Armageddon Test Run

Note: In responce to some thoughts on the last chapter, I do not hate Raf. Or any of the characters, which I still do not own.

Chapter 3: June Darby

The day before:

June Darby had finally come to the conclusion that she would always have to worry about Jack and his friends. It had taken her a while, but Optimus Prime and Arcee had proven to her that they truly did have the children's best interests at heart, but that was only a small comfort.

She tried to lose her worry by burying herself in her work as a nurse at the Hospital. That was also how she tried to cope with Jack's rebelling against her and disobeying her instructions, and her sense of loneliness, and her marriage problems before Jack's Dad had been removed from the chaotic picture that was her life.

Unfortunately, there were times when the worries from her home life insisted on following her to work, such as when she received the phone call from the school, informing her that Jack had skipped school.

She sighed into the handset, "What about Miko Nakadai, or Rafael Esquivel?"

Yes, those children were also absent from the school, although the secretary was not sure she was suppose to say that.

"No, its alright. I think I know where the children are. Thank you for notifying me."

June knew Optimus Prime, and that he would not take such drastic actions without good reason, but she was still angry enough with him to want to rip his tailpipe out through his grill! Jack was her son, Prime had no right making such decisions without consulting her, or at least letting her know!

She quickly found her shift supervisor, "I just got a call from Jack's school. I need to go for a few hours, but Ill be back."

"Ok, June. I hope everything is alright?"

"Me too."

Minutes later, June was in her car driving across the desert. So intent was she on her course that she failed to pay any real attention to the strange tanks and military vehicles that were parked along the side of the road a few miles outside of town, although she did keep an eye on her rear view mirror to make sure that no one was following her to the biggest secret she knew.

As usual, the side of the mountain opened up to admit her car, and she drove her car directly into the heart of the Autobot's base.

"Oh, great! Prime's wife is here," Miko said sarcastically when she saw June's car pull into the base.

Ratchet grumbled something about trouble arriving sooner than expected, but when she stepped out of the car, he waved her to the next room without looking up from the computer console he was examining. "He's in there," he said.

As soon as she left the room, she heard the horrible mix of sounds that Miko thought was music erupt from the room behind her. "Prime, what is the big idea?"

"Ah, Mrs. Darby… I have been expecting you."

"Damn right you have," she started, and wanted to lay into him. God, that was how she had always reacted to her former husband too. She forced herself to calm down. She knew Prime would not do anything without ample reason, but she needed to know what it was. THEN she could lay into him.

Optimus Prime explained about the bunkers that had been constructed overnight, surrounding the town, and his reasons for keeping the children safe for their own, as well as the Autobot's protection. He told her some additional reasons that had been omitted from what he had told the children.

In return she told Prime about the military vehicles she had passed on her way to the base, information which Prime filed, and added to a larger picture. "Look, I know you did what you think was right. And it was the right thing to do… maybe. But you have to understand that I am Jack's parent and guardian. You should have informed me first, then I could have made up an excuse to the school… all your pulling them out of school for the day has done is to draw more attention to the children."

"I had not considered that."

"Instead of pulling the children under a rock to hide, you should instead keep them at a distance, and watch to make sure they are not being followed."

"Your plan is logical… We don't bring the children in, and watch the new arrivals to see what they are up to, and if they are trying to follow the children. But, what if their plan is to abduct them, instead of simply following them to us?"

"Then, no force on this Earth will keep me from getting Jack and the others back, and seeing to it that whoever dares to threaten him forever regrets their decision to do so!"

"On that, Mrs. Darby, we are agreed," Optimus Prime said.

"I am definitely not picking up any energon readings from the bunkers," Ratchet came in and told June and Prime. "So whatever they are, they are not Decepticons."

"Understood," Prime said, "I think it is time we called in Agent Fowler."

Snowing no sign of impatience at explaining the situation for the third time that day, Optimus Prime briefed Fowler on the situation over a secured video link, relying on June Darby to add details about the military vehicles she had passed that she did not even realized she remembered. Over the course of the briefing, Fowler looked more and more concerned.

