Car Mechanics
September 2008
"You're lucky he didn't completely annihilate you."
Jenna Peyton didn't even flinch as Barricade's hologram swung a punch to her face and his hand went straight through her face. She only stifled a yawn as his hologram fizzed in and out of existence before returning to a steady pulse. Jenna decided not to mention that she could see the lights of Las Vegas right through his chest; the irate Decepticon was already mad enough. "You know, most humans are not stupid enough to race each other on the highway," she said finally as she pulled her worn jean jacket closer around herself.
"What about that Ferrari last week?"
She shrugged. "I said 'most', not 'all'. Those were college kids. There is always an exception to the rule," she said, raising an eyebrow as the hologram knelt to look at the damaged cruiser. She hadn't been with the Decepticon hunter for very long; it may have been a little over a month, but to Jenna it seemed a lifetime.
Ironhide had really done a number on the Decepticon hunter. Jenna hadn't even seen the GMC sneaking up on them until Ironhide was parallel with the cruiser on the driver's side, and even then she didn't pay attention until the Autobot was on the verge of slamming against the cruiser; an oblivious Samaritan had honked loudly behind Barricade who had instinctively scanned for the threat. That had to have been the mother of all drag races that started after that. Of course, the loser was going to get a beating from the winner. Whatever the scenarios that had been present at the time, it ended of course when Ironhide, with the aid of an enthusiastic Mudflap and Skids, cornered Barricade in the desert, where the chase turned nasty.
"Slag it woman, don't you ever NOT drift off?"
Jenna blinked at Barricade's angry tone, and realized why his accusation sounded off. "Hey, you called me 'woman' instead of 'femme' or 'female'," she said, smiling slightly as Barricade's hologram generator finally coughed its last before dying completely. He snarled as she grinned and said, "Well, we're making progress, that's always a good thing. Maybe before the end of the year we'll get to my name instead of a general noun."
"You cannot fathom how much I want to kill you right now."
"But you can't… didn't Ironhide or the twins leave two of your weapons out in the desert somewhere?" she asked, turning around and staring off into the gathering darkness that was the desert. The only light came from the stars, the white sand before it faded into the distance, and the city lights not too far away in the other direction. "What sucks is that I'm going to have to go get you some kind of help, and my sneakers are worn down enough," she said, twisting to eye her old sneakers critically.
Barricade growled, angered that not only was he helpless, but the female was taking advantage of the fact that he was helpless by stating the obvious, worrying about herself, and in general having a short attention span. "Well now, that's just too bad, isn't it?" he snarled, hoping that she wouldn't also realize that there was really nothing stopping her from simply escaping. Pursuit at the immediate moment was out of the question, but he would eventually hunt her down… and give her that slow and painful death that he promised he would give her when they first properly met.
She sighed, and said, "Well, I know of a guy who could possibly put you back together enough so that you can fix yourself up. Problem is, he lives in Sin City and, well, Vegas is kind of big. Big as in, I'm going to walk away now and leave you alone for hours until I get him out here with a tow truck or something."
"No tow trucks," Barricade growled. He'd seen how those trucks operated, and had no intention of becoming the unfortunate vehicle at the mercy of the crane's hook.
"Barricade, I don't know if he has a flatbed. Even if he did, you're too much of a wreck to wheel onto it," Jenna said crossly, wisps of black hair escaping the loose ponytail. "It has to be a tow truck."
"Hook me up to one of those things, and I promise I will be less merciful when it comes to traveling again," Barricade threatened.
"How can it get worse than it already is?" Jenna asked, raising an eyebrow. "I haven't had a nice, long hot shower since you kidnapped me a month ago. That's 'less merciful' right there."
"Want to knock off all stops from the schedule then? It'll save time for me at least," Barricade countered, wishing his hologram generator was working just so he could intimidate her into submission.
Jenna snorted. "Then what and when would I eat? I will die of starvation, and there goes your key into the government," she said, crossing her arms.
"Didn't your ancestors used to forage?"
