Download Chapter Seven
I do not own Transformers or I would be rich. Oh, well.
Those readers who are aqueously inclined may need something soft and absorbent at one part of this chapter. You have been warned.
Fixer was working the lab, trying yet another experiment and infusing more energon, when he heard the crash. As quickly as he could he left the lab to hurry to the hanger. Breaker and another troop were holding the lid to the pen, looking bewildered. "What happened?" he asked, before he noticed the missing bottom layer of the over be, he looked in to see pieces of tile and wood scattered over the pen.
The sound of coughing and orgainic pain sounds led them to the kitchen area. Sam lay curled on his side, a thick piece of wood over his chassis. Fixer removed the wood, and slid a hand under Sam. Despite his care, Sam shrieked. Keeping his charge as still as poosible, he ordered, "Finish cleaning the pen and fix the lid," before taking Sam to the examination table. Sam sneezed from the dust and white tile material that coated him. Fixer set the table to warm and got cloth and water to clean with. When he returned, Sam took the cloth and wiped his face and head, showing a few scratches but nothing more. After a moment he whispered, "I'm going to throw up."
Alarmed, Fixer seized a waste bucket and gave it to him just in time. When Sam could be still, he removed the human's coverings, but found no wounds. He pulled out a scanner, and hissed at the internal damage. Bruising and swelling began already in some of the inner organs, threatening to block some blood supply to vital organs. He frantically accessed the World Wide Web when Sam started to shiver. Fixer got a thick quilt for him. "Fixer," he whispered, "just let me sleep, okay?"
"You shouldn't sleep yet, I need to-"
"It'll heal me. Just let me sleep. Don't bother me." Fixer stroked Sam's back gently. If Sam died, so would his guardian and probaly every troop at the base. This fragile human held the life of their race. He watched as Sam closed his eyes and started breathing in a pattern. Theta state, the scientist remembered from Infiltrator's reports. He's putting himself into the kind of trance he uses to download.
Then he went to look at the pen. Breaker and the troops had picked up the pieces and taken the lid to repair. Grumbling, Fixer cleaned up as well as he could, picking up the wood fragments, the larger pieces of ceiling tiles, and the worst of the dust and small particles. Sam kept his pen neat and clean without any help up to now. After several hours it was back to a semblance of order, with a hole in one of the closets repaired. Fixer felt with his finger past the hole, and found it went back a small space. Fixer found some of the looser clothes in the wardrobe and carried them to the exam table to warm.
Sam was warm and his heart was beating fast, signs of contamination. Frightened, Fixer scanned him. the results left him relieved and reluctantly awed. On his skin, the light wounds looked sealed; when the scientist scanned, he saw the swelling reduced to safe levels.
Four hours later, Sam woke up. He found the clothes Fixer had left, and pulled the sweats on quickly, both due to the cold and because he desperately needed the bathroom. That taken care of, he looked in the mirror. His hair was everywhere and he felt sticky from the dust and other crap still sticking to him. He rubbed at an itch on his head and scabs came off scratches. He headed for his apartment, wondering if he could manage to reverse the lock before Fixer noticed, but the moment he saw the microwave his hunger ambushed him.
While stew heated in the microwave and coffee brewed, he grabbed a shower. Dressed now in heavier clothes. He noticed someone cleaned up the worst of the debris. Without the ceiling to keep in the heat, the apartment felt as cold as the hanger. Last night, he tried to search the closet where Starscream broken through the wall, but the thrice-bedamned troops had not stopped bothering him, and by the time they stopped, he lay down to rest a bit and fell asleep. This morning he had just finished breakfast when Breaker lifted the ceiling again, and quite literally the bottom fell out. Sam had been knocked down, and barely managed to cover most of his head with his arms. At least one beam had hit him in the stomach, and when he tried to get up, pain had hammered him back down. When Fixer lifted him, he hurt like hell. He knew he had internal injuries, and he knew he had only one chance of recovery. Thank God Fixer left him alone to heal. Now, if he could just find the back wall of that closet-
Repaired. Sam almost screamed with frustration. He kicked the thicker, stronger wall and stubbed his toe. Then Fixer called and did not sound happy. Sam sighed and shouted, "I'm in here!"
