TFA: The Spirit is the Spark
Chapter 6
It was dark and cold, the snow drifting down into piles, creating the trademark snowy landscape of Detroit. Not a single car had distrubed the road near the base, not this late at night, leaving a perfect rolling landscape of icey white snow, mixed with the steam formed from a human's breath. I stepped out into the snow, steam rising at once from my foot creating a perfect imprint of my foot, revealing the natural heating system that every cybertronian had.
I looked back over my shoulder as Bumblebee transformed and headed down the road, all of the supplys a human needed to survive this trip, put into his small trunk and his back seats. I ran after him, transforming and following him down the road. Leaving tracks and sending up an axtra flurry of snow into the cold night, we headed towards where Franchesca's current foster home was.
We sped into the night, our engines making echos off the buildings. We saw a few more cars on the way, but not much else. We finally arrived at her house. Bumblebee stayed in vehicle mode when I transformed and went to the second story window. I looked inside, trying to see beyond the curatains, and saw the sleeping shape of Franchesca. I tapped on the glass of the window quietly, waking up the girl with a fright.
I put a finger to my mouth in a gesture of shhh, when she opened her window to the crispness of Jack Frost. She smiled as she saw when I whispered, "Pack whatever you can, were taking you home.." She looked at me a bit surpised but did as I told her to. She kept her room light off, so as not to alert the couple not to far down the hallway, and she finally had her old backpack, everything of hers packed. She had put on some more appropriate clothing, packing extra in the bag, when I help my servo out to her. She climbed onto it through the open window, and I bought her down the ground.
She climbed down from my servo when Bumblebee opened the door to his passenger seat, saying quietly to her, "Coem on , get in, before those two find out!" She climbed in quickly and buckled up, but before closing the door, she looked up to me and asked, "Where are we going?" I kneeled and said, "Neveda..." She looked at me astonished but closed the door nontheless. I took off at a run before transforming, Bumblebee following me as we drove out of the city.
We drove through mostly backstreets, and at about 4:00 am in the morning, only 2 megacycles after having picked up Franchesca and were already heading away from Detroit through some small michigan town, I found a Missing Persons police report circulating through the detroit police's radio connections, having been filed by the foster parents. Optimus and the others were going to cover for us while we were gone, telling the city that we were on cybertron taking care of som business with Ultra Magnus. However, it would be very soon when they started blaming the Autobots for taking her.
I didn't hear much about it after that as we went down an almost empty highway. I had my hologram projector on, creating a fake human rider for me, but my autobot insignia still shone. It was a bright red like the others, placed at the front in between my headlights, just before my windshield. Several people around the world had heard about us, but usually only the people who lived in Detroit had seen us. Along the almost empty highway we did see however several people. Bumblebee's own insignia shown in the soft sunlight, almost gleaming like mine did. Serveral people who did spot the symbols watched us confused, and in awe. One little girl waved to me, recieving a wave from my hologram and a short honk from Bee.
The girl giggled and when he mother looked over to us, her mouth hung open for a good few seconds before she rubbed her eyes. I nodded to her in a solem hello, turning my attention back to the road and the journey ahead.
Franchesca kept herself busy with a small portable gaming system of some sort, I beleive it was made by an old company that called it self Nintendo, and read books as well. We travelled along highway 75, eventually passing Tolledo and Perrysburg. About halfway through the day, we were already on the west edge of ohio into illinoise. Me and Bumblebee knew we would have to stop at least for the night to get a quick stasis nap before hitting the road again the next day.
It was already about 9:00 when we hit Belleville, a small town just on the south-western edge of illinoise. We stopped in a small empty parking lot, parked ourselves for the night, and went into stasis. Bee kept his heater on for poor Franchesca who had fallen asleep 2 megacycles ago. We had made a few pitstops for her to get out and move around, but we had stayed in vehicle mode all day, and planned to until tomorrow.
I came out of my stasis nap to a annoying, whinny voice that could only belong to my friend Bumblebee. His voice was coming over the com-link, "Hey wake up! We have to get moving, we've got trouble." He turned the com-link to a radio channel, "It seems that two Autobots have gone missing, having been seen on a small hihgwya, having already made it to Illinoise. And the missing girl has..." He turned off the radio, and I started my engine with a huff, turning my hologram back on wearily.
