CH 4

Out of the bag

Victoria steamed as she was finally let out of custody. She walked down to the street and checked her watch. The taxi should be pulling up any minute. She shook her head at the thought that Frank would probably avoid any use of vehicular travel for at least three months. She tried imagining him on a bike. She nodded in agreement with her image that yes Frank was so stringy he would fit well on a bike. Her appearance was far from stringy. She was wearing a cream colored suit that didn't hide her feminine features. Her dark brown hair was in it's place. Bangs played around her face and a neat tail of hair pulled behind a large barrette. She looked like a reporter. In the past people have told her that she should give it a shot, but she had little interest in standing in front of a camera. She loved being in the air too much. But she also loved her role of being on a team who would find out what was going on in the world and letting everyone know.

Her fingers tapped on the packet of papers that she was given. What a bunch of bureaucratic bull. She couldn't talk about how the military was in cahoots with the mechanoids. Nor could she tell anyone that she had seen many of them. As far as the military were concerned, they would rather have the public believe that the yellow robot went out of commission. Their official response so far was 'no comment'. She did wonder just how many there were. She saw four straight out. And behind them were a handful of assorted vehicles that weren't exactly standard military equipment. Bright, flashy and colorful sports vehicles and bikes. Not standard at all. The taxi pulled up and Victoria swallowed with unease. Could she even trust that a car was a car anymore?

"You okay?"

Sam was sitting comatose against the wall. He picked his head up to look and see who. He didn't make much connection. Looking down at his phone he saw that three hours had passed. No calls. He sighed.

"No," he replied in a flat but bitter tone. "I'm not okay. I just watched my best friend get himself killed while the whole world thinks they just saw another exciting episode of Robot Wars." He got to his feet.

"No they don't." Troy replied evenly. "A lot of people got killed today." Sam looked around to see that many other people were loitering around staring at their non responsive cell phones.

"That doesn't make me feel better." Sam muttered. He was being selfish but he didn't care.

"They want all the students and faculty down in the auditorium for an announcement."

Sam's heart froze. A good deal of population on campus has an inkling suspicion that the guy who was seen on every channel around the world might be roaming around in their midst's. And three hours ago he was just dumb enough to admit it.

Sure enough, a sea of white eyeballs flashed among the crowd acknowledging Sam's presence. He had to catch a chair to prevent himself from falling over in shock.

The speech wasn't overly important. Just letting everyone know in the vicinity that less than thirty miles away there was an attack on our people. Just in case somehow, that little factoid had escaped them. At some point Sam looked around for his roommate Leo. If anything he was probably back in the dorm on his computer. Seriously, Leo could have just as well did online from home. He soon dropped his gaze as too many people met his eyes. He tried to ignore his senses the best that he could but he couldn't shrug off what felt like walls closing in on him.

Sam's evening wasn't about to get any better.

It was getting late. Sam spent most of his time pseudo hiding on his way to the dorm. The halls of his building were full of open doors as usual. His dad had a no locked doors policy but this was ridiculous. TVs and internet streams were playing steady through out all the rooms. The only good thing was that people were clustered into the rooms leaving the hallway relatively clear. A large portion of media was stuck on one talk show speaker who was having callers and webcam users call in and give their advice and thoughts about what happened. Why the one station was favored Sam couldn't tell until he heard a very familiar voice. www dot the real effing deal-

"What are you doing!" Sam demanded as he stumbled through his door. Leo groaned for a moment. Then brightened up as he realized this as an opportunity.

"Oh hey! This is my roommate, mi hombre Sam." Leo greeted taking as much effort to be center in the little camera's bubble.

"No! Don't disconnect, keep it rolling. Sam? As in Sam Witticky?"

"Witwiky" Sam replied in habit. Reality kicked him in the stomach. If he hadn't entered until a few seconds later the show would have scrapped Leo's call, writing him off as an airtime whore with nothing intelligent to say. Sam's head beaded with droplets of sweat as he stared at his roommate.

"Yeah, I was with this guy when that major mondo robot villian was after him!" Leo boasted.

"Right, no you have to stop this. You can't be doing this." Sam reached over in attempts to disconnect the camera.

"Hey! You know the law! No touchy on any of my stuff unless I say so. And you know what I say? I say, nooo!"

"Leo, I can't believe you would do this to me. You know how low key I've been trying to, and then you just invite the entire media circus into my home.

"Dorm."

"Whatever. Leo!"

"Hey, come o-"

"Right there, right in front of me. In my own room. I practically sleep there. I know you don't understand, I don't know why you don't understand. I would think it's obvious as to why it should be understand, stood."

"Cut to commercial."

"Hia, chill bro, chill! Don't try to hide it, you're a star now. Everybody knows who you are, you might as well accept it." Leo waved his arm to introduce the camera.

