Author's Note: Every single location I mention in the first section of this chapter, even the Burgerville in the Dalles, is a real place. I made none of them up for the purposes of this story.
O.O.O
Dancing With The Autobots
Chapter 3: A Venue and a Commercial
O.O.O
Arguably the most scenic highway in the state, Interstate 84 wound its windy, breathtaking way along the Oregon side of the mighty Columbia River, from Portland all the way into Eastern Oregon and beyond. On this typically sunny-then-rainy Pacific Northwest afternoon, a rather odd caravan made its leisurely way east along this utterly beautiful route. Driving through sudden spring showers, taking a little time to admire the stunning landscape of the Columbia Gorge from the Vista House viewpoint, stopping to appreciate the natural beauty of Multnomah Falls, they were returning from a week-long trip to the largest metropolitan area in the state. They made a quick stop in The Dalles for lunch and fuel, and cast knowing glances at the hydroelectric dam in Sherman County as they neared the tiny town of Rufus.
At first glance, the casual viewer would never think that the four vastly different vehicles had anything to do with one another, much less that they comprised a caravan. The first to streak by was a white, racing-striped Martini 935 Porsche, with two passengers in its front seats singing along very badly to the loud music vibrating the car's speakers. Not far behind it was a bright yellow classic Volkswagen Bug, and it too carried two passengers, though there was no deafening music rattling from its sound system; its passengers instead were enjoying an afternoon fast-food meal. Only a short distance behind the Bug followed two more vehicles: in the left lane, a green Toyota pickup with a large, caution-orange towing apparatus in the bed, and in the right lane, pacing the green pickup, a yellow Mitsubishi Fuso crane truck.
This is where things might have gotten a bit odd, if the casual viewer noticed that these last two vehicles had no drivers or passengers whatsoever.
Things would have gotten really weird if the viewer hadn't been quite so casual, and noticed that the two passengers in the Porsche were, in fact, human-sized robots.
In the Bug rode the only two humans in this little procession. Earth's Chief Ambassador to Cybertron, the Emissary to the Autobots and Humanity's Liaison to the Prime, the Notable and Worthy Honorary Autobot, Mister Samuel James Witwicky, munched on a turkey burger from a paper sack imprinted with "Burgerville" and shared his sweet potato fries with his lovely wife, the world's foremost expert on xenorobotic engineering. Dr. Carly Witwicky was, at that moment, slurping on a fresh blackberry milkshake.
The Ambassador's title, while real and legitimate enough to open any door in Autobot City, tended to grow longer and more complicated as a running joke. Some of the more fun-loving Autobots liked to add words here and there just to see if the media could get it right. Optimus himself had insisted on the "Humanity's Liaison to the Prime" phrase. But whenever they weren't messing with frantically note-taking reporters, the Autobots always called their human friend the childhood nickname they had first known him by.
A small, yellow LED display on the dashboard of the Bug lit up, and a youthful, friendly voice filled the cab. "Hey, Spike? Had enough time to think it over?"
"Yeff, I haff-" Spike began, but then stopped, made a 'hang on a second' gesture, and quickly swallowed the bite of burger he was chewing. "Sorry about that, Bee. Yeah, I've been mulling it over. I just want to hear what Jazz and Hoist and everybody else thinks, too."
"Okay, I'll patch us through," Bumblebee answered, and this time a red LED lit up as the Autobot initiated an open radio link to the others. "Hey, guys? I-"
The occupants of the Bug were immediately assaulted with unbearably loud music and four horribly off-key voices attempting to sing along with it.
"-We got everything you want, honey, we know the names! We are the people that can find, whatever you may need! If you got the money, honey -"
"GAH! Guys! Shut up!" Spike shouted as he and Carly reflexively clamped their hands over their ears and the Bug gave a strange lurch that might have been a bump in the road but was more likely a pained cringe.
"Wha-? Spike? Bumblebee?"
One of the voices, possibly Blaster's, could vaguely be heard as the other three continued to belt out at top volume, "In the jungle! Welcome to the jungle! Watch it bring you to your sha na na na na na na na knees, knees!"
