I own nothing, from either the Transformers franchise or anything written by Michael Crichton or created from his works. Just borrowing.
One Day
The scanners indicated nothing but the most desolate road, in the most forgotten part of the country, he could be traveling in. The optics showed the exact same thing; nothing. Bumblebee didn't care. He was driving just to drive, something he did when he was bored out of his processor. That, or Sam had decided he wasn't as 'living' as he was, and Bee just needed a break.
It didn't happen often; on the contrary, Sam was usually the one, out of all the humans, who treated him or his fellow Cybertronians, as living being - not pieces of machinery. The same way the humans tended to forget that all living matter was important, not just themselves.
Of course Sam was only human. Bumblebee disliked that phrase; it was just the uneducated way of compensating for limitations. He wouldn't say anything though, or he would be considered a hypocrite, for he was just a Cybertronian, nothing more, nothing less.
Bumblebee let his scanners track the road and then went on the Cybertronian equivalent of automatic pilot. This was the easiest way of moving and daydreaming at the same time; Skids would have been proud.
He knew he was kicking up an enormous amount of dirt since he was probably going almost triple the posted speed limit. Which meant he was going to need to go into one of those car washes when he got back to town before he picked up Sam. He didn't want the boy to have to explain the shape of his 'car' to his parents again.
While driving and thinking about the fabled 'Golden Age of Cybertron', Bee also started an internet search for the types of trees on the side of the road, the flowers that blossomed in the valley to the left, the name of the lake to the right and the mountains in the distance. Plus the different life forms that called each place home.
Bee was lucky he wasn't searching for a few more things or thinking about anything else or he may have missed the hitchhiker on the side of the road. As it was, Bee had to slam on the brakes, and cause one hell of a rut in the road, to stop for her. Only after stopping did he do an internet search and see that taking hitchhikers wasn't the safest practice, for either party. Especially a party that was supposed to be keeping it on the down low.
Bee did a scan for weapons on her and didn't find any. Then remembered he didn't have his hologram turned on. If he intended to keep from causing her premature demise from shock, he needed that. He also remembered his voice wasn't completely human sounding and there was no guarantee she knew the human sign language he had looked up the other day.
A quick internet search found a movie based on a book by an author; Michael Crichton. The hardware on the arm of the gorilla enabled her to use sign language and the words were spoken by the equipment. Quickly Bumblebee made the adjustment and his hologram had that same machine.
By this time she had made it to the bumper of his alternate mode. His search and changes had taken less than three seconds. Now he had time to actually look at her. He could tell she was female from his initial scan. He realized she had produced offspring within the past eighteen months and looked like she needed water since the amount of her internal water was slightly low.
He looked at her physical appearance. She had dark hair, almond colored skin and dark eyes to match. She was a bit more on the modest side, especially compared to Mikaela. Though Mikaela wasn't as bad as some of the humans that frequented the internets' pictures. She didn't look hurt in any way and there were no internal injuries to see, so Bee wasn't too worried about picking her up. At least from her physical appearance.
Then again, appearances could be deceiving. Look at him and his comrades – none of them were really able to be completely trusted. Especially if you based trust on whether the being was completely truthful from the beginning.
In truth, no one could be trusted on looks alone; unless you had the gift of telepathy. Then it wouldn't matter; all the mystery would be gone.
The small knock on his window just about caused Bee to jump. Out of his chassis that is. He turned his hologram toward the window and rolled it down. Whoever she was, her face was now peering into his cab. She looked at him rather expectantly, so his hologram leaned over and pretended to open the door. He of course opened it on his own.
"Thank you." She said, slipping into the front seat and buckling her seat belt.
"You're welcome." He signed and spoke at the same time. His voice sounded rather mechanical to most humans, so he figured she would take the machinery on his arm at face value.
"That's a pretty handy gizmo." She stated, looking at his arm.
Bumblebee smiled internally, causing the hologram to mimic his emotions. "Helps me speak to the masses."
"Well the masses are lucky then." She responded.
Bumblebee chuckled and started moving. "Where to?"
"Just a few miles up the road." She said. He could just make out a crossroad, so he did a search. There was nothing for miles in any direction of that road.
"There's nothing at there, except a cross section. Why are you going there?" He was curious; usually people were trying to get somewhere, not the middle of nowhere.
"Just for the fun of it." She stated simply.
Strange. He didn't know of any humans who did something like that for the fun of it. The boy and the girl tended to want to go to the mall, movies – make out. Walking in the middle of nowhere, by one's self, was not among their top five desires.
"What are you going to do when you get there?"
"I don't know yet."
Bee all but scoffed at the answer, internally. He did a quick internet search to see if this was normal human behavior. He found a few words and phrases that fit her description. Spontaneity, winging it, free spirited. Then again, those words fit him at times too, like right then, he was being rather spontaneous. If Sam ever found out about his picking up a hitchhiker, he'd be in for a rather lengthy aft chewing. That would be followed by one from Prime too.
"Do you walk in the middle of nowhere often?" Bee asked, seeing that he should make casual conversation to put his passenger at ease.
"I try to do something out of my comfort zone at least once a week." She answered, looking at his hologram.
"You do know that hitchhiking isn't the safest practice."
"For either party, but that didn't stop you." She pointed out.
"Touché." Bee said, laughing. "Can I ask why you're hitchhiking?"
"To remind myself of what it was like to be a kid. To feel the thrill. To forget all my responsibilities for even a short amount of time." The answer was almost whimsical in nature and she closed her eyes.
"I can relate to that. I'm doing the same thing myself."
"Well I wish you luck." She said, sitting up slightly as Bee saw the road she had indicated coming up on them fast.
Bumblebee stopped and opened the door for his mysterious passenger to exit. "Are you sure you want me to leave you out here?" He asked, worried that someone or something might come along and mangle her, leaving him with a jolt in his circuits.
"I'll be okay. I have my cell phone and it works out here." She said, indicating her bag. Bee's hologram must have looked as skeptical as he felt, because she started to laugh. "I promise you don't have to worry about me."
"I don't know…" He said in an apprehensive tone. He wasn't in the mood to let someone turn into another statistic.
She put her bag down on the road and then knelt down in the doorway. She then ran her fingers up and down his passenger seat. He could feel the heat from every cell of her fingers, grazing the material that made up the seats in his cab. He felt how frail each and every one of them was compared to the materials he was made out of. This alone almost caused him to insist he drive her to somewhere, anywhere, but nowhere.
Then she did something that gave him pause. She put her hand on the seat and pressed it into the fabric. She looked at his hologram with a youthful expression.
"Each and every day my heart pumps, is one less day that I get to live. I live six days a week for my husband and daughter. I want to have one day a week that I live completely for myself." She said, holding his holograms' gaze. "This may seem like a roundabout way of living my one day a week, but it's what I'm doing today; right now."
Bumblebee had his hologram blink back surprise as he listened to her talk.
"I plan on living life to the fullest, and today, it just happens to be doing something out of the ordinary and slightly dangerous." She pulled her hand back and stood up. "Thanks." She said before she shut the door and started walking south.
Bee watched her walk off for a minute before he started back toward town. That was the strangest encounter. Then it hit him. She had pressed her hand into the seat, like she had known he would feel the pulse on the seat instead of the hologram.
Did she know?
She may or may not have known, but she did leave him with something. He loved his surrogate family, just as much as his creator back on Cybertron, and just like everyone, he deserved to have one day.