Jenna wrinkled her nose in disgust. "In that case, I'd probably die of food poisoning," she snapped before looking back at Vegas. "Fine, no hooks. Give me twelve hours. If I'm not back then, you may start cursing my name into the heavens and then hunt me down, 'kay?" She paused as she looked at the highway disappearing into the dark. "Actually, that's probably how long it'll take me to even get there. Make that eighteen hours." She turned back to him and offered a small wave. "Sit tight, and don't go anywhere please," she said, before turning and walking down the road, the darkness swallowing her form up even to Barricade's optics not too long afterward. He wished though, that at least he had something remotely dangerous working, just so he could wipe that smirk off her face for her. In the meantime, he resolved to stay online until she got back.
It did not take long for her form to disappear from his long-range sensors; she must have been walking briskly for one of her species. Actually, Barricade mused as he settled back down to grudgingly wait, she was surprisingly tolerant of her newfound situation for a human. She rarely complained about anything, even when he was feeling just downright nasty and 'forgot' to stop for food or for her to have a break.
Their current silent treatment record was seventy-two hours straight.
Crickets chirped all around him as he sent another long-range scan of the area. Jenna was now out of range, but the mangy mammals off to his left somewhere in the dark weren't. His weapons were out there too, nice and useless if those mangy animals came to investigate. The only positive side to all this was that there were no other humans around at the moment, even though he knew from experience that there was a top-secret army facility around here somewhere. Since the traitorous second-in-command had moved out and disappeared months ago however, Barricade had no real fear of being discovered.
A scuffling nearby drew Barricade's scanners and attention to it, but found it to be one of the few four-legged mammals that had been observing him from a distance. Since he was denied the World Wide Web, he had to content himself with speculation and the small hope that this creature wasn't the scavenging type. It had long, lean legs with tan and white coloring, large ears, and a bushy tail. The still animal leaned forward as far as its neck would allow and began sniffing around the metal.
The temptation to whack it in the nose was overwhelming.
When the animal deemed the metal 'safe', it turned its head to look back at the darkened desert. Then it howled, a long and mournful sound that seemed to echo off the nearby canyon walls and stretch into the night sky. To Barricade's dismay, that instead of completely disappearing, more of the creatures appeared, some scruffier or more haggard than others. There seemed to be a symphony of grunts, snuffling, and growling. There was actually a lot of growling coming from these animals' throats. The animals were either becoming very curious about the metallic wreck before them, or were instinctively sensing the danger it presented.
Barricade hoped it was the latter.
The human karma had other things in mind apparently.
One of the tan creatures began digging through a mess of loose parts. Barricade silently seethed; he didn't care what Jenna said about staying one step ahead of the authorities. Once he was fixed, he was going back to attack Ironhide for this. In fact, he knew where to start: the little Lennox human. Ironhide was going to go berserk once he found out that the little female was threatened, and it would also rile up the parents. Barricade wouldn't kill the girl... threaten, yes, kill, no. Barricade knew the little Lennox girl was the key to ensuring Ironhide's cooperation. He had seen how the weapons specialist acted around the human sparkling.
Barricade was in such a terribly good mood when he finally slipped into recharge for the night. The animals still sniffing around the wreck slipped to the back of his processor.
"Well, ain't that the cutest thing you ever saw?"
"Shut up and just work."
"Or what, Princess? What are you gonna do?"
"Sic an alien on you."
It was the loud male laughter that jerked Barricade back online. The sun was high in the sky, marking the time as noon, give or take a couple hours. The Decepticon hunter felt sore all over and he felt that something was clogging his delicate circuitry, making verbal speech almost impossible. He soon however became aware of the furry presences all over him. Inwardly, Barricade cringed in horror and disgust as he registered the creatures from the night before. Apparently, he had become their temporary rest stop from the heat and humans.
Speaking of which…
"Aw right ye mangy coyotes! Get! Get on outta here!" a male voice thundered as a rather large human came into Barricade's line of sight. The male was wearing a bright red plaid shirt that clashed somewhat with his yellow and black-checkered baggy pants and neon green boots. "Miss Cop here is pissed as it is 'cuz I didn't jump to her orders fast enough, so get on outta here so I can make some sense out of this mangled wreck… holy hell girl, how in the name of Uncle Sam did you manage to smash this beauty up?" the human said, turning to look at the mangled cruiser, the tan creatures already scurrying out of their resting places and into the desert.
"Short version is that I had a collision with a psycho trucker," Jenna said, drifting into Barricade's line of sight. She looked tired, but her face looked suspiciously clean.