"Make it stop!" Carly howled in visible agony.
"REWIND! EJECT!" Blaster's voice suddenly bellowed over the cacophony. "Shut your yapper circuits! Can it, Jazz!"
The music and the verbal insults being done to it ceased immediately.
About three seconds passed in blessed silence, then Grapple's slightly peeved voice came over the link and demanded, "What in the name of Vector Sigma was that supposed to be?"
"Guns 'n' Roses, Welcome to the Jungle, from their 1987 album Appetite for Destruction," Rewind supplied helpfully from where he sat in Jazz' passenger seat.
"We know that," Grapple answered with mild exasperation. "It's just - oh, never mind. Bumblebee? What's up?"
"I, uh," Bumblebee answered slowly, just finishing a quick diagnostic to make sure he hadn't blown out his audio receptors. "We just wanted to know if everyone had the chance to think over our options. Prime's going to ask for our recommendation, so we ought to narrow it down to one or two choices."
"All righty, then," Jazz agreed, "let's hear what we got."
After Grapple had seen to a small but important project the week prior, and footage for the first commercials promoting Dancing with the Autobots had been filmed, Jazz and Blaster had tapped this small group to go in search of a venue for the live finale of their show. Grapple and Hoist had been chosen to help assess the possible locations in person, because the two of them had accepted the task of overseeing construction of a reinforced, Autobot-sized ballroom stage for the competition. Spike and Carly had also been asked along for the human perspective. While Jazz and the others were thinking in terms of size and accessibility for thirty- to forty-foot tall dancing robots, the two earthlings were more accurately able to judge seating, audience comfort, parking and other factors through the eyes of the humans who would be using them. And, as much as the Autobots were generally loved and admired by the population of Earth, it was still a little easier for the managers of the possible locations to have a human to negotiate with on their own levels.
Bumblebee had come along pretty much because wherever his human best friend went, he went too. Fortunately, the little Autobot had long since parlayed his relatively small size and approachable demeanor into the position of Official Spokesbot, which came in useful on this trip. He and the Ambassador were an inseparable team, and Jazz had allowed them to do most of the schmoozing while he conferred with Blaster about the business benefits of the deals and Hoist and Grapple crawled all over the venue to get the feel for the aesthetics.
Rewind and Eject had come along mostly because Blaster forgot to let his cassettes out of his deck before they'd departed. In fact, Steeljaw and Ramhorn were still in said deck, and Blaster himself was transformed into his boom-box mode and perched in the console between Jazz's seats. Eject was having the time of his life, sitting behind Jazz's steering wheel and pretending he was winning the Indy 500 as they sped along the highway.
The trip had started with two days in Portland, visiting all the major stadiums and auditoriums they'd researched online, then went along the Sunset Highway for a few quick stops in the suburb of Hillsboro. From there, they drove to the coast to visit the seaside town of Tillamook, and then the next day took a detour to the second-largest city in the state, the university town of Eugene. After that, they went back north, stopped briefly in the State Capitol of Salem, spent one more day in Portland, and were now heading home with banks of fresh data to ponder.
"Okay," Spike said as his wife dug half a ream of papers and pamphlets out of her purse, "why don't we start with the ones we can eliminate right away? From the way I'm picturing things, the Rose Garden is just too small. So is ..." he flipped through a few of the brochures that Carly handed him to refresh his memory, "... the Memorial Coliseum." Folding the papers, he handed them back to Carly, who stuffed them into her purse again.
"Guys?" Jazz asked over the comm link.
"I concur," Hoist said in his distinctive, British accent. "Much too small for the task."
"Okay, they're out," Jazz agreed. "What else?"
"The areas inside the Expo Center were a little too small and didn't have any seating," Carly noted, folding up another stack of papers. "The Convention Center might be okay. The ceilings were certainly high enough in the main area, and they hold the Portland International Auto Show there every year. But again, we have the problem of no real seating for the type of event we want to hold. If people are going to pay a hundred dollars for a ticket, they're not going to want to sit on a folding chair."
