Ello, ello, ello! Congrats to Kellyhorse for guessing that the code language is Swahili! For those who guessed Spanish, that's when she's talking to Fig, not Diesel. Enjoy!
Suri took hold of another outcrop, hoisting her lean body up another foot or so. She had climbed this mountain so many times; she knew every jutting stone and jagged precipice better than her own hand, which she moved up to another handhold. Normally she climbed with Miguel, her father, but he was at the house with her mother, Christina, who was eight months pregnant with her baby brother. She was due any day now, so her dad was with her, waiting.
After several more synchronized hand-foot movements, Suri pulled herself up and over the edge of the flat-topped summit of, as the locals called it, the Third Devil. The usual sense of accomplishment washed over her as she inhaled deeply, smelling the heady scents of fall, while she turned slowly to take in the sights of her hometown. To the west she could see the Sugartop condominiums, now empty of the tourists who would flock to Sugar Mountain for skiing, ice skating and tubing in a few months. To the southwest was Grandfather Mountain, and to the east was Pisgah National Forest. She completed her circle and was looking back to the northwest, towards her house, when something caught her eye. It was a long black trail in the sky, like a line a jet would leave behind. It looked rather short and after a few minutes, it didn't get any longer like it should have. Then she realized that she could make out what looked like an air force fighter jet at the head of the black line. The line wasn't getting any longer because she was looking at it foreshortened. The jet was headed straight for the side of the mountain….and her house.
Her heart dropped into her stomach as adrenalin flooded her system, and she started looking for an easier way down. The mountain was almost vertical on all sides, she would have to climb down and that would take at least twenty minutes and by then, if her quick calculations were even remotely correct, it would be too late. She started to climb anyway, sliding most of the way, which was a bad idea. She tripped and fell at least twenty feet. The pain in her arms dulled by the need to reach her home before the jet, she continued her half-slide half-frantic run down the nearly perpendicular slope. Then an explosion made the solid ground underneath her buck and roll. Rock and dirt flew into her face with a force that felt like a hurricane gale and she heard the sound of trees splintering. Something solid and sharp hit her squarely in the head, knocking her into unconsciousness with the lullaby of screeching metal and the beginnings of a fire playing in the background.
"Major!" called one of the soldiers from across the hold of the plane. He motioned for Lennox to come to him immediately. He took a glance at Suri, fast asleep in her seat beside him, dreaming, and got up. His comrade turned the screen of his laptop around so that Lennox could see it. "I was doing some digging on Cortez over there and you need to see what I found." He held out the computer to Lennox, who stared at it blankly.
"What am I looking at, Corporal?" It looked to him like just a bunch of connecting lines, and, if he squinted at it, little squiggles showed up in between the lines.
"It's a family chart, Major. Sorry, Sir, I'm near-sighted." He added noticing Lennox's difficulty in reading the miniscule font. "Of the Witwicky family."
"As in Sam Witwicky?"
"Yes Major. And that," he pointed to a spot on the chart that Lennox could barely read. "Is Cortez's mother. Christina Witwicky now Christina Cortez."
"So Suri is Sam's cousin?" He tried to keep the skepticism out of his voice. He honestly couldn't have called that in a million years.
"That's what it looks like, Sir."Lennox looked back at Suri, searching her face for some sort of family resemblance. It had been almost a year since he'd seen Sam, but he was pretty sure he looked the same. Still he could see nothing in appearance that connected this girl to Sam Witwicky.
He needed to know for sure.
"I need to borrow your computer, Corporal." The soldier handed the laptop over to him without asking questions. Lennox looked at the screen for a moment before handing it back to the corporal. He tapped a few keys and handed it back to the major, who could now read the screen quite clearly. "Thank you."
"No problem, Sir." Lennox took the computer back to his seat. Suri stirred beside him. He could see her eyes moving behind her eyelids. Was she having a dream, or was she remembering the day that her entire life went to hell? He shrugged and began typing. When he was done, there was no signal to send the electronic mail, so he put it on standby to send on the next available Wifi wave. Closing the laptop, he leaned back to catch a few elusive hours of sleep, but not before taking one last glance at the young woman sitting beside him, and noticing how much older than seventeen she looked. He thought he could already see some white hairs mingling with the black on her head.
'That could be your daughter. That could be Annabelle one day.' No, he had promised himself, that wouldn't happen to his family. That's why he was doing what he was doing.
He pushed the thought from his head and closed his eyes.
Philadelphia, Pennsylvania
Sam Witwicky sat at his laptop doing research for a homework assignment. Well, he was trying to do research for an assignment. He kept nodding off and rereading the same sentence over and over. It had been a while since he'd gotten any kind of decent sleep. Every time he put his head on the pillow he heard massive explosions and a dazzling white light lit the backs of his eyelids. It didn't sound like much but he always woke up with cold sweat slicking his forehead and making his clothes cling to his body.
'The cat's eye nebula is an extraordinary example of what was previously…' Dammit! There he went rereading that same stupid sentence. He wished it was already Christmas break. It was so close, he could taste it. He needed a few weeks to catch his breath. If not to just get away from his bigheaded roommate. Since the events in Egypt a year ago, Leo was, for want of a better word, suffering from a head full of hot air. He considered it was because of his 'Masterful skills' that they won the victory against the Decepticons. And every night, when he eventually got back from some girl's room, he'd tell Sam that he realized how short life was and that he should live to the fullest while he could. Sam knew it was all just a gimmick for the ladies.
'The cat's eye nebula is an extr…' Gahhh! Sam slammed his head on his desk harder than he intended and winced. He really needed a break. He looked outside, where it was snowing lightly. He got up and scribbled a quick note to Leo saying he was out for a walk and would be back soon. Not that Leo would be back before Sam but, it was the polite thing to do.