"MECH is in the area for an arms deal. I sincerely doubt they would expose their operation with such a… visible show of resources," Fowler said.

"You know something," Prime said.

"Nothing certain, you understand," Fowler said, "You and your team should stand down for now. I am going to call in some outside support to look into the situation."

The screen went black before Prime or June could press for any more information.

The first day:

It was still dark outside when the telephone woke June from a not quite sound sleep. Something it the air was filling her with dread, an as yet undefined fear was stuck in the back of her head.

"Hello?" she answered, it was the hospital of course. Just as they had done many times before something had happened to one of the other nurses, and could she come in? This time it was a little bit different, the nurse had gotten injured on the job when a patient bit her. Weird, but when the Emergency Room is concerned, anything can happen.

"Sure, I'll be there as soon as I can."

She got dressed as quietly as she could, so as not to wake Jack. Sometimes it seemed like she never wore anything but her scrubs. She left Jack a note on the kitchen table, in case he wondered where she went, but she was sure he would know anyway. It wasn't like she ever went anywhere else.

When she backed her car out of the garage, she noticed that Arcee had not yet snuck back into the garage. Not that big a surprise, she had things to do, like scouting those strange bunkers.

She got a bigger surprise when she reached the Hospital. The entire Emergency room entrance was blocked off by Police cars and security. She was waved around to the entrance on the far side of the Hospital when she showed one of the Police Officers her Hospital ID.

This part of the Hospital was normally dark and hardly used at night, with most of the patients sleeping until the nurses brought them their morning medications, but because of whatever was going on in the Emergency wing, the hallways were bustling with activity.

While she walked through the hallways she put together an idea of what apparently happened based on what the patients, doctors, RNs and the rest of the staff were telling each other. It seemed that a child died in the ER waiting room… CPR was performed and he was revived and moved into the ICU. In the mean time, another child was brought into the ER with the same symptoms, who was rushed into a room for observation.

At that point the story became a little confusing. Some people insisted that both the children died an hour later, and within minutes of each other. Others insisted that the children came around, and became enraged attacking family and staff around them, and were so bad that they needed to be restrained. All of the stories seemed to agree that many of the staff who had come into contact with the patients soon showed symptoms of a more advanced form of the same illness that the c children had.

"June!" One of her fellow nurses called, "Thank god you are here, but you should not have come in. Its all gone to Hell here tonight. The police have totally sealed off the Emergency wing. I think there are still patients and staff in there who are not infected yet."

"Attention all staff," the intercom announced, "Anyone not currently occupied, please attend the briefing being held now in the auditorium."

"Lets go," June said to her friend as they rushed to the auditorium.

Just before they reached the auditorium, they passed a police officer who had been handcuffed to a safety rail. "What's wrong with him?" June asked.

"Don't go near him! He will bite!" Her friend answered. "He was bitten by one of the infected patients, so he handcuffed himself to the rail so he wouldn't hurt anyone when he became a 'zombie.' Silly, isn't it? To think that this disease is some sort of monster movie."

June watched the man, with his dead eyes as he strained against his handcuffed arm, uselessly trying to get at anyone who passed by. "I don't think that silly is the right word for it. Whatever his thinking, his actions were very brave."

In the lecture hall, everyone was seated, and the sense of fear was thick. "With the rapid spread of this disease, we have no way of knowing how many are currently infected. In addition to the quarantined Emergency wing, there are also reports of people with similar symptoms popping up across the city," Doctor Winchester addressed the assembly. "What we do know is that the disease is spread by the transfer of body fluids. The initial symptoms are flu-like, followed by a death like state in which the body readings drop enough to fool our equipment into thinking that the patient has died. Within minutes of this stage, the patient regains consciousness and enters a bizarre rage in which they attack anyone near them. More often than not, this attack involves biting, and the transferring of the disease. This far, we have not seen the next stage of the disease; I would theorize the rage is from brain swelling so the next step would be death."

"What are the brainwave readings of the rage stage?" someone asked.

"Thus far, no one has been able to take any readings at that stage due to the violent outbursts. The second child did have the wires hooked up before he entered the rage stage, but the equipment must have been damaged as it continued to show no activity.