"'Kay, then, what about the outdoor venues?" Blaster's radioed voice asked.
"Well, the-" Carly began.
"Punch buggy yellow!" Eject's voice shouted over the radio link.
"I didn't do it!" Bumblebee immediately yelped, but the metallic clank that echoed over the radio indicated that Eject, like most siblings on a long car trip, must have been more interested in finding an excuse to clobber his brother than anything else. Another clank implied that Rewind had retaliated.
"Guys..." Blaster said in a warning tone.
There was a moment of sulky silence over the radio.
"Ahem," Hoist said, going to the mighty effort of bringing things back on topic, "I personally feel we ought to rule out the State Fairgrounds and the Washington County Fairgrounds. Certainly, they're big enough, but they just weren't classy."
"The Hillsboro Stadium wasn't too bad," Carly suggested, still leafing through the endless supply of literature she had amassed. "The field was about the right size. It only seats seven thousand, though. Maybe we should put that one on our list of backup locations. Since it's outdoors, it wouldn't be so hard to build some extra seating if we had to. Same thing with the Portland International Raceway."
"The Tillamook Air Museum had some great space with those empty blimp hangars," Grapple radioed in. "I could make one of them over into a ballroom like you've never imagined!"
"Let's put that on the list of backup locations, too," Spike said neutrally, trying not to squash Grapple's enthusiasm too badly. "It had some great space, all right, but it's an hour and a half drive from Portland. I know that's not a big deal for you guys, but there's going to be a lot of people flying in from all over the country for this event: Camera crews, sponsors, reporters, probably most of the audience, too. They're not going to want to drive that far after flying in from who-knows-where. I think we should probably keep it a little closer to a major airport if we can. On the upside," he added, reaching into a cooler on Bumblebee's back seat, "there's the Tillamook Cheese Factory practically right next door!" He pulled out a shapeless lump of something cheddar-yellow and held it up with a smile. "Squeaky cheese!" he exclaimed, popping the curd into his mouth, chewing with gusto and with a clear, squeaking sound.
"Will you stop that?" Carly asked in minor exasperation. "Those are for Danny! If you keep that up, there won't be any left for him by the time we get back!"
"These are mine," Spike said defensively, even as he reached for another curd. "I bought him his own package. Besides, they're supposed to be his reward if he's good and doesn't get in trouble while we're away. Since when is our kid capable of that?"
"Oh, I wouldn't be so sure," Bumblebee laughed. "I mean, look who's baby-sitting him!"
"You're not reassuring me," Spike grinned after noshing down another lump of cheese. "Sure, Arcee's doing her best to keep him out of trouble, but on the other hand, you've got Hot Rod and Springer doing their best to get him in trouble. Two against one, I'm not sure about those odds."
"Honey," Carly said with infinite patience and a hint of a knowing smile, "it's been almost a week and we never got a single call to say that Danny destroyed anything, annoyed anyone, or broke any rules. I don't care if it is two against one, I can guarantee you who's winning that fight."
Over in Jazz's cab, Rewind and Eject cast amused glances at one another, then held up their left hands with their smallest digits extended, and, in perfect synchronization, pantomimed two someones being wrapped around someone else's dainty little finger.
Nobody else in the caravan could figure out what the sudden chorus of chuckles from Jazz's cab signified.
"Well," Jazz finally said when he stopped laughing, "back to the subject. It kinda sounds like you're gravitatin' to one venue in particular."
"Yeah," Spike answered, his eyes lighting up with the passion of a true fan as he closed the cooler and opened one final brochure. "Autzen Stadium, home of the University of Oregon Ducks."
"GO DUCKS!" Eject immediately cheered over the radio.
"Hm," Jazz said thoughtfully, considering the mostly favorable impression the college football stadium had made on him. "Well, it was definitely big enough."
"It had seating and parking to handle a crowd of fifty-four thousand," Rewind reminded them. "It's the largest sporting arena in the state."
