This chapter is probably a little bit cracky and silly. But it was really fun. X3
Chapter 7
The steel yard was largely abandoned. It had passed through the hands of several different companies in the past 20 years, each had it's own idea of how to rebuild or fix the buildings into some new industrial complex but in the end each owner had realized that it was a fruitless gesture. Originally built in the 1940's, many of the building's electrical systems were no longer up to code, as well as at least one building being a firetrap. This was further proved when a local methlab had set up camp inside it and managed to catch it on fire. Three of the meth makers were killed in the blaze before the fire department was able to get there.
After the fire the owners of the company went through and put up a newer fence with razor wire, keeping out most of the vagrants. Newer and more interesting abandoned buildings were ready for the taking across town and most of the teenagers, meth users and the few homeless had moved to those buildings. Or, Ironhide mused, it could have been the lack of anything else here to break that drove the crowds away. Almost every window was shattered beyond repair and most surfaces were coated with varying degrees of bad graffiti.
Ironhide turned his head to read one of the epitaphs written on the wall of the largest building. It had once housed the finished steel and contained enough open space to accommodate more than just the five of them when clean. "I don't understand this art form at all... What do these symbols mean?"
Ironhide's reading was interrupted by Sam and Mikaela walking in, both of them sporting respirator masks. With the age of the building and the refuse inside it, Sam's mother had insisted they both wear them- just in case Sam's allergies acted up. At least allergies were a good excuse for having a tear in his eye, he thought. It had been less than a week since the battle of Mission City, but that had been more than long enough to make him feel lonely for the quirky robots.
Optimus bent down to greet them, "Sam, Mikaela, it is good to see you again."
"It's good to see you too," Sam smiled as he looked around, "Wow, this place is amazing."
"It's going to be a lot of work to get it livable," said Mikaela, looking at the years of garbage covering the floors. She poked at a pile of refuse with her foot uncertainly.
"Yes, we must get started right away, thank you for agreeing to help." Optimus straightened up, looking at his troops. They wouldn't be able to set up security around the perimeter until after dark. He would send out Ratchet and Ironhide to do that, in the meantime they needed to get things cleaned enough to unpack Jazz and get a medical bay set up. There were hoists and some tools at one end of the building, more tools could be found in another building where the steel mill's repair and electrical shop had been. "Ratchet, go find something we can use to sweep up the mess in here. Ironhide, I want you to help me move all the leftover girders to the back of the warehouse. Bumblebee, you, Sam, and Mikaela go and start cleaning up the south side of the building. Make a pile of tools that might be useful and pile of things to throw out."
"We're on it!" shouted Sam, running down the length of the building. Had anyone else asked him to clean, he'd have complained and dragged his feet. There was something about being asked to clean by the leader of an alien race that made it somehow worth it.
"What me Swoop do?" asked the bird anxiously.
"I want you to fly a perimeter around the buildings every half hour and double check that there are no humans near us. Send us a message if you find anyone. I want everyone running periodic checks for that, got it?" the others muttered in reply, not exceptionally worried. It was Saturday, most of the factories and businesses out here were closed. It was a slim chance they'd run into anyone today while there was still light out.
The pile of garbage was knee deep to the humans. Mikaela wasn't sure exactly what they were going to be able to do to help, a lot of the parts were heavy and dangerous looking. The least she could do however, was identify what she recognized and decide if it was useful or not.
There was a noisy clanking as the two largest bots started shuffling around the old girders. Bee picked up a few of the smaller pipes and parts, tossing things out the door into a pile. Sam ducked, "Whoa! Bee, watch where you're throwing things!"
"Huh? Oh sorry," said the bot bashfully, "I forgot." He looked at his friend thoughtfully. With the masks on they looked like Autobots themselves, the filters on the respirators reminded Bee of his friend Wheeljack. Wouldn't 'Jack love this world? All the strange inventions the humans have come up with are straight up his alley.
"Wait! Ironhide! This... isn't stable! Put it down, put it down!" Prime's voice could be heard rattling through the building as Ironhide dropped a huge part of some kind of turbine. The top came off and rolled to a stop in front of Optimus's leg.
"Sorry, Prime," shrugged Ironhide.
"Let's try this again... slowly."
