurt him but she did. He got no reply.
After a few days, Agent Fowler grabbed Jack by the collar, and took him for a walk down one of the corridors of the Autobot base. "She's in Tokyo, staying with her family," Agent Fowler explained.
"How do you know?" Jack asked. "I've emailed her, and she hasn't responded."
"It's my job to know, and I'm good at my job," Fowler said, mysteriously. "Also, her parents are in the phone book and Bulkhead called them. She's fine, Jack, try not to worry about her."
"How do you not worry about someone?"
"I don't know. But I do know this - she was running directly into danger out there, and I was going to have to take her off the mission roster. I'm a lot less worried about her in Tokyo than I'd be worried about her here.
"I've known kids like her, Jack. She's hurting, but she doesn't know it, and if she kept on that path she'd get herself killed or wounded. Probably get a Congressional Medal of Honor in the process, knowing her."
"But, if she's out there... what's stopping the Decepticons from targeting her?"
"She has a panic button if there's trouble, so we can be there inside of three minutes. If there's trouble. If they even figure out where she is. If they even care. She's out of the picture, Jack, and the Decepticons have been moving much more tactically lately."
Galvatron growled and pontificated, and slapped Optimus and Arcee around. Mad with rage and power, the massive Decepticon ignored the tiny, soft human.
"Sideburn!" Optimus ordered, "if that lensing apparatus powers up, Galvatron will beam energy directly into the heart of Unicron!"
Galvatron raised his cannon and fired at Sideburn, burning the armor at the Autobot's shoulder. Sideburn lunged but Galvatron kicked him down.
Jack ran along the wall, up to the doomsday machine. A crystal of dark energon hovered, balanced by electromagnets, while bits of plasma flickered across its surface.
Jack reached for the crystal, felt the heat of the plasma, and pulled his hand away. The crystal began sparking as the plasma increased, and Jack scrambled to find something. He looked towards Arcee, and saw her lying on the ground with smoke rising from a hole in her chest.
He hadn't heard the blast that hit her, and he couldn't tell if she was alive or dead. Fear wrapped around his chest and squeezed. He wasn't sure he could breathe. He stepped towards Arcee, and then looked back at the focusing crystal.
"Get away from that, boy!" Galvatron shouted, raising his cannon. Bulkhead body checked the crazed Decepticon.
"Nurse Darby," Optimus said, into the communications console. His voice echoed through the Autobot base.
Jack could hear the fear in his mother's voice as she recognized who it was. "Optimus? Is Jack-"
"Jack is safe, Nurse Darby. He's injured, but he's safe."
"Injured? What happened?"
"There was some significant damage to one of his redundant appendages, but according to the medics, his main chassis and systems are in good operating condition." Optimus said.
"Can I ... Can I speak to a human?"
"Transfer to my phone," Agent Fowler yelled across the room. "Mrs. Darby? This is Agent Fowler. I'm with Jack right now, the medics are checking him out. He lost an arm but other than that he's fine -"
Jack could hear the slightly muffled voice of his mother coming from the small speaker of agent Fowler's phone. "He lost his arm? What happened?"
"Jack stuck his arm into some kind of energy stream - plasma, I've heard - pulling out a targeting thing and probably saving the planet. He's a brave kid. It burnt away his arm, but he'll be ok."
The phone was silent for a moment.
"Put the medic on."
Agent Fowler handed the phone to the medic.
"Corporal Stevens here, Ma'am. Jack is a strong kid, and he's doing fine. I just gave him some morphine for the pain, and I'm cleaning the wound, but it's well cauterized - there's no loss of blood, his pulse is a little fast, but regular, and his breathing is the same."
"Any signs of nerve damage? Or trauma to the head or torso?"
"We're still checking him out, ma'am, but everything looks good so far. He's conscious and alert, he knows what's going on, his pupils respond-"
"Reflexes?"
"Just poked the soles of his feet and the palm of his hand, ma'am, normal responses."
"Can I speak to him?"
"Absolutely, ma'am, but he's a little drugged up," Corporal Stevens raised the phone up to Jack's ear.
