Chapter One

Crickets

The afternoon sun was high in the sky when Bumblebee, in his Camaro form, pulled up to Sam's friend Miles's house. It appeared that his charge's friend needed a ride to a location called 'PETCO'. A quick scan of the World Wide Web revealed that the place was actually a pet shop, where they sold animals and supplies. Bumblebee felt slightly sympathetic to the animals' plight; the confining cages had to be as painful as the torture that Bumblebee had received from the human scientists at the Hoover Dam.

Miles was just as heavy as Bumblebee remembered him, since he did have to carry both teens to the pool of liquid that was later named as a lake. The adolescent's weight sagged as he slumped in the seat, feet propped onto the dashboard. Bumblebee scanned the radio for an appropriate song that could get his irritation across; he couldn't speak to Sam with the other adolescent right there. Finding none, he slowly came to a halt in the middle of the road.

"Whoa Sam. Are you sure the mechanics got all the kinks out?" Miles asked as the car ground to a halt.

Sam frowned. "Yeah. Let me see what's up." He said, leaning down and pretending to check something right underneath the radio. "What's up Bee?" he muttered as he pretended to study the wiring.

Instead of verbally answering, there was a whish and Miles let out a "Whoa!" as his seat flipped back and he was lying down instead of sitting. Sam sighed and sat back up.

"Sit straight man. You're like a sack of potatoes when you slump." Sam said. "Sorry about that Bee." He muttered to the radio. The car engine roared back to life in response and continued on down the road.

Miles muttered about how Sam had such a picky car as they headed to the only shopping center that Tranquility had, and a small one at that. PETCO was only one of five big stores there, and smaller stores and shops consisted of the rest of the center. Bumblebee slid nicely into the parking slot between a menacing monster truck and a familiar Escalade.

"Let's make this fast. I don't want to be around when Trent gets back. He's still mad at me about Mikaela dumping him for me." Sam said. He and Miles vanished into PETCO.

Bumblebee contented himself with watching the people passing, and those entering and leaving the pet store. For some odd reason, the four-legged animals began making loud vocal sounds and scrabbling towards him. It wasn't until Sam and Miles (with the coveted crickets) came out and practically threw them-selves into the Camaro did the animals leave him alone. As Bumblebee was backing out, a very angry Trent DeMarco came out, yelling and cursing while covered in what looked like feed or grain of some sort.

Sam and Miles didn't stop panicking until they were far from the shopping center. They only slowed down when Sam was sure they weren't being followed anymore. Bumblebee could now hear faint chirping in his backseat, and remembered the last time they were in his backseat, a few weeks ago when he first had arrived and met his charge.

"Thanks for the ride dude. It's pretty sweet that they were having a sale on crickets." Miles said as they came up to his home. He leaned back and took the bag. Only Bumblebee felt the slight resistance the bag gave, since it was snagged on a nearby clip.

"When are you getting your ride?" Sam asked as Miles climbed out.

"Soon I hope." Miles said, looking at the Camaro. "Dude, you need to give the name of the mechanic who worked on your car. Looks like it just came off the assembly line."

Sam smiled enigmatically. "Sorry, I promised to keep his name quiet," he said. Somehow, he suspected that the answer 'government' was not going to fly very well with his childhood friend.

Miles frowned for a moment, and then asked, "Is this the same car you called 'Satan's Camaro'?"

"Not exactly." Sam admitted, wincing slightly.

"How did that end?"

"Umm, turned out it was some guy was pulling a prank." Sam replied. Bumblebee wondered when this incident happened, and then remembered chasing his charge down the street and through town. The same chase had ended with Barricade confronting him in the junkyard.

"Whatever dude. See you tomorrow I guess. You still don't want to give the name of that mechanic?"

"Yes Miles." Sam replied patiently.

Miles just scowled before smiling again. He waved as Sam left.

The rest of day consisted of a few things. First, they had to go to the store for food because Mrs. Witwicky had hassled her son about groceries. Sam had created a scene by running out of the store for his life when Trent had appeared out of nowhere and chased the hapless teen in cold vengeance for the second time that day. The second thing was a car wash for Bumblebee, and the Autobot decided that mechanized car wash wasn't as good as the washes Sam gave, because at least Sam remembered not to be so rough. The third thing was picking up Mikaela for something called a 'date' with Sam, and Sam had to explain the whole thing to Bumblebee the whole way to her home because the whole thing was unusually confusing. What was the point of having three or more different meanings for one word?

So he was reasonably tired when Sam finally got home at 10:55 PM that night. They both needed recharging, the boy more because he had been chased twice that day.

It must have been early in the morning when he jerked from the recharging cycle. Something wasn't right.

Bumblebee ran a personal diagnostic and found that all his systems were running fine. That was when he felt the irritating sensation, similar to what humans called 'itching'. It was coming from under his backseats and slowly spreading into the components underneath.

Now it was starting to really irritate him.

He checked the chronometer that humans called 'clocks'. The digital display read 3:45 AM. He knew that Ratchet would either be recharging or patrolling Tranquility. Either way the medic would not want to be disturbed unless it was a life-threatening emergency.

The itch was now near his back suspensions. Bumblebee mentally reviewed his day to try and pinpoint when something foreign could have gotten into his systems.

Nearing the end of his patience, he gave three short blasts on the horn. He and Sam had devised a code that would allow one of them to alert the other to something that was amiss. The one they had come up was actually the human Morse Code.

Sam came running out of the house onto the still-destroyed lawn, still in the set of clothes called 'pajamas', barefoot. Another thing that Bumblebee couldn't understand was the necessity of constantly wearing clothing, even while swimming.

"What is it Bee?" he asked, unlocking the door, no doubt as a show for the observant male and female that constantly kept an eye on him.

Bumblebee quickly and quietly explained the problem. Sam opened the back door and climbed in. He bent over and examined underneath the backseat. A growl betrayed Sam's anger at the sight before him.

A couple of streets down, Miles lay awake in his bedroom. He just couldn't figure it out. He was sure he had paid the saleslady for fifty-two crickets, but when he opened the bag to feed A-Rod, he had only found two in the bag. He planned to pester Sam into another ride.

He jerked in his bed when he heard Sam yell "MILES!"

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A/N: Welcome to the first of a series of short stories chronicling the adventures of the Transformers, Autobots and Decepticons alike after the events of Mission City. Some will be entertaining, others will be meaningful. This first story is referencing to an incident in the book Transformers in which Miles expresses his unhappiness at the fact his pet toad is still alive and so he still needs to feed it.