Fixer appeared above him. "Just what do you think you're doing?" he scolded, reaching for his charge. "I need to examine you." Sam moved out of the way.
"I'm starved, "he protested, and the microwave went off.
"Bring it out with you. The troops have the top built, they just need to put it on and they'll be out any time now." Sam sighed, fetched the stew and coffee and went out. He found the stepladder and took it to a window, since the sills were large enough to act as a table. By the time he settled, they were carrying in the top. Fixer noted his location. "Stay there until I come for you."
He ate and watched. The stew and coffee gone and bored with watching backs, Sam noticed how dark it was outside the window. How long had he slept?
Then lightning flickered. When the thunder echoed into the building, the troops looked up, nervous. They feared lightning, which fried thier circuits, sometimes badly enough to kill them. The grey clouds lit up regularly, and he could see the grass bowing in the direction of the wind. Lightning slammed the ground, and sometimes itarched from cloud to cloud, white forks and lines over the empty land. Inside him, Sam felt something stir, power recognizing power.
Between the questioning forcing him to acknowledge its presence, to the constant presence of the bots with no human contact, to the unending tension of the delayed death sentence, the presence inside him lay much closer to the surface now. Until the download, it lay quiescent most of the time, rousing seldom. Downloading in theta state, it used Sam as a channel. After the interrogation, Sam felt it constantly now, an awareness just beneath the surface.
It was not that it possessed him; it had always been there, but as he was living a human life, under the protection of his friends and allies, there had been no need for it to come through except the two moments, both a dire need. But there was something wrong here, something that it sensed, and that made it stir as well. Sam had no idea what caused the feeling, only that it was there.
A brilliant light lit the window, and sound crashed as the lights flickered and died. Fixer immediately ordered troops to the nearest doors. "Sam?" he called.
"I'm here," he called, unable to see more than shapes. He saw red optics glowing, coming nearer. "I'm watching the storm." Just then the rain started pouring down. Lightning flashed, but not as close. "Do you know what kind of generator this place has?" Fixer told him. "That last lightning strike must have thrown it into a reset. It'll come back on-line in a while."
"How do you know?" one of the troops muttered.
"I helped design it," he said. Intrigued, Fixer asked questions, drawing Sam into talking about building the company, and the energon plants.
"You mean you did all that and you was still just walking around where one of us could get you?" one of the troops asked.
Sam snorted. "You guys were after me for decades, and there was a hell of a fight when I was caught."
"From you?" asked another, and there was general laughter.
"I have a guardian," At least I hope I still do, he thought, "and he took down Barricade and Starscream before Megatron got to me."
"Had," Fixer said, and Sam's heart stopped. "You belong to Megatron now." Sam looked out the window as there was a chorus of agreement from the troops and put the stone-cold coffee down. He huddled somewhat into himself as the hanger grew colder. It would take about an hour for the generator to reset once the storm cooled down, and so far it was still going strong.
Fixer brought him a blanket and a large steaming cup with a kind of fruity tasting tea, heavily sweetened. Sam thanked him quietly and sipped, savoring the sweet and the heat. When Sam had about half of the mug gone, Fixer asked him," What are you thinking of?" Lighting continued to flicker and booms of thunder came, more muted now.
"Home," Sam said distantly, wondering what Fixer had put in the tea.
"Who did Starscream see?" Fixer asked. Sam glanced at him. Whatever was in the tea was working; he was slightly sleepy and relaxed. "A relative?"
"She isn't legally related to me," Sam said, "though I did have some uncles, who were a little careless in their relationships, so..." he shrugged. It's amazing how you can tell part of the truth and lie completely, he thought. He hoped that bunches of sneak bots were being caught- his verbal maps put them past every trap and alarm he knew of. "She's one of the company's mechanics."
"Why would Bluestreak and Bumblebee defend her?"