"I'm sorry, mom," Jack said, before his mother could speak.
"Don't you be sorry Jack Darby," Mrs. Darby said. "You have nothing to be sorry for. Jack, I love you, and I'll be there as soon as I can. If there's anything you need before I get there - anything - you talk to Corporal Stevens. If anything changes - anything - you talk to Corporel Stevens."
"I'm fine, mom. It's just an arm..."
"It's just an arm? Jack Darby, what drugs do they have you on?"
"Pretty good ones, I guess-"
"I can confirm that, ma'am," Corporal Stevens said loudly, so his voice would be picked up by the phone's microphone.
Agent Fowler had been pacing nearby with another phone to his ear. He thrust out his hand to Corporal Stevens, and Corporal Stevens handed him the phone.
"Agent Fowler, Mrs. Darby. There are three choppers with a total of 18 wounded headed your way, should be four or five minutes out-"
Agent Fowler pulled the phone away from his ear as Mrs. Darby shouted the information across the ER floor, and then put the phone against his head again. "You've got a seat on the return trip - we're closing down a lot of roads for everything but emergency traffic. And I've just gotten approval to start using the ground bridge to move injured civilians from Chicago to trauma centers across the country, if the ground bridge is better than a chopper we can arrange that-"
"How many injured civilians?"
"I don't have a number on that yet, we're bridging in emergency teams, and the initial reports are pretty bad."
Through the earpiece on the phone, Mrs. Darby's shout of "More injured on the way - a lot more" rattled Agent Fowler as he pulled the phone away slightly too late.
"Ok, I've got to stay here then," Mrs. Darby said. "I don't know if I can hold myself together, but even if all I can do is bedpans and change dressings, it frees up someone else who can focus. Can you put Jack on the phone?"
"Here he is," Agent Fowler said, handing the phone to Corporal Stevens, who put it in Jack's remaining hand while listening to his heart on a stethoscope. Agent Fowler immediately started talking on his other phone.
"Jack, change in plans, there are a lot of injured coming, and I need to stay here. Jack, I want nothing more than to be there for you, and I hate that I have to do this, but we're prepping the hospital to receive a lot of injured survivors from Chicago. You're safe and in good hands, and the injured on the way need me more right now. I'll be there as soon as I can, but it's going to be a while."
"Mom, I understand. And I'm fine, don't worry about me."
"I know you understand, Jack, but it doesn't make me feel any better right now. And you're not fine, you're my little boy and you're hurt. I love you Jack."
"I love you too."
"Can I speak to Agent Fowler for a moment?"
Agent Fowler reached for the phone, having overheard the conversation while coordinating rescue efforts on the phone pressed against his head - handling multiple complex situations at once was one of his most important skills, more important than being able to fly planes, or fight men twenty years younger than himself. "Agent Fowler," he said, pressing the phone to his ear.
"You take good care of my boy, Agent, and if the medics find anything - anything - that I need to know about, you come get me, do you understand?"
"Absolutely, ma'am."
"I hate this, I hate having to leave him alone, I hate it more than anything-"
"Mrs. Darby, believe me, I understand. My ex-wife didn't, but I do... Is there a… My records indicate that Mr. Darby hasn't really been in the picture for a while, and if you're free and the world is still here on Friday..."
"Ask me again when my world is not falling apart, Bill. Take care of my son, come get me if there is any change in his condition - any change - and let me speak to him again."
Agent Fowler held the phone up to Jack.
"Mom?" Jack asked.
"I've got nothing Jack, I just wanted to say that I love you."
"I love you too, Mom."
"I've got to go now. I love you."
"Ok, ok, we love each other. You're embarrassing me in front of the big burly medic and the secret agent."
"I'll see you as soon as I can, Jack."
"I know."
After finally managing to say goodbye, Jack turned his head towards Agent Fowler. "Did you just ask my mom out on a date?"
"Yes. And she called me Bill," Agent Fowler said, smiling. "You know, this day isn't all bad. Just … uh …" Agent Fowler looked at Jack and his arm, and then looked up at the monitors showing the destruction of Chicago. "Ok, it's a pretty much incredibly crappy day."
