Chapter Four: Awakening
The short Asian male was a total creeper.
Samantha handed off a boxed package to Matt Sneider, an obvious baseball fanatic, patently ignoring his gushing over the autographed baseball he'd ordered and had shipped to his office so that his fiancé wouldn't find out about the money reserved for their honeymoon was being spent on other frivolities.
Her attention was instead fixed on the man lurking in the corner of said office. He wasn't trying to hide himself – not well at any rate. Wasn't even attempting to be inconspicuous. He was just staring.
Sam tucked her braid back over her shoulder, ignoring one woman who remarked nearby in a mixture of disbelief, disgust, and amazement that she bothered to keep it so long, and pushed her rolling mail cart further down the hall. The male trailed after her, ducking like a cartoon-styled character behind anything he could find to 'hide' himself. He even used the potted fern set up beside the water fountain on the green floor.
Unbelievable.
She wasn't even sure why she had come in to Accuretta today with Vector Prime having been brought in that morning by Optimus and Ratchet. The medic was tweaking the locked-down Prime's systems so that Optimus could use the Matrix of Leadership, which he stashed beside his Spark in its chamber after Egypt, to recharge the once-Leader. She and Optimus had discussed the possibility of her using the Allspark to spark, not pun intended, some life back into the titan, but had decided against it. There were too many persons involved that couldn't be trusted.
Too many that wouldn't understand.
The Matrix was their next best bet.
She would attend once Ratchet got Vector Prime ready that night, but there really was no reason for her to be at Accuretta beyond the simple fact that she still had that niggling feeling in the pit of her stomach.
But what, on God's green Earth, did that little man want from her?!
She turned abruptly around the next corner, pushing the cart so that it rolled into one of the still empty cubicles in the building. She hunkered herself behind the wall and waited patiently.
The man's head was the first to peak around and she nabbed it. An unholy squeal of outrage she silenced as she tugged him forward in a headlock and jammed her knee into his diaphragm. He choked on his cry at the force of her hit. She leaned down toward his ear, whispering in a menacing tone she may or may not have adapted from Megatron's growling timbre, "what do you want from me, human?"
She dragged him into the bathroom, the men's room because the ladies room was being repainted, and slammed him into one of the stalls. She still danced for the sheer joy of it and it kept her body well-toned, but she also didn't live for extended stints with the Cybertronians and human soldiers without picking up a few tricks. The nanites in her blood had also reinforced her bones and tissues with alien tech. She was stronger than the average human now. More resilient.
The man, nerdy and clearly wide-eyed behind his thick-framed glasses, gaped at her.
"Explain." She kicked the door shut and snapped the lock in place. The man, whoever he was, stumbled out of the stall. His hands were shaking a little, but he'd at least regained some composure.
"You're the girl from the news," he stated unnecessarily, his accent thick. He pulled a manila folder from his suit jacket and pressed it into her hands. She glared at the offending parcel before looking back at him.
"And what is this?"
"I'm Wang and you are in deep Wang. You dig?" She cocked an eyebrow at the man that was growing a bit manic in his speech. He paced the restroom like a caged animal. He was caged, too. She wasn't letting him out; not until she was satisfied.
"They watch and they listen. They're everywhere. I can't go to the government, but you can." He approached her as if to grab her, but the narrow-eyed look she sent him had him scurrying back again. Her eyes frightened people when they took on the glow she felt in them now. Their lavender hue was abnormal under the most ideal of circumstances. Mike had told her that they had a haunted quality to them on of the last times she visited him.
"They want us all silenced. The ones who know of the Dark Side." Something in her mind flicked, a realization of sorts. The Dark Side of the moon, better known as the far side. What did he know of it? Could he know of the Atlax?
"Who locked this door?!" Brazo's falsely brave timbre echoed through the door she leaned against. She felt it pound behind her back and caught the handle jiggling out of the corner of her eye. "Open up right now and I may not fire you! Disrespect!"
"Is this all you followed me for?" She held up the envelope. "This is what you wished to give me? Nothing else?"
"They're everywhere," Wang hushed, poising a silencing finger in front of his lips.
"All right then." She flicked the lock and moved away swiftly, giggling like a schoolgirl to see Brazo tumble into the restroom like a ton of bricks. He'd apparently been attempting to shove all of his weight into it and her movement had taken him by surprise.
"What you lookin' at, dawg?" Wang flicked his hand, attempting to come off as superior and only managing to look spastic as his hand swung this way and that on his wrist. "Gotta go. So much work to do. So much dangerous work."