"I believe it!" the human said, kneeling slightly to peer at the wreckage.
"And there are some parts out there…" she said, waving her hand slightly toward the desert.
"Benny will get 'em for me," the human said, standing up and shaking his head. "Geez, did you steal the trucker's checkbook or something? He must've been furious."
"No, I tried to run his military pal off the highway," Jenna replied with a straight face.
The human sighed as another male human came around with what looked like…and felt like… a large magnetic device attached to a cable. Barricade tried not to wince as the human not so gently slapped the magnet onto the front bumper. "I always knew you had too much of a bad streak in you to stick with the feds for long," the human continued as he signaled someone that Barricade couldn't sense or see. "What made you quit?"
"A male."
The human sighed as Jenna made brief eye contact with Barricade. It occurred to the Decepticon then that she had changed clothes. Despite the onslaught of the heat, she was wearing a slightly too big white shirt and gray pants that disappeared in almost knee-high boots. But he was distracted as pain shot through his joints, and hissed again as his frame hit a metal ramp. Jenna meanwhile climbed up the railing that had been placed on the flatbed truck, and jumped down so that she was near Barricade.
"You sure you want to ride back there, princess?" the male human asked, pausing as Barricade noted another truck coming in from the desert, his sand-covered weaponry attached to the back of the truck. The driver – presumably Benny – was whooping in delight over his find.
"Yeah, I'm sure. Thanks, Eddie for this. I owe you one," she added as Eddie muttered something about bossy women under his breath as he walked away.
"Yeah, I'll try to remember that the next time you wake me up at four-thirty in the morning telling me to get out of bed to work," he muttered before walking over to the cab. Jenna only relaxed when they both heard the slam of the cab door.
"There was a bit of a sandstorm last night," she said quietly, holding onto the railing as the flatbed jerked into motion. She fought back a smirk and said, "I think your coyote friends wanted shelter last night, and you were the best shelter at the moment. It's also why there is sand crusted over and packed into the circuitry near the throat."
Her phone beeped, and she pulled it out, frowning. Then she scowled at Barricade's message and said, "I did not take over eighteen hours. I literally walked for four before hitchhiking into Vegas, that's thirty minutes there, and spent another two hours locating Pea Brain, who had apparently gone to bed ten minutes before I found him. So that's six and a half right there. Then, Pea Brain encouraged me to sleep since I looked like a wreck, so I took his advice. We're up to twelve and a half. So by the time I got ready and we all came out here, only fifteen hours passed. I was under eighteen, thank you very much."
She glanced back at her phone as it beeped again. "I'm not sure I want to know how you secured my number," she grumbled as she read his message. Barricade hoped that she was aware that he was saving his anger for the point in time where he could actually speak again. She sighed, and said, "He calls me 'princess' because apparently that's how I acted when trying to arrest him a couple years ago." She rubbed her temples in frustration, but suddenly snickered, attracting Barricade's suspicion again. "Can you imagine Ironhide taking anger management classes? I think the psychiatrist will be the one who will need therapy after one session," she said, staring down at her gloved hands.
The phone beeped again, and she studied the message before rolling her eyes at him. "Well, I like this method of communication. You can't yell at me at all," she said, having enough common sense to be fighting back the smirk that was threatening to cross her features. She folded the phone back down before looking out at the speeding desert. "I should have asked for a baseball cap," she finally grumbled as she placed her head in her hands.
She didn't say another word for the rest of the trip, but Barricade was fine with that. He was more focused on the immediate issue of the sand and fur stuck in his circuitry and the delayed issue of promised vengeance for Ironhide when he got out of this mess. Barricade hated the feeling of helplessness that was threatening to overwhelm his spark. First thing he was going to do once freed was finish off this… Eddie. Then he was going to hunt Ironhide down, with Jenna or not. Finally, if he was still in a cross mood, perhaps he would really rile the Autobots up and hunt down the Witwicky boy with the sole intent of creating panic. Then he would retreat, wait for them to calm down, and then strike again. Barricade could then sit back and watch the fear do the rest.
The humans would be the most affected of course. Optimus Prime had too much combat experience to be easily spooked.
