Chapter 1 – Contact Is Made

AN: So, you guys have a really early update for this one! And you can all say hello to the protagonist, who finally makes themself known.

I stretched out an arm, feeling the satisfying pop of the shoulder in its socket.

"Ew, gross!" Marissa whined from the backseat, barely pulling her made-up face out of her cell phone.

I rolled my eyes, moving my gum from jaw to jaw. Such a wuss.

I flipped my cellphone to my other hand, and sighed. "Why is there no good shopping in Mission City? I mean, we've been driving all over the place, let's go somewhere fun."

Georgette, the dark haired driver frowned. "But I want to check out this place on the other side of town!"

I waved a hand, staring at my phone out of the corner of my eye. "Whatever," I muttered.

Georgette smiled uneasily in my direction. "I've heard it's really great, Hazel!"

I hid a smirk as I turned to look out the window, playing with my hair. Such a follower. Seriously, though. It better not be a snooze-fest.

Marissa squealed in the back. Idly, I flicked my attention to her. Hot guy, perhaps?

Then again, her definition of 'hot guy' was any guy who could walk, talk and breathe at the same time. Hell, sometimes even she couldn't manage that.

"Holy fu- what is that!" Georgette shrieked, slamming on the brakes. Her dark hair fell around her shoulders as we almost hit a boy carrying a box.

"Did that jerk just dent my car?" she asked, tone indicating that she was going to pound him out if he had, and haul his ass in to personally pay for any damages.

I smirked – she wouldn't, she was a coward.

Then the steering wheel uncurled into little hands and feet, and attacked her face.

I shrieked, and stumbled out of the car, running away on hand and knee from a green thing spitting bottle caps at people. They hurt, cracking with lightning force into my lungs.

Smoke and fire were all around – the smoke seared my lungs, reminding me of my mother's habit.

What in the world was this?

I saw giant metal robots, jets transforming into robots, blue shots being fired and cars being flattened. People screamed all around, and deep voices kept on yelling.

Each pulse of my heart was in time with the chaos happening around me, each flash of imagery the same. Blood, spouting out of a woman with one arm; a child, lying in the street.

I gathered up my courage. I was not going to die here, I hadn't done anything yet!

Just as I stood up, about to find somewhere to hide, I faltered. My feet tripped over each other, and I felt like throwing up. A fierce headache pounded at my temples, and then my mind went blank. I didn't even feel my body hit the ground.

Primary Systems booting up… 50%... 75%... 100%. Primary systems online.

Weapons booting up… running scans…weapons online.

Connection to part B2 – failed. Retry? Connection to part B2 – failed. Retry? Negative.

Optics on-lining… optics online.

My optics flared to life, the world crashing in. Persistent information flared across my HUD, flashing in glyphs and signs that made no sense to me at all. What was it?

My hardware set to work, busily decoding the little curved lines with spaces and dots. I was in a room filled with dead hardware. There was no electrical activity in the lines around me, and no life forms on this level. Perhaps I should go see one of them, and ask them where I was?

Yeah, that seemed like a good idea. At least one of them had to be sentient, right? I skittered forwards, pincers clicking on the metallic floor. Some clear shattered compound was all around me, and a large metallic shell was to the side of me. I scanned it with a squeak.

No life signs – and my scanners were telling me that it was part of me. How odd.

I was registering as fully functional. Perhaps my scanners were faulty.

I started a self-diagnostic scan. And it was finished nearly instantly, results pouring in. There was nothing wrong with my systems, at all.

Okay.

I skittered forwards, wanting to find one of the organic creatures and talk to it. Perhaps it was sentient and would know what I was saying.

Unless it spoke a different language, like the one I was hacking (93%), and then I might have to work something else out.

A control panel popped up.

Decoding complete.

I scanned through the information swiftly, wondering how to transmit the information verbally. Did this species communicate externally? Perhaps they communicated it through their minds or on internal lines.

I wondered what they looked like.

Extending my scanners, I scanned for the organic life forms above me. Perhaps I could communicate with them?

I transmitted a message aimed directly at the largest signal, in several different frequencies. Waiting a moment, there was no response. I tried again, in a few more frequencies, from every frequency I was capable of that would be non-hazardous to the organic creatures.

Still nothing. I squeaked once, and skittered forwards.

There seemed to be a transport-type tube above me, and my scanners were indicating that it travelled quite a ways, and was close to the large organic creatures.

Good enough for me. I scampered to the wall, and stabbed my pincers in, climbing straight up the wall. It was relatively simple – my claws pierced through the thin metal easily.

Entering the hole located in the tube and feeling my pincers click against the metal, I scampered through the transport tube easily. I was directly beneath the organic creatures when I scampered upwards. They were making noise when I approached, and then one made a loud hissing noise and the others quieted down.