"Yeah getting my face plastered all across the world was great. Yeah, no. Love the fame. Do you have any idea how hard it is to get a new social security number? It's not easy and I'm still fighting with, credit card fraud. I can't even buy socks. Socks Leo! Without people looking at me like . . ."

Sam continued to pelt his roommate with low fast talk. The only thing Leo was able to manage was a few squeaks of consonants.

"And I don't want you saying anything bad about my car!"

"Sam!" One of the monitors shouted to him. Sam turned with the typical deer in headlights look he had when he was nervous.

"Why don't you tell us about you're car."

That tricky charismatic bastard. He somehow managed to get a metaphysical gun to Sam's head. All through the guise of pleasant chit chat. It didn't help that Leo was quick to flank him.

Sam sat defensively along side of Leo who was too busy realigning his camera to notice. The other monitor announced Sam's name and face to the world, again. Sans social security number this time at least.

"So Sam, you are the man with the car that turns into a robot." He knew just where to articulate and pause.

"Sure." Sam replied wiggling like a worm with a hook in him. A broad smile crossed the host's face and Sam could swear he saw a flint of evil.

"So why don't you tell us about this," dramatic pause, "robot."

"What? Like, how- what you mean?"

"His name is Bumblebee." Leo jumped at the initiative. "He's a super advanced robot from outer space. Yeah, you can go to my website, tells you everything about what they were doing and where they landed. All the way back before the media or anybody else even acknowledge they were here. Again my website is www dot the Real Eff-"

"Sam, his name is Bumblebee?" Sam took a second to pull his glare off of Leo to look at the monitor. "Did you name him that?"

"What? No! I wouldn't name my car Bumblebee, that's just-" He caught himself before he said something insulting to his friend's name. "No, um it's like this. We can't speak their language, okay. It's like impossible for us. So they just chose new names, or translated the best that they could. Ya." He licked his lips. "Probably because he likes yellow and black. And because he's small and a pretty good fighter. Or he scouts. Like a bee."

"They, Sam? Just how many of them are there."

Fear rolled through Sam's eyes. He uncomfortably shifted in his chair. "I um, I don't know all of," he winced at his word of all, "um, two."

Wow! Roll a bluff check! Idiot.

"What?" Leo squawked at Sam's guess. "Comm'On they're are waaaaay more than two. You got Optimus, and what's the black one's n-?" Sam swiped his foot into a leg of Leo's chair. "What?"

"You know what? No! I shouldn't be doing this." Sam stood up from his chair.

"Wait, wait, wait, Sam. Okay, we'll just stick to your car. Okay? Does it, he? Have a personality?"

"Yea. Why wouldn't he?"

"What kind of personality."

Sam knew this one well. But when he opened his mouth to answer he realized that personality wasn't exactly something you could summarize in a handful of sentences. He stuck to the basics.

"He's usually pretty upbeat. Likes to show off, but he's really sensitive."

"Your car's an ass." Leo interrupted as he was sprawled out in comfort over his chair.

"What?"

"Your car. Remember that time he sprayed me down with that nasty yellow shit." Leo sounded like he was remembering a joke a friend played on him. If it wasn't funny at the time it ended up being a good laugh for later.

"You deserved that, you were acting like a total jerk! I mean, I would have done the same thing. Plus you were dragging Simmons around with you and you know how much Bumblebee hates him. And I told you not to talk bad about my car!"

"What does Bumblebee have against Seymour anyways?"

"Right now isn't the time to get into it." Sam growled.

"Why not? I really want to know."

"Drop it."

"Dude just tell me."

'Because Simmons kidnapped me from from him and then tortured him!' He didn't say it. Wanted to, didn't. But the look on his face conveyed that Leo should immediately drop the topic. Leo's hands went up in surrender.

"Know what. This is stupid. Everyone wants to know about these robots. Fine. There are two groups of these robots. The Autobots, who are good. And the Decepticons. Megatron, who thought that putting up my face across the world would lead to my capture and make his quest to destroy earth easier, which it failed thankfully, is the leader of the Decepticons. Yeah, and the Autobots, which my car is one of them! Came to this planet to protect us from the Decepticons. So all those people out there who think-"

"And how is it exactly you know that the Autobots that you speak of are truly the good guys?" This seemed to be what the host was waiting for. I good chunk of steak to sink his teeth into. With those perfectly white teeth that Sam saw the glint of evil in. "I mean, what exactly do they gain out of this?"

"Wha- Well. A place to call home I guess." Sam trailed off as he felt the trap closing in on him.

"What's wrong with their home?"

"Well, Megatron destroyed it."

"Oh. So Megatron shows up to this planet, along with his deception friends. Causes havoc to our cities. Am I right Sam? That is what happened in Mission City is it not? And magically more alien robots show up, who look just like them and all they want to do is play heroes?"

