The Dark Horizon

Chapter 7: Rain

I slowly started to see again, I could only distinguish light and dark, but it was getting better by the second. Who the hell was carrying me? He was probably a little taller than Ratchet, slimmer though, but it wasn't anyone I knew, that was for sure. After a while I could spot his dark silver and black armor, a Porsche logo on his chest, next to the Autobot sigil... but who was it? I groaned and moved a little in his hands. Where was he taking me? My optics felt like they were on fire, my voice capacitor felt rough, but still I tried to speak.

"Ngh... where-"

"Quiet. You've got an appointment." I closed my optics from the bright light around me, trying to sit up in the mech's hands, but he pushed me back down again. It took a while until he rapped on another unfamiliar door. Someone from inside said 'Enter'. I knew that voice. I knew it and it made me shiver in discomfort.

The door opened and I was released onto the floor, the door closed again. I curled my fingers, having fallen onto my hands and knees, I felt the carpeting beneath me... wait, carpeting? What for? Dark blue, almost black, soft carpeting. I looked up, only to be confronted with the Autobot commander, who was sitting behind the largest desk I had ever seen, his fingers laced and his elbows braced on the desk. I sat back on my haunches slowly, he seemed to be seizing me up with his optics. Was he expecting me to say something? And then I got the idea. Staying on my knees, I leaned forward slightly, bowing my head to him.

"Good girl." He said quietly, standing up from his large chair and striding over to me. "Very good. Have we had enough?" I didn't look up, instead I just nodded softly. A large finger moved beneath my chin to push my face up so I had to face the imposing mech, who had knelt down beside me. How somebody his size could move so soundlessly was a mystery to me. "Will you be good now or do you want to go back to room 101?" I shivered at the prospect of being imprisoned in that dark room again. The finger started stroking the underside of my jaw gently. To me, the touch was repulsive, no matter how delicate he tried to make it.

"I... I'll be good."

"I'll be good what."

"Sir." He smiled, it made me shiver. There was something cruel about his smile, something lecherous. He stood back up and went to sit at his desk again, I stood up cautiously.

"Who gave those supplies to you." Prime said marginally while studying a datapad.

"What 'supplies' do you mean...sir?" He shot me a sharp look over the edge of the datapad, as if he wanted to say 'don't fuck with me'.

"Answer me, femme." I looked down at my hands. Ratchet would probably be in trouble if I told. On the other hand, I wondered why he was asking me anyway since Ratchet was the only logical choice; after all, there actually wasn't really anyone beside him (except Prime, of course) I had much contact with, so... but while a few days ago I would have very willingly made the medic look bad in front of his superior, I now found I didn't really want to cause him any trouble. What the hell was wrong with me? Was I growing to like that creep?

"I... don't know. One morning, it was just there. I don't know where they came from."

"Alpha." He warned. I looked back up at him. He had put the datapad aside and was now watching me intently, metallic brows furrowed. I started chewing my bottom lip, not knowing what to say, almost biting myself when he slammed his fist onto the desk loudly. "Answer me! Who was it?!"

"I... it was... I guess-"

"SAY IT!"

"It... um... Ratchet?" There. I had said it. It made me feel bad, but what was I supposed to do? He leaned back in his huge chair, relaxing noticeably.

"That wasn't so hard, now was it?" His attention turned back to the datapad, his optics analyzing the (most likely cybertronian) script quickly. "The paint will be confiscated until further notice. Maybe, if you behave, you can have it back. Prowl!" The mech who had brought me here opened the door from the outside, stepping into the room and bowing his head to his Prime. So that was Prowl? I had imagined him to look... different. Optimus motioned towards me with his head, the lights on the ceiling reflecting on his brilliantly polished blue helmet. "Take her back to med bay."

"Yes, sir." Prowl moved to pick me up and retreated through the door, but the commander spoke up again before he had exited completely.

"And Alpha. I case you want to pull a stunt like that again let yourself be told that there are much worse punishments in store for you than room 101."

XXXXXXXXXX

I didn't struggle at all while Prowl brought me back to med bay, at least not until a good opportunity was at hand, which gave me the benefit of not being held too tightly and that was a mistake on Prowl's side. The chance to escape appeared in the shape of a human soldier patrolling a hallway we passed, armed with a machine gun and rounding a corner behind us. A magnet strip card was fastened to his belt; probably some sort of key. My spark's pace was quickening rapidly, but Prowl didn't seem to suspect anything. Good.