Sam watched him go, Brazo still laying near her feet. When she turned her passive gaze down she saw Brazo looking up at her with a flabbergasted expression written across his artificially tanned face. He was closer to orange than bronze.
"Good afternoon Mister Brazo," she greeted and dismissed in the same sentence. She stepped over his splayed form as she exited after Wang.
She didn't see the little man anywhere.
Sighing to herself, she pulled the Cybertronian Bluetooth, a device she so rarely had use of in these days, and triggered the call to Wheelie and Brains. She didn't bother collecting her cart. There were more important matters that needed to be worked through.
:: Warrior Goddess! :: Wheelie cheered through the receptor upon answering her call. :: What is happening. There was a moment of distress in the bond before it went quiet. :: Like all of the others he dropped the mimicked behaviors he had adopted from humans, reverting to proper vocal patterns that were stilted for modern society.
"You there too, Brains?" At the smaller 'Con's confirmation she continued. "Need you to hack into the systems here for me, please. I'm a little indisposed at the moment. Find information on a man with the surname of Wang. Asian. Dark hair and eyes. In his early to mid-forties. You may find data entries on him working with government intel or space exploration."
:: On it. :: Brains' gruff voice assured her.
She made her way down to her designated 'office' in the mail room. Brazo hadn't been fibbing when he'd said that he was in desperate need of someone to fill the position. There were only two other clerks and both of them were a harried mess. She'd had a desk teeming with long-overdue work as soon as she'd come into the building that morning after only a few hours of rest.
She thrust the clutter off of her desk and onto the floor. She wouldn't be picking it up. She firmly believed that she now knew what it was that she had felt, why she felt compelled to come into this building. Answers founded, she would be quitting by the end of this afternoon.
Probably shouldn't put this on my resume.
She emptied the envelope's contents onto the desk.
Images and dozens of sheets of data greeted her. Wang, whoever he was, had been fiddling with NASA's satellites for years. There were blackouts and disruptions galore. He'd provided her with files laying claim to hiding events on the moon since 1972.
What are you hiding?
:: His name is Jerry Wang. Vice President of satellite R&D. Aerospace division. Mmmhmmm. :: Brains grumbled into his comm and subsequently her ear. :: On the fifth floor. Red. ::
"Hold tight, boys. I'm coming to get you in a few and we're going to N.E.S.T." She gathered up the files and tossed them into the compactor. The dirtied machine would take care of disposing of the evidence for her. She had no time to shred the papers as she would have otherwise. She didn't linger after striking the green button since there was an automatic stop in the base-machine's programing.
She was jogging for the upper levels, her tan trousers sliding against her suddenly sweat-slicked skin softly, when she felt it. Other employees gawked at her as she stuttered to a halt in the open hallway just before lunch hour. Her eyes widened. She reached out through the Allspark and felt the darkness of a withered bond. A Decepticon Spark…there was a Decepticon in Accuretta.
She'd only managed to take a few more jerky steps when the man she sought, Jerry Wang, fell past the window set before her.
"Shit," she mumbled as some men and women screamed and everyone clustered around the window. One person had the perversity to pull out his cellphone and start taking pictures of the indubitably broken body down below.
The attention wasn't long on Wang's body, however, as Brazo made his way across the green floor. The man was clearly disheveled. He bellowed out orders to call the police, for someone to check Wang's office, and for someone to start work on damage control. It wouldn't be good business for the company to have a dark mark in the papers.
Even Brazo's hurried exclamations couldn't hold a candle to the winged raptor that dropped through the ceiling to the floor on which they stood, however. The brief screams of before erupted into a maelstrom of chaos.
"Lazerbeak," the blonde growled out between clenched teeth.
The Decepticon was one of Soundwave's minicon minions just as Frenzy had belonged to Barricade. While not nearly as large and possessing a lesser sentience, minicons were capable of inhuman feats of power. This particular 'Con was a constant shape-changer. His preferred form, however, resembled that of a vulture with jagged armor and red optics. His tongue, a glossa, slithered from his beak like a snake's tongue scenting the air. His optics trained onto her. Glee trickled to her through that misshapen and decaying string that connected him to the Allspark.
She wouldn't reawaken it. Some beings deserved to be taken back into the Allspark's warmth and guided with hope to a brighter future…if there was one to be had.
…Some deserved to stay in the darkness they'd built around them.