"She does minor repairs for the bots all the time." The bots trusted few human mechanics that far. One was Mikaela; when Poppy was born, she stopped working with the liaison office and started helping Ratchet instead, which gave her a lot of flexibility, and not so incidentally, gave Ratchet every opportunity to see the children. He tended to spoil them.
"Hey, you said we've been after you for years," Breaker said, bored with all the human talk. "Why? How'd you get mixed up with the Bots anyway?" Sam talked about getting the car that turned out to be Bumblebee, the run-in with Barricade. Fixer kept asking questions, leading Sam to tell about the Mission City fight, and then the long battle with the Fallen. After all, this was old news, nothing Megaton didn't already know.
As he talked, the storm passed. When the lights came on, he started to get up and discovered that he felt wobbly. "God, Fixer, what did you put in the tea?" he asked.
"One of Victor's chemicals," Fixer said, picking Sam up and putting him on the examination table. "We're having trouble getting the lid on, so you'll need to sleep here tonight." Lulled by the warmth of the table and the drug, Sam slept almost immediately. Fixer monitored him carefully for a time. He gave the human the maximum of the chemical his body weight could tolerate to keep him quiet and cooperative while the generator reset. The scientist noted for later that when he relaxed, the human tended to chatter. His stories and the way he told him told them kept the troops entertained. While Fixer appreciated the background information, he noticed that Sam did not give up any new information.
Such an unusual human, he thought. The All-Spark grows stronger in him. A shame he worked with the Prime. Fixer held a personal grudge against the Autobot leader.
Optimus Prime and other morally overweighed fools removed Fixer's ability to transform and banished him from Cybertron long ago for his spark experiments. Megatron intrigued by the possibilities; even with the troops he got from the Fallen's hatchlings, he needed more soldiers. The current experiments were destabilizing even with the extra energon Megatron brought from the last raid. He was going to lose the experiments soon if it could not find the key. He wondered if Sam was the key.
But his hate for Optimus burned stronger than his scientific curiosity. If killing Sam got Fixer his revenge on the Prime, he would not hesitate.
TRTR
Bumblebee finished his report to Optimus Prime, and waited. The information Minnie, Poppy, and their group gathered reaped solid rewards. Thus far, the Autobots and NEST had discovered several small bases, some abandoned, some current. They cleared out small nests of Decepticons in a lot of small places, and found occasional allies. The news they managed to get was both reassuring and disturbing.
"The word is out that Megatron has a human pet that it considers valuable," Ronald Witwicky said. "That confirms that Dad is still alive, at least. The bad news," here he stopped for a moment to control his voice, "is that whoever brings the prototype Cube to Megatron gets to kill the pet." Ronnie stopped. When Ronnie knew that his father had been taken, he grieved, because taken meant dead. Knowing Sam was alive was almost worse; a NEST soldier knew better than most what Decepticons were capable of. Bumblebee touched his back gently, and Ron looked over with a nod, appreciating the comfort.
"No one abuses valuable property, "Optimus Prime said, "and the prototype they speak of has been moved since Sam was taken and is well protected. We can only keep looking. Repeat, and repeat again to everyone involved, that if the base where Sam is being kept is found, report but do not attack or try to take any action. Megatron will kill your father if there is any chance at all he could escape."
Dismissed soon after, Captain Ronald Jasper Witwicky walked out of the building to be hailed from the street by a huge truck. He hurried over and got in. "Were you tuned in?" he asked, as Ironhide drove off. He leaned back, feeling safe. From his earliest childhood, Ironhide remained the bot he loved the most.
Ronnie never wanted to be anything but a soldier. He worked hard in school and sports toward that one goal. There was only one problem- his father did not want his baby boy in that kind of danger. Sam tried everything to turn Ronnie's interest to sports, to engineering, and to a career in research and development. He tried up to the day Ronnie graduated from high school.
Ronnie knew that Sam did not want him in the military, and why. Ronnie still remembered how James taunted him once that Ronnie was a 'surprise' baby, and unwanted. Sam found his younger son crying, and coaxed the story out of him. Then he took Ronnie for a walk in the meadow. "Look, I'm not going to lie to you," the beloved father said to his devastated youngest child, born five years after his brother and fifteen after his sister. "Your mother and I both thought we were through having children. I had a vasectomy and your mother had her tubes tied." He explained the terms to his bewildered five year old child, and then swung him up into his arms.