"Wai- but it's not like that!"

"No? Sam. Did it not seem strange to you that they all just happened to show up all at the same time and suddenly all this damage and chaos started happening?"

"Yeah but that's because they were fighting for-"

"Oh fighting. So it wasn't enough for them to fight on their own planet, they had to take it to ours?"

"N-"

"I don't know about you Sam but I don't find it entertaining in the least to have a bunch of savage unfeeling monsters show up on my planet just so they can play Godzilla in our cities!"

"Stop this! You're not even giving me a-"

"Tell me Sam! Why do you have a robot car anyways? Was it some sort of protection money deal to keep you from speaking out against them? Do you fear it? Does it watch you to keep you in line?"

"DON'T TALK BAD ABOUT MY CAR! My car gave his life to protect people! PEOPLE LIKE YOU!" A fury of white hot emotion screamed from Sam's lungs as his voice stammered to keep up. Leo sat stunned as he was still reeling from the relentless antagonizing to his roommate. Sam's face flushed with blood as he stood heaving and shaking at the camera. Leo suddenly jumped to his feet and yanked out the cords to his connection.

"Sam!" Leo pleaded as he tried to catch Sam before Sam fled the room. Out in the halls everyone was gathered staring at Sam's door. It whipped open and Sam burst out. He stopped when he saw all the people closing in around him. The walls were getting closer. They were sprouting spikes. Sam's dry, bloodshot eyes frantically looked for a way out of the mass. He back peddled away from everyone. He was terrified, confused, alone.

"Just leave me alone!" Sam shrieked as he bolted down the least populated path.

"SAM!" Leo called out to him. He turned back to the crowd with disbelief. "I don't know what happened! The guy just started attacking him!"

-
Sam needed to find some place safe. Somewhere away from the sea of eyes that stared at him. Who wanted to close in on him. Maybe they wanted to hurt him. And Bumblebee wasn't there to protect him. Sam swallowed a brick. He could hardly see straight. He found a lonely stairway to crawl under. He barely managed to get himself curled up into a ball when his phone went off. He fumbled through his pockets and pulled it out handling it as if it was molten rock. He glanced down at the display.

W Lennox

Sam dropped it and brought his sleeve up to his mouth and tried stifling a seizure to his diaphragm. Not now. He couldn't take it. He knew what he had done was stupid. Stupid and life destroying. The last thing he needed was to pick up the phone to hear Lennox proclaim, 'Sam, Bumblebee is dead. Oh and by the way, because of what you've done we need to lock you up, like forever!' He picked up the phone and slammed the outside buttons forcing the phone to be silent. He then curled up and fought off an attack of hyperventilation.

It was now Friday morning and it was astronomy 101. And it was the last place Leo could scratch through his head where he could find his roommate.

"Sam!" Leo bolted around the desks to get to Sam's side. Sam was rolled up in a little ball over his desk near the back of the room close to the exit. He was trying to keep a low profile. It wasn't working and it didn't help that his roommate was blurting out his name. Leo took a seat next to Sam's and nearly toppled the chair over as he leaned over to talk to him. "Sam I didn't think he was going to do that. Sam! I'm sorry! I only did that interview last night because I thought it would help let people know that most of those robots are on our side. That guy just," Leo trailed off in frustration. "Look, I got a lot of hits on my website last night and I wrote everything on why that guy was wrong. I need you to-"

"I don't want to talk about it." Sam muttered through his arm. Leo nodded in understanding but he couldn't let the subject drop.

"And that thing about you're car being a jerk, it was a joke. I didn't think you were going to take it seriously. Sam I," Leo paused and lowered his head. "Sam I didn't know!"

How could you not know! You practically STALK my car!

"I didn't know it was Bumblebee!"

Sam started coming apart at the seams. He clutched his arms tighter. After a long struggle he composed himself enough to get his voice audible. "Leo, I don't want to talk about it, okay? I don't want to talk to you. I don't want to talk about super robots and I don't want to think about my car! Please. I just want to pretend that my life is normal just like everybody else's." Sam's voice was constricted. It had to be or he'd loose it. Leo stepped out of the desk. It made a racket compared to the quite room. He shuffled down a few rows and found an empty spot a few seats in front of Sam. Sam was motionless except for his eyes that followed Leo's movements. His eyes also pinpointed the number of people who were listening into the conversation but were careful not to stare. The people continued to watch Sam out of the corners of their eyes.

