"So… is she cute?"
"Sam…"
"Hey! I'm not asking for me; I mean, I have cute, better than cute, I have-- it's for Miles! I swear, I promise! -- oh, don't you start in laughing at me too, Bee."
The car gave a sort of coughing sound, followed by some static in the radio. Sam Witwickey, stared sullenly ahead, until a raspy, crackling voice spoke up to his left side, making him jump from inattention.
"Welcome to McDonalds -- Try one of our cold Ice Mochas and we'll be right with you!"
Mikaela gave a smile and leaned back in the seat, crossing her arms as she raised her eyebrows.
"Wow" she said, "just a little high-strung."
"Yeah… well…" Sam frowned, and gave a shrug. "First time I've traveled across state lines in an alien robot car and a girlfriend -- with a girlfriend, not in, and…"
Sam rubbed the back of his head and muttered "open up the mouth just to change feet…"
He sat in his jeans and tee and sweatshirt, glancing out over the North California morning; halfway between home and some tiny little town in Washington where it apparently rained three hundred days a year sometime in the 80's, and they still had a sign up for it.
Mikaela tugged her denim jacket around herself tighter, kicking off her sneakers while they waited for the attention of someone inside the off-highway fast food place.
"… so… you used to go up there on weekends?" Sam asked.
Bee turned the music down, curious about the destination they were heading to himself, though satellite images showed nothing particularly special about the place. A lot of trees, a few rivers, a dead skunk near an elementary school and some kids poking it with a stick… some activities humans do were baffling, but cute.
The young woman gave a nod, and added a shrug. "Yeah, our moms were pretty close, so we went to hang out there a lot on weekends and in the summer. Her dad and brother worked on cars, so they got along okay with my dad. After… stuff happened, they didn't talk so much anymore. I just found out Aunt Jackie passed away last year from mom, so…"
She paused. So what? Just some random trip with the boyfriend and the alien?
"Oh." Sam replied, and rubbed the back of his head. "Well, then, it's a good thing we had some time, huh?" he asked with a slight smile, and clasped Mikaela's hand in his own.
She gave a smile.
The place was out of the way, practically abandoned and left to decay. In the dimness of the few streetlights beyond the fences and the spotlights on the side of the building, the starkness between light and dark made for sharp contrasts and strange shadows. The remains of automobiles lay strewn about the expanse of property interrupted periodically by trees, their insides ripped out and sold elsewhere. To the two humans, this was a chop-shop gone redneck and abandoned to the elements.
To Bumblebee, it was a little like walking into a forgotten battlefield. A creepy sense of dead traveled like electricity through his body, and he was keenly aware of everything that moved as he rumbled down the dirt road.
"So, she's a hick?" Sam inquired as he turned and glanced up at the looming building ahead. Someone's former play-area for planes, the hangar stood out of the landscape of half-rotted cars and trees, rust clinging to the metal frame and discoloration casting every glass pane in a different color.
"No, she's just… well. Yeah. She's a hick. A little bit." Mikaela replied as she peered out the window. "I haven't been up here in years."
"Yeah, looks like this is the shop that time forgot…" Sam began as he stood, tugging at the sleeves of his sweatshirt to pick off fluff, "… hope you're up to date on your tetanus shot," he crabbed before glancing up. "Huh. Someone's at the window."
Mikaela paused, turning as Bumblebee opened up the door for her. She gave the door an acknowledging pat before glancing to the window and spotting the curtains moving back. Sam glanced back at the car, at the road, and at his girlfriend and added in a hopeful sort of voice "We could always go back to the McDonal-- Ah!"
Bee butted Sam's rear with the door.
"… what is it? You're on her side now? … is this about the waxing thing?" Sam whispered, until the door opened and he got a good look at this "cousin" they came up to see.
Greasy skin with stained jeans and an old T-shirt, covered in paint and grass stains. A pair of pale, watery eyes peered out from beneath the shade of a faded baseball cap. Bleach-blonde hair bound in a messy braid stuck out from the back of the cap, and her thin lips were drawn as tight as the arms crossed in front of her.
"Mikaela." she said dourly, she glanced passed the girl, to Sam. To the "car". "Nice." she said after a moment.
"Cassie! It's great to see you -- look, I just found out what happened, and I'm so-"
"Don't be, Micky." Cassie interrupted. Her arms fell to her sides as she glanced out, as if making sure the coast was clear before opening the door. "Well, don't stand out there all day," she commented, "stuff's not going to unpack itself. Leave the Hot Wheels right there; it's not going to hurt anything. Not anticipating any calls." Cassie said before turning and heading back into the dingy darkness of the old hangar.
Sam just stood there a moment, blinking.
"… Hot Wheels?" he asked, glancing to Mikaela. "Did she just call Bee a Hot Wheels?"