"We thought we couldn't give a baby as much attention as it would need, "he murmured in the child's ear. "We were wrong, youngster. You've kept us both young, do you know that? The doctor told us it would take a miracle to have another baby, so you were my miracle baby." Then he tickled Ronnie until he was wriggling and giggling with glee, and carried him back to the house to play board games. James was sent to his room and put on restriction for a week.
But when Ronnie showed Sam the acceptance to West Point, terrified but determined, the unhappy father let him go with his blessing. He said, "My father had to let me go into danger on a battlefield, son. I won't do that to you." He smiled with an effort at the much relieved Ronnie. "Besides, Ironhide would kill me."
When he graduated he joined the Marines, as NEST only took veteran soldiers. But in his first year as a first lieutenant still very wet behind the ears, his unit tangled with Decepticons without any Autobot backup. He got most of the unit out alive, even after the senior officer was killed. As soon as the dust cleared, the Army promoted him and tossed him to NEST, where he became Ironhide's human liaison. When he came home, Sam said that he was proud, and meant it.
Ronnie Witwicky loved his father ferociously.
Like his siblings, he watched as Sam became remote and quiet, mourning their mother. Like his siblings, he noticed that their father was not aging as his peers, and like them he saw that Sam's life was built around the bots, and that there was something going on that they were kept out of. He made contact regularly with Sam, and like his siblings, hoped.
When Sam called a few months ago out of the blue, wanting to spend some time together, Ronnie hung up the phone with a grin. Dad finally come back to life. He cheered every change, from the move out to the change in Bumblebee. He was on the base fighting when the desperate call for help came from Oscar, but breaking through the lines to get to them took time, and by the time they reached the city Sam was long gone.
"I was," Ironhide said. "Optimus is correct, Ronald. Megatron must keep Sam not only alive but in decent health until he can get his hands on the prototype. What's more, finding these bases weakens their ability to come after it. Who would believe that Minnie and Bluestreak come up with an idea that worked?"
"She is something," Ronnie admitted. He was fond of Minnie. "Can you believe Starscream went after her today?"
"He regretted it." Both Bumblebee and Bluestreak hit Starscream, and they almost got him down completely, but his troops rallied and the Autobots were forced to fall back to protect Minnie and Poppy. They got a few of the troops, but Starscream got away. Ronnie bagged one of the troops on his list. "Why would he come after Minnie, though? She's a mechanic."
"She looks like Sam, "Ironhide said simply. "In a quick glance, a mech might make the mistake. Tell Minnie and her group to keep up the good work. Between them and all the Decepticons who keep walking into our traps lately, we're making progress."
"You bet." Ronnie climbed out and headed for his normal flar. Ironhide watched him go. Since Will died, Ronnie became his favorite human. He fondly remembered Ronnie as a child, wanting to ride in the truck or on his shoulder, playing chess and strategy games, and talking about human war history. It had not taken long for Ronnie to confide his mixed feelings about his own ambitions and his father's efforts to distract and redirect them. Ironhide listened, but after the hassle they gave Jimmy on his choice of profession, Sam stomped his foot down. No matter what kind of claim the Autobots had on him, they had none on his children.
When Jimmie wanted to go to acting school in New England, the bots protested. Ironhide felt that Jimmie was selfish in devoting his attention to entertainment and not to the company that supplied the needs of the Autobots and the war (and Sam's family) nor to the war itself. He still remembered Jimmie's response.
"'You mean you think I'm being selfish leaving home and not going into the company or into NEST? All right then, I'm selfish. I'm going go try to make it away from home, away from my parents, and away from you. I can stand on my own two feet. You guys won't run my whole life the way you run Dad's.'"
That hurt.