"Eugene has the second biggest airport in the state, and they have enough hotels and accommodations to handle that many tourists," Carly agreed. "It's a pretty good-sized hub, and it's only a day trip from Autobot City, so we won't need Skyfire and Omega Supreme to ferry everybody there."
"There was plenty of space on the field to construct a beautiful stage," Grapple contributed.
"And it's the home of the Ducks!" the Pac-12 Football-loving Spike repeated happily. "All we have to do is work our finale around the football schedule, and it's perfect!"
"Well, hang on a sec," Blaster said a little uncertainly. "Autzen was an open-air stadium. I thought the weather's kinda tricky in Eugene. What if it rains?"
"Haven't you ever heard the expression," Eject said in slightly insulted tones, "It never rains at Autzen Stadium?"
"That is a complete fallacy," Rewind interrupted. "In the past year alone, records from the National Weather Service report that-"
"There's a reason why the U of O mascot is a duck, guys," Spike interrupted firmly before the twin cassettes could start picking on one another again. "But seriously, we're going to be performing there in the first part of September. The weather usually holds through early fall. I say Autzen's just what we need."
"I like it," Hoist volunteered.
"Works for me!" Grapple added.
"I'm cool," Jazz supplied.
"Then I think we're agreed," Carly said, digging into the Burgerville bag once more. "Autzen it is. Now we just have to-"
"Hey!" Bumblebee's voice suddenly shouted, the yellow LED display on his dashboard lighting up frantically. "Hey, hey, hey, hey, HEY! CARLY!"
The young woman froze, a handful of sweet potato fries halfway to her mouth. "Um, what?"
"You dropped a French fry!" the little Autobot told her with life-or-death urgency.
"My goodness, it's the end of the world," Carly answered, inspecting the floorboards beneath her feet. Picking up the offending morsel, she tossed it out the window that Bumblebee opened for her. It hit the shoulder of the highway and was gobbled up by a roadside crow before it even stopped bouncing. "There, you've been rescued from the Evil Potato Stick of Doom."
"I just don't want a repeat of last time," Bumblebee answered with a hint of a sulk.
"I said I was sorry," Carly tried.
"I know, and I believe you," the Autobot answered, "but do you have any idea how embarrassing that was? Here I went running to Medical all in a panic, thinking I'd broken a gear or a cog because something was rattling loose inside me, only to have Ratchet surgically extract a package of Twizzlers?"
"Yes, but I must say, the look on Ratchet's faceplate was worth every bit as much as the look on yours," Hoist chuckled, and everyone burst out laughing.
"HEY!" an embarrassed Bumblebee yelled, and immediately terminated the radio link.
O.O.O
Back from their trip and done reporting to Optimus, Jazz entered his private quarters in the Ark. Some 'Bots thought he was crazy for still living here, when he could have had his pick of the new, state of the art officers' quarters in Metroplex. Officially, his reason for not moving into Autobot City was that he had been given command of the day-to-day operations in the Ark, and, until such time as their original headquarters were no longer in use, it was in everyone's best interests for the base commander to actually live on base.
Besides, the Ark was simply home. His slightly askew quarters in the crashed spaceship were stylishly chaotic, just like their owner: plastered with music and movie memorabilia, stacked high with gadgets and gizmos, and completely manic with equal portions of Earth and Cybertonian culture. He loved it here. Autobot City was just too orderly for his tastes.
In the middle of this turmoil, tall and proud amongst a jumble of data pads that had been haphazardly pushed to the sides of his desk, stood a glittering, golden spire with a brilliant, multi-faceted ball atop. Grinning to himself, Jazz walked over to the desk and admired the sculpture once again. Grapple had really outdone himself when he'd made this trophy.
This was the small task that Grapple had attended to before their trip to the Portland Metro area: creating the prize to be presented to the winners at the end of Dancing with the Autobots. He'd finished itjustin time to get some fantabulous shots of it for the commercials. Grapple had the spark of an artist, and with this sculpture, he'd perfectly captured the symbolism Jazz had been hoping for. He and Hoist had carefully reviewed Jazz's tapes of various dancing and musical competitions, looking for inspiration for the trophy that needed to be built. It hadn't taken long to find it.