"The Witwicky girl. Primus smiles on me." Lazerbeak's wings fluttered at his sides, the span of them well over seven feet. His spindly frame chittered as he shifted from clawed foot to clawed foot. "My Lord Megatron seeks you still, fleshling. Perhaps I shall bring you – in pieces."
"If you can catch me."
She darted away swiftly, the floor now cleared of other humans. Someone had hit the fire alarm scaring off the rest.
"Foolish, fleshbag." Lazerbeak flew after her, his solid body slamming through cubicles like so much rubbish as he went. "What did funny-Jerry tell you?"
Sam ducked behind a wall as Lazerbeak fired off caustic rounds. The acidic metal burned through the pressboard walls and floor. He chittered gaily, savoring the destruction he was raining down throughout the building. Personal pictures of employees' families melted, printed faces both dripping and flaming at once as they were ruined.
"Come out, girl. I can smell you." He clacked and hissed as he clambered over the sinking walls. His claws tapped a hypnotic rhythm against the metal supports. His head, perched on a long neck, ducked over the wall she took shelter behind. She glanced up through her lashes as his crimson-colored optics shuddered right before her face. "You smell so delicious. Power radiates off of you."
"Have a taste," she spoke calmly, the deeper cadence of the Allspark leaching into her voice. She was rewarded with a bolt of surprise through that withered connection before she rose and swung an Allspark-power infused bat straight at Lazerbeak's helm.
Lazerbeak squawked as his body was catapulted into the next cubicle over and through. His frame got caught in the melting walls, the detritus sinking unerringly into his joints and around Energon lines. His next curse was one cried out in Cybertronian. She felt him fumble through his comm and connection with his Master. Soundwave would be coming for him.
"How 'bout some fried chicken, you bastard?"
The 'Con scrabbled on the ground, pinned to it as he was in the fallouts of his own labors. She hefted the bat back over her right shoulder, her fingers digging into the autographed metal – memoing to herself to send a thank-you card to Matt for the impromptu weapon. She funneled more energy into the bat. She poured enough of the Allspark's power into it to turn the metal a molten blue.
Her battle-cry could be heard ringing through the building as well as the bonds she shared with all of her 'Bots as she swung for the stars. She hoped Lazerbeak recorded it as well, relaying it to his Master. Let Soundwave know what he brought upon himself and his minicons by sending Lazerbeak into a public place full of innocent bystanders.
Lazerbeak's helm shattered from the impact, his screech choking off on an electronic whine. The Allspark's power shuddered through his frame like a visible live-wire. His struts and hydraulics sizzled and popped, armor bursting off of him reminiscent of popcorn frying in a pan. His whole body shuddered as the Allspark overcharged his spark and snuffed his existence out like the flame of a candle.
She fell to one knee in pain, recognizing the loss of one her own for what it was, but knowing that she had no other choice. It was she or him and in the end her continued existence meant more than his if only for the reason of her necessity to the Cybertronian race. She also could not let him kill more innocents.
:: He may yet return to you, Child of Mankind. :: That voice! It was the Other. His energy and power surrounded her. It filled her with a feeling of home and family. The Allspark responded in kind, rushing to embrace his essence in its own. :: All Sparks may be redeemed…if that is their choice. ::
The Other was gone as soon as he'd come and she felt a crushing void in her soul.
Will I ever understand this? She wondered privately to herself as she gathered to her feet and ran for the exit. The 'Bots, her bonds, were hailing her. They worried for her even as they pushed calm onto her.
She needed to get to N.E.S.T. before anything else could go wrong.
It was one Hell of a day for some jackass to back his Toyota Tundra into her bike.
After fuming for a good half an hour while she waited for the Accuretta security guy to take her statement and pictures, the bike pinned completely under the tailgate of the truck, she managed to hail a cab to the HHR building. She wanted to call one of the Autobots to come pick her up, but they had their servos full with Vector Prime's upcoming awakening and running their own brand of damage control over the whole incident inside of Accuretta.
So after she'd paid the hapless cab driver, who'd been made to take her all the way home to grab what he thought to be an RC Truck and Lenovo ThinkPad – not what he had been expecting from a girl that looked as she did – and then back out to the outer edges of the city, she walked the two blocks extra up to the HHR building.
The guards were new.
And not anyone she had ever met before.
"Excuse me, ma'am. Can we direct you somewhere?"