"Can I have some more morphine?"
"Yes," Agent Fowler said.
"No," Corporal Stevens said. "You've had plenty. There's some pain that morphine can't take away."
Arcee survived her wounds, but she would never be the same again. Her t-cog was badly damaged, and was never able to transform with it again.
She eventually got another t-cog, from a fallen comrade. She initially refused the transplant, calling it "ghoulish" and "uncivilized", but everyone knew that Ironhide would have wanted to keep fighting, even if his spark went offline.
Ironhide's t-cog was a poor fit, and although Ratchet did the best he could, her transformation was at times jerky and unreliable. After getting in over her head a few too many times, she was transitioned to a support role, handling base security and training other warriors. She was angry with Optimus for sidelining her, but although she would never admit it, she agreed with his decision.
She turned out to be a better drill sergeant than a fighter, and over time found it more rewarding. She was making a bigger impact training soldiers than she could have had as a single warrior.
Jack was backed into a corner, and a woman about his age had pinned him there, and spent the last twenty minutes talking about how she really admired Miko's hair. She kept drifting into Japanese, so Jack wasn't sure he was understanding it. He hoped he didn't.
The woman stood slightly closer than Jack was comfortable with, so he would take a step backwards, and then she would take a step forwards, and now there was nowhere left to retreat to.
He caught Bill's eye, and the gruff secret agent came over and rescued him, making some excuse for Jack to get away.
"Who was that?" Bill asked.
"One of Miko's friends from high school. Probably quite lovely most of the time, but wow can she talk. Not sure why she latched onto me..."
"Tall, decent looking war hero, probably knew her friend better than she did, and some people just need to talk," Bill explained. "And quite lovely," he added, glancing over for an instant.
"She backed off pretty quickly when you came over."
"I'm old. And black. I probably freak her out a little."
"People don't say 'freak her out' any more."
"I did say that I'm old, right?"
"I hesitated," Jack said, avoiding looking into Agent Fowler's eyes. "And while I did nothing, a hundred thousand people were killed."
"Jack," Agent Fowler said, crouching down, and pushing Jack's hair out of his eyes so he had to look at him, "you acted, and you saved millions, no not millions, billions of people. You took your arm, and you stuck it through the energy beam and pulled out the focusing crystal, even while it burnt your arm away.
"I don't know that I would have made the same choice. I'd like to think that I would, but I don't know.
"Let me tell you something about being a hero and a soldier, Jack. Even when things go well, there's always something else you could have done, some way that you could have saved a few more people, or done things a little better. You're not perfect, son, no one is.
"You stood up, you did your best, and frankly your best was pretty damned good. You have to balance those you didn't save against those you did.
"And even if no one had been saved, even if it turns into a complete fiasco, even if you lose half your team, and the hostages you were trying to save are all killed... you tried, and that's the important part. Someday, when you're older, we'll get drunk and I'll tell you about Baghdad."
"I don't feel like a hero," Jack said, rubbing the stump of his arm.
"I don't feel like a hero either, son, but the President and the congress disagree. See these cuff-links? Congressional Medal of Honor. Twice. But if you ask me, I'm just a guy who tried to do the right thing in a bad situation. Twice."
June sat down next to her son, and put her arm around him. "It's like I told you about doctors and nurses - you can't save everyone, you have to take your victories where you can, and just not think about the others.
"If you have a bad day at your job and mess things up, someone doesn't get their french fries. If an EMT has a bad day and messes things up, someone dies. But if the EMT wasn't there, they wouldn't have had a chance."
"And if you weren't there at your job, flipping those burgers, son," Agent Fowler said, patting his belly, "I would be fifteen pounds lighter."
June looked over at Agent Fowler and smiled.
"Can I quit that job now?" Jack asked.
"No, it builds character."
After Miko had left for Tokyo, Jack had never gotten used to the Autobot base without Miko there. No matter how many times he didn't see her, or how many other people came and went, he always expected to see her there, leaning a little too far over the railing and looking for Bulkhead, or moving Ratchet's tools, or stomping her foot when she wasn't getting her way. It was always a surprise when he quickly checked each of her spots before realizing she wasn't there.