The trophy itself was twelve feet tall, gigantic by human standards but only moderately-sized to the average Autobot. On top was a disco ball, in homage to similar trophies that humans presented on their dancing shows, but instead of being made of silver or crystal, it was faceted with thousands of tiny gold mirror tiles. Gold, like the Ark. Gold, like Iacon in its heyday.
For that was what the base of the trophy represented: the spire of the Autobot capital of Iacon, one of the very few cities on Cybertron that had never fallen to the Decepticons during this entire, nine-million year long war. This proud symbol of the Autobots' cause, merged in this trophy with such a widely-recognized human symbol for dancing, flawlessly reflected the spirit of Earth-Cybertonian cooperation that the Autobots held so dear.
"Ya done good, Grapp," Jazz smiled to himself, then looked down at the stacks of paper that had colonized his desk while he'd been gone. Mail. He had a hard time with the concept sometimes, having been accustomed to nothing but electronic communications on Cybertron, but once he realized that mail had a subset called 'fan mail,' he'd become much more receptive of the idea.
To an Autobot of Jazz's size, the envelopes were miniscule, so he picked them up with a pair of tweezers that he kept on hand for the task. Zooming in the magnification of his optics, he flipped through the letters and read the return addresses, tossing aside three that looked like they were trying to sell him an internet/cell phone/television package, and another eight that declared his credit was already pre-approved.
He stopped when he recognized an envelope from the network that would be airing Dancing with the Autobots. Fairly sure what the letter was about, he nonetheless carefully slit the envelope open with help from the tweezers, extracted the contents, and popped the pages into a tiny slot in the side of his desk computer. Seconds later, the monitor came to life, displaying the enlarged contents of the letter.
Slowly, the Specialist's smile spread across his faceplate as he read. It was really, really, really happening! The network had picked up the show for the six episodes he had predicted, and pretty much agreed to almost everything he and Blaster had asked. They'd changed the filming schedule a bit, pushing it up three weeks earlier than Jazz had expected, but he didn't think that was a major deal-breaker. The network was handling the business of pitching to sponsors, with the caveat that they would first offer the advertising opportunity to a list of major suppliers the Autobots relied on. In addition to Starlight Music, the network claimed to have already signed Symultech Industries and Goodyear Tires.
The network was also taking responsibility for auditioning and hiring the dance instructors. Jazz hoped they remembered that all humans involved in this production were subject to final approval by the Autobots, and would have to submit to a security and background check by Prowl. He further noted that the network had agreed to let the Autobots find judges and hosts for the show from their own ranks. At this point, Jazz had only a very vague idea of what they were going to do about judges, but he was quite certain who his hosts were going to be. He just had to let them know they'd been recruited.
The network was licensing the production of commemorative hats and clothing to Columbia Sportswear, and soundtrack and video sets were to be handled through Starlight Music. A line of souvenir toys was being manufactured by some company named Hasbro. Jazz frowned beneath his visor. Hasbro? He'd never heard of them.
Advancing the screen to the page that detailed the format of the six-week show, Jazz made a mental note of the time and night of the week it would be airing. Not bad. Not bad at all. It was a time slot of a network that knew a gemstone had fallen into its hands.
"Two episodes of auditions," Jazz read to himself. "Announce the contestants at the end of the second episode ... 'kay, no problem. Three episodes of the contestants learnin' how to dance, workin' with the instructors, some backstage drama, personalities on parade ... one week of filmin' gets boiled down to an hour-long episode. Huh. Hope that don't cause Red Alert to glitch again. Final episode aired live at a venue of our choice ... prob'ly should tell 'em we got us a venue now. Nah, maybe I should wait 'til Blaster actually books it."
Reading on, Jazz stopped abruptly, scrolled back, and reread one particular paragraph a second time over. The network was arranging several talk-show interviews to promote the competition. Talk shows? How come he hadn't thought of talk shows?
