She cried bitterly, although it did little to no good to help her situation. She was trapped, suffocating, her throat constricting not only because of her frantic sobs but because of the tiny space in which she had been snared. She was freezing, but she was too terrified to try and move and return circulation to her motionless limbs. It was perturbing enough, knowing that the leather underneath her was moving - breathing - with a life of its own. So she couldn't stand the idea of engendering a reaction from it. She kept perfectly still, despite the temperature.
It had been storming upon her capture. Pellets of water had struck the sidewalk she had been occupying, an army of endless droplets combating the stiff concrete separating her from the road of slick, hazardous asphalt. It had been dark, not as virtually black as the atmosphere engulfing her now, but the sort of night that harbored only natural electricity in the form of lightning instead of the kind generated by man. Noise was nonexistent; it had been early enough in the morning that no pedestrians crossed her path and no headlights illuminated the street beside her. In her cut off jean shorts and thick, over-sized T-shirt, she had jogged through the storm, not because of the overbearing need to exercise, she could have done this at any time during that day, but because she was finally drowning in the fears she normally happened to ignore or push away into the recesses of her bothered mind. Stress had torn its teeth deep into her flesh, ripping out and savagely devouring the happiness that had once dewed her skin and the carefree attitude that was once new and refreshing. The cold wind may have stung, the occasional piece of hail may have pricked, but she had welcomed the sheets of water splattering against her face; the rain had fed its appetite on the tears that had brimmed her eyes and that had rolled in trickling streams down her cheeks.
The depression had eventually been left behind as her tennis shoes collided, step after step, with the ground beneath her and carried her further from her misery, but while she had been running through the dead Massachusetts town, she had stopped ("Excuse me, miss?") for an out-of-state police officer asking for directions to the nearest gas station. He was so innocent, his dark eyes full of promise. He was so friendly, his thin lips and white smile so handsome. How could he have meant her wrong? Yet when she had bounced to a stop, smiling largely and calling out an affectionate greeting, that was when reality had shrieked to an ear-splitting halt.
Because although that fake man had been so good-looking, its puppet master had been the ugliest thing she would ever face.
She was losing breath - she sucked in oxygen to a point where she gave herself the hiccups, and it seemed only the insane need to scream bloody vengeance at her kidnapper was the needed medicine to soothe the constriction clasping her heart. But she dared not move her lips to do so, not even to lick their dry and chapped surface – even now, when she had come to terms with her fate, she was mortified of instilling a reaction from the beast.
Her skin prickled as a throaty growl erupted from the machine underneath her, causing her to flinch, but never cry out. Never did she cry out, noise reminded her captor that she was present; although she had long ago come to the conclusion that the monster was watching her, distinctively in tune with every slight movement she made.
Then suddenly, all noise ceased within the cabin. Whether it was some alien trick, or she had suddenly lost her hearing due to her desperation, she could not be sure.
But the monotonous voice that addressed her was perfectly legible.
"Caroline Jessica Witwicky, your given title, is it not?"
The dirty blonde shut her eyes tightly, trying to convince herself that the voice was imagined. That it was just a figment of her twisted, confused mind working at full throttle to find a solution as to who her kidnapper was, and it coming up with this terrible answer.
But she had seen it, and it was too late to try and lie to herself about what it was; she knew what that haunting voice belonged to.
It returned, its robotic tinge violating her ears with its harsh tone.
"Confirm that your title is Caroline Jessica Witwicky." It spoke with a dangerous purr, dark undertones promising that anything but the truth would be severely punished.
She nodded.
"You cannot even speak when spoken to: fragging incompetent, your entire race."
She wasn't sure if she was supposed to apologize for being the ancestor of a chimpanzee or if the voice was merely making a statement. Either way, the only response her body enabled her to reply with was fat tears and a shivering body. Long ago, when she had been thrust into its cabin, she had scrunched herself into a helpless ball and tried to hide her slim body in the shadows of the backseat. Despite her efforts of invisibility, the voice continued to pervade the thin air every few hours - no doubt only taking minimal time out of its personal time to make sure she was alive and had not died from fright.
The few words it had spoken at her would forever disturb her mind -
"Discard all electronic devices."
"Continue your sniveling, I dare you, human."
"Caroline Jessica Witwicky, your given title, is it not?"
Three simple sentences had begun a relationship of torment and abuse that would forever change the life she had never managed to get a handle on. She clasped her hands together as she summoned the strength to murmur a quick prayer to the God she rarely acknowledged. Maybe He would remember who she was and what good she had tried to contribute to the world when she had had the mental capability to try. She then practiced a few deep breathing exercises to try and calm and organize her scrambled emotions.
She stared at the dark ceiling of her captor as her swollen eyes sobered. She tried to return to the easy times of senior year in high school, trying to imagine she was in the bowels of a taxi. She wanted to get away for a while, that was all. She was headed to Vegas for an exciting and adventurous party weekend with those that meant everything to her. A single, left over tear slid down her pasty cheek, but it was residual, not a development of her sadness. Now, she shut her eyes and envisioned her closest friends surrounding her: hugging her, laughing merrily, singing joyous songs that had been cool back in those days but were now objected to becoming karaoke favorites. A flicker of a smile crossed her lips as her imagination took her to a happier place. Nothing was an issue in this comfort zone, not relationships, not lack of income, not even being kidnapped by a transforming monstrosity.
Carly breathed deeply, the scent of rain catching in her nostrils.
She opened her eyes to find that the vehicle had come to a halt, and its door was open. No longer was she surrounded by the familiar, inviting darkness of a state of mind that never failed to calm and love her whenever scared and lonesome; this darkness was much more sinister.