There were seven of them in the room. I wondered which one I should attempt to communicate with – would they all respond the same? Maybe not. I'd pick the least threatening one.

I clambered up through the vent, claws clicking on the metal loudly.

Scampering into the room, I scanned the area swiftly. There were seven organic creatures, five clutching sticks that my processor warned me to be careful of, even though I had no idea why.

One was tiny, compared to the others, and had long pale organic material on the top of it. It didn't have a stick – that one seemed the least threatening.

I darted towards it, squeaking out my plan to the small one. It shrieked, and one of the other ones made a loud noise too, before pellets of metal came flying out the end, sparking against the metal of the floor.

I avoided the metal, tracking the projector of the little pellets. Jumping to the side, I narrowly missed getting hit by one. It would definitely hurt my metallic exoskeleton, but it wouldn't be off-line worthy.

I skittered up to the organic and chittered to it, wondering if it knew what I was saying. From the way it reacted, I figured not.

Perhaps it wasn't sentient?

I'd try again. Slicing my pincer into the floor, I twirled in circles, re-creating the new language I had cracked when I on-lined.

The organic merely squealed again, and the larger ones had their sticks fire pellets of hot metal at me. I dodged them, still creating the squiggles in the floor, facing the thin one. It was difficult, but not impossible. The dark coloured one was squealing at nearly the same decibels that the thin one had been. Now, the thin one was merely watching. I hoped I was re-creating the symbols right.

I danced out of the way, and the thin one barked a sharp order to the other six. The pellets stopped, and I halted, bouncing backwards and sitting still. My message was supposed to be along the lines of: I mean you no harm. Hello.

Or something like that.

The thin one seemed to be the most receptive – I had made a good call.

One of the organic creatures came up to me, and I scanned them as they approached. It was strong, with some armor on it, and three more sticks that shot fire – guns – on it.

The one behind me darted forwards – it'd trip on me! I moved out of the way as it fell, some sort of netting material between its digits. I barely missed the netting.

They only had four appendages – and only two they used for anything other than moving. Interesting.

Three of them pointed their guns at me, and one made some noise. Was that their method of communicating? My programming whirred, trying to connect the sounds to the language.

The thin one was waving an appendage around, and made a small move towards me, folding downwards smaller and holding out an appendage to me.

One of the larger ones made a loud noise, and the thin one made noise back. The dark one made it's gun spit pellets at me, between the thin one and me. I squeaked in alarm and skittered backwards.

The one behind me got me accidentally trapped in the mesh substance it was holding.

I started busily sawing away at the mesh, when the organic holding me shook the mesh – trying to shake me free.

It waved me about a little bit; the thin one was communicating in harsh tones, leaning forwards. I wondered what that body language signified. Perhaps I should have been doing that?

The pale, large one brandished a gun and communicated loudly.

I waved my foremost pincers around, trying to emulate the organic creatures. Perhaps they communicated with more body language than external sounds?

I was rushed down a hall, and placed into a small, clear polymer container of some sort. What was this?

The organics communicated back and forth for a time – the pale, larger one and the thin one from before.

The thin one pulled out a communicator type device, judging from the waves I was getting from it. It punched some numbers in, and held it upwards, tight to its top. Rapidly, it was making noise, at a lower decibel than before. I could still clearly catch the auditory sounds, and I could decipher the noises the other was making too. It was really useful – the sound waves were transmitted as the same language. I matched the collection of numbers to the sounds, and squeaked. Perfect!

I verbalized some of my new findings.

"Heeellllo," I warbled out. The verbal software didn't sound quite like the thin organic communicating, but it was close. Hopefully understandable.

The organic was silent for a moment, and then turned to me. "Hello. Can you understand me?"

I squeaked out once, and tried to communicate. "Yeees."

A little grumble, and I tried again. "Yees. Yesss. Yesss. Yes."

There! That last one sounded about right.

The organic bared shiny white things at me. I wiggled up and down excitedly. It seemed these things were sentient. Perfect.

The dark, large one communicated next. "The." My programming of their language was incomplete – I couldn't catch all of the communicating. "Thing can speak now? What's next?"

I tried again. "Can youuuu tell me whhhhere I am…am…am right now?"

It was a lucky thing that Simmons wasn't here right now – the man was extremely annoying.

Maggie stared at the little creature in the box that Simmons had created and destroyed the Nokia cell phone 'bot in. When it had appeared out of the grating, she had freaked – it was a Decepticon! But it hadn't pulled any weapons, and then it had started drawing in the ground. 0's and 1's. Binary code.

Greetings. I do not mean you any harm.