Moving quickly, I wriggled out of his grasp, landed on the floor and ran, leaving a stunned Autobot behind. Before he could even react and come after me, I had already rounded the corner where the soldier had disappeared and jumped to tackle the man. He let out a surprised yelp and hit the ground hard, receiving a hard blow to the back of his head when he tried to struggle and throw me off.

But now I had the problem of the black and silver Autobot thundering towards me. What to do, what do do... I grabbed the machine gun the soldier had been carrying, losing precious time while fiddling with the strap which had been holding the gun to his shoulder. I tried to fire it at Prowl, but it didn't work. Was it even loaded? It should have been. I had no experience in the handling of guns at all, so I didn't know... wait, there had to be some kind of lock... a little black button at the side of it. I pressed it and tried again to fire- and it worked.

The kickback was so hard it almost knocked me over, but I remained on my feet, firing multiple bursts at Prowl's face. He howled in pain, his hands flew up to cover his optics; obviously I had done something right. With him now merely stumbling towards me, I had enough time to steal the magnetic card off of the soldier's belt and run.

I wasn't so sure if using the elevator was such a good idea and so I ran back to where I had seen a human sized stairway before. I tried to rip open the door of steel and bulletproof glass, but the broad handle didn't budge, only when I inserted the magnetic card into a slot beside the door could it be opened. I hurried up the stairs, taking three or four steps at a time, the machine gun clasped firmly in my hands.

I had shot at someone. I had actually hurt someone. What about the soldier? If I had wounded him fatally, if he died- no, no, I had to stop thinking like that right now. I needed to get out of here, as quickly as possible. No alarms had been triggered yet, they probably didn't know I was trying to escape right now. After many many many levels, the staircase ended, so I exited through the door at the top. I entered a vacated locker room and, glad not to have encountered anyone, grabbed an abandoned black military jacket and ran on, but stopped abruptly.

There was a tabular glass case with keys hanging on hooks inside, car keys, close to the next door. I actually didn't expect the magnetic card to work at its lock, but surprisingly, it did. Without further ado, I grabbed a gray GMC key and ran out, forgetting the card in the lock. I came out in the hangar where I had first arrived. I was on a raised grating platform in front of a human sized in- built two story tall set of rooms. From here I could see the multiple vehicles below, the huge gate through which the sunlight was illuminating the front part of the hangar- and the soldiers in front of it.

I ducked, but I was pretty much out in the open here. I needed to get down to ground level. I pressed the release mechanism on the key and seeing the flashers of a nearby black truck light up, I made my way over to it silently just when the alarms started to sound.

There was sudden agitation in the hangar and I did have some trouble hiding behind trucks, quad bikes and motorcycles to avoid the soldiers suddenly running about. I managed to open the now open truck's driver's door quietly and crawled inside, hiding behind the steering wheel and putting the machine gun down on the passenger seat while plugging the key into the ignition lock. I had only just started my driving lessons not long before the incident at my school, so I wasn't really a good driver yet but I did know the basics.

At least the truck was an automatic- no danger of killing the engine. I discreetly put my foot down on the brake before turning the key. The motor hummed to life and I released the brake to slowly pull out of the space between two other trucks. I heard soldiers shouting and kicked the accelerator to the metal, making the car lurch forward, knocking over a motorcycle in the progress. But as I now was speeding towards the exit, the soldiers tried to block it, aiming their guns at me. I honked, but they didn't move out of the way. I wouldn't stop. If they didn't move, I'd run them over. They started shooting, I ducked behind the steering wheel. I could barely see through the windshield anymore, at the time I reached the lowering gate the front of the car was probably laced with holes. The soldiers had jumped out of the way in the last possible moment, now shooting at the car from the back. Something impacted with the rear portion of the truck, making it screech to the left a little, but I caught it quickly (thank god there was nothing in my way anymore) and sped on. The gunshots stopped. Another engine howled behind me and a quick look into the cracked rear mirror told me it was Jazz chasing after me, followed by a cloud of dust, the silver sports car quickly closing in and pulling up beside me.

