(c) Hasbro/Takara

Authors note: I've been trying to keep background descriptions brief, as I'm sure, most everyone knows something about Transformers lore if they're poking around here.


"I'm listening..." Allison said hotly, her interest piqued but temper decidedly more heated. This Wheeljack had some hand in her car's fate, and she wanted to know about it. She tried to mute the burn in her emotions by keeping her voice even, not wanting to instigate anything with such a completely foreign, and potentially dangerous stranger. Things were slowly starting to make sense.

"Funny story actually... quite a remarkable piece of machinery I might add, absolutely fascinating in terms on ingenuity and-"

"Did you break my car?" Allison cut in, still trying to keep her voice even, but her voice shook as she wrapped her arms around her chest. She was careful not to brush against Wheeljack's steering wheel as it continued to glide smoothly back and forth. "On purpose?" She added. It was silent for a beat, and she briefly wondered if Wheeljack was actually trying to choose his words in order to sound less incriminating.

"Well, break is such a general statement, it was more along the lines of a few- ah- adjustments. Quite minor in fact, although I take enough to stump those so-called 'mechanics'... Easily reversed actually, I'm surprised humans of such technical know-how did not have the resourcefulness to spot it sooner," he commented casually, almost with a hint of disdain as if the fact that his "minor changes" had gone unnoticed was a personal insult.

"Well, you're 'adjustments' broke my car... and thanks to you, I was in a whole world of inconvenience because of it," Allison sighed, and glanced up. They were definitely heading in the direction of what she could now confirm was an old, run down barn. It's paint had been weathered by the elements, the entire structure a relic of what must have been a bright, cheerful piece of architecture in the past. It was now a derelict shadow, slightly stooped to the left, it's roof caked in a heavy growth of moss.

"Really Allison, I don't break things. I merely suspend their use until further notice. Besides, it was for a purpose. I wanted to be sure you couldn't go too far."

Allison held her response back until she could process what he'd just said and how to respond. Thinking about it, letting that last sentence run through her head made her feel just a little uneasy. Sitting inside him now, she could almost imagine herself in captivity. His persistence in watching her and hand in ensuring she couldn't actually go anywhere without being completely inconvenienced now felt like one gigantic kidnapping maneuver.

Yet, he'd said it with very little aggression, his tone almost innocent and perhaps with enough naivety that maybe he didn't quite understand the consequences of his actions, or at the very least, what he'd said. She was half tempted to throw the door open and jump out. His pace was slow enough, and her mind seemed to think it was a good idea, but her body felt otherwise. She was caught in that state between stunned panic and horrified interest; like an animal caught in headlights that didn't quite know what to do, so transfixed with it's oncoming peril that it remained frozen until it's inevitable fate snuffed out it's life. One panicked thread of thought entered her head, as she imagined her captor suddenly throwing her from the car, cackling with grotesque satisfaction as he crushed her to death beneath his smothering weight. But-

"Have I offended you?" he asked tentatively, effectively startling Allison out of her horrific imaginings. She jumped as her musings were cut short, and as if in response she felt the air inside Wheeljack's cabin still for just a moment, as if that thrumming energy had skipped a beat.

"No..." she started, but her voice was quiet. Wheeljack's pace slowed significantly, and she felt her body sway forward just slightly as he applied the breaks.

"It was not my intention to make you feel as if I was trying to control you, actually it was the opposite. As interested as I was in taking apart your car and tinkering with it, it was more for the purpose of making sure that I wouldn't lose you. Things are more dangerous than you might be accustomed to, and I don't trust any human protection to ensure your safety. Not from what is most assuredly seeking you, and anything you might know..." Wheeljack explained, rather hurriedly, and it sounded as if he was becoming agitated. The thrumming pulse inside had quickened just slightly, and Allison was starting to think more and more that it was definitely some kind of a heartbeat. It was just mildly distracting.

"What I know?" she asked quietly. "I know absolutely nothing. What is so important about me that makes you think I need to be watched?" Truthfully she was unremarkable, and if this had anything to do with her boss at all, well someone was definitely going to be disappointed if they were under the impression she was actually informed. Finally Wheeljack stopped completely, everything suddenly very still as they'd reached their destination.