The classroom was sparse today. A lot of people didn't think class was nearly as important as people dying. Nevertheless, this class went on. Sam never moved out of his ball like state except for once, when his phone rang. He fumbled for it and hung up when he saw that it was from Lennox. Sam hated this. He expected the world to bear down at him any moment. He came to class for a distraction, but it failed pathetically to the distraction of trying to run for his life, resurrect Optimus Prime and saving the world. At the moment of the first ring that erupted from Sam's phone, Sam flinched with such force that his muscles felt like they had been torn apart, even continuing to burn minutes afterward. He expected his professor, who was very keen to call out Sam in the past, to charge at him yelling and screaming, reducing Sam to a pile of worms, sniveling and infested with tears and snot. He did not though. He'd allow the 'do not interrupt me with cellphones' rule to slide just this once. He cast over a momentary glare but made a point to keep it short. After all, everyone else got a free pass to grieve in agony over their lost or missing friends. Just because Einstein boy was difficult and eccentric or that his friend happened to be a giant robot didn't mean he deserved exclusion. Besides, the kid looked like he'd break if somebody breathed on him the wrong way.

That class came and went and the one following it was canceled. His class schedule was set up to purposely give him a free afternoons on Fridays. Now he was downright dreading it. The time was now reaching eleven o'clock in the morning. He stood at the doors staring out of the windows. He didn't know where to go. He wanted to go home, wanted to be with Mikaela. He didn't want to talk. He couldn't stand the thought of talking. He just wanted to be with somebody who cared about him, wrapped up in her warmth. But he couldn't go to her, he could barely make himself move through the university doors. He picked up the phone to her number. She had called eight times since he turned off his phone this morning. Lennox called five and his parents called a whopping twenty three times. His mom. And he always thought his mom hated his car. At least she knew how important the car robot was to him. He didn't bother to listen to the voice mail or check the text messages. He wanted to, but not as much as he didn'twant to.

The moment of distraction was enough to push him through the doors. The warm breeze hit his face and it was a cloudy overcast day. When the breeze stopped it was horribly humid. Sam walked through the lawn heading in no where particular. He most certainly didn't want to go back to his dorm. He was glad that the other students were avoiding him as much as they were. The last thing he wanted to do was explain to them the particulars to having giant aliens for friends. Another plus side was people weren't outright attacking him. Which is what he was mostly expecting.

Media cameras and reporters on the other hand were eager to jump at the chance to have him explain to them what it's like to have giant aliens for friends. He turned out to a sidewalk and suddenly discovered he was surrounded by them. They got in his face, screaming his name at him. Boons and lights hoovered around him. His panic turned into a daze as his mind and body drew a blank at what he should do. His eyes drifted for something comfortable. The yellow Camaro parked at the edge of the sidewalk. Yellow Camaro!

Second sign of dealing with the loss of a loved one is denial. Sam stared at the racing striped Camaro. Okay, he'd gone crazy he'd admit that. How do you not go crazy with technologically advanced alien mathematical equations cramming to find a place to file themselves away in the recesses of the gray matter in his brain. But even Sam wouldn't accept the idea that he was now going delusional. Yet he couldn't break away from what he was seeing. Soon though, the reporters started looking at it too. It revved it's engine even though no driver was seen. Sam in a zombified state, walked towards the car. A few steps in, then a few steps more he bolted into a run and screeched his voice.

"BUMBLEBEE!" His emotions fluttered through his body but his mind was in an absolute stupor. A few steps away from dropping his hands on the hood of the car to make sure he wasn't imagining this, he halted. His perfect yellow paint job was marred with blisters, welts, deep scratches and cracks. Even his nano-precision puzzle pieces could be seen easily by the distortion of damage. Sam swallowed. "Bumblebee? What are you doing here?"

The door popped open and a soft voice with violin and guitars responded.

# Grab a hold of my hand, get all your friends and just run away. You know it ain't a crime, to step out of line; and don't do it to say, it's your life come on and live it, here's your chance to say you did it we don't have to stay, I'll take you away. Let me take you away #

The media personnel had a good proportion of Sam and Bumblebee surrounded, but they knew to keep a healthy distance. Sam trotted to the drivers seat and stepped in. The door tried closing but it crunched and jarred open again. Sam looked up through the interior of the car. His mind still tried to reel as he saw how Bumblebee was literally falling apart at the seams. Puzzle pieces held gaps all the way from hairline to the size that Sam could put a fingernail through. The engine grated sickly as Bumblebee started driving off. Bumblebee did a U-turn then tried shifting his pieces in place with his passenger feeling the shifts underneath him. Then in a heave Bumblebee shifted everything in place and the door closed. They were off.

*Song is by "Flava Puff" Josh Ryan called 'Take you Away' [Flava puff? WTF?]
I found it through Amazon and it fit near perfect with what was in my head. As opposed to all the OTHER songs that was really ticking me off. But I couldn't find the lyrics so I had to write up the chorus myself, close as I could get it. One line doesn't make total sense to me, oh well.
IDK. Not my taste of music but it wasn't too bad.