Making it to the last page, Jazz's smile burst into an all-out grin. The initial proofs of two eight-second long promo spots and one twenty-second long, full commercial were completed and available for download, awaiting his approval before their first air dates at the end of this month. Quickly, he toggled on another computer with a ginormous, high-definition monitor that he used for surfing the internet in his spare time. Typing in the address spelled out in the letter, he giddily watched the media viewer pop up onscreen. This was exciting! He was about to click the Play button, when at last he hesitated.
He should probably get Optimus in here to watch this, he realized. It really wasn't Jazz's approval that the network was waiting for, it was Prime's. So the mech with the ultimate say-so should really be previewing this, too. And Ultra Magnus ought to approve it as well, because the Commander was concerned about sensitive parts of his city being broadcast on public television. Prowl should be in here too. And Kup and Red Alert, since they were all part of Autobot security and would want to make sure that the commercial didn't constitute a breach or leak of any sort.
The correct course of action would be to take the time to round up all those mechs so they could preview and approve the commercial proofs all at once.
"Nah, they can wait," Jazz said aloud, ignoring the correct course of action when a harmlessly gratifying one was available instead. He punched Play.
O.O.O
Sixteen days later, all was quiet on the Autobot front. In the past two weeks, they had fought two minor and one fairly major battle with the Decepticons, but the last few days had been peaceful and all the damages from those skirmishes had been cleaned up and repaired.
In the rec rooms throughout Autobot City, in the Command Center, around Teletraan-1 in the Ark, in private quarters in both locations, and even on the two moon bases, nearly the entire Autobot population on Earth had dropped whatever it was doing to crowd around every available television screen. According to the airtime schedule that the network had sent Jazz, the viewing world was in for a surprise in exactly one minute and seventeen seconds. That was when the first commercial for Dancing with the Autobots was going to air.
Some waited in expectant silence. Others jabbered happily with their friends and neighbors, guessing what they were going to see. All of them were excited.
O.O.O
"Woo-HOO! Soundwave! Show it again!"
Striding the halls of the Victory, deep beneath the waters of the Pacific Ocean, Starscream paused in suspicion when he heard Octane calling out over a chorus of cheering, mocking, cat-calling Decepticon voices coming from the bridge. Moments later, the second-in-command could have sworn he heard ... music?
More jeering. More wolf-whistles. Beneath that, Starscream thought a pre-recorded voice was narrating something, but the ruckus from his comrades was too loud to make anything out.
As curious as he was annoyed, Starscream strode into the bridge, only to behold half the Decepticon army crowded around a large monitor and paying attention to nothing else whatsoever. Some of them were hooting and jeering, others were just laughing their afts off. Down at the level of most of the Decepticons' knees, Rumble and Frenzy were doing ... something that didn't bear too much scrutiny, but which was drawing even more laughter from the others. Octane, Skywarp, Wildrider and Thrust seemed to be trying to out-shout each other's vulgarities as they pointed and laughed at the monitor.
"Yeah, baby!" (Starscream sneered at Octane's use of that distinctly organic term.) "You can interface with my power supply any day!"
"You take the red one," Thrust shot back. "I get the blue one! She's a hot piece of tailgate!"
"Are you kidding?" Skywarp demanded. "The blue one looks like she can cut your aft off and hand it to you on an electrum platter! Give me the pink one!"
"There's two pink ones!" Wildrider pointed out.
"Fine, I'll take both!" Skywarp leered.
"They make themselves look like a bunch of slagging idiots," Onslaught was heard to comment.
"When do they not?" Swindle countered mockingly.
"And here I thought Prime was just an old clunker," Hook sneered, doing, of all things, a pirouette, and somehow he made it look disparaging. "Oh, wait, he still is! Do they honestly expect us to take this seriously?"
"Play it again!" Thrust ordered, and finally, Starscream caught a glimpse of Soundwave sitting in front of the terminal, operating its controls. The music and narration started up again.
"Ya-HOO! Make my motor run, gorgeous!" Wildrider cat-called. "I'd love to take that one for a spin 'off-roading' for sure!"