Wheeljack's door clicked open, and Allison quickly got out, her discomfort at sitting inside a sentient robot making the fresh air extremely welcoming. No sooner had she straightened outside, before she felt as much as heard the swift movements of his transformation. It made her slightly edgy, seeing the ease in which Wheeljack rearranged all his parts. It was like he was bursting up from the ground, up and outwards like a controlled explosion, everything fitting into place in just a few seconds of organized chaos.

As soon as it was over he was crouching down in front of her, doing his best to level her vision with his. This was the closest she'd been to his actual face thus far, and she stepped back feeling just slightly intruded. His presence in such close proximity seemed to have an ethereal quality to it, a gentle murmuring of soft sounds, like the humming of an electronic symphony. One that penetrated deeper than just her initial aural perception, but seemed to encompass the entire body in waves.

"It is your mere connection to your boss that makes you so important. He holds quite a bit of faith in you. He trusts you," Wheeljack said, his panels blinking brightly. Allison thought that over for a bit, still unsure of this so called "faith" that Wheeljack seemed to think Arkeville had in her. Apparently it wasn't enough, for he'd told her nothing before he disappeared.

"Here's something I'd like to know," she said, trying her hardest not to look Wheeljack in the eyes. It was still uncomfortable, and she bit her lip as she forced her eyes away. He shifted his whole body as he nodded, his fingers clinging to the grass in little tufts.

"And I will answer to the best of my knowledge..."

"Okay... so what exactly is your connection to my boss? Does he know?" Allison asked, gesturing widely to more than just Wheeljack in front of her. "About all this?"

"Well that I do know!" Wheeljack said with some excitement, his panels glowing. "It just so happens that he worked closely with our primary human contact, and he stumbled across some very important information for us. Initially he had come forward with only a hint at what he had... but, unfortunately he's gone and gotten himself off the radar. We need to find him, and whatever he has," he explained.

Allison had remembered Doctor Arkeville talking briefly about various contracts and projects that had been slightly more veiled and hidden from public scrutiny, but he'd never given her details. He'd talked about it mainly in passing, and only if it had held some relevance to something he'd needed her to do. Transfer some file, seal some sort of document, etc. Normally he'd spoken with her in length about all manner of things, but she'd always remembered these types of situations had been more discreet.

Whether or not this had been one of those times, she had no way of knowing. She could tell when there were certain things he'd wanted to tell her, for there had in fact always been a large degree of trust between them. It had never surprised her of course when he couldn't. She wasn't so delusional to think she was somehow privileged to knowing more than she'd needed to, so she'd never pressed it. They'd always had a certain camaraderie together, and he'd been like a second father to her. He was a long time friend to her own mother, who had passed just after Allison had graduated from high school. In a dramatic turn of events everything had been taken by her estranged father, leaving Allison suddenly and inexplicably homeless. Arkeville and his wife had taken her in, and it was then that she'd been offered the chance to work as his own assistant. Naturally, this had created a level of trust between them, and a friendship that had landed him under the scrutinizing eye of the upper management more than once. He had always looked out for her best interest, and Allison considered herself to be in his debt for all that he'd done for her.

But this, was certainly something she would have never seen coming.

"What is this information?" Allison asked hopefully, but had a feeling she wasn't going to get a straight answer.

"That I'm afraid, I don't know..." Wheeljack trailed off, and Allison could have sworn she heard him growl deep beneath his face mask. This, clearly, was something of a sore spot for him. "All we know is that it was important, and the Decepticons want it."

Allison forced herself to look up, and finally looking into Wheeljack's face was startling. Up close, she could make out tiny intricacies that she hadn't seen before. The mask across his face was ridged, and looked as if it was locked into place at just the spot where the panels began. The surface of them she found, was not metal at all, but looked like shaved down translucent crystal. The rest of his face appeared to be made of slightly smoother material with a brushed finish, and looked almost malleable. The center of his face was adorned with rigid angles akin to the bridge of a human nose, with the tip meeting the edge of the mask across his face. There was just the slightest hint of perforations peppering the surface of the mask just beneath that, a fascinating observation considering it must have been for some type of sensory input just like what a human nose was for.