"Inside," she harrumphed simply, cocking herself on her hip. She was still wearing her dirtied work clothes from earlier and she was sure she smelled something akin to burnt hair. She'd checked her braid and it hadn't been damaged anywhere, but she still smelled something burnt. She also hadn't switched out of her heeled boots and the D.C. sidewalk was unforgiving on her soles. In either hand she gripped Wheelie and Brains, still in their terrestrial disguises.
The blonde was in no mood for this absurdity.
"Ma'am," the younger of the guards put on a good show of being baffled by her ire. He tucked his weapon a little more behind his back as though to hide it. Futility at its best since the muzzle stuck up over his shoulder by several inches. "This is an abandoned building now. The current Health and Human Services Building is…"
"I know where that building is, Private." Her eyes honed in on the marks of his army-issued jacket. There weren't many. He was a Private. Entry-level. "I am here at this one. You and I both know that I'm not here looking for Food Stamps or a job opportunity. Now, I've had a trying day and would appreciate it very much if you got on that bullhorn of yours and contacted Lieutenant Colonel William Lennox."
"There's no one here by that name, ma'am." The second man shook his head sadly. Was he trying to make her feel stupid? He looked sorry for her naiveté and uncomfortable for having to deal with it himself. "Would you like me to call a cab for you? We can have you taken anywhere."
"Inside," she repeated, her glossed lips thinned out. She was starting to get mad now. She felt the power within her, so recently utilized and scratching just under the surface of her skin, spike. Wheelie and Brains jolted in her hands from discomfort.
The men's eyes zeroed in on her cargo before reassessing her. Her power flared, the excess lighting in her eyes. The younger man took a cautious step back, the M4 slipping readily into his hands to square off against her chest.
"Ma'am," the polite vocal gesture slipped a little on the end, adding a question to the word. She smiled a little to see the nerves hit him where it counted most. Did he think she wasn't human now? Had he finally gotten a piece of the message that she'd just thrown down at his feet? "I need to ask you to leave the premises."
:: Somebody get their afts out to the front gates before I pin one of these glitches to the fence. :: The comm she sent in an aggravated burst that would reach any and all of the mechs she could feel inside. There was an anxious reply in the affirmative within a half of a second as the headache she'd sported since that morning bloomed into a full-blown migraine.
The nanites made her other than human. They allowed her to access the Allspark and become one with it. They changed her body on a molecular level and had given her the ability to access the comm-lines used by the Cybertronians in recent years, but the still-human parts of her suffered for it. The two guards blurred in her bad eye, almost going black, as the nanites diverted their restorative abilities to her brain.
"If we're in the habit of asking for things now, I'd ask that you get that M4 out of my face. You won't like what happens if you don't." Lights crackled around them as her power hiked up even higher. The entire outer perimeter, which had been dully illuminated by yellow light, flickered out entirely. The bulbs shattered in their casings, shards raining down around them. "I have had a hard day, gentlemen. You're making it harder."
"Energon readings, Sir," another man whom she had scantily noticed until that moment ran up to his comrades, his own weapon pointed at her with a purpose. The other two prepped themselves, military training honing in and setting them on-target. She was the target.
"Put the guns down, please," she requested, slowly placing Wheelie and Brains onto the concrete. The two immediately shifted over into their bipedal forms and took up guard in front of her. They had their own weapons drawn, ones much smaller than the human soldiers', but infinitely more powerful.
"Decepticons!"
"I believe that's why I'm here, yes." She scrubbed her palm into her right eye agitatedly. It hurt.
"Down on your knees or we shoot!"
The three had no opportunity to follow through with their threat as Bumblebee hurdled over the walls in a single bound and gently kicked them out of the way. Of course gently for a Cybertronian could be equated to a linebacker tackling you at the ten-yard line at full speed. The men rode on their backs for several feet before careening into the chained part of the fence. Backup had come since she'd arrived, but the soldiers all stopped in their tracks at seeing she with Bumblebee fretting over tensed and the two 'Cons braced at her feet.
"Sam! Are you well?" 'Bee touched all along her sides with the softer pads of his digits. A less-invasive scan ran over her as he attempted to find any injuries on her. The tingling wave of their scans still made her shiver. "Why did you not have one of us retrieve you?"
She just glared at her Guardian.
"Who do I need to have a discussion with about putting personnel around my mechs that I have not approved of?" She peered over the servos he still ghosted over her, the sensors in his pads giving his processors even more feedback on her physical health, to glower at the three newcomers. Their expressions were shell-shocked as more familiar soldiers helped them to their feet.