"I wouldn't worry about it, Sam." Mikaela gave a smile, and reached inside to grab her bag, "she's just a little put-off by guys in fancy cars."
"Yeah, but--"
"We'll be back, Bumblebee." Mikaela smiled, gave the car a pat, and headed inside. Sam grumbled and grabbed his backpack.
"Traitor." he playfully accused, giving a 'manly' soft-punch at the seat before heading inside himself.
Bumblebee was hardly a traitor; there was something off about this place. He couldn't quite place what it was. The graveyard-like feel of it didn't help -- especially not the rusted-out Camero corpse with the tree growing out of its front grill. It was a reminder of what easily could have been if he hadn't been careful.
With Cassie there, though, he couldn't move too much unless it was an emergency -- orders right from Optimus. He wasn't to give away his nature unless there was a risk of harm to Sam or Mikaela, but it made it rather difficult to gather reconnaissance in the area. His sensors were picking up some strange readings, but without someone like Ratchet's fine-tuned sensors, he wouldn't be able to refine what he was picking up.
Bumblebee would just have to be patient.
Sam might just have the shorter end of the stick in this situation. He leaned against a wall of wet paint, stepped on a cat, in the litter box and managed to kick over a chair in about ten minutes of being inside the hangar. Part of it had been renovated for living space, the entry lead into a dingy little kitchen with a counter separating the doorway from the kitchen proper, with a tiny stove and a stainless steel fridge. It smelled of fresh paint (with a few paw prints on the counter in paint to show the recentness of its recolor). The living room was huge by comparison, though it looked like someone's basement. Old lamps, a patched-up couch with deep valleys where plush pillows once were. Hobo-chic meets with the projects, Sam thought, his mother would probably have freaked out.
"And this loft is Micky's." Cassie's voice came through.
"… we're--" Sam began to protest.
"Not here, you're not." Cassie scowled, and crossed her arms. Her thin lips pressed together, and she glowered at the savior of the human species until Sam felt rather uncomfortable.
"Oh… ah-- ookaaaay?" Sam blinked, and apparently satisfied, Cassie jerked her thumb over one shoulder.
"There's a room back there that's set up for you," she said plainly, "… just don't break anything."
"Yeah. Fine." Sam agreed. "Whatever…" he added as Cassie turned to the living room and stalked out.
Mikaela and Sam glanced at one another. She rubbed the back of her head, and Sam glanced up at the ceiling.
"… so… is she the type of hick that carries loaded weapons in her back pocket?" Sam asked.
"YES." Cassie replied from the other room. "And I have a hell of an ear, too!"
"… I'll be in the car." Sam grunted.
Mikaela reached out, and grabbed Sam's arm.
"Look, Sam… she hasn't seen me in years, and I come rolling up with some guy in a brand new car. She's probably feels kinda betrayed, or something. Give her an hour or two, she'll warm up."
Sam paused, and glanced over his shoulder with his eyebrows raised.
"Promise?"
"Cross my heart." Mikaela grinned, crossing her finger over her chest and brushed a kiss to Sam's forehead before climbing the ladder to the loft.
Sam watched after her, gave a sigh, and rubbed the back of his head before turning and walking into the room assigned to him by Cassie -- or, as he had already taken to call her, NaziHick.
The room was childish. There was a hand-made poster someone made of The Iron Giant over a twin-sized bed and a mobile with foam planets and a plastic space shuttle. Stuffed animals, faded from time spent on a windowsill, glanced over the room from a window seat.
This was a kid's room, Sam realized.
There was just no kid to go into the room.
There was something wrong here, Bumblebee decided. Something wasn't right.
Inside the car, the shift twitched to life, the keys turning and the engine turning to idle. The yellow Autobot carefully made his way around the hangar, to the massive 'back forty', as Mikaela called it.
If the front yard was a battlefield, this "back forty" was the headquarters of the Butcher of Kaon. Cars and trucks and planes and all manner of transportation that was ripped from the form of Megatron, held so long beneath the ice, was laid here. Festering in the light of the moon, two busses made for the gateway to a strange, alien land of the dead.
Bumblebee felt uncomfortable, like someone was watching him.
He initiated a contact with the Autobots at home base -- there was something wrong up here, and it sure as slag wasn't some spooks of the past.
Sensors were showing some strange readings, high levels of radiation that suspiciously looked…
This is bad, Bumblebee thought to himself as he opened up a channel to Prime, this is very, very bad.
Sam picked up some of the models; whoever this kid was, he liked robots. The poster, the toys over in one corner were all robots or older stuffed animals. He recognized some of the stuff from Miles' room, and some of the models were put together and painted with a lot of care and attention to detail, little bits picked out. Silver paint marked exposed metal and edges on one model, laying half-finished and gathering dust.
Sam gently picked it up, examining it for just a moment before the arm fell off.