His eyes were perhaps the most startling of all. They were like giant globes of the purest blue light she'd ever seen, bright with a phosphorous-like glow and framed in separate panels that were the lids she'd seen before. It was still a mystery why he would have needed eye lids, but in just her short time with him so far, she'd already seen enough evidence of Wheeljack being an emotional being to make that seem feasible. All of his face seemed to sink neatly into what she could only describe as a ridged helmet, the two panels adding the final touch of balance to everything.

"A Decepti-what?" Allison questioned, and much to her alarm, Wheeljack narrowed his eyes, those thin little eyelids sliding into place around their glow. There was a sound of air cycling through the various paper-thin vents on his mask, and it was the same rough sound he'd made when standing at her apartment window, like air rushing through piping. She'd recognized it before, thinking she knew, but now it definitely seemed confirmed after he'd done it twice. Wheeljack was sighing.

"I suppose there is a lot more to explain to you then I thought..." he said wearily, his face mask giving off just the faintest hint of movement as he spoke. Ever so slowly he pushed himself to a stand to once again tower over her. Allison looked up at him, waiting for some kind of direction. "Perhaps we should go inside?" He motioned towards the barn, and Allison spared the briefest of moments wondering what kind of horrible fate might be awaiting her in there. That was quickly pushed aside as she was given the opportunity to actually see Wheeljack move for the first time; actually walk. It wasn't awkward as she might have expected, but instead he moved smoothly towards the entrance of the barn. His steps were heavy, but at the same time he stepped with controlled care, his joints murmuring a mixture of sounds of electronics and shifting components.

The entrance to the barn, she finally noticed, had long since lost its doors, but instead was covered by what looked like a heavy, tattered sheet of thick cloth. Even from where she was standing, she could tell that it was filthy, and she found herself resistant to walk towards it. Wheeljack saw her hesitation and pulled open the makeshift door for her, inviting her in. The logical part of her brain immediately humanized the act, seeing it as a distinctly gentlemanly thing to do, but she had no way of knowing if that was Wheeljack's intent or not. Were such behavioral displays confined to just humanity? Or did whatever form of life this strange mechanization belong to share similar traits? From how he'd behaved so far she wasn't about to put it past him.

"Trust me when I say it's safe. I've been here for longer than you might think" he said, making a sweeping motion with his other hand.

"The question is," Allison mumbled as she looked back towards her apartment building, "do I trust you when you say trust me." The building behind her quickly became a smudge in the distance, and it suddenly occurred to her how it odd it was that he'd been there for probably a while, so close to her, and she hadn't even known it. Shrugging inwardly she turned back and walked towards him, pausing just briefly to glance up at his face before entering the barn. He was looking back at her, and nodded once in affirmation. It was at that moment that Allison finally realized maybe she could trust trust him. At the very least, she was fairly confident that Wheeljack didn't plan on ripping her apart as soon as she stepped inside.

Allison wasn't sure what she'd expected when she walked in, but it definitely wasn't what she saw. The interior of the barn wasn't quite as horrible as she'd been leading herself to believe, given the state of the outside. It was actually quite empty. Whatever had been inside it prior to Wheeljack moving in had been completely gutted. Where the stuff had actually gone she had no way of knowing, but she could only assume that he'd disposed of it somehow. The wooden floor of the barn was pitted with small dips and scratches with repeated wear, but it retained an almost glossy sheen to it, and a smooth texture as if it had been taken care of as best as was possible. Taking a few steps into the middle of the room she turned and tried to take in what little there was.

The room was dim, with faint hues of orange bleeding through the thin sheets of parchment that were stuck over the inside of the windows. They were old and worn, presumably older than the length of time even Wheeljack had occupied this place. She found herself drawn to one of the windows and tried opening it to let in the light, but the wooden frame was firmly held, and the grime-covered glass rattled loudly without budging. She looked at the thick, black grease on the palms of her hands, grimacing with disgust as she wiped them on the sides of her jeans.