"The humans came in with Director Mearing. They were delegated outside of the building due to the sensitive nature of our current…predicament." Bumblebee embraced her through the bond. He touched her sweetly. Love churned through them both. Unbidden, she found herself calming. The 'Cons echoed her calming stance by subspacing their cannons and blasters, but they still teemed with anger.
Lennox chose that moment to run out from the side entrance of the HHR building, his dark hair a knotted mess. He took in the scene before him with a trained eye and coughed. Loudly.
"I've had a trying day," she informed the man flatly. He poised himself, a soldier facing his superior officer. It wasn't a stance he commonly took with her, but any dimwitted fool could feel the pressure in the air. William Lennox was no dummy. "Let's go."
Ratchet should have been hovering over Vector Prime in the final minutes of standby before Optimus used the Matrix to 'revive' him from his long stasis. He should have been assisting the others in preparation for the likelihood of a rough awakening. The Atlax had left Cybertron under less than ideal conditions. There was a high probability of Vector coming out of stasis still thinking he was in the middle of a battle. All of the mechs present were to be in defensive positions to protect the few human personnel in the room as well as keep the big 'Bot contained.
Instead she could see him watching her intently. The chair she'd sat in the night before with Hunter had been brought to her. She leaned back into it heavily and held a cold compress to her forehead. Brains' servos were blunter than Wheelies, so the little 'Con had taken to massaging her soles after unceremoniously chucking her boots over the rail to the floor. She hoped no one tripped on them.
"Is your stomach still upset?" He inquired, his faceplates drawing closer to where she sat on one of the high-rises. His optics were evaluating her. He didn't scan her since Bumblebee had passed along the one he'd taken of her outside and was no doubt checking the readouts of her tattoo.
"Stomach flu, Ratchet. And I'm fine." She waved towards the girders the elder Prime had been laid onto. It reminded her of an elderly king that had fallen asleep on his thrown. The pillars were separated from him now, stashed away by Mearing into a reinforced titanium vault near the center of the base. The elder woman didn't want the Autobots to have the devices until she knew what they did regardless of the fact that they were indeed Cybertronian in nature and therefore did not belong in her human hands.
Prideful she-beast.
"You should be more focused on him."
"Miss Witwicky is right." Speak of the Devil and she shall appear. Meryl Streep has nothing on this Prada-wearing demon. "He could very well be a security risk to this base of operations."
"Hold your tongue, Director Mearing," Optimus warned the woman darkly as she moved up beside where Sam lounged. The elder woman's manicured fingers, much like her own, curled over the top of her chair. She was taking up a strategic position. By being as close as she was to Sam she knew that there was less likelihood of being hurt, whether on purpose or by accident. She'd been a covert spy once upon a time, the blonde knew from Mearing's portfolio, and it was apparent that old habits die hard. "It is considered blasphemous to accuse a Prime of treachery."
"Did a Prime not betray his fellow Primes in order to end our world?" She received no answer except a dark stare from the 'Bots, but Sam silently patted the woman on the back for that realization. As exalted as the Primes were, they were not above reproach. She'd thought it herself and had said as much in earlier times, but learned teachings were difficult to turn a blind eye to. The Fallen was proof that the Primes were not Gods.
Optimus had the Matrix ready, pulled out from the thick casing of his Spark chamber beforehand. As far as she was aware she was the only human to have ever seen one of their Sparks. Even the others like Lennox and Epps had never been given the honor. The Autobots wouldn't make themselves vulnerable by allowing the human race to discover their weaknesses, that one in particular.
Eight years on Earth and they were still closed off.
When would they let someone else in?
"You're cleared for contact, Optimus," Lennox remarked as he was relayed his orders through his headset. He gave the thumbs-up to the other soldiers, signaling for the doors to be secured. It felt like they were securing the bulkhead doors in a ship to keep water from flooding in.
The Autobot leader looked to her last. The significance of that look stuttered her heart to a near-stop. They reached for each other in a way that no one else would be able to see. Their souls connected in a clash of light, his Spark to her heart, and intertwined. It wasn't like it was with the Other, but it was momentous in its own way. They gave to each other every heartfelt emotion that they could find within themselves, some unnamable yet real all the same.
She could read his thoughts through his whirling optics. He was remembering back to when he had almost lost his own Spark, spinning in that realm of nothingness as his frame tried to heal itself. He sorrowed over her short loss. Her death. When she came back and restored him she'd tied them together irrevocably. He was forever her ally. Her leader. Her friend. Her father. Her child.
