Sortie was pacing back and forth across the ground, waiting for the other autobots to show up. She was still trying to come up with a way to get in contact with Allie to explain to her that she was still alive. She could email her, but that would require going out in public, which wasn't an option right now. What if she got kicked out of Yale? No, they didn't kick people out for going missing. Did they? She rubbed her forehead, trying to stop thinking about things she couldn't fix. She needed to be worrying about the problems at hand, like the fact that she was a cyborg and there were giant robots on earth.
Sortie heard loud footsteps getting closer. She stopped walking and looked up. A yellow autobot that was shorter than Sideswipe and Ratchet walked into the clearing.
"Hey guys, what was so important that we had to stop looking for the allspark? It'd better be good because Optimus isn't very happy about it." He said, his voice sounded younger than Sideswipe's.
"This is a bit weird, so you can't freak out." Sideswipe said then pointed at Sortie.
"Holy Primus!" The yellow bot shouted and jumped back.
"What are you so worried about? I don't even come up to your knee." Sortie shot.
"I thought humans were fully organic. What's wrong with this one?" He asked.
"There is nothing wrong with me!" Sortie protested.
"Bumblebee, relax. She was almost killed in a car accident and the only way to fix her was to use some cybertronian parts." Ratchet explained.
"Not to be mean or anything but why did you bother to save her?" He asked.
"Cause she saved Sideswipe from getting stolen." Ratchet said, looking at Sideswipe.
"You got stolen?" Bumblebee asked, trying to choke back laughter.
"No I did not!" Sideswipe protested, "I almost did."
"Yeah, you would have, if I hadn't been there." Sortie said.
Sideswipe folded his arms and glared at Sortie. Sortie folded her arms and stuck out her tongue at him.
The yellow bot knelt down, "Hi, I'm Bumblebee." He said.
"I'm Sortie." She replied. So this was the autobot with the coordinates implanted in him.
"Most humans aren't techno-organic, right? It's just you." He asked.
"Yeah, as of a few hours ago." She replied, assuming a techno-organic was the autobot word for a cyborg.
"Cool. I've never talked to a human before. What's earth like?" He asked.
"Um, a lot of things?" Sortie replied, not knowing how to answer that question.
"Well, what kind of stuff do you do?"
"I'm studying the human brain."
"So what's the big deal?" A female voice boomed across the clearing.
"Arcee." Bumblebee stood up.
"What is so important that we had to stop looking for the allspark?" She demanded.
This was the first female autobot that she had seen. Assuming that the autobots had genders. Her voice sounded female and she stood like a girl.
"Sideswipe almost got stolen, she saved him then got hit by a car, and Ratchet saved her." Bumblebee spurted out.
"You almost got stolen?" Arcee asked.
"Why is that the biggest concern here that I almost got stolen? There is a fragging techno-organic here who said she can help us find the allspark." Sideswipe said in utter frustration.
"Really?" Arcee asked.
"She said she studies human's brains." Bumblebee interjected.
"Oh, so she's smart, I take it. It'll be a nice change from dealing with you two idiots." She jeered.
"Hey!" Bumblebee protested.
Instead of kneeling down like Bumblebee had, Arcee remained standing. "I'm Arcee, I specialize in weapons." She said.
"I'm Sortie, I specialize in brains." She replied.
"Nice." Arcee nodded.
"I hope that you have a good reason to stop our search, Sideswipe." A deep voice announced.
The other autobots stood up and faced the new autobot. He was a lot taller than the others.
"Before anyone can say anything, I met someone who said she can help us find the allspark." Sideswipe quickly said.
"You talked to a human?" Optimus demanded.
"Not exactly. She helped me out of a tough situation and then she got hit by a car. I felt obliged to help her, so I brought her to Ratchet to see what he could do." Sideswipe explained.
Optimus looked down at Sortie. She started to take a step back, but changed her mind and stood her ground.