Running the length of the adjacent wall there was what appeared to be an old workbench, but in the mess it was hard to discern what it had actually been used for. She could make out what looked like a hammer, some copper wiring, wooden stakes and a couple of empty glass bottles. Dumped in an unceremonious pile at the end was an inconspicuous pile of scrap metal, mostly broken components and what looked like car parts (A quick inspection revealed them to not belong to her own vehicle).

In short, it looked somewhat boring. She couldn't even begin to fathom how Wheeljack had entertained himself. But then did a robot need entertaining? At the very least, Wheeljack seemed to be easily distracted. She could imagine him going stir crazy, cooped up in here. Though that depended on how patient a gigantic robot could be.

The room suddenly went black as she could hear the thick cloth flop back down to it's limp position against the door frame. Allison panicked for a brief moment as her eyes tried to adjust to the darkness, and she whirled around. She could just faintly see the outline of Wheeljack and the dual glow of his eyes hanging in the air like cobalt fireflies. The gloomy light from the covered windows bathing their immediate areas in muted orange did absolutely nothing to aid her sight. She heard Wheeljack begin to move, taking a step towards her,and internally freaked out as she pressed her back against the worktable, straining to angle herself so the faint light could illuminate the space before her. One hand reached behind her and rested lightly on the handle of the hammer. She didn't know if he'd possibly run into her, or intended to crush her. It didn't matter. She readied herself for anything, the back of her mind knowing it was totally pointless.

"You don't need to use that," Wheeljack said, the blink of his panels adding an extra burst of light to the room and burned her eyes, banishing the darkness for the brief moments they glimmered. He continued, "Not that it would do much damage anyway."

"You could see that?" She felt a little sheepish, and released her grip on the handle.

"I can see you perfectly fine Allison, you don't have to worry about me…" he said, as if sensing her fear that his eye sight was as bad as hers in these conditions and he'd end up seriously hurting her, or worse, kill her. His voice seeming to echo in such a weird space only compounded those irrational fears, and it hadn't exactly been the quality of his eyesight she'd feared. She let her hand rest by her side, no longer concerned he was intentionally luring her to her death. But given that she couldn't even see her hands in front of her face she had only assumed that his senses in these conditions were just as bad.

"You know you aren't really helping-OW!" she cursed, having taken a step to the left, only to jam her exposed knee into something sharp. One hand on her knee, the other fumbled over the object. It was a metal clamp, tightly screwed to the worktop. The pain in her knee lingered as she jerked away, and shakily turned only to be met by the brightest white light in the entire world shining right into her face. She threw her arm up to shield her eyes, squinting tightly to try and discover the source. She wasn't surprised to trace it back to Wheeljack's eyes, which were acting as intense spotlights. "Stop it!"

Wheeljack pulled back slightly. "My apologies Allison," he said, his eyes dimmed slightly, enough so that she could still look at him with minimal damage to her eyesight, although she still had to squint against the glare. "Incredible. The amount you humans rely on your eyes over all your other senses is fascinating..." he added offhandedly. "We Cybertronians have a complex array of internal scans and functions that allow us to analyze our surroundings in cases where vision is limited," Wheeljack finished, maneuvering his light to a more suitable position that was not directly pointed at Allison. She blinked a few times to get rid of the burn-in that danced in front of her vision. The room was now substantially more illuminated, and now that she was able to see a little bit more she relaxed.

"So.. have you actually been living here?" Allison asked incredulously, taking another look around. It definitely was one of the most boring places she could imagine being in.

"In a manner of speaking, yes," Wheeljack said, making some unseen adjustment on is forearm. "It's quite spacious isn't it? Teeming with all sorts of fascinating organic life forms and sounds of life all hours of the day, " he rambled.