It only took a couple hours, but one of the humans – Benny, Barricade remembered – finally snapped. "For crying out loud Ed! Shut up! Jenna, tell him to shut up!" he yelled, sticking his head out of the truck that was following Eddie's flatbed.
"No, I'm not telling him to be quiet, I have more common sense than that," Jenna shot back as both trucks began entering residential neighborhoods. Judging form the lack of reaction to two giant trucks entering the area, the residents seemed used to this constant interruption.
The banter continued while Barricade used the industrial magnet to generate enough electrical power to place more sensors online and more importantly, vital functions. So he was able to more or less watch through the flatbed's railing as the truck came to a stop outside what looked a closed gas station attached to a mechanic's shop that looked as though it had gone under major repairs recently.
"If that Banes girl comes through trying to get a job here again, I'm going to shoot someone," Eddie complained as he jumped out of the truck's cab after shutting the engine off. Jenna raised an eyebrow as the human came around and climbed up into the trailer bed to examine the 'wreck' closer. "I was in Mission City last year and bailed as soon as it started to get ugly, but Benny left my last good tow truck behind. Apparently the girl used it during the fiasco, and returned what was left of it to me later. Said sorry, and then asked for a job. I said no of course, but they'll be back. I just know it," Eddie said as he examined Barricade closer. To spite and anger the human, Barricade managed to ease his weight so that a wayward piece of metal whacked Eddie across the face and pitched him backwards into the flatbed railing. Jenna swallowed twice as she stepped back a bit to move out of Barricade's range. Eddie meanwhile was still muttering profane things about the carelessness of the workers before turning around and yelling, "Waldo! Secure the wreck next time! I nearly fell out!"
Waldo waited until Eddie had his back turned before using a rude hand gesture that Barricade had seen Jenna use countless times before. Eddie meanwhile signaled someone, and next thing Barricade knew, he was being dragged off of the flatbed.
Somewhere in the short trip between the garage and the truck, Jenna disappeared from view, but Barricade detected her vital signs upstairs. Then he focused the sensors that were still functioning properly on the humans that were surrounding him, some carrying tools, others still fiddling with other vehicles. The entire operation looked illegal; Barricade honestly doubted that the sleek red Corvette with no license plates and missing hubcaps on the other side of the garage was there for sale.
"All righty boys, listen up!" a man shouted as he stepped away from the Corvette. "We got another cruiser to patch up 'cause Princess is apparently trying to prove that she's still got some sway over the boss. Straighten out the metal plates, make it look presentable, tweak the engine so it keeps Princess happy, and then send her along," he shouted to the assembled workers. Like the simple-minded drones that Barricade expected them to be, they soon dissipated and began to gather the tools they thought they would need to repair the 'cruiser'.
Not if Barricade could help it.
He sent a coded message, and then settled down to wait. There was no way ever that he was going to allow simple-minded humans to simply 'fix' him. The idiots weren't going to be careful, and Barricade needed to maintain his transforming ability. He sure wasn't going to crawl to a Transformer medic; his survival instincts were stronger than that.
Jenna came down a few moments later, carrying a full duffel bag. She tossed it off to the side before approaching him. After making sure that the foreman was busy paying attention to the scrambling workers, Jenna stepped around a pile of rusting car parts before kneeling down near the front of the cruiser. "Next time you and Ironhide have one of those hissy fits, don't run away in your disguise mode. Yeah, it's more exposure when you're in your natural form, but it'll be easier for me to patch you up again. We're risking it as it is," she muttered loud enough for Barricade's audio receivers to catch. She finally settled back on her heels and pulled her cell phone from her pocket, popping the main screen up before setting it down on a nearby engine block. "All right, let's do this," she said tiredly.
Barricade kept track of each repair from Jenna and the numerous humans as more and more sensors came online. Jenna was doing the critical stuff; once his power of speech was restored, along with the holo- and matter generator, he would take control of the situation, so that he could patch himself back up again without grubby little fingers getting caught in the gears. In the fifteen minutes since the beginning of this, around seven or eight fingers were either broken or bruised due to 'mishaps' from the 'careless' humans. The one time he tried to catch Jenna's fingers however ended with her casually pulling out a pair of wire-cutters and brandishing them in his line of sight before putting them at a place where she could reach them quickly. In turn, Barricade returned to the three plans he was working on at the moment.