And so, Jack wasn't surprised when he saw Miko at the base again, a year and a half after she had left. It took him a moment to realize that she hadn't always been there, and he surprised himself by running across the room shouting "Miko!" and hugging her.
"Auugh!" Miko shouted pulling back. "You nearly crushed me!"
"Oh, sorry," Jack said, "the new arm is a bit stronger than I'm used to. It's not actually strong enough to crush you though."
"Just strong enough to break a couple of her ribs, before snapping what's left of your arm," Ratchet said, not looking up from his work. "I told you to be careful with it."
"Sorry, Ratchet," Jack said.
"Don't apologize to me," Ratchet said, gruffly, "I don't even have ribs. But don't go thinking you can hug me either."
"So, Ratchet hasn't changed," Miko said. "What about you?"
Jack flicked his wrist, and one of his fingers transformed into a comb. He brushed his bangs out of his eyes. "No, not really."
"Oh! That is so cool! Does everyone get one!? I don't need a comb. Can I get a giant hammer!?" Miko blurted out. "I want a giant hammer so I can go 'SMASH' and things get smashed!"
As Miko spoke, she gestured with her hands, with one hand in a fist as the hammer, slamming it down on the other which she then opened to show something being smashed. She jumped around excitedly.
"Burn your arm off in a plasma stream, and then we'll talk," Ratchet said. "Until then, no."
"How about laser eyes?! Can I get laser eyes?!" Miko shrieked.
"Don't humans already have laser eye surgery?" Ratchet asked, continuing to work and not bothering to look over.
"That's just using lasers to do the surgery. I want lasers coming out of my eyes!"
Jack smiled. Miko was back.
Mr. Nakadai came up to Jack's shoulder. He was round-headed, and slightly portly, and much older than Jack had expected. When he had met Mr. Nakadai as he entered, Jack was too wrapped up in things to notice, but now that he did, it surprised him. He remembered Miko once saying that her parents were old, but he didn't know that she meant it literally. Mr. Nakadai was almost old enough to be Miko's grandfather rather than her father.
Mr. Nakadai gently steered Jack away from the others, and sat him down at a table. He poured himself a small glass of saki, and offered a glass to Jack. Jack politely refused, but Mr. Nakadai poured a small glass anyway and set it in front of Jack.
"I must ask you something, Jack," Mr. Nakadai said. "Something that makes me a little uncomfortable to ask."
Jack tensed up. "Anything."
"How did my daughter die?" Mr. Nakadai asked.
"She was hit by a drunk driver as she was walking down the street," Jack answered.
"That is what I was told, but is that really what happened?" Mr. Nakadai pressed. "You would tell me the truth, wouldn't you?"
"It's the truth. It's stupid, but it's the truth. The military went over that car with a fine-tooth comb, and interrogated the driver, and investigated everything looking for some kind of Decepticon connection, but it was just some idiot who drank too much and tried to drive home at four in the afternoon and went up on the sidewalk."
"I do not trust your military," Mr. Nakadai said.
"As soon as it happened, they grabbed me and my mom, and whisked us back to the Autobot base, and they weren't going to let us out until they were certain we weren't being targeted. But it was just some stupid hick local.
"It's just..." Jack began, trying to find the words, "such a stupid loss of life. Miko ran headlong into danger time and time again, and then to be killed by a drunk driver who veered onto a sidewalk. She could have been killed a hundred times over by then. I just never thought she would die like a normal person.
"Running around with the Autobots is dangerous. Walking down the street shouldn't be. She wouldn't have wanted to die that way. I'm sorry."
Mr. Nakadai wiped a tear from his eye and took Jack's hand. "In the end, it doesn't matter how you die. You're so very young, you don't see this yet, but I've been to enough funerals for friends and family over the years... every death is stupid, and most of them are too soon. Was it quick?"
"Yes," Jack lied.
"That is something," Mr. Nakadai said. "At least my little girl did not suffer. My brother... my brother died of cancer last year. That was not quick. There's been too much death these days."