Tears dotted her eyelids. She had to turn her face away and ease herself away from his connection just to maintain appearances for those around her.
Optimus hovered the Matrix over Vector Prime's chassis before pressing it downwards. The intricate swirl of metal and light sunk into the other Prime's chassis for the barest of seconds before Optimus pulled it free and away.
Vector Prime's resurrection was as rapid as Optimus' had been. The power from the Matrix rippled through him. His back arched thrusting his chassis skyward. His head tilted back while his servos dug deeply into the girders he'd been placed. He made no sound at first, but his oral cavity gaped wide in a silent scream.
In the next instant his optics flashed on, a blue like all the other Autobots, and he charged Optimus.
Optimus braced himself for impact with the larger mech, the Matrix drifting to her side through the air as he released it from his hold. It was drawn to the Allspark's power like a magnet as it had originally been formed from the Allspark. Her fingers reached out and gripped between the slats of metal, recalling the heat it emitted back in Egypt. She held it close to herself as the Autobot leader attempted to fend off Vector Prime's primal rage.
The others circled the duo slowly, their struts set in case the old mech made an abortive attempt to flee or they needed to dash in to protect their leader.
"Vector Prime," Optimus grunted as he took a ferocious blow to his helm and faceplates by the fist of his predecessor. His paint chipped and a piece of his lip-plate broke off, clanging down against the floor. He didn't swing back, merely held his ground against his fierce opponent. "It is I, Optimus Prime."
His voice didn't penetrate the fog clouding the elder's processors. The gauntlet on the back of Vector's forearm pulled away with several snicks, morphing into a weapon instead of armor. The sword was as long as his entire leg, Cybertronian glyphs emblazoned across the blade. He reared his arm back to strike while Optimus stood passively by. He wouldn't hurt a being that he most assuredly saw as his superior – one that didn't seem to know what he was currently doing – and the others would be too slow to prevent their Prime from being beheaded.
It was her turn to step into the fray.
"Vector Prime." It was just his designation spoken by a lowly human girl, but the voice she used to speak it in…
The older mech froze mid-swing. Literally froze. His frame caught in a time-loop of sorts as his name echoed in the cavernous, metal-lined room. Every human goggled at her. Brains had frozen in his foot massage as soon as the mech had been pulled from stasis, but his focus was riveted on her alone as soon as she spoke. He trembled at her feet. Wheelie had sunk to his knees, awe apparent.
When she allowed herself to let go of her restraints and push what she had become to the fore it changed how they treated her. She wasn't 'Sam' anymore. She wasn't their Sweetspark or their 'little one'. Whatever achievements she'd made as a human being, whatever lives she tried to touch, would be nothing to them in comparison to the power she wielded. She hated letting go because she was afraid that one day she really would disappear in the shadow of the Allspark's glory.
She supposed that that in itself was a way to die…she would disappear into obscurity, not even worth a memory in someone's mind. That frightened her almost more than anything else.
Yet there were times such as this that the lives of others far outweighed her fears.
:: I bid you to let him go. :: Pain stabbed behind her eyes for the effort of comming him and her stomach churned worse. A sledgehammer being slammed against her skull might have caused her less pain.
:: What are you, Sparkling? :: Old. He sounded old. Older than Jetfire, though she didn't think that his timeline superseded the Decepticon Seeker's. He had been named in honor of one of the original thirteen Primes, but he was not one. His life had simply been harsh and aged him. It had beaten him down.
"Vector Prime," she spoke again, this time in her normal voice and outside of her own mind, "we're not here to hurt you. We're allies. We're friends. Please release Optimus."
"What was that all about?" Mearing whispered harshly to Lennox, having backpedaled away from her at some point. They all had. All except for Hunter, who'd been assigned to guard one of the doors. He had drawn nearer to her despite the intrinsic desire the others displayed to be farther away. His face spoke of genuine worry for her.
Vector Prime stared down at her seated – he knew it was her; knew knew knew – form before shaking himself free of whatever thoughts clogged his processor. He released Optimus slowly, keen optics surveying the only slightly smaller Prime.
"Do you know how you came to be here?" The current Prime questioned his elder.
"The Atlax…my ship was spinning out of control. We were in space for so long. We slid from wormhole to wormhole, one vortex through another. I locked myself in the vault with the pillars." Servos cradled red and blue shoulderplates. They squeezed. "I had thought never to see another of our kind again."