"It's awful Wheeljack, awful…" she trailed off, now suddenly aware that she could feel her whole body itching. She rubbed herself frantically, his mention of life forms convincing her that she had all sorts of these "fascinating creatures" crawling all over her. "Don't you get bored in here? Do you hang around in that, uh, car form all day and night.. or just when you were following me around?" she said with just a mild bit of sarcasm. His eyes glowed brighter for a split second, in that same way she noted when he was trying to be humorous. He gestured to the entire room,

"Once again Allison, you've let your eyes deceive you… Never allow first glances to be the only thing you perceive," he said in a sing-song way. He's actually lecturing me she thought scornfully.

"Actually, this is merely a diversion, it's a decoy for what's really here…" he said, and the light shifted, briefly spinning past her eyes again, as Wheeljack turned and sauntered heavily over to a large pile of trash thrown in a heap in a far corner of the room. Wheeljack emitted an odd chirping noise, and Allison was alarmed at the sight of the pile of rubbish moving, as a snake-like appendage weaved its way up from within the pile of garbage. On the end of it was a flat panel of sorts, a glowing screen with chaotically complex, scrawled symbols that contrasted harshly against the background. Wheeljack poked at it a few times, and the ground beneath Allison started to tremor.

It began with a small sliver of light that erupted from the innocuous pile of discarded trash, followed by a series of mechanical groans as the entire pile began to part and break in half. It was then that she noticed that the pile itself wasn't just made of independent, miss-matching parts, but beneath the surface layer of filth, cans and other waste matter was a clearly united assembly of metal parts. As it opened, the light beam widened and spread, bathing the entire inside of the barn with white, inorganic light, reflected strange patterns off of Wheeljack's surface. He stood before it proudly, looking down into the open space that the parting of the pile revealed; a ramp, that lead down under ground into a space she couldn't see from her vantage point.

Wheeljack transformed back into his car shape, his height too great to allow him easy passage down into the bowels of whatever the ramp led to. Once he was settled into his familiar vehicular form, instead of moving forward he remained still.

"You never know what treasures might be hiding in a pile of garbage," Wheeljack said, his voice clear even when there was no visible face that the words were coming from. Allison couldn't help but roll her eyes a little walking forward, assuming that he meant for her to follow him. If anything, Wheeljack was eccentric, or at the very least just mildly crazy. But in some weird way it was almost endearing. For something so huge, while there was certainly a lot of personality, it was strange to her to find such a bizarre one. It almost made him human.

Human. That term was getting more and more blurred as her bizarre morning continued on. Each new phrase he uttered, each little nuance of his character or his actions, made her perception of what that meant even more skewed. Allison was starting to wonder what it could really be applied to anymore. If she were asked to use any term to describe Wheeljack, she'd certainly say human for lack of a better word; regardless of what he was actually made of. That was starting to seem irrelevant.

Allison stopped just short of Wheeljack's back panel, resisting the urge to run her hand against his glittering spoiler. When he was shaped like a car it was almost easy to forget that he wasn't, just a car, and come close to doing something that may be construed as inappropriate. She still had no idea what sort of a culture he may have come from, and what types of taboos were built into his personality. Instead she kept her hands to herself, but standing next to him was still and odd feeling, for even though she wasn't directly touching him, he still vibrated with life.

He coasted forward and down, the ramp a little bit steeper than what Allison was comfortable with, but she made due. She slowly crept down cautiously, absorbing the look and the feel of the space around her. Once she hit the bottom she was met with an enormous room overwhelmed with space. The walls themselves looked to be welded together from a jumble of different varieties of scrap metal, the colors creating an array of patterns around the room. It was much brighter than above, but not enough to be overbearing, for she guessed that Wheeljack had needed to make due with what he could find. It looked like a makeshift workshop of sorts, two of the walls covered in car parts and bits of machinery in a wide array of sizes and functions.

In the center of the room was the most bizarre item, for what she took for a "work table" was little more than an old, broken down van that had been stripped of its parts and turned over onto its roof. There was one long, flat piece of metal that had been thrown on top of it to allow for a more stable surface. In some weird way it was almost cannibalistic, for a being who could actually become a car to so easily break one apart for his own uses. However, that started to raise even more questions about him that she couldn't ignore.