"Get out."
The young woman mentally added this sentence to the short list of spoken demands that had been uttered by her invisible captor. Muttering another sincere prayer, she carefully climbed from the back space, landed ungracefully on her ass in the driver's seat, then managed to fall into the only available puddle of mud for miles once she crawled out from the interior of the - thing. She felt another sob clutch at the vicinity of her throat: she swallowed the sadness and concentrated on standing and cleaning off the muck.
"You are all clumsy idiots."
She dared not look back at the car. The last time she had glanced at the slick, black surface, it had done a terrible, unthinkable deed. Maybe if she ignored it, it would be washed away, like chalk on a brick wall, in the light sprinkle that alighted from the heavens above.
But the steady, omnipresent grumble of the engine forced her into the reality of her situation.
The tears were welling into her eyes again, misting her vision until she managed to swipe the blurriness angrily away. She concentrated solely on cleaning her sore, battered eyes, even as the recognizable sound of the vehicle changing into the atrocity that had captured her collected in her ears. She closed her eyes, tracing her fingertips over the heavy, black bags underneath them, and fought to hear the laughter of happier times. She almost succeeded, until a hellish tint shown through the folds of her eyelids and she pried her gaze open.
She was face to face with the robot.
It bore down on her, glaring as if frustrated with her very existence. It examined her, everywhere, its eyes scanning over her frozen frame as it seemed to diagnose every mental and physical detail currently available. It raised a gnarled finger, its intense stare hypnotizing her into paralysis, and it seemed to debate something. Then it lowered its hand and snorted out a rush of air from hidden vents along its face.
"Caroline Jessica Witwicky."
"Y-Yeah." she sputtered dreamily, her eyes flitting along the interior of its eyes. It was composed of thousands of microscopic sprockets that held together an enormous, illuminated lens that must have been the red pupil. As terrified as she was, the mechanical aspect of its composition was fascinating.
"Are you the kin to Samuel James Witwicky?"
"Y-Yeah." she answered once again, her head darting back and forth frantically from one eye to another. They were larger than average, but not enormous: she estimated that they were the size of two human eyes combined. Still, she wasn't sure which of them was supposed to have acquired her attention, as the head that harbored the set of lights made up the size of her entire upper body from neck to waist.
"Perfect." it murmured, a husky and sharp edge to its voice that made her spine tingle and her heartbeat quicken. It straightened - to a height that made her tilt her head backwards and breathe out in astonishment - and tinkered with an attachment to its chest. Suddenly, a blinding light shone out through a projector in its headlight, an unrecognizable image filtering through the glass and twinkling in the dark thunderheads above. Rushed, electrical squabbling pierced through the peaceful tune of falling rain as it appeared to send out a message to God only knew what.
With the beast's head aimed upwards, continuing to speak in its metallic, unrecognizable language, Carly, too, lifted her gaze to stare at the empty sky above. She was weak, anyways; the last thing she wanted to do was languish this experience with no guidance. Yet she had never felt so alone.
Suddenly, exhaustion washed over her with a suddenness that was mortifying and uncontrollable. Unaware of the damp environment awaiting her below, she fell to her knees and her head sagged to the ground. Weary from endless hours of fear and abuse, she fell into a soft sleep that enveloped her as graciously as the mud sucking her into its depths.
"Soundwave, the human has been acquired."
"Are the Autobot's aware of its absence?"
"Not as of late."
"Keep it hidden. We will use it when we find it is necessary to openly confront our foes once more."
"Where do you suggest we reside until such a time that you find the Witwicky 'necessary'?"
"Provide for it quarters that will allow it to function with minimal assistance. Contact will be made when reinforcements arrive to help handle the situation."
Soundwave must feel like a brilliant smartass, Barricade thought to himself. He felt the need to send "reinforcements" to "handle the situation"? It was a fragging organic child that was no longer in height than his arm and no wider than his claw. Before the interrogator could release two years' worth of unvented frustration on the sarcastic communications specialist, or even respond with a bitter confirmation, the Decepticon intelligence expert ended the transmission and, again, left Barricade alone on Earth with no resources, no means of contact, and no defense against their enemies other than his own ten sharpened digits.
The mech snarled and shut down the approximate nineteen thousand, one hundred and ninety-four-mile broadcast he had angled at the geosynchronous orbit, and glanced down at the human.
The girl was face down in slimy compost, oblivious to the world.
He was tempted to lower his foot onto its defenseless body and end all traces of trouble that would no doubt arise with caring for it. If such action were taken, he could always send the human's mangled body parts back to Optimus, and consecutively, the Witwicky boy.
A shadow of a smirk passed the Decepticon's scarred mouth as he mulled over this thought, but in the end, he knew better than to disobey an order from Soundwave. Not only was he higher ranking, rivaling Starscream's power, but his guile matched that of Megatron's ruthless strength, and even the police interceptor mentally cringed at the idea of upsetting the surreptitious satellite.
Barricade's jaw clenched and his fangs scrapped together heatedly as his frustration built upon the knowledge that he had no dealings in the affairs of the Decepticon faction. It was infuriating to do the grunt work of a simplistic drone when his intelligence contended with that of one of their Golden Age scientists. But he did not dwell too long on these self-pitiful thoughts; instead, he scooped Caroline Jessica Witwicky from the mud, rolled his optics skyward as it flopped uselessly upon his lethal claw, then headed in the direction of a neighborhood he had parked outside the vicinity of. He had foreseen the need to keep the girl, and had surmised it would require housing: now it was just a matter of depositing it somewhere relatively secluded from the outside world.