She had called frantically to the military men. "Don't kill it! It's communicating! Binary code! It's not going to hurt us!"

Glenn had shouted to "Kill it, kill it now!"

The military men had shouted back, about how they couldn't trust it.

She went down on one knee, holding out a hand to it. It had skittered forwards, all limbs and blue optics, seeming slightly hesitant but excited? It hadn't pulled out any guns, but then again, it probably didn't need any massive weapons to kill. She was interested in this though – why was it behaving like this? A ploy?

She managed to convince them to catch it in netting and place it in the plastic case. It hadn't struggled – just let out little squeaks and whistles, much like the other one had, only slightly higher pitched.

Once it was in the container, it was still as she whipped out a phone, calling

Defense Secretary Keller called to her. "Who are you calling?"

She spoke back. "I want to see if it can figure out how to talk – what their learning capability is."

Keller frowned. "I don't think that's a good idea – these things are dangerous. Especially ones with red eyes."

She spoke quietly. "This one is behaving irrationally for a Decepticon – and they can all speak English. This one was carving binary into the floor, sir. I think there's something here. I'm not sure the colour of their eyes has anything to do with it, sir."

Keller paused, remembering her earlier gut instinct. She'd been right before, and now his gut was telling him to trust her this time – if it turned out to be a trap, they could melt the tiny thing with sabot rounds.

He glanced over at the tiny alien, and wasn't surprised to see bright blue eyes focused on him. He shivered – the damn things gave him the creeps.

"Fine, make the call. But if this thing goes sour, it's on you."

She nodded once, and dialed swiftly, placing the call on speaker.

The standard greeting rolled through, and she punched in her password, glancing at the little alien. It was crouched low, waving its front appendages in the air, eyes dancing from side to side.

She listened to some old messages, and changed her greeting. Keller was looking at her like she was insane, and so were the soldiers. All of them were still brandishing their guns at the little creature.

Maggie was watching it carefully, and noticed the little 'bot's legs twitching.

Then it made a noise. "Heeellllo."

It was warbly and sounded like her British friend, but it was understandable. She crouched closer to the box. "Hello. You can understand me?"

Remarkable – after only a few moments of translating binary in the phone to sounds, it could verbalize the language. Simply amazing. Humanity wouldn't stand a chance if the Autobots decided the planet wasn't worth it.

The little creature took a few moments, and then a little squeaking sound came out. "Yeees."

An annoyed warbling sound. "Yees. Yesss. Yesss. Yes."

She grinned at it, and the little 'bot danced up and down like a metal bouncy ball.

Glenn spoke, voice quivery. "The little alien robot can speak now? What's next? World domination?"

It interrupted. "Can youuuu tell me whhhhere I am…am…am right now?"

She grinned at it again. It was acting more like a kid or confused child than an evil alien bent on destroying the world. All the Decepticons she'd run into – namely, this one with a larger body – had shown their evilness right away. And what kind of bad alien let themselves be restrained?

It was likely that this wouldn't hold it for long. But it made the military men feel better, if only slightly.

Unless it was part of the plan again? Although she couldn't see what part of it getting captured could be. It might be a trap – but her gut feeling was telling her it wasn't.

I watched the thin one attentively as it spoke to the other organic creatures. It seemed to be the one most interested in communicating.

The others were all pointing the guns at me still. I checked the airways again, noticing lower frequency airwaves filled with coding. Short coding that didn't make lots of sense.

I had no idea what most of the things were –alpha, eagle, niner.

Wiggling forwards, out of the compound wrapped over me and in between my thin armor, I spoke again. "Can youuuu tell me whhhhere I am…am…am right now?"

The organic made a top motion, and the white shiny things flashed. I flashed my optics brighter in response.

The shiny things were ever wider.

One optic closed on the organic. I mimicked it, dimming one optic completely.

It moved its top to the side; I did the same. It made a noise with the top two appendages; I clicked my uppermost appendages together, creating a light clank of metal.

The organic seemed to blow out vents, creating a slight fog on the polymer. I exhaled through my vents, but wasn't able to create much of a fog. The effort of pushing all the air out loud enough to make a noise was difficult, draining all my internal air which caused me to waver.

"I'm Maggie."

I'm – a possessive. This was its designation?

"I'm…" I paused. I didn't have a designation. Therefore, I was "Unknown."

AN: Hence the name of the story. :)

This story is going to have shorter chapters than Synergy – I think. I can be really, really bad at judging how long chapters can be though. So, yeah. Geez, Unknown is so innocent, I love it! And what is the AllSpark up to?

So far, plan is for Unknown to meet the Autobots next chapter. But we'll see what Unknown comes up with. Or the AllSpark…