Wheeljack spared no time once he was in the open space and transformed into his bipedal form, turning to face Allison who'd found that she felt less overwhelmed with her back against one of the farthest walls. Trying not to feel like a cornered animal, she leaned down and sat.

"I suppose a small history lesson is in order, but I'm afraid it'll have to be brief.. for time is of the essence," Wheeljack said, putting his massive hands on his hips in a very human gesture. "Unless there is something specific you would like to ask me first?"

Allison thought back to the car that lie pathetically gutted in the middle of the room, and tried to work her question carefully,

"So, what is the purpose of... the whole car… thing? Can you just change into whatever you want or is there a reason for it being a car?"

Wheeljack "blinked" and paused for a minute before he responded.

"On Cybertron it is merely how we've adapted to what we do and where we live. In a time of war, it became a method of defense, mobility, camouflage actually, for it is how we are able to blend into our surroundings," he replied. "And most Cybertronians can only sustain one alternate form at a time. I merely scan what I want to become and it is programmed into my being."

Allison thought about that for a moment. It seemed to make sense, and the concept wasn't nearly as alien as the being performing the action. Animals on earth used various means to adapt to their surroundings and utilize some form of "camouflage". Humans had lost that need long ago, and their methods of adapting had been, well, she was sorry to say, dominance and pure negligence of the environment.

"Does it, well, hurt? Or is it just a normal thing you do?"

"I suppose it is no different to you bending down or putting on clothes, only with more moving parts. It is true that, as with anything, it is a skill that must be learned and perfected. Sparklings are awkward and fussy when they begin to upgrade to the stage of their first alt mode, but with practice it becomes quite simple, but it's never painful," he said, and Allison must have looked somewhat puzzled, because he added, "A sparkling is a young Cybertronian.. a child I suppose you would say."

"That sounds very familiar. Humans, and most animals really, have trouble walking when we're first born. We trip and fall over, but over time we learn to do it on our own."

"Well, I can't say many Cybertronians fall over exactly, but the premise sounds about the same, yes." He pondered for a moment. "The more I think about that the less practical that sounds. Are all creatures on Earth born with no sense of equilibrium?"

"Very funny," Allison said sardonically. "Our brains don't have the luxury of being built like computers. We're made of flesh and muscle and other organic things. In fact humans are born with small brains so that we can fit through the birth canal. And then we have a full year of growth before it catches up with..." Allison paused. Wheeljack was leaning extremely close, obviously fascinated with the lecture she was giving on what he probably saw as evolutionary inadequacy, or at the very least illogically confounded. She decided to back up to her original topic.

"I have a more pressing question to ask you. Why did you chose such a, well, a not very inconspicuous car? I'll be honest with you it doesn't really blend in as much as you'd like to think…" she said, letting a small smile slip through. The car was as eccentric as the robot, its bright colors bound to draw attention wherever he went.

"Ah, yes, but if I were to simply walk around, that would earn quite a bit more attention, wouldn't it?" he said, waving his hand in the air to accentuate his words. She supposed he was right, but if his goal had been to blend in, she'd figured he'd pick something more simple and common like a beige sedan. It was apparent Wheeljack had more of a flair for the imaginative.

Eventually the conversation steered more towards the immediate issue at hand. He told her briefly his background, about Cybertron, and that him and the other "Autobots" as he called them, were still at war with a group called the Decepticons, and had been at it for quite a few million years. Autobots were those who had been built for various jobs: clerking, maintenance, governing, under a governing body with varying levels of leadership. A Prime was one such leader who controlled a squadron. Wheeljack described his own Prime, apparently on Earth, as an empathetic pacifist who desired peace.

The Decepticons had been built for anything concerning war, and had ambitions that did not include the ideals of the Autobots and war had broken out. They were lead by someone with very little interest in what he destroyed along the way to his goal of tyrannical domination: Megatron.

Allison was completely gobsmacked to learn that Wheeljack was well over a million years old, and had been in conflict for most of his life. That type of time span was something she couldn't comprehend, and it made her feel just slightly insignificant in the grand scale of things. Her lifespan was merely a blip of time in his life. She couldn't imagine someone like Wheeljack in any type of conflict at all, as despite his size, she had a hard time picturing aggression from him. The fact that all of this had been going on around her planet, so far away, and for far longer than her species had even existed. It was daunting.