"Oh, crap…" he muttered, and attempted to stick the arm back in, making the shoulder joint crack.
Perfect, just what he needed to compliment the cat hair and paint on his sweatshirt.
That's when he heard the door slam, and Cassie yell.
"I don't care Mickey. You abandoned us up here! Years and not a phone call, nothing! Oh yeah, I forgot -- daddy went to jail."
"Cass, that's not--"
"But wait! My dad's still in jail! So's Tom! And then you come up here after I dropped a line to your mom saying that her sister died with some playboy boyfriend and the new car his Daddy bought him -- what the hell, Mickey. We said we were going to go places."
"Don't talk about Sam that way, Cass. You have no idea--"
"Yeah, don't tell me I don't have an idea." Cass hissed. There was the sound of something scraping.
"I have lots of ideas -- starting with putting a great, big dent into that nice, shiny car of his."
"Oh, hell yes." Sam whispered. Let's see HickNazi versus the Angry Alien! A match not to be mi--
"SAM!" Mikaela called out as she rushed out the door. Sam spotted the massive pipe wrench in the glint of the light as Cassie passed.
Bumblebee wouldn't be happy with a smashed windshield.
Sam ran to catch up with Cassie and Mikaela before he heard Cassie yell out something that Sam really didn't want to hear.
"What the… it's gone!"
The three stood there for a moment, Mikaela's eyes wide, Sam's narrowed as he glanced around. 'Bee wouldn't leave for no reason.
"… we should get back inside…" Mikaela began, reaching out to Cassie. "Sam?" "I'll find h--"
Sam was interrupted by the sound of a Cybertronian transforming, the crash of two mechanical titans crunching together -- and a cry of utter horror from Cassie.
"… oh, this is so not good…"
There was a second crunching sound, and the cry of pain, and all three humans took off running, Sam in the lead. The sight was ghastly,
There were two Cybertronians caught in melee, struggling to get a grip on one another. Bumblebee had the upper hand, and picked up and THREW his opponant across a fifty foot span, the ground shook as the other alien crashed, crushing a rusted-out bus.
Sam stopped; he could clearly see the Decepticon brand -- scratched-up as it was -- on the alien's shoulder.
"… oh, Holy Cow." Cassie whispered. "There's another one…"
"Another one?" Mikaela asked.
Bee lifted the Decepticon up and threw him; there were sparks as the bumbling alien struck against the transformer box, and the Back Forty was plunged into darkness. The rusty Decepticon collapsed in on himself, looking dazed, and Bumblebee reached down for him, illuminated in a small circle of light from a pocket flashlight.
"Hey! HEY! Stop! Don't hurt him!" Cassie called out, and rushed forward. As Bumblebee reached for a secondary throw, Cassie boldly gave his hand a solid WHACK with the pipe wrench, and both retracted their hands, though Bumblebee brushed his to the side, sending the fleshy human reeling backwards and into some scrap.
"OW! Goddamnit!" Cassie protested, but as Bumblebee reached to help, the Decepticon reached down, and lifted Cassie from he wreckage, retreating backwards. Several bright lights illuminated the junkyard as a Peterbuilt and an ambulance came onto the scene -- Prime and Ratchet. Ironhide's tires protested as he whipped around the corner, horn blaring as he rolled and transformed, lifting one of his cannons and aiming it directly at the clumsy protoform.
"He's got a hostage!" Ironhide bellowed. "Permission to eliminate, Prime?"
"Easy, Ironhide." Prime replied as he transformed, taking a few steps forward. Ratchet followed suit, shaking a bit before smacking his shoulder. Bumblebee gave a shrug.
"Don't shoot!" Cassie cried out.
"Don't shoot!" the Cybertronian repeated.
"He's friendly! I promise! He can't even sting ideas together to talk! He helps me move things around the junkyard and just parrots what I say!" Cassie called out, waving her arms.
The Cybertronian waved his arms in imitation, and Cassie yelped as she fell -- caught by a diving Bumblebee.
"… this a bad time to apologizes for calling you a Hot Wheels?" Cassie asked.
Bumblebee's face turned into a slight smile, but his head shook as he let Cassie climb out of his hands.
"Shoulda let her fall." Sam muttered. Mikaela punched his shoulder, then walked over to Cassie.
"You didn't TELL ME You had an alien in your back yard!" the brunette hissed softly.
"You didn't tell me your boyfriend had a robot, can we call it even?" Cassie asked with a wry smile, then glanced up at the assembled.
"… I suppose I should explain why I have a walking pile of junk in my backyard.
"Junk!" the Junk-pile parroted.
"This lumbering wreck of a garbage heap Decepticon?" Sam asked.
"… what's a Decepticon?" Cassie turned to Sam,
"WRECK! GAR!" the pile trumpeted. Cassie gave a smile.
"Well, he introduced himself. How about names all around?"