Starscream had no idea what the others were looking at, but he felt their behavior was appalling anyway. The Seeker felt some relief in solidarity when Astrotrain, who was also watching the monitor, turned to his comrades and said in clear disgust, "I can't believe you guys are getting revved up by this. They're Autobots!"
"More like Hawt-obots!" Octane hooted, his optics never leaving the monitor.
"You know what?" Astrotrain said, tossing his hands in the air as he moved to the other side of the crowd, "I'm just going to stand over here and pretend I don't know you morons."
"Bite my lugnuts," Octane challenged his fellow Triple-Changer. "You don't have the-"
"What is going on here?" Starscream finally demanded, striding into the room as if he'd just arrived. He was rather pleased to watch everyone jump and turn guiltily in his direction. Octane and Thrust, he noted, looked guiltier than the rest. A clearly embarrassed Skywarp looked everywhere except at the Air Commander, but Wildrider just giggled in that insane manner of his and turned back to the monitor.
Angry at the lack of response to his question, Starscream was about to repeat himself when he finally caught sight of the monitor and what was playing on it. He fell silent, his mandible hanging open in the aborted process of forming a word, and just stared.
"Televised content from one of the human broadcast channels," Soundwave finally explained in his eerily calm monotone.
"I can see that," Starscream snapped, not sure what else to say. "Has Megatron been informed of this?"
"Megatron's presence has been requested," Soundwave answered unflappably.
"Excellent. Then-"
"Megatron is here," said a cold voice from the doorway, and this time, even Starscream flinched visibly as they turned to face their Supreme Leader. Brushing past Starscream with barely a glance, Megatron demanded, "I suppose you have some purpose for disturbing me?"
Completely out of the blue, Starscream suddenly realized that this was one of his rare, lucky days. Megatron had actually overheard him making a statement that seemingly acquiesced to their Commander's superiority, rather than a statement implying that Megatron should be thrown on the trash heap with yesterday's obsolete junk. That's probably why their leader all but ignored him just now - he couldn't think of a reason for an overt display of ire.
"Indeed, Lord Megatron," Soundwave explained evenly, and the crowd parted to allow their iron-fisted ruler an unfettered view of the monitor. "This broadcast requires your immediate attention."
"Very well, Soundwave," Megatron conceded as he placed his hands on the console and leaned forward towards the viewscreen in concentration. "Proceed."
Taking advantage of the other Decepticons backing away, Starscream pushed forward so he, too, could see more than just a glimpse of whatever it was the others were so excited about. He positioned himself behind Soundwave's chair just as the monitor began a slow fade from black to royal blue, coupled with rising notes of music. It was human music, so Starscream couldn't be bothered to pinpoint what genre it was. Instrumental, no voice, no electronics, that's all he noted. Then, another light, this one silvery-white, grew from the bottom of the screen like a sunrise, backlighting ten figures standing in a row. Though they were only dark shadows at the moment, Starscream could easily recognize the individual shape of each silhouette.
So, apparently, could Megatron. "Optimus Prime?" he asked, staring at the boxy, tall figure in the center, his normal tone of disdain clearly mingling with confusion at the odd theatricality of the broadcast.
"Prepare for the ballroom extravaganza that spans two worlds!" the commercial's narrator began, and the screen burst into an explosion of glitter and light. When the flare faded, the set appeared to be a ballroom curtained with blue velvet - the Decepticons had no way of knowing that the Autobots had hastily converted one of their training gymnasiums into a commercial set by hanging yards of fabric on cables and polishing the floor until it shone. They were more focused on the footage of the Autobot, Inferno, gracefully spinning his partner Firestar around once, then taking her by the hand and waist so the two of them could dance a circle around each other with some amazingly complicated footwork. "The music!" the narrator exclaimed, followed by another glittery flare which faded into a clip of Arcee and Springer lunging into the provocative tango pose that had nearly cost Prowl his optics. "The moves!"