Then somehow the war had ended up here, or at least, both factions were still at odds on her own planet. It was a wonder that something hadn't really blown out of proportion, but it was obvious that the government had somehow intervened in clearing things up. Allison wondered how many bizarre disturbances she'd overheard on the news had been at the hands of these massive beings from space.

And what was even more disturbing, was that they could be anywhere, at any time, able to take on the shape of whatever they "scanned". Every time a car had passed her on the street, a plane rumbled overhead, it could have been human or alien and nobody even had a clue. And the prospect that some of them were hostile, according to Wheeljack having very little regard for the native life on the planet, was even more unnerving. And some of them were possibly after her.

Well no, she thought, it isn't me exactly, it's my boss… but the way Wheeljack had described it didn't make it any less of a worry. Wheeljack seemed to think that he had disappeared without saying anything in an effort to protect her with ignorance, but according to this "Optimus Prime", they seemed to believe that his trust in her would drive him to try and contact her, potentially with sensitive information. According to Wheeljack, the entire building where she worked had been monitored for a while, by eyes and ears that were definitely unfriendly.

Wheeljack's purpose here had been simple. He was doing his own monitoring to ensure that one, if he did contact her the Autobots could successfully intervene, and two, brutal hands didn't get to her, or the information she carried before they did. In the mean time apparently, Optimus Prime and the rest of his Autobots were doing their best to track her boss down to hopefully avoid such an unfortunate necessity. What was even more disconcerting was the fact that not even Wheeljack seemed to know what it was they were supposed to be protecting. Annoying to say the least, but she had to wonder if this Optimus Prime knew what he was doing, or just felt it an unimportant detail.

The Autobot before her had apparently paid a price for coming to be by her side, even without her knowing it. He'd had a scuffle with an aggressor en route and many of his "communication" systems had been damaged. As a consequence, he couldn't call out for help or backup, and could not receive any transmissions from Optimus Prime or any other of his friends. This was apparently what Wheeljack had been spending his time doing during the nights: attempting to repair himself to a more functional state. It still made her uneasy, for she could only imagine what type of violence he hid under such an outlandishly friendly personality, and if she ever had the potential to set it off unwillingly.

"Optimus Prime only wishes to keep harm from befalling this planet, but it seems that Megatron has decided he'd prefer to conquer it and squander it's resources. Cybertron was lost many eons ago at the hands of our war, so here we remain. What's left of us I mean." Wheeljack said in the middle of their conversation. His optics were dim, as if he had a particularly nasty memory on his mind. Allison lowered her head.

"I'm sorry," she said. "I guess I'm sorry you have to worry about something as, well, vulnerable and relatively insignificant as me..." she said, her heart completely overwhelmed with emotions, some of it gratitude, some of it guilt. She honestly couldn't comprehend how a race that had been alive for so unbelievably long, would actually go out of their way to protect some meager little human. Doctor Arkeville had disappeared without a trace, obviously sensing some danger or compromise and had said nothing, even to these so-called Autobots that he'd been intending to help. Perhaps he'd been in a hurry, or had feared it would be traced back to him, or even her. What Allison didn't understand is why they didn't just save themselves the trouble and get rid of her from the equation if they thought she was such a liability.

As she'd been in the middle of her pathetic misery, she hadn't noticed that Wheeljack had silently moved into her immediate field of vision again. She marveled at how quietly something of his size had managed to move without her noticing, but she had been thoroughly distracted.

"Allison you are not insignificant," he said, pointing one finger in her direction and making a move to poke her with it. She flinched a little, and Wheeljack drew his hand back. He was crouched again, meeting her face. "You will have to give us Autobots more credit. We all follow Optimus Prime's cause, and his ideals. You are a living, sentient being. You have feelings, emotions, and you do not deserve to be disregarded as little more than an obstacle or a means to a tyrannical end. That is not the Autobot way. It is our duty to protect life, and as such, protect you and this planet," he continued, his panels blinking softly. Allison shrugged weakly. She supposed she'd just have to take it at face value, since it didn't appear as if she was going to get away from it. "And you might be wondering what happened last night I'm guessing, in that big… rock structure…"

"The parking garage?" Allison corrected, remembering last night only vaguely. She remembered that he had been there, and he'd nearly run her over.

