howdy. this is gonna be my first fic on ffnet so go easy on me.
any info that needs to be known about my oc (or the first one showing up in this fic) can be found in my bio. anyways this will be au/canon divergent because 1) i love sunstreaker and 2) i was not happy with the third and fourth movie installments.
anyways! enjoy reading. let me know if y'all have any constructive criticism or anything ty.
Vanessa knows exactly how to throw a wrench in any government official's plans.
And how is that? Be one of the best hackers in the western hemisphere, possibly the world, find out the locations of what's to be considered the most secret military bases in the world. It takes a few months to break down firewalls, sure, but she got it done in what she considers to be record time. The second step, of course, is to make her presence known. That she knows things. Can expose things to the general public and she's fully capable of doing so. The third step?
Make friends in high places.
And N.E.S.T. is not going to be an exception to this.
Once she knows how to get past all the ten different firewalls they had setup, on top of maybe twenty or so security locks, she'll make her presence known with a basic interface. Threatening e-mails, shutting down certain mainframes, the works.
Once she finally gets a small video conference set up with a Major William Lennox and company, she's pleasantly surprised. At least they're compliant with her demands, willing to see what "information" she actually has. Which is some heavy stuff, but of course, that isn't the point.
The conversation is short and sweet, the people present in the video conference giving her disbelieving looks, as if she's pulling her information out of thin air. This quickly changes when she pulls up her first printed image. A glossy photo, taken from the battle in Mission City. Holds it up, shakes a little to prove it's the real deal.
"This, Major Lennox, was actually taken from an eyewitness account present in Mission City when you locked it down as a war zone!" Vanessa says excitedly, big smile plastered on her face. Does she enjoy the blackmail? Maybe a little too much. She continues, holding up aerial shots of the base in Diego Garcia, "You know…it would be a real shame if the citizens of Mission City see that you're…you know….harboring what they consider to be the enemy. What they remember as the giant machines that destroyed their homes and killed their loved ones. I wonder what backlash you all would receive then, hm?"
She watches everyone's face on her screen drop, save for one man, who just clenches his teeth and stalks off. She figures she's done her job, and snaps to gain Lennox's attention again, "Okay, Major. My terms and conditions for not leaking this to every tabloid is simple…I want an understanding. That none of you come for me. And, should the opportunity arise, I want help with certain things. Deal? Cool!" Vanessa winks, blows a kiss at the screen, "¡Besos!"
And with that, she ends the video call quickly, cracks her fingers and smiles at the potential drama she's caused in that little system, and decides to call it a day when it comes to terrorizing certain people.
It's only a matter of time before she'll have to use that favor.
To say that Lennox is freaking out is an understatement.
He runs a hand briefly through his military-cut hair, lets out a deep breath that he hadn't realized he'd been holding in. How did a kid, or what he considered to be a kid, manage to get past the highest forms of security? Even a carefully crafted hybrid of both human and Cybertronian firewall? It baffled Lennox, to be completely honest, and he wouldn't lie if he wasn't just the slightest bit impressed.
The holoforms with him on the scaffolding in this hangar, however, are not impressed. Ironhide had walked off, in anger, only moments ago before the conversation had ended. Optimus and Ratchet seemed to also be shocked, their processors probably running a mile a minute trying to absorb all the information they'd been given, possibly even venturing to the internet to figure out who this "La Araña" persona is.
Luckily, Sunstreaker, one of the newest arrivals to Earth, already placed a ping and tracked this person's location. It came in handy, and he was more than happy to inform both Lennox and Epps of this. He hasn't been on Earth long but from what he had worked out in his mind already, the humans were his allies, and to be trusted. He just didn't have to be particularly fond of them. This blackmail, however? It would only lead to more distrust. A civil war with the government, if it got out of hand.
So when they see that this girl's location is dead center in a small town in Mexico, Lennox and Optimus decide that maybe it's best to go back on her demands and bring her in. Maybe rough her up a bit, scare her, show her that N.E.S.T. isn't a force to be reckoned with. Ironhide suggested ways to make her "talk" before he receives a reprimanding look from the Autobot leader. They weren't meant to harm humans, and this situation would be no different. They simply needed to sort out their options once she was in custody.
"I have to admit," Epps says, suddenly, in the seat next to Lennox on the aircraft, "I am impressed. The girl has balls to come after us. And I'm sure those pictures weren't easy to get without her calling a few favors in," Will nods in agreement, looking back over at his second on command before speaking,
"I wonder how big of a web this little spider has."