He's not so scary. She thought. Yeah, he's just a 32 foot tall, transforming robot from another planet. Probably loaded to the teeth with super advanced weapons, but definitely not scary. Cutting open someone's head to operate on their brain is much scarier. Definitely not scary.
"What is your name, earthling?" He asked
"Sortie. Sortie Mackenna." She said, swallowing.
"Sortie, I'm sorry that you have become wrapped up with us. We tried to keep you humans out of our conflict, but we are too obvious to stay hidden for long." He explained.
"No, its-it's fine." She stammered. "I mean if it's a conflict that could destroy my planet, then I'm glad to help."
"I take it they explained our situation." He said.
"Yes." She replied.
"Sideswipe said that you might be able to convert the coordinates Bumblebee has into earthling so we can find the allspark." Optimus said.
"No promises, but I'm not too bad with numbers so I thought I'd take a crack at it." Sortie shrugged.
"We would all appreciate it if you would try." Optimus said. "Bumblebee, can you give her the coordinates?"
Bumblebee stood up, walked over to her, opened a compartment on his forearm and handed her a small chip.
"Um, what do I do with it?" She asked.
"Take the blue cord and connect it with the green one on the underside of your forearm. The coordinates should appear in your optic." Ratchet explained.
Sortie followed his instructions and a bunch of strange symbols appeared in her optic. At first they didn't make sense, but when she closed her eye she could read them like they were earth numbers.
That is really weird, but kind of cool.
She took a deep breath and prepared to do the hardest math problem of her life.
The sky was completely dark and the moon was up by the time she finished converting the numbers. She stretched her arms and sat up straight, she was pretty stiff from sitting hunched over for so long.
"So, I think I figured out where the allspark is." She announced.
"Really?" Bumblebee asked.
"Yeah, but if my geography is right, and I think it is, it's in Los Angeles, California." She said.
"Where?" Arcee asked.
"That's on the west coast of the US." Sortie said.
"How far away is that." Bumblebee asked.
"Two thousand eight hundred and eighty miles." She sighed.
"Ugh, that's a long way." Sideswipe grumbled.
"We're going to have to go there anyway, so you better well get over it." Ratchet said.
The autobots stood up. Sortie remained sitting.
"Alright then, are you coming Sortie?" Sideswipe asked.
"Am I coming?" She asked.
"Yeah, we can't just leave you here by yourself. And it's kinda my fault that you can't go anywhere. I mean, if you want to." He offered.
Sortie looked around at the other autobots, and none of them seemed to be against it. But she was torn between the autobots who she had just met and needed her help to save the earth and Yale. She had wanted to be a neuroscientist since the tenth grade and she was only two years away from getting a PhD, could she really leave now? And what about Allie? She was her best friend; she couldn't just leave without any kind of explanation. Knowing Allie, she was probably going crazy with worry right now.
"Is there any way that I can get in contact with a friend first? Just so I can tell her that I'm not dead." She asked.
"You could email her." Bumblebee suggested.
"What?" Ratchet asked.
"It's this thing that humans can do using the internet to send messages to each other." He replied.
"Wait, how do you know what the internet is? And better yet, how come you know how to speak English? There is no way that there is another planet with one of the same languages as earth." Sortie asked.
"We linked up with your internet and downloaded a few of the most common languages on earth so we could communicate with humans if we absolutely had to." Arcee explained.
"Oh, that makes sense, I think." Sortie said.
"Alright, we'll have enough time to discuss this on the way to California, let her email her friend." Ratchet interrupted.
"Okay, okay." Bumblebee said, "What's your email address?"
After about ten minutes of telling Bumblebee what to type, Sortie had told Allie that she was fine and with some 'friends'. She didn't know how long it would be until she could come back, but not to worry because she hadn't been kidnapped and it wasn't anything illegal. She also said to not tell anyone that she had gotten the email.
"Ugh, this isn't going to help. She's just going to call the FBI anyway. What am I kidding, she probably already has." Sortie groaned.