Mikaela smiled to herself as she moved out boxes of soggy old paperwork. She wrinkled her nose as tiny grubs and beetles scuttled out from under them. As a child she used to delight in discovering the strange worlds beneath the old damp logs in the yard, it still fascinated her. The next box looked wetter than the rest but she didn't notice; her thoughts on the past. As she hauled it up the whole bottom came out of it and wet rotten paper s slid everywhere, "Oh great, just great." Irritated with herself, she grabbed an old broom and shoved the papers out the door into the pile to be thrown away.
As she swept, one paper surfaced with a water mark from a company she didn't recognize. Her eye caught the word "contaminate" on the stained dirty page. Most of the ink had been washed away but the letter head was for a company called "Masterwork Industries". What she could make out of the paper said something about chemicals and contaminates that needed to be cleaned. Worried, she pinned the paper on the wall to dry it out, maybe later one of the bots could figure out what it meant.
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Mikaela sat alone, waiting for Sam and Bee to return with dinner. She rested against the wall of the building, watching Ratchet fiddle with the television he'd found. "You might want to wait till the walls are completely clean before you lean up against there."
She smiled up at him lazily, pushing the respirator off her neck. The Autobot medic had deemed the building clean enough now for the humans to breath easily. "It's okay, I'll live. Although I think this shirt is going to become a rag after this. Are you guys going to wash the floor down or just leave it?"
"If I can figure out a way to get the water from the river up here, we'll wash it down," said Ratchet. There was no running water or electricity in any of the buildings, the utilities long since shut down.
Ironhide laughed gruffly, leaning against the giant branch he'd been using to sweep out the interior of the building, "Perhaps we should just ask Bumblebee to lubricate it?"
"Do not encourage him," said Optimus walking over to sit with the others. Ratchet had a dim light on, illuminating just the circle of bots and Mikaela. There were sky lights in the ceiling, but they were now just empty holes through which the stars would soon be seen. It was a peaceful warm sunset, the earth fauna singing a chorus outside.
Something nagged at Mikaela's thoughts and she remembered the strange words on the paper. Retrieving it from the wall she handed it to Ratchet, "I found this earlier... I don't know what it means, but it sort of worried me."
Ratchet peered at the tiny paper suspiciously, trying to make out what the water had washed away, "Masterworks Industries was one of the title holders of this land for a time, but from what information I found, they never fully moved in. The data I've collected from my sensors assures me that you and Sam are safe here, but as for the other buildings... I'm not sure yet."
Mikaela nodded, only slightly reassured, "Just makes me a little concerned is all, thanks."
Bee and Sam walked in and interrupted the conversation Sam carefully balanced pizza, sodas, and a little extra piled in his arms . He had felt a little guilty that he hadn't anything to offer his friends in terms of a treat. He already knew that Mikaela had a secret love for thick crust pepperoni with extra cheese, but what could you offer a giant metal robot in terms of food? It wasn't like in the movies where they ate scrap metal or literally sucked energy out of sockets.
An idea had formed when they passed a video rental place on the way back. Sam had Bee run by his house so he could grab a few things he needed for a comfortable dinner. For Mikaela and himself there were two low to the ground folding chairs, a small lantern, and some wet wipes to clean up with. For the bots, he had something special in the form of a tiny, flat gray box.
Swoop winged down, landing beside the little box; he eyed it speculatively as Sam and Mikaela cleaned up for dinner. He poked at the box with his beak, slightly uncomfortable with how it seemed to be a smaller version of himself. Sam picked up the box with flourish and set it down on top of the old television that Ratchet had been fiddling with. With a touch, he opened the top to reveal a tiny 12 inch screen portable DVD player. "I thought we might watch a movie. I mean, I know you guys went through the internet, so pretty much everything is spoiled for you... but Bee said he really wanted to see this one as a complete movie in full quality instead of streaming video fragments."
Bumblebee flopped himself down, using the upended turbine as a sort of pillow, "Haha! You guys are gonna love this."
The other three mechs exchanged glances and arranged themselves around the tiny screen. Swoop landed on Ratchet's shoulder, making a show of getting comfortable, then sighing as he leaned against the other bot's head. Ratchet leaned forward a little, oblivious to the bird's ministrations.
Sam covered the screen as he cued up the film, then hurried back to his seat beside Mikaela, accepting a napkin and a big greasy slab of pizza from her. Mikaela turned her head towards the screen, smiling as the familiar strains of music poured from the tiny speakers of the dvd player. Yellow text, long memorized by heart, went scrolling past the screen as the movie began.