While Ironhide spoke to Jimmie, Optimus spoke to Sam."He's got the right to make his own decision," Sam said, and his voice hard. "He's my son and not your responsibility." Mikaela was just as firm with Ratchet. Ironhide was afraid that Sam would keep Ronnie from the military, but just as he had allowed Jimmie to leave home for his own dream (and by human standards, Jimmie had done well), Sam did not stand in his youngest son's way.
TRTR
Poppy sat on the porch of her new house, ready for the group to arrive. She was tired from a long day at work. Oscar hobbled out and sat nearby. After a moment, he asked, "What are you thinking about?" It was dark and cold, matching both their moods.
"The night Mom died." she said distantly. Oscar said nothing. She looked out at the darkness.
She remembered Sam coming back from the meeting with Dr. Stevens, the hospice doctor. He looked sick and worn, but she could tell he had finally accepted that there was nothing more anyone could do but make her they brought her home, Poppy called Ronnie and Jimmie, and both arrived a day later. By that time Mom was failing fast, and asked them to leave her alone with Sam. The children went into the living room. The door cracked open, but the two in the bedroom had not noticed, and the children in the living room heard everything.
"Sam? Would you hold me?" They heard the bed creak.
"Better?" Dad said.
"Yes. What's it like to die, Sam?"
There was a silence. "It was quick. Like everything just-stopped. It was peaceful, no noise, no pain, just-being there in the dark. Then everything lit up, and the Dynasty spoke to me, telling me the Matrix of Leadership had to be earned and we had earned it, and to put the Matrix in Optimus' Spark. Then I woke up and you were screaming you loved me and crying on my dirty shirt." Mom laughed just a little. "It was worth hurting like hell to hear you say it first, even if I had to die for it."
"It was such a silly game we played. I was afraid you'd lose interest if I said it," she teased him.
"I was afraid I'd chase you away."
"I don't want to leave you, Sam, but I hurt so much."
"I'll be all right."
"I'll wait in the dark for you. Until you're ready. " She was having trouble saying the words, her breathing labored. "Don't hurry. Be there for the kids. "
"I know you'll be there for me. I'll be all right. I love you."
"You said it first this time. I love you." Silence for a time. Then, "Sam? I'm so glad I got in the car- with-you."
This time the silence was broken by the sound of a hard sob, tearing out of their father's throat as he wept for the woman he had shared most of his life with, now out of her pain.
Then there had been the memorial service, where, when Poppy wept and was comforted by Bob, and Ronnie by his wife, Oscar, Jenny, and Ronald's kids made a beeline to their Pops, who roused from his misery to pick the younger children up and speak quietly to the older children who leaned against him for comfort. After the public memorial service, the coffin went not to the hearse, but to a truck in the back of the home. Bob took the grandchildren home, while Sam and his children followed Ironhide in Bumblebee, Optimus, and Ratchet.
They went behind the house, to the meadow. The bots transformed and took the coffin to a central area, where they hummed in Cybertronian over it, making their own farewell. Beside Sam, Ronnie suddenly broke down and wept, and Jimmie followed. Sam put his arms around them both. Poppy went to the other side, and the family held each other. The children cried, but Sam watched dry-eyed, his tears spent, as the laser came that burned the coffin and its burden into ashes that blew away in the wind.
That look had come over his face too often in the years that followed, and he withdrew. Except for her years as a combat nurse for NEST, Poppy lived at home, and never wanted to live anywhere else. Dad moved into the garage apartment they had kept for visitors and let her and Bob have the house, which he eventually deeded to her, telling her that when the kids left they could sell it to the company. Annabelle would buy it as energon storage, because it was already defended.
They tried, all of them, to bring him out of his misery, but all of them knew that it would happen only when Dad was ready. Then it did, and Poppy was still ashamed at her growing jealousy as her father, looking younger than she did, began to live again. She was glad she reconciled with him before anything happened.
We're going to find him, she thought furiously, as she saw the lights of cars appearing in the driveway- Minnie and Jimmy arriving in Bluestreak, Ronnie behind them in his flar. "Ready, Oscar?" she asked, and Oscar nodded and dragged himself out of the chair as Minnie jumped out of Bluestreak and ran to the porch.
"We've found him," she said, glowing with triumph.