"It sounds like your friend worries a lot." Sideswipe said.
"A lot doesn't begin to describe it." She replied.
"We should start driving to California then." Optimus said.
Sortie found the remains of her clothes by the base of an oak tree and scooped them up. The bottoms of her jeans had been ripped off and were about the same length as Bermuda shorts, but they were still wearable. She slid them on a snapped the button shut; they felt odd over the metal. Her shirt was in a lot worse condition however. She ripped off the already torn sleeves and ripped off the tattered parts of the collar. She slid it on over her head and felt a little bit better. There may have been a hole across the side, but she didn't feel as awkward as she had before.
When she turned around she was confronted with an assortment of cars. There was the orange Lamborghini, which was obviously Sideswipe. The silver Hummer HX was probably Ratchet. Bumblebee had been the only yellow one so he must have been the Mazda Kabura with black racing stripes. Optimus was the biggest of the autobots so he must have been the biggest vehicle, the blue Mack Titan with red flames. The only one left was the blue Jeep Rubicon with some pink detailing so that must have been Arcee.
"Wow." She muttered.
"Pretty cool, right?" Bumblebee turned his wheels back and forth.
"Yeah, but you guys couldn't have picked any more obvious cars to transform into, could you?"
"What do you mean?"
"I mean, hardly anyone owns a Lamborghini and no one owns a Kabura because it's a concept car. They are really obvious cars to be driving around. And what if we have to fight some of these decepticons? That's going to cause some damage and attract the government's attention. So if a Lamborghini, a Kabura, a Hummer, a Rubicon, and a Titan are reported every time there is an attack, they are going to come after us. And then we won't be able to hide with such an odd collection of rare cars." She said.
"These aren't normal earthling vehicles?" Optimus asked.
"No. Maybe one car by itself, but all of you together is just as bad as attaching neon signs to yourselves that said transforming alien robot." She said.
"Oh well. Get in my horribly obvious disguise and let's go." Sideswipe popped open his passenger side door.
Sortie climbed in and buckled her seatbelt.
"What, you don't trust my driving abilities?" Sideswipe asked, his voice coming through the radio.
"It's just a habit. And what if one of the Decepticons attacks us and smashes your hood in. I'd rather not go through the windshield." She said.
"You know there aren't any Decepticons on earth yet, right?"
"No, I don't. How can you tell?"
"You have something called an energon scanner built into your processor. Yours won't be very strong because you've never used it before. But it picks up traces of energon that are given off by all Cybertronians. Everyone's energon trace is different so eventually you will be able to tell the difference between them."
"How does that prove that there isn't any on earth?"
"Because Ratchet and Optimus aren't picking any up on their scanners, and they never miss anything."
Then Bumblebee's voice came on the radio, "Hey Sortie, why does your voice sound so different?"
"Bee! Get off my comm. Link!" Sideswipe protested.
"Hey, just because Sortie is riding with you doesn't mean you are the only one who gets to talk to her."
"It's called an accent, Bumblebee. I have what's called a Brooklyn accent." She said before Sideswipe could protest more.
"How did you get it?"
"Well I was raised with it. My parents and my brothers all talk like I do so I just started talking like them too. It's a learned habit."
"Why do people from Brooklyn talk like that but people from other places have different accents?"
Oh boy, I have no idea how to answer that. "Um, I think it has something to do with the way people changed previous accents over a long period of time. I'm not really sure, that was never something that I learned."
"That sounds confusing."
"There are a lot of confusing things about earth."
Suddenly a loud series of electronic warbles, clicks and screeches came on the radio.
"Damn, what is that?" Sortie asked, covering her ears,
"Um, remember how I told you that there aren't any Decepticons on earth?" Sideswipe asked.
Then a huge Cybertronian crashed in front of them, followed by several other, smaller ones.
"We we're wrong."
"Prime!" The biggest Decepticon roared aiming a cannon that was attached to his wrist at the Mack Titan.
What had Sortie gotten herself into?