Vanessa is both relieved and a little worried that no one has reached out to her in the past two days about the little spectacle that she had caused at the N.E.S.T. HQ. "Spectacle" is a bit of a loose term, considering she had threatened to be somewhat of a whistleblower. However, in the meantime, she has been helping her very senile grandmother run her store when she isn't busy terrorizing government officials and wreaking havoc on the internet.
She loves her abuela, dearly, but Vanessa doesn't want to inherit some cheap little bakery once the old woman kicks the bucket. Truthfully, she'd rather shove it off to her older brother and maybe waste away in her room just above the shop than have to manage it. Or have employees. Or anything, really. Vanessa is a lazy creature, she isn't ashamed to acknowledge this.
The customers come in and out, greet her like she's family, stick around for conversation and always buy a little extra, even sneak Nessa some extra money. She doesn't mind it, and certainly doesn't let it slip to her grandmother that she's got her own little personal fortune.
She's ready to close up for the day when she notices a very suspicious looking Ferrari parked on the street just opposite of the bakery. Sports cars weren't…a thing in this small little town of hers. Vanessa is quick to stop making herself more suspicious than she already did, switches the "open" sign to "closed", locks the door, and turns on her heel and walks fast to the stairs and goes up to her room and locks the door.
She isn't exactly new to this situation, she's done the same type of song and dance a few times before with the local gang. She's good at talking herself out of situations when she has to, but this feels different. New. A little threatening, if she were to be honest.
The girl goes about trying to keep cool, goes about the rest of her day, eats dinner with her grandmother and takes care of anything else she needs to do before turning in for the night. She doesn't touch her phone, she doesn't touch her desktop, she simply turns the light off and buries herself in the quilts on her bed. She can't risk doing anything tonight, not while that damned Ferrari is…basically watching her.
Maybe she shouldn't have messed with these people.
She awakes to screaming.
Or, well, not screaming. More like her grandmother yelling about men being in her home without permission and how disrespectful this generation is. Normal old people stuff. Vanessa isn't lying when she considers making a break for it and hopping out the window so her dear old abuela can deal with this.
Of course, even if she had decided on this, it would have been entirely too late. Her door is being kicked in by some giant army brat who's seemingly ten times her size, and seizes her, more or less dragging her out of bed before putting her in cuffs. She hears her grandmother yelling, again, asking her granddaughter if she knew anything about this or any of these men in her home right now. She spits out a small "no", watching in brief horror as another military official starts packing up her desktop, her phone, any type of electronic that is in her room.
It's not long before she's blindfolded, or really, has a bag thrown over both her and her grandmother's heads and they're dragged out and tossed into the back of a large vehicle and hauled off to wherever they had to go.
Her grandmother is still terrified, and briefly, she worries that the old woman is going to go into cardiac arrest. She knows someone has to be in the automobile with her, so she shoves herself into an upright position, kicks her feet around until she makes contact with someone's leg.
"Hey. You. I just kicked you, so you can't ignore me," Nessa starts, voice slightly muffled by the bag thrown over her head, "You need to take my abuela home. Or at least assure her she's okay. She's old. Y'all really want an old woman's death on your hands? She didn't do anything wrong."
A grunt meets her ears, and she frowns to herself. Maybe they won't be so merciful as she was hoping they'd be. She kicks again, harder, and feels a little satisfied when she hears a pained cry.
"I said you need to take care of her. I don't give a fuck about what you guys do to me, just at least take care of her. She's terrified. Assholes."
Vanessa, again, hears garbled conversation before she feels the bag being ripped off her head, and sees that her grandmother is now also able to see. She sighs in relief, tries to give her an assuring smile before turning to the two men who had helped. Of course. William Lennox and Robert Epps. She had most of their files, dossiers, field reports. She was almost intimately familiar with the two of them.
"You," Lennox begins, a small smile on his lips as he points down at her, "are in big trouble, little lady."
Vanessa sighs and rolls her eyes. Tell her something she didn't know, jackass.
aaand that's it for chptr 1. tbh, i kept it short and sweet with not a whole lot of dialogue to set things up first. it feels just the tiniest bit easier to me this way when it comes to storytelling.
more will be covered and addressed and explained in the next chapter, should this receive positive reviews n all that jazz.
like i stated before, if anyone has any suggestions/criticisms i'm certainly happy 2 hear them. like as long as no1 is rude abt it, that is. tooooooooooooodles