"You are safe here, Vector."
"Where is here? What is this language?"
"You are on Earth." Ratchet spoke up from behind the girders. His greenish-yellow paint made her eyes a little sore in the intense light of the room they were in when in accompaniment of her low-grade migraine. "You are speaking English, one of the predominant languages of the planet's indigenous homosapien species. I uploaded a datapac to your mainframe while you were in stasis. If you access the information you will be linked to the neuralnet for further inauguration."
Vector Prime did so in the span of several seconds. What would take a human hundreds of years to learn the Prime knew within three steady breaths. The accrued data of the Cybertronians, amalgamated and stored into a single datapac for all others, in addition to his enviable access to the internet ensured that he knew everything of human culture, religion, politics, and more.
His optics didn't so much as shutter.
"My ship was damaged," he continued on his previous conversational path.
"Non-functional." Optimus stepped away from the elder. "We reclaimed five pillars beside you in the vault."
"Five." Could an alien robot snort in derision? It sounded like it to her. "We once had hundreds."
"What do they do? What was this great technology that you all seem so fixated on?" Sam clenched her teeth on behalf of the Autobots and lamented that the human woman was the most incompetent competent dignitary that she had ever met. How could a woman that was so good at her job be so dense as to allow her solemnity to deaden her words? The lack of feeling made her appear to be talking down onto everyone and everything around her.
Vector eyed her coolly, not moved in the least by her bravado. It was reassuring to see that he wasn't inclined to respond violently, either. That could be a temporary lapse, however. The Allspark allowed her to understand some aspects of a specific mech or femme without the benefit of a bond and data/memory sharing, but it was not all-knowing. The Prime could spend his leisurely hours torturing helpless animals and she would not know.
"The pillars work together to make a gateway. The gateway would create a hole between time and space in which we could transport matter from one place to another. We call this a spacebridge. Only I am able to control it."
"Teleportation? That's what you're talking about, isn't it?"
"Indeed."
"With the pillars we would have been able to transport resources; refugees." Optimus placed his servo on Vector Prime's shoulder in a show of strength and unity. They were allied together in this in more ways than one.
"You mean to say soldiers!" Mearing gasped in affront. It was the most emotion Sam had ever seen from her. She would have bet top dollar before that very moment that even Bambi's mother being shot hadn't saddened her in the tinniest bit. "An easier way to move your armies from one location to another."
"I had left Cybertron to find a new home for our kind. The intention was to find a place suitable for us to live and rebuild our lives, free from this War." He stepped forward and the gantry shook. "You attempt to claim my invention. I demand it be returned."
"Gotta clear customs first." Snark was the word of the night, ladies and gentlemen. Had Sam been as large as either Prime she would have gladly paddled the woman on the gantry. It would have left an awful, goopy mess, but at times she thought it would be worth the cleanup. Ex-Liaison Galloway was the only other human on the top of her 'splatter list', though he never managed to work his way off said list with redeeming actions.
Charlotte Mearing generally sat on the list about eight-five percent of the time. Her good deeds and gentler persona, when she chose to show it, shimmied her off the remaining fifteen percent of the time.
"Is anyone else here embarrassed on behalf of the human race? Hmm?" She glanced around herself slowly, noting the disgruntled human faces. Wrong thing to say, apparently. Shrugging, she lifted up onto her feet, pitching forward in the next second at the shaft of pain sluicing through her abdomen. "Ugh, I need to eat something."
"Who are you, Sparkling?" Who, not what this time. She winced when she pulled herself up straight. Her brain felt caught in the pulse setting of a blender and she needed to eat something badly since she hadn't, now that she bothered to think about it, eaten anything since the saltine crackers from the night before.
"My name is Samantha. I'm a friend." She reached out for the Autobot via the Allspark. His line was there. It was muddied and lank. When she went to reach for it it recoiled from her touch. Shock assailed her. That had never happened before. "Also Liaison for the Cybertronians on this world."
"I see." His servo stretched out to her and she quickly found herself snatched off of her own two feet and pulled closer to his chassis. She latched onto his digits tightly, surprised by the physical grab as she hadn't expected it with how he'd shied away from the Allspark's power reconnecting with him. "I will escort you to where you must go."