The first, and most immediate, was scaring all the humans in the car shop senseless, so Barricade could have his moment of privacy to finish the last patch-ups. The second plan involved getting rid of the human Eddie; the man was examining Barricade leisurely in a way that reminded the Decepticon hunter too much of Megatron deciding whether to go in for the killing blow or not. Third plan was to nail one to Ironhide in retribution for damaging Barricade for what Barricade considered to be a minor slight against the weapons specialist.
"So Princess, if I gave you fifty bucks, would you let me have this cruiser?" Eddie asked finally, pausing by Jenna, who scowled.
"I don't think the cruiser wants to become the newest addition to the lovely chop shop you've got going here," Jenna replied casually as she glanced at her phone for the last set of instructions.
"Hey, my operation is completely legit!" Eddie protested as Jenna connected the final wires. She closed a panel before moving back and standing up for the first time in an hour. Her spine cracked as she stretched while Eddie peered into the tangle that she'd been sorting through. "C'mon Jen, how much is it gonna cost me to keep this beauty?"
Barricade didn't need to see her to know that she was getting more satisfaction out of this than she should. Plus, he was pleased to find that the specific machinery he needed was back in working order.
"Nothing. I'm not giving him away nor am I going to negotiate much longer."
"Pretty please? What else are you going to do other than pretend that you're a cop?"
"Fine, at least let me think about it!" she snapped, reaching for a nearby wrench that Barricade was rather sure she didn't need and besides, the woman was starting to look eerily similar to someone else that Barricade had definitely seen before.
"Chill princess. No need to get all wound up. Think about then, and lemme know before you take off," Eddie said in a soothing manner, placing his hands up in faux surrender. It wasn't until she turned around with the wrench gripped in her fist that he wisely backed off without saying anything else. He finally turned around and began walking back toward the stairs.
She turned back to Barricade before tinkering with something, periodically checking the cell phone's screen. "I know you don't need it, but I kinda need the cash," she said finally.
"If you even think that I'm going to stand for this…" Barricade growled, his voice slightly scratchy from disuse. He ignored one of the workers who had stopped abruptly upon hearing a male voice coming from thin air.
"I have a bit of a plan. Everyone except Eddie goes home happy. How does this sound…" she said, her voice dropping to a whisper as she outlined her plan.
Barricade was silent, thinking of his plans before asking, "Did you ever run into Swindle by any chance? This sounds like something he would do in his spare time."
Jenna frowned, tilting her head at him. "Who is Swindle?"
"Never mind."
Taking that response as his acquiesce, she stood up and looked around. "Eddie! Eddie, I'm ready to negotiate," she said as the human returned unusually quickly for someone who supposedly went back upstairs.
"All right!" he said eagerly, clapping his hands together and rubbing them together. "What do you have in mind for a price? Five hundred? One thousand?"
Jenna smirked, and then said, "Five thousand."
Eddie's mouth dropped. "Princess, are you trying to clean me out?" Eddie hissed, placing his hands on his hips. "One."
"Four," Jenna countered.
"Two."
"Three."
"Twenty-five?"
"Three, and I'm in charge. That or no deal buster."
Eddie deflated, but grudgingly said, "All right, three and you're in charge. You'll get the cash after the job is done however." He scowled and then walked away.
"I suggest you go to sleep, or whatever you call it," she muttered as she knelt down beside him as she made a few tweaks while Eddie yelled at the foreman to 'scram'. "It's going to be a long day for everyone, and you'll only make it worse by sniping at me and trying to whack the other mechanics."
Barricade, if he could, would have narrowed his optics in suspicion. "And let you escape?" he snarled softly.
Jenna let out a short breath of impatience. "Remember the plan… and the fact that I'm a wanted fugitive. I'm not stupid enough to go anywhere to get caught. My story, even without you in it, is bizarre enough as it is," she explained as she set down the tools and snapped her phone shut.
Barricade watched her suspiciously as she stood up and walked over to take the foreman's position before deciding that she might be right about recharging. Especially when he felt what was most likely the first sharp, painful prick in his side as one of the mechanics began using a blowtorch to start melding pieces back together. He quietly slipped back into recharge; he would need his rest to complete the next step of Jenna's plan. He was still slightly miffed that his first two initial plans were now void; Eddie needed to stay alive for Jenna to receive her money and the other workers to finish their jobs.