Outside, it was wonderfully quiet. The snow muffled all the sounds of the campus. It reminded him of what Mikaela had asked him just before he'd left for college, if he could survive the winters here without her, which he couldn't. Otherwise he wouldn't be going home for Christmas. He certainly wasn't going home just to see his parents. His mom called him every waking minute of every day.
Entering the courtyard, he saw a young couple, a few years older than himself. They were making a snowman. As Sam watched, he saw the man put something into the snowman's twig hand. He tapped the woman on the shoulder and pointed it out to her. She took it and opened it. When she turned around again, the man was on his knee. There were a few moments where the two just stayed as they were. Then the woman squealed and threw her arms around the man. Sam smiled to himself. That was what he'd always planned for himself and Mikaela. But he couldn't do it yet. He couldn't afford a ring, let alone a wedding. It'll happen, he kept telling himself, just not yet.
He walked back to the room with high spirits, ready to finish his assignment. When he opened the door, he saw his computer screen blinking and the icon of an envelope opening and closing over and over. He had an e-mail. Intrigued he clicked on the icon, noticing that the e-mail was from an address that he didn't recognize, he read it once anyway. It was very short.
Plans for Christmas break? You may want to cancel them. - Lennox
He re-read it several times and still couldn't make any sense of it. Just when he was about to give up on figuring it out, Leo flew through the door holding his cell phone in his hand.
"Dude, Simmons just called me! He says that NEST was on the move yesterday -"
"Shhhhhh!" Sam hushed his roommate and motioned for him to shut the door to their shared apartment. "Paper-thin walls, remember?" Leo paled and slammed the door closed.
"Sorry, forgot." He carried on in a quieter voice. He moved over to Sam's desk and sank down in one of the mismatched dining room chairs. "But he says NEST was on the move yesterday. They took off from their base and touched down in Los Angeles, and stayed there for at least six hours." Sam said nothing. Instead he turned the computer screen towards Leo and let him take it in. He didn't know that someone with Leo's complexion could turn so white so fast.
"So…" he trailed off to let Leo finish his thought, but his cell phone rang. The caller ID showed a picture of Mikaela. Sam answered immediately. "Hey, Beautiful."
"Sam, something's up here." There was an urgency in her voice that Sam only heard when they faced any kind of mechanized terror, i.e. Decepticons.
"Why, what's wrong?" Sam stood up, getting a worried look from Leo.
"I think there's another Autobot in LA, like besides Bee." Sam didn't reply for a moment. This had to be a joke, but Mikaela wouldn't joke about something like this. "Sam? Hello, Sam, you there?"
"Right here, Babe. Hang on, I'm gonna put you on speaker." He pushed the button and held the phone between his head and Leo's.
"Hey, Leo." Greeted the voice of Sam's girlfriend from the other end of the line. "Are you sure this line is secure?"
"Positive, Lennox gave me this phone. It's as secure as any of the army's outgoing transmissions." Sam assured her. "What about another Autobot?"
"I was leaving the shop last night, and I took Interstate four-ten. I had to pass this car that was going like five miles under the speed limit. I looked into the driver's seat and this girl didn't have her hands on the wheel." Mikaela gasped with excitement, as she had told the entire three sentences in one breath, but Sam didn't see what was so great about it.
"Babe, plenty of people take their hands off the steering wheel while they're driving. Like if they're showing off or if their hands get sweaty." Sam tried to rationalize
"Do they talk to their radios, too?" She asked in an irritated tone. Sam mentally slapped himself. Mikaela was very observant; she wouldn't have called him if all she had seen was some teen driving recklessly. "Sam her hands weren't just off the wheel for a few seconds. She was talking to someone and she definitely talks with her hands."
"And there was no one in the backseat? That you saw, of course." This time, Sam wasn't trying to bring her down, he was just being thorough.
"Oh-five Vipers don't have backseats, and there was no one in the seat beside her." She declared. Sam decided he'd better tell her about the e-mail and Leo's phone call.
"Mikaela, listen, I just got an e-mail not two minutes ago from Lennox. He says that I need to cancel my Christmas break plans. And that coming from him means something is up with NEST." He nodded at Leo to tell his bit.
"Yeah, yeah, and Simmons called me right before Sam got that e-mail. He said that the NEST team was on the move or whatever." If Sam didn't know Leo better, he'd think the guy was hyperventilating, but he knew that his roommate was just getting excited over the thought of more alien interactions. "He said they went to the Long Beach Naval yard and lifted off a-" he stopped because Mikaela had let out a small gasp.
"Long Beach? That's only about an hour and a half from where I saw the girl." Sam turned to look at Leo.
"Okay, this has gone from minor to blown out of the water real fast." Leo nodded. "What time did Simmons say they lifted of the base?"
"Uh, nearly dawn this morning, so about four or five California time." He said. Leave it to Simmons to get all the details from his contacts, whoever they were. What time did Lennox send you that e-mail?" Sam went to his computer and brought the one sentence of type onto the display screen.
"About five forty-five this morning, California time. So, it was sent after takeoff. They should have landed by now-" As soon as he said it, the computer bleeped signaling another e-mail had been received. He could hear his girlfriend's voice on the phone that was in Leo's hand.
"She wants to know what's going on." Sam held up a finger as he clicked on the icon that said 'open'. He motioned for Leo to look at the screen and the single sentence that was on it, again.
Will send a plane to pick you up, send dates you are out of class. –Lennox
Oh I do love cliffhangers! I'm sure you all don't but that's the fun of it you see. Thanx for reviews and keep 'em comin'! And sorry about the wait, but this semester has been kicking my a-. Anyway, I luv ya all so keep on reading and writing like good little anarchists ;)