"We were not alone in that.. parking garage," he began, finishing her thought for her.. "I saw how fearful you were, and it wasn't you I was driving towards. There was another Cybertronian there, and it was not an Autobot."

"There was?" Allison asked, her interest piqued. She remembered a brief burst of air as something big had moved past her head, but she'd been in too much of a state to really think back on it at the time. The thought was purely horrifying. "It was behind me wasn't it? A Decepti...um... Decepticon?"

Wheeljack nodded, a quick gesture, but apparent. "That was Lazerbeak, specializing in surveillance and has a knack for listening in on things that it should not, but what is more worrisome is who's command it was under. That is where the danger lies Allison, and if he is truly here stalking around in the shadows, as is his way, than we are in a world of hurt until I am fully functional again," he said, then continued, "which is why I think it is important that you stay here. Soundwave is not someone to underestimate, for he is one of the most ruthless, unpredictable Decepticons out there, and it is a fact he will have no concern for your safety if it means getting at what he wants. We are safe here, and I am far more ingenious than to forget to shield this place from any unwanted scans."

"You can do that?"

"I have my ways," and it almost looked, for a brief second, like he winked at her but she couldn't be sure. It had been so quick. It left her mind as the prospect of spending all 24 hours of her days with Wheeljack seemed a far more pressing concern. She couldn't even begin to imagine spending her entire day in his company. It wasn't that she found him boring, far from it, but it just seemed so unusual. Not to mention it didn't appear as if he had ever expected any human guests, so it wasn't exactly accommodating... at all.

"You mean, as in, stay in here with you? I gotta say, that's going to be kind of hard…"

"I'm not so damaged that going outside is out of the question," he declared, "I'll be able to perceive any danger before it hits us out there, but what is crucial is that we are in a safe place when we are not mobile. If it'll help, I can take you back to take any necessity you may need. It may take some time for me to finish my repairs, and I'm afraid until then we will be stuck here." Wheeljack continued, and while it wasn't an order, his tone indicated it was the final word on the matter. Allison didn't relish the idea of arguing with him at this point and realized the offer to gather her things was about the best she was going to get. She also realized she was very hungry, and hadn't eaten since yesterday.

"And food… " she said, and her stomach responded to her request by growling, louder than she would have liked. It was embarrassing, for Wheeljack heard and responded to it with a tilt of the head.

"You're internal systems appear to be in need of refueling…" he said with a sense of wonder, like it was the most exciting thing he'd seen yet. She was starting to feel more and more like a source of entertainment for him.

"I haven't eaten since yesterday," Allison said thickly, not at all appreciating being a sideshow for an alien robot.

"Fascinating…" Wheeljack said, and the aloofness in which he said that irritated Allison out of her mind. His voice resonated with what sounded like sincere enthusiasm, but there was that expression on his face again that seemed to look right past her. It was as if he was truly fascinated by what was going on around him, while at the same time his mind was too deep in contemplation over some other abstract thought, like the wheels of his attention span were turning on autopilot. Allison didn't really know what was irritating about it, but only knew with conviction that it had to stop. She stood up and his gaze followed her as she took a step towards him.

"Look, Wheeljack," she said gently. "I realize that everything I might do from here on out is going to be amazingly wonderful for you, but let's keep it to ourselves, shall we?" His eyes were sparkling again, and she could only imagine what type of response she was going to get. "When you get like that, everything you say goes right over my head and you lose me. I'm guessing that's not a strange concept for you?"

Wheeljack did something new and completely unexpected, and laughed, or at least, what sounded like a laugh. It was a deep resonating chuckle, his eyes narrowing in a squint of genuine amusement. It was actually quite pleasant.

"I think I can manage that."


02/27/2011 - Minor edits