"Now wait just a minute…"
"He can't just go traipsing around…"
"Vector Prime, you must…"
Everyone began speaking at once. Shouting was more like it. Mearing's cheeks were almost purple she was so flustered. Lennox was babbling into his headset in an attempt to explain what was happening to those in the control rooms and topside. The Autobots were gob smacked, at a loss of how to deny the recently come-back war hero.
Vector knew how to handle them.
He just kept walking.
Sam hummed lightly as she sat in the driver's seat of Vector Prime's alt. He'd assumed an alt quickly, not even bothering to scan a nearby vehicle and instead stealing blueprints from the internet of the mode of transport he preferred. He'd shifted around her, holding her in his servos, and folded down into the shape of a Rosenbauer Panther fire truck.
He'd buckled her in, just as the others always did, and took her for a sedate drive around the city.
They had an escort. She felt them trailing a respectful distance behind them, near enough to provide aid if required. Skids and Mudflap. She missed those two delinquents. She needed to set aside some time to play another round of PGR with them. It never failed to help them unwind and it cheered her up immensely to kick their afts in a digital racing game. There was an irony to it that tickled her pink.
"You are not human. Not completely." His voice startled her and she hopped in the seat. He deigned to chuckle at her expense.
"You're right. I'm not. The datapac Ratchet uploaded into you told you as much, I'm sure. The Allspark is imbued into me."
"Are you content with this?" That wasn't the question she'd expected. She thought about it for no more than a heartbeat before nodding in ascent. She would tell him what she told any others brave enough to ask. Truth, but omitting her greatest fear in that same truth.
"I am." She rubbed her hand over her chest where her heart lay protected underneath. "It's not always easy and I have to make sacrifices for the greater good, but that is a part of life. There's a credence that my family lives by; no sacrifice, no victory."
"How do you know what is the greater good? How do you know what is worth sacrificing, young one? Perhaps the ends do not justify the means." Philosophical, aren't we, Vector?
"I don't know. That's just it." She looked through his windshield to the stars beyond, which had just peeked through the night's sky as they exited N.E.S.T. "If we knew, we wouldn't be mortal. I don't think we're supposed to know. That's for God or Primus or whoever is up there to bandy around. We were given hearts, brains, and souls for a reason. We're meant to follow them in the best way that we know how. We have to be true to ourselves and our beliefs."
Silence greeted her for a few minutes. She leaned back in the wide seat, stroking her hands over the lower cushion. He still pulled away from her when she offered the connection and it unsettled her. Why would he do that? Was he just not ready for it? Was he afraid for some reason that he would not express?
"You are wise for one of your years."
She smirked, brushing aside his declination to bond with her for the time being. She would let him come to her in his own time if it was his choice to do so.
"I know you all think of me as a Sparkling, but I am actually a matured adult for my kind." She put on a one-sided smile, deciding to show some of her own snark. "I even pick out my own clothes now!"
"Indeed." Something light prodded her in the back followed by several more. They descended downward in quick succession and she found herself lunging into the seatbelt with a squeal of delight.
That tickled!
"Not fair!" She laughed, hitting her fist against his steering wheel in retaliation. The horn didn't sound off, thank God. He tickled her again, the jabs zeroing in on the spots that drew the biggest reaction out of her. Incidentally it was also the loudest reaction. "Ah-hah! Don't!"
"It is good to hear a Sparkling's laugh again." There was wistful joy in his tone. It touched her deeply and made her feel a twinge of pity for the mech. As far as she knew Bumblebee had been the last 'Sparkling' that had had the chance to grow into mechhood. There had been no others since.
"I know you don't know me, Vector Prime," she caressed his wheel with gentility, "but I hope that you will come to trust me. I only want for everyone's happiness."
"At the expense of your own?" Her stomach dropped to her toes to hear that question echo through the speakers all around her. He couldn't have known how close he was to hitting the nail on the head.
"No sacrifice, no victory," she whispered, laying herself back into the seat and tucking her hands between her legs. She didn't dare to touch him any longer. She detained herself. Whatever lightness that had been was gone now, a weighty melancholy having taken its place.
The old Prime did not attempt to rekindle the conversation. In point of fact, he didn't speak for the rest of their travels. It was around midnight that he dropped her off at her apartment, an agitated Bumblebee waiting in the garage with Wheelie and Brains underfoot. She watched his taillights disappear down the road, two familiar red and green shapes branching off to either side of the wide aft-end of the fire engine as sentinels.
Somewhere in the back of her mind, around the region in which her subconscious dwelled, she felt apprehension.
Something just wasn't right with Vector Prime.