"I'm sorry," Jack said.
"He was old, it was his time. But Miko. My little Miko. Gone so soon. There was so much she could have done."
"She saved the world," Jack said.
"Yes, but I always hoped that she one day she would play the piano."
Jack stared, dumbfounded.
"Trust me when I tell you, that would have been much funnier in Japanese," Mr. Nakadai said.
Jack stifled a laugh.
"That is good, Jack. I have never once been at a funeral where there was not laughter. Drink your saki, and tell me about my daughter."
"She played electric guitar..." Jack said, unsure of where to begin, and not touching the saki.
"Electric guitar. That ... that is just noise," Mr. Nakadai said smiling.
June Darby was on the job when the ambulance arrived. A girl, early to mid 20s, hit by a drunk driver, barely conscious. The girl's face was covered in blood, and there was a terrible cut disfiguring her mouth and running up to almost her eye, making it an obscene parody of a smile.
As one of the other nurses began cleaning her up, June was getting information from the paramedics in the ambulance who had stabilized the girl at the scene. Spine broken, legs crushed, a lot of blood loss.
June did what she always did in this situation. She thanked God it wasn't Jack, put her feelings aside, and got to work, checking the vital signs, drawing blood for matching, getting the O-negative for immediate use.
Doctor Thompson, the chief resident, poked and prodded the patient's abdomen, checking for internal hemorrhaging, and June could tell by the sounds that it wasn't going well. Any time anyone touched the girl, she shrieked in agony. There was nothing to be done about that - they couldn't give her pain killers until they knew the extent of the damage.
It was only when Nurse Jackson had finished cleaning up the patient's face, sponging off the blood, the June recognized her as Miko.
June froze.
She realized she was crying when her surgical mask was wet with tears, and she could barely hear the voices of Doctor Thompson and Nurse Jackson calling to her. "Oh, God, Miko..." she was saying, over and over.
The doctors and nurses worked over Miko for over an hour, but it was all a blur to June. She held Miko's hand and cried, periodically releasing it so the IVs could be swapped around.
"It's going to be alright, Miko," June said, over and over, repeating it like a mantra and desperately hoping it wasn't a lie.
Miko was conscious, and moaning in pain. June was able to make out only one thing, Miko saying "I'm so scared."
The rhythmic beeping of the heart monitors then stopped, replaced by alarms, and June found herself instinctively releasing Miko's hand anytime someone shouted "Clear!" and then grabbing it again while the doctors frantically performed CPR.
After close to twenty minutes, one of the doctors said to page the first year resident, and have them take over CPR. It was how the residents learned, keeping the hopeless cases alive for a few more minutes.
"Don't you dare," June said through her tears. "Don't you dare give up on this girl."
Doctor Thompson kept performing CPR, and periodically trying to restart Miko's heart with the defibrillator, for the next thirty minutes while June clutched Miko's hand, cried, and kept saying "I'm so sorry Miko, I'm so sorry."
When she couldn't cry any more, June weakly said "page the resident."
After the resident had come and gone, she went out to face Jack and Bill, and tell them that their friend was dead, but she couldn't even speak. She crumpled into Jack's arms, and Bill guided them to a chair in the waiting room.
Doctor Thompson brought over a sickly mixture of Gatorade and Coke. "June, you need fluid, salt and glucose."
Mr. Nakadai listened to Jack's stories of Miko for close to an hour. They were good stories, about her willfulness and determination, and her selflessness. Jack told him about how she convinced him to take the ground bridge onto a moving train to fight off MECH soldiers, and about the time when she went out on her own after Bulkhead was captured and rescued him while the Decepticons were busily fighting off the Autobots' rescue attempt.
She was reckless and crazy, but her heart was in the right place.
Mr. Nakadai listened to the stories, and then he gently touched Jack's hand to signal him to stop. "There is something that you are missing about my daughter. Yes, sometimes she would act before she thought, and she was always followed her heart rather than her head. But she could be very practical when she had to be. Let me tell you a story...