"Doctor Bronson was working on a theory about the disease, but unfortunately he and his staff have also become infected. The laboratory section has also been quarantined, in addition to the Emergency wing.

"Because of this additional quarantine, we will have to send any samples or blood work to an off-site facility for testing. Most of our more sensitive testing equipment is also behind the quarantine lines. We are trying to make arrangements, but so far we have been unable to reach anyone outside of Jasper."

There were other questions asked too, mostly stupid ones that had already been answered, but the room came to a deathly quiet when a thumping sound was heard at the back door to the auditorium.

When the thumping continued, Dr. Winchester decided to put an end to it, "Somebody, please see who is at the door."

As soon as the latch was turned, the door burst open. The police officer who had handcuffed himself to a rail in the hallway burst in, looking much the worse for wear, and the general sense of fear that had been in the back of everybody's mind erupted into a full panic as the hospital staff started running to the far end of a room with only one exit to get away from the infected patient who now blocked that exit.

Maybe it was the fact that nothing could frighten her more than knowing her son was hanging out with giant warring robots, but she found she was able to retain her reason, even while being jostled by her co-workers as they climbed over chairs.

She studied the former police officers jerky movements, but did not have to wonder how he had gotten loose. While trying to pursue the uninfected staff to their meeting, he had apparently continued trying to follow until he had pulled his own arm off. More than that, the man was not bleeding heavily from the wound. She found herself starting to believe that maybe they were already dead.

She needed to take some blood samples. She wasn't sure who she should get to analyze them; Dr. Winchester, who was trying to climb up a blackboard, or maybe Dr. Ratchet, who admittedly had no experience with human biology.

"Somebody hold him down!" she yelled.

"I'm not getting infected!"

The zombie was already moving past her, heading towards the mass of doctors and nurses at the back of the room.

"John, help me!" she shouted to a fellow nurse, and one of the few guys who bothered to flirt with her from time to time.

"How?" he said, grabbing one of the folding chairs to use as a weapon.

"Good idea," She said and grabbed a folded up chair of her own. She rushed towards the zombie and swung the chair like an ax at it's legs.

The zombie toppled back, falling like a stack of cards. John jumped on top of him, pinning him down with his own chair.

With the hard work done, the other staff members calmed down and helped to restrain the former policeman.

"Why hasn't he bled out?"

"I'm not getting a pulse!"

"Don't let him bite you."

June slipped out the door into the hallway, which seemed clear of people. She hoped the police officer didn't attack anyone else on his way to the auditorium, but she could not be sure of that. She remembered Dr. Winchester saying that other cases had broken out across the city; she needed to call Jack.

Pulling out her cell phone, she saw she had a message, it wasn't important now, she needed to call Jack. The call was answered so quickly, she didn't even hear it ring, but it wasn't Jack's voice on the other end of the telephone.

"Nurse Darby? Thank Primus its you!" Ratchet's voice came over the telephone, showing unusual concern from the giant robot.

"Ratchet, what's wrong? Has something happened to Jack?"

"No, Jack is fine. Something has happened to Raf. I have run every diagnostic I can think of to no result. I… I need your help."

"Something strange is going on, so I can't leave the hospital. Can you bring Raf and the kids here?"

"Sure, Jack is with me now, Bulkhead is waiting for Miko. Are you sure you want them all there?"

"I'll feel better when I can keep an eye on them," June said, even though she was sure Ratchet didn't agree with her logic.

"Fine. Ill have Arcee and the others drop them off at the hospital."

"Ratchet, I think it would be best if you came yourself."

"And why is that?"

"Because nothing blends in better at a Hospital than an Ambulance."

"Ah. Fine. Ill bring Raf and Jack. Bulkhead will meet us there with Miko."

"June, An ambulance driver outside is asking for you."

"Thanks," she said, rushing outside, Bulkhead was parked outside, and behind him an ambulance with an Autobot symbol and Bumblebee was parked behind that. Miko paced between them, with a look of worry on her face.

