This is first season G1, set in the current year – 2008. A little bunny I wrote as I was balancing my family's budget during these hard economic times.

Economic Downturn

"Prime, we need to talk." Prowl said, his voice deadly serious. He had just come in the office, with Wheeljack and Perceptor in tow.

Optimus put down the paperwork he was working on and gave the Mechs his full attention. "Must be serious if you Mechs can't wait until I'm done with these incident reports."

"Very serious, we're almost broke;" Prowl began.

"And we're running low in our reserve energon." Wheeljack finished for him.

The big red Mech leaned back in his seat; this was indeed a very serious situation. "I thought sponsorships and donations were more than covering our operating costs?"

Prowl straddled the chair facing his desk, making room as Ironhide and Huffer stuffed themselves in. "Well, they were covering our costs. But we require a thousand barrels of crude per month to make the energon we need. That used to be just thirty U.S. dollars per barrel."

"Now it's a hundred and thirty per barrel," Wheeljack piped in.

Prowl nodded. "So the amount we used to collect only pays for less than twenty-five percent of what we need now. And several of our sponsors have gone out of business or declared bankruptcy, add to that the fact that our private donations have slid by forty percent."

"And we've got ourselves a hell of a mess;" Ironhide drawled. "Why those ungrateful.."

"Shut up Ironhide," Prime ordered, knowing his friend's standard rant wasn't going to help the situation.

"We're going to have to shut down, we can't survive like this. I just knew this was going to happen!" Huffer whined.

Slamming his hands down on the desk, Prime silenced everyone. "So how much time do we have until we run out of energon?" he asked Perceptor.

"After calculating the amount we are still able to bring in, minus the amount we normally go through, and then calculate how much we can save through conservation…" the scientist was beginning to ramble.

"Just how much time?!" Prime demanded.

"Three weeks," Perceptor answered.

Groans were heard from around the room. Huffer again started whining, but Ironhide strategically put a hand over the Mech's mouth.

Prime looked around the room. "Ideas for rectifying this problem?"

Perceptor's optics lit up. "We could build another one of our Solar Towers."

"We don't have the funds for materials," Prowl replied.

Ironhide shrugged, "Why not pull more power off the Hoover dam?"

"Vegas is taking most of what they've got, and with the water level so low, the humans have had to start rationing themselves as well;" Prowl quickly knocked down that idea.

Optimus leaned back, rubbing his chin in thought. "Why don't we contact our allies in Saudi Arabia, and ask them for more donated oil?"

"Tried that, they've cut back what they're giving to us already. Now they just say that we can buy it on the open market like everyone else;" another idea knocked down by the pragmatic Prowl.

"What about getting second jobs?" Sparkplug's voice piped up. He had wandered in unnoticed and had been quietly listening in on the autobots' meeting.

Ironhide was flabbergasted; "Second jobs?! Why I never.."

"It's an idea, that's what we humans do when we run out of money;" Sparkplug countered, not the least bit intimidated by the old Autobot.

"Second jobs? I'd never thought of that," Prowl mused, for the human's idea made some sense.

Huffer's optics got big. "But what can we do? I don't know how to do anything but fight Decepticons, its hopeless just hopeless."

"You Autobots have a lot to offer, we just got to figure out what kind of job fits best with each of your skills." Sparkplug explained, as he jumped on the desk and sat down. "Spike and I can help you search the want adds and fill out the applications."

Prime leaned forward, his chin resting on his hands, watching his Mechs grumble. "Well, it sounds like the only reasonable option open to us." turning to Prowl, he nodded. "Order all the Autobots to attend a meeting tomorrow; we will announce this decision then."

"Yes sir." Prowl said, as he and the others filed back out of the office.

Sparkplug looked at his Autobot friend. "I think it's going to be as hard on them, as it was on Spike when he got his first job."

The big red Mech nodded. "Convincing them is probably going to be the hardest part."

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