Franchesca had already eaten a breakfest of dry ceral and a couple of granola bars, along with two bottles of water, all ready on the third. We made our way out of the empty parking lot, and started back onto the highway. We trudged along this time, already feeling the pain and wearyness of traveling like this without anything but a short stasis nap. Franchesca tried to keep warm with a blanket, and ate snacks in between, trying to keep a minimal number of crumbs from falling onto Bumblebees interior.
We made it to springfield at about 2:00, a busy town, and famous from what I had heard. All I had thought about in between then was how I would never see this girl again. I would never hear from her again personally for safety reasons, and I could never seek her out again. Optimus had told me the consequenses for this decision, but I all ready knew them the moment I had decided to help her.
I had been trying to convince myself it would be ok, but I knew that it wouldn't be for me. I was doing this for Franchesca, for her like and sake, for her safety. We made it to the edge of Springfield when we got stuck in a traffic jam on the highway. It was all ready 4:00 in the afternoon, and me and Bumblebee both needed a stasis nap, badly.
We were stuck because of a truck accident, a bad one from the radio reports I kept hearing on my com-link. I used my hologram projector finally to try and cover up my Autobot insignia, making it light blue to blend into the background my vehicle mode, fortunetly Bubmlebee's was on top of his roof. I could tell from the damage reports that someone may have been almost killed, when they finally said that the driver was alive, but they couldn't remove him from the truck.
"Bumblebee, I'm going to help that driver..." I turned my engine back on and slipped in between the cars that I could, finally making it about 200ft from the wreckage before I could go no further in vehicle mode. Before I could transform, Bumblebee's voice invaded my com-link, "Wait! Bossbot told us to keep a low profile!" I tried to keep myself calm and reply, "But if we do keep a low profile, that human will die..." He kept quiet after that.
I transformed into robot mode, my hologram going off, and I finally opened my real optics for the first time in over a solar cycle. My joints were stiff, but I could still move quite well, when I looked around, trying to find a quick path to the truck. A lot of people looked at me astonished, having heard of the Autobots, but never beleiving they would ever seen one in their life time. I stood up from a crouching postition and ran, jumping in between the spaces of the cars, climbing over the trailers of trucks, when I finally made the 200ft gap to the wreckage of the truck.
Some of the Policemen and spectators had all ready seen me, but when I finally got to only a good 20ft from the turned over truck, things started to get really well, big. Every single able bodied person turned to look at me, unfortunetly, they also turned their guns at me. I tried to take a step closer to the truck, when one cop, the Captain I beelive, said with a pointed gun at me, "Don't move alien..." I had never really been called an alien on this planet before, even though I knew I was one here, it was still a shock to me.
I ignored his remark as best I could, leaping over the cars, a good 12 ft jump, small to me, but large to them. I ran over to the truck, firefighters moving out of the way, when I looked inside the truck. The human driver looked at me with wide eyes but made no advance to move away. I pulled the door away with some ease, but still tired from the long trip. The humans leg was stuck under the steering wheel, trapping him in such a way that if he was moved, he would die. I looked around and saw several firefighters watching.
"I need a firefighter, please, I need one of you to help me move him..." One brave soul came forward, a young man in his early 20's, and the only one to come forward. I put my servo down for him to climb onto, bringing him closer to the driver then anyone else had been able to get. The young firefighter was able to finally reach the driver, and cut the steering wheel loose. The driver let out a loud groan of pain as the firefighter removed the steering wheel, but was finally able to pull the injured man from the truck.
I put them back on the groud, the firefigher letting the injured truck driver put an arm over his shoulders and leaned on him. Serveral people who had come on ambulences came and took teh driver away, finally take him into an ambulence itself, and driving off somewhere to a hospital.I stood there, leaning a little back and forth from exhasution when teh firefighter came over to me. I leaned down to him, looking him in the eyes, my optics serene, but tired, and he said, "Thank you, whatever you are..." I nodded to him in welcome, not saying anything so as not to frighten any more people.
Traffic started to move again, Bumblebee with it, and I transformed and joined the rampage of cars, finally catching up to Bee, but having to seemingly dissapeared from the humans perspective. We made our way past the highway and started to take more town and back roads then highways from that point on.
We finally made it to Tulsa, Oklahoma very late at night, parking ourselves in yet another empty parking lot on the outskirts of the town. We both went into stasis naps, but Bumblebee, beforeing pweringdown said thorugh the com-link, "You did a brave thing..." I yawned through the com-link and said, "Its our job, remember?" He laughed and then we both nodded off into a long recharge mode.