"What's wrong with Raf?" Miko asked immediately, "He won't say anything!"

"Let me at least take a look at him before I give you any diagnosis," told the hyperactive Japanese girl.

She opened the back of the ambulance, expecting the worst… that Raf had contracted the zombie virus, but she was not prepared for what she did see.

Raf sat on the stretcher, curled up into a fetal position. His eyes were staring out, but she could not be sure he was actually seeing anything. The rest of the ambulance was the real surprise, it had all the equipment she would expect to find in an ambulance, except it was more advanced versions of it, and beside that, was more unusual equipment that she would only expect to find in the hospital itself.

"Ratchet, I've never seen this stuff in an ambulance before."

"Thirty years ago, our sampling equipment was very simple. When we would sample a native form, our systems would reconfigure us into an exact copy. Our more recent scanning software is more advanced, and uses the local scans as a framework which it then modifies to the highest level of technology one could possibly expect to find in a similar vehicle. The car Bumblebee sampled did not even have working air-conditioning, but Bumblebee's car mode has that, and a fully working game computer system installed." It was also how Airachnid was able to scan a simple helicopter to adapt it into her stealth helicopter vehicle mode.

Jack had ridden in Bumblebee, and came to stand by to watch his mother work as she attached leads to Raf, and took his blood pressure with the various equipment in the back of Ratchet.

"His blood pressure is low… " she made notes to herself as she worked on Raf.

"I wondered what that stuff was for," Ratchet said as June Darby started to work on Raf.

While she worked she brought Ratchet, Jack, Miko, and she assumed Bumblebee and Broadside's hearing was good enough to hear her, on the situation inside the hospital.

Miko obviously failed to grasp the seriousness of the situation as her assessment of June's description of events was a "Zombies? COOL!"

"Bumblebee, scout the quarantined areas, see what your sensors can detect," Ratchet told the Autobot scout. The yellow and black car backed silently away, to do his job undetected.

"I look forward to hearing Bumblebee's report," Ratchet said, "My own sensor readings are showing some unusual readings that simply cannot be correct!"

"Nothing seems to be physically wrong with Raf," she finally announced, "He seems to be in shock. Has he undergone some sort of trauma? Where is his family?"

"Missing. Bumblebee found the house empty except for Raf. He said that there were signs of a struggle and a red biological liquid was splattered on some of the walls and floor."

"Red liquid? Blood, like this?" She held up a blood sample she had taken from Raf.

"Yes, that would match the liquid that Bumblebee described."

She hugged the young boy to her, "Oh, god, Raf, what did you see?"

"Ratchet, what do your sensors detect in the hospital?" Jack asked, and June knew what he was doing. The same way she buried herself in her work, Jack couldn't help Raf, so he was trying to find another angle to the overall situation that he could do something about.

"Trace amounts of Dark Energon."

"You mean the stuff that made those robotic zombies? Can it do that to humans too?" Jack asked.

"No. While no form of Energon is good for humans to be exposed to, Dark Energon cannot have such an effect on any biological entity. No, I suspect that whatever is behind this, has been exposed to, or somehow treated with Dark Energon. Its energy signature is unmistakable."

June was lost by that train of thought, but Miko took it in a direction that she did not expect.

"Great," Miko said, "You can use your Dark Energon detector to track down the Zombies."

June wanted to point out that they didn't need to track anything, all the zombies were locked up in the two quarantined areas of the Hospital, but she knew two things. There were other cases out roaming the city, probably including Raf's family, and that in all the zombie movies she had ever seen, no quarantine ever held a mass of zombies back for long.

"I am going to need a blood sample to determine this for sure, preferably from a living subject. If Dark Energon is involved, then I think we can be relatively sure that this zombie disease is not a natural phenomenon."

"Blood samples were taken," June said, "Unfortunately they are in there." She pointed to the quarantined Emergency wing.

"Well, we will have to come up with something," Ratchet said.

June noticed a strange look of concern in Jack's eyes.

"Don't worry, Jack," she said, "Raf is going to come through this just fine."

"Thanks, Mom," he said, I'm… going to go check on Miko."