"Yee-OW! You can move in my direction any time, baby!" Onslaught leered, and immediately, everyone was cheering and jeering and laughing at the commercial, drowning out the narrator as the next bit of footage showed Ironhide and Chromia launching into some sort of dance that involved them swinging around and bumping afts. Starscream finally figured out what Rumble and Frenzy were doing: They were mockingly repeating the steps they saw onscreen, to the laughter of those around them. He clued in to the two punks' antics when they tried the same aft-bump, and missed entirely. Frenzy lost his balance and nearly fell to the floor.
"I wouldn't mind putting a few dents in her chassis, if you know what I mean!" Ramjet exclaimed over the chorus of cat-calls and wolf-whistles.
"Oh, yeah, that she-bot really revs my afterburners!" Thrust answered. "Just give me one breem with her and-"
"SILENCE!" Megatron roared furiously.
Every Decepticon immediately shut his vocal processor and stood ramrod-straight, terrified that they'd pushed Megatron's ire over the edge. Even Rumble and Frenzy did not dare twitch.
Two for two, Starscream reflected smugly. Megatron was yelling at everybody BUT me that time.
"Repeat the broadcast from the beginning," Megatron peevishly instructed Soundwave.
The screen went blank, then the lights and music faded in once more. Fortunately, the silence in the room continued, though Starscream noticed Wildrider and Skywarp quietly making vulgar gestures when they thought Megatron wasn't looking.
The commercial played again, and in addition to the parts they had already seen, it continued on with Optimus Prime elegantly twirling Elita One and then dropping her into a graceful dip, followed by the twin brothers, Sunstreaker and Sideswipe, doing something that involved leaping, twisting, and striking odd poses. Starscream knew humans called the style "hip hop," though he wasn't sure where or when he'd heard that phrase, or why he even cared. Still, for reasons he couldn't even explain to himself, the egotistical Starscream found himself reflecting that though he had never danced a step in his life, his moves simply had to be better than everything he'd just witnessed.
The commercial ended with a strikingly showy display of the beautiful trophy that Grapple had created, rotating slowly, the disco ball glittering with a thousand tiny flares of golden light. "Watch as Cybertron's finest dance for the right to claim the trophy," the narrator continued. "Dancing with the Autobots - coming this August!"
The image faded. For a long moment, all remained perfectly, nervously, silently still. Soundwave, the one exception, turned in his chair with his legendary unshakeable calm, facing Megatron and awaiting instructions.
Finally, with a deeply crafty, thoughtful tone, Megatron ordered, "Repeat transmission."
He didn't know why, but Starscream suddenly had a bad feeling about this. He watched with a growing sense of apprehension as the commercial replayed itself. Megatron was pondering something that was beyond any of their comprehension; that much was obvious by the slightly lost and nonplussed expressions on his fellow Decepticons' faceplates.
"Freeze picture," Megatron ordered just before the commercial ended, and the image of the trophy stopped in mid-rotation. He stared at the monitor for a long, brooding moment.
Behind him, Starscream heard Motormaster whisper carefully to someone else, "Prime's nothing! I'd show that Elita One why they call me Motormaster!"
"And why they call me Thrust!" came the whispered answer.
He worked with a bunch of boors. That's all Starscream had to say on the issue.
"Starscream," Megatron finally spoke, casting a glance at his second-in-command.
"Yes, mighty Megatron?" Starscream asked, forcing his tone to sound respectful. No sense pushing his luck today.
"What do you see when you view this broadcast?"
Starscream had an immediate answer for that. "I see a bunch of Autobots making utter fools of themselves," he spat disdainfully.
"And that is all?" Megatron demanded.
A few of the Decepticons looked at one another in confusion, and Starscream understood precisely how they felt. What, exactly, was Megatron asking? "I see Optimus Prime making himself out to be the biggest fool of them all," the Seeker added, for lack of a better answer.
"Of course you would fail to see the significance," Megatron condescended. "Even if it is right before your optics." Turning back to the monitor, he stared cunningly and greedily at the image of the golden sculpture onscreen. "I must have that trophy!" he declared covetously, slamming his fist on the console for emphasis.
Starscream groaned inwardly. He just knew Megatron was going to say something like that.
O.O.O
Continued in Chapter 4 ...