"A couple of years ago, she returned home. She just showed up on our doorstep completely unannounced - I had always figured that she would call first, if only to ask for cab fare from the airport, but she just rang the doorbell because she lost her key, as if this is something you just do when you've been gone for nearly two years.
"Something was wrong, that was obvious. But Miko... Miko would never admit to that. Partly she is stubborn as can be, and partly she is not going to burden someone else with her problems. She got a phone call from some American boy she called Bulkhead, and they talked for a while, but afterwards, she would say nothing to us.
"She went to school. She got a job. Can you imagine that? Miko with a job, going to school and work every day on the train, generally fitting in. Very unlike Miko. But she would never say what was wrong.
"After a few months, it was obvious though. At first we thought she was putting on some weight - she was always so thin, so this was a good thing. And when it was obvious, she finally told us about the football player named Bulkhead who she had some unhappy romance with, and how he left her pregnant with his child. It was a perfectly believable story. None of us believed it for a moment. Miko is great at many, many things, but she is a terrible liar.
"And then, there was a strange light in Tokyo harbor, and our entire family was suddenly arrested by government agents and interrogated for three days about some nonsensical financial thing.
"And then, after we were released, she told us, about the Autobots and the Decepticons, and bunker under Jasper, and secret agents, and it was a preposterous story that no one would ever believe. But Miko is a terrible liar. And besides, she had pictures.
"And we knew that Miko was miserably unhappy. But she so much wanted her child to have a chance for a normal life, away from all of that danger. But she was so unhappy.
"And when Masaki and Cindy could not have a child of their own... Well, it was only a matter of time. Miko was not cut out to be a mother. I think she gets that from her mother, actually. Oh, no, not my wife. My niece. Back in those days an unwed mother would bring a great shame to their family, and my niece was barely more than a child herself, so we took Miko and raised her as our own.
"I never regretted it. Not for an instant. Masaki is my pride, by Miko is my heart. Without Miko I feel like there's a part of me gone, but Katsuo is a part of her. And Masaki loves him with all his heart. He might seem like a cold fish sometimes, but he loves that boy more than anything."
Jack was silent throughout Mr. Nakadai's story. And he was silent after it for a bit, letting it all sink in. "I have a son," he said finally. "She never told me."
"She wanted to protect her child," Mr. Nakadai said. "Keep him away from giant robots waging a war on Earth, and give him a chance of a normal life that she couldn't give him. And he has that now."
"Why did you tell me this? What do you want me to do?"
"I tell you this because I think you should know. Katsuo is happy, send him a birthday present if you want, but he has a family. I just want you to know that even when things seem bleak, that they aren't."
"She should have told me..." Jack said, still struggling to deal with the news.
"Perhaps," Mr. Nakadai replied. "But she didn't always do what she should. And had she told you, would you have been there to save so many other people?
"It was not easy for her, Jack," Mr. Nakadai continued, pouring himself another glass of saki. "She was crying the night before she went back to America. She wanted so much to be a dutiful mother, to raise her son and protect him, but she did not have that in her.
"And after whatever happened above Tokyo, when we were all taken into protective custody and interrogated about nonsense so we wouldn't realize it was protective. Right then, I think she knew. It took her a few more months to decide, but she knew what she would decide right then."
"All I ever wanted was a normal life," Jack said, a little sadly, reflecting on what he didn't have. "Go to college, become a lawyer, work as a public defender somewhere... help people, but still have a normal life."
"Is that really what you want, or is that just what you want to want?"
"I don't understand..." Jack began. "Of course I want it, I just ... can't."
"I am an old man. I watched my brother die recently, and I lost my daughter far far away where I could not even be there for her. But I have a son, and his wife is now my daughter, and I have an amazing grandson, and I have lived a good life. Not always the life I would have chosen, but a good life.
"And I look at you. You have lived a life a thousand times richer than most, and you have your whole life in front of you still. It might not be the life you would have chosen, but you might have chosen wrong.
"You are a lot like Miko, Jack. I can see why she liked you. You have the same determination and the same need to do what is right. You're very different too. You think more, maybe too much. You are not a man who would have a normal life, Jack. Even if you never met any alien robots, you would end up doing something extraordinary."