He didn't know how long he had been recharging when he abruptly came back online again. It was dark outside; moonlight was filtering through the windows, casting eerie shadows on the engine blocks and other scattered car parts that littered the floor. The flashy Corvette now had a white sheet draped over it, now looking like something the humans had abandoned long ago. To Barricade's absolute disgust, the only life signs he could detect were small mammals that were running around the floor with long scaly tails and small but sharp claws.
Rats.
First coyotes, now rats. He detested those creatures.
Interestingly enough, the last time he encountered rats was also the first time he and Ironhide ever agreed to work together without killing each other.
Grumbling to himself, he noticed the control pad to open the garage door. Next step of Jenna's scam was to simply leave since Eddie wasn't around during the night. By the time the mechanic discovered Barricade was gone, the pair would be out of state by then. Jenna was supposed to be waiting in a motel near the city of Las Vegas, and she wanted out of the southwest. He didn't know where she wanted to go, but anywhere was fine as long as that Autobot wasn't there.
Only the rats saw the shadowy human figure appear from thin air and type in the code to the garage keypad, not before disabling the burglary alarms. They made squeaking sounds amongst themselves as the rickety garage door slowly trundled up as the formidable, newly repaired police cruiser fired up its engines while the shadowy human calmly disappeared from air again. Then the creatures settled back to watch the cruiser begin to back out of its parking slot.
Clunk.
Barricade froze; that didn't sound good. Carefully he ran a check through a few systems, and came up with nothing unusual. Puzzled, he began to slowly back out again.
Clunk.
Something was keeping his front wheels in place. Even more curious and slightly wary, he activated the hologram and went around the front of his vehicular form to investigate the front wheels. Then he cursed a blue streak when he found the problem.
He didn't know which human did it (actually, if he had to place bets, he would think it had to have been Jenna's idea), but someone put not one, but two wheel clamps on the front tires. Solid metal, nothing he could electrocute or short out. Transforming was somewhat out of the question; not only would he be noticeable for miles around for an extended amount of time, but he would be sending an invitation out to Ironhide or any other Cybertronian to come.
Oh, slag it all.
The hologram fizzed out, and Barricade just transformed. His head and body tore through the workshop's ceiling exploding chunks of concrete and plaster everywhere. He remembered belatedly that Eddie's administrative office was right above the shop, and that explained the chunks of furniture that went flying with burning carpet bits. To his immense satisfaction however, the clamps snapped off in the process as they were caught in the gears, the Cybertronian metal once again proving its superiority over the human imitation. One clamp shot forward into the front window of a nearby shop, the glass falling down in sheets.
The other clamp also went into a glass window all right.
Major William Lennox counted his blessings that he hadn't been sitting in the driver's seat when the metallic missile came out of nowhere and slammed right through a startled Ironhide's windshield. NEST was still completing test trials, and the squad was investigating a tip from a semi-trustworthy source. Normally Lennox would have ignored the tip; Edward Rochs was locally notorious for car dealing and everyone knew he regularly hauled in abandoned cars. No, what tipped NEST off this time was when the caller said that the police cruiser was picked up in the desert… in the same area that Ironhide had left Barricade after their latest tussle.
"Barricade!" Ironhide roared, transforming even as the Decepticon hunter was moving out of the wreckage of the mechanic's shop and transforming back into cruiser form. Lennox shook his head as he watched the two of them tear down the street, Ironhide transforming back in order to catch up to hunter.
"They're like kids… almost. Kids with dangerous toys," Epps remarked as he and Lennox watched the two leaving. The rest of the squad was investigating the wreckage in case there was another Decepticon laying low. Epps glanced at Lennox and said, "You gonna listen to Peyton?"
Lennox shook his head. "She doesn't realize that we all have a stake in this. She needs Barricade free, but we need him stopped. Four lives versus countless lives. She and her team are trained operatives, they should be able to contact us if they really do need assistance."
Epps shrugged. "I'm just glad I'm not going to be there when Barricade finds out it was her who tipped us off," he said, shivering slightly.
Lennox agreed.
A/N: I had a plan for this, but it turned out a bit different than I originally had in mind. I also might write about the one time Ironhide and Barricade ever got along, haven't decided yet.