Jack looked at Mr. Nakadai for a moment, but he wasn't sure what to say. He looked down at his untouched glass of saki, and then over at Mr. Nakadai's empty glass. "Optimus always said that destiny seldom calls you at the time of your choosing."
"Optimus sounds very wise," Mr. Nakadai said.
"I always thought he sounded pompous," Jack admitted.
"Yes," Mr. Nakadai agreed, raising his saki. "That too."
Jack got up, walked across the room, knelt down, and hugged his son with his left arm. "You look just like her."
There was a fire in Miko's eyes and a spring in her step as she raced down the hallway of the Decepticon energon depository. Bulkhead looked on smiling proudly for a moment, before he realized that he should have tried to stop her.
She was too far away now. If he called out to her, it would just alert the Decepticons to their presence. Besides, it wasn't like she would ever listen anyway. He started after her, walking as quickly and quietly as possible, which was kind of slow and loud.
He stopped when he heard footsteps running towards him, the tiny footsteps of a human.
Wheeljack got out his swords and stood ready.
Jack tapped several buttons on his mechanical arm, unlocking the safety, and then transformed it into a pulse rifle.
Miko turned the corner, pursued by a half dozen Vehicons. She reached behind her and fired her laser pistol wildly as she ran, missing completely.
Bulkhead chuckled to himself. There he was with Jackie, Little Jackie, Miko and a half dozen Vehicons. This was a very good day.
"Are you alright, Jack?" June asked, after Jack told her the news.
"I don't know, I guess so." Jack replied.
"So, you and Miko?"
"Yeah. After Sierra, when we were locked out of the base. It was stupid. It just happened. It was a dumb mistake. Went on for a few months."
June took her son's hand.
"I'm glad there's part of her still here," Jack said, "dumb mistake or not."
June was silent for a moment, and Jack looked up at her. "Sorry," she said, "I'm still on I'm not old enough to be a grandmother and my kid had a kid when he was a kid so I'm a terrible mother. I'm not up to the rest of it yet."
"You were a great mother," Jack said, flapping his stump slightly against June. "You still are."
"That was supposed to be a hug, wasn't it?" June said, putting her arm around Jack and hugging him a bit more tightly than he liked.
"I don't think I could raise a kid," Jack said, "and I don't know it would be safe if the Decepticons targeted us again. And then I see him and I want to run over and hug him and never let him go, but it wouldn't really be fair to him."
"It's pretty hard raising a kid on your own," June said, "but Bill and I would help out, so you wouldn't really be on your own. And the Autobots will be there for protection."
"He's already got a family, Miko made sure of that. He's as far away from Autobots and Decepticons as he can be. He can have a normal life. That's what Miko wanted. I can be the strange uncle that shows up with toys."
"You might be right, Jack, but it's nothing you have to decide right now," June said. "And you might want to be the strange uncle who shows up with toys a lot and who brings his mother along."
"Dad left us when I was about his age," Jack said. "Well, the first time he left."
June looked at her son, and brushed his bangs out of his eyes. "You're not your father, Jack. I know we never really talk about him... He didn't abandon us, Jack, I kicked him out. The third time he left, I think that time was him, not sure about the fourth... Anyway, you're not your father, and he's not such a bad guy... no matter what the state says..."
"I know, but…" Jack trailed off. "What do you think I should do?"
"I think you should use protection in the future, young man," June said. "The son of a nurse should know that."
"And a nurse should know that it isn't 100% effective," Jack replied, defensively.
June shrugged slightly. "Beyond that, I don't know. I would think long and hard before doing anything that would break up his family though. Give it some time. Now, if you'll excuse me, I'm going to hug my grandson."
After June got up, Bill sat down next to Jack. "What was that all about? Did I miss something while getting food?"
"Miko had my son, and gave him to her brother and his wife who have been raising him as their own son for the past eight years or so."
"Huh."
"You knew."
"It's my job to know, and I am good at my job," Agent Fowler said with a shrug. "Have you tried to tuna nigiri? It's excellent. I'd stay away from the sea urchin though, that stuff is nasty. Also, you're allergic."