"Stop right now, femme!" He shouted, but I wouldn't even think of listening to him. His driver's door opened and started to transform, but I stopped the process by slamming the truck's side against the smaller Autobot. He yelped, but returned to the truck's side quickly. "STOP!" I hit him again and again, still I couldn't shake him off. We were nearing the barbed wire fence surrounding the whole area, but the soldiers at the gate didn't shoot, probably because they didn't want to hit Jazz. The splinters of the gate flew through the air as I tore through it, Jazz still hard on my heels. As I was nearing top speed, he pulled past and in front of me by a few hundred meters and transformed, aiming his own gun at me. I needed to avoid him at all cost. The ground beside the dust road was rather uneven but, considering I was driving an ATV and he was a sports car, I saw my advantage, hit the brakes and after reducing my speed severely, I pulled off the road. Jazz, obviously surprised, transformed hastily and tried to chase after me again- tried.

The stones and bumps of the dusty ground were getting to his low carriage, and soon he was stuck and forced to transform and try to run after me in bipedal mode, but I left him behind quickly. He shot the ground in front of me a few times so small craters were created, probably in the hope of me driving into them and crashing, but I avoided them narrowly by drawing aside quickly. My head hit the truck's roof yet again when the vehicle jumped over another bump, but I ignored it euphorically.

I had made it! Made it out of the base! Wind was rushing through the damaged windshield, I could see the sky above me and mountains in front of me... I needed to go into hiding somewhere. Get rid of the car. Change the direction of my escape quickly, mislead the Autobots. A city. That would be perfect. Something labyrinthine where I could hide... some location that would hopefully force them to tread carefully to avoid too much collateral damage. I saw cars glinting in the distance and changed my course to the right. Civilization was it. But I would have to wait until nightfall so I could move undetected by the population...

XXXXXXXXXX

By the time it got dark I had found a patch of green where I hid the truck behind some large bushes, but not before searching it for useful things. I did find an emergency canister of gas, a flashlight and some small set of tools (two screwdrivers, universal pliers and a wrench) in the trunk.

Of course the Autobots and their human allies had already started searching for me, but they obviously hadn't expected for me to stay off road most of the time, so thankfully, they hadn't spotted me yet, at least I hoped so. It was getting dark and cloudy quickly and I twitched when a bang was heard nearby, but the following light show in the sky suggested that it must have been close to New Year and people just wanted to start celebrating early.

I walked along the road quietly, dressed in the stolen jacket, the gun neatly hidden underneath. It felt great to smell the fresh air again, to hear the faint rumble of thunder... avoiding the light cones beneath the street lights, I kept looking for a phone booth. A few years ago, I wouldn't have had trouble finding one, but now that pretty much everyone was carrying a cellphone, it was a whole different story.

I reached some kind of shopping district, which was devoid of people save for two or three fast food restaurants. I could smell the burgers and fries, although I kept a few hundred feet away. What was that over there? A pay phone. In the shadows of a supermarket, old and smeared with graffiti, but it would do. If it was still in working condition.

I wasn't stupid enough to call my parents. That would have been far too obvious. No, it had to be someone the Autobots probably weren't watching, but someone who would definitely help me…

I didn't have any change on me, so I was forced to make a collect call in the hope that my friend Chelsea would accept it. When I was asked to say my name, I used only my initials to not make it too freaking obvious to anyone listening in who exactly was calling. After all, I was pretty sure this phone wasn't particularly safe. After a few times of ringing, Chelsea picked up.

"Hello?"

"Chelsea?" I fiddled with the cable attached to the handset nervously. "It's me, Joey." Silence. Then she practically shouted into the phone in excitement.

"Joelle?! Is that really you? Where the hell have you been? Last I saw you was before our school burned down and-"

"Listen, Chelsea. I'm in trouble. And if I say I'm in trouble I mean really fucking big trouble. I need your help."

"I... yeah okay, what do you need? Where are you? What's going on?"

"I know I'm asking a lot of you, but... could you probably pick me up?"

"Should I call the police? I could-"

"NO!" I almost shouted, then cleared my throat and continued with a quiet voice. "No, please don't. I… please just get me out of here."

"Well, where are you?" I told her my location and that she'd better hurry. She fussed a little over me being not exactly around the corner and all, but she promised to make it there as fast as possible. Still, I knew it would take her several hours to get here, so I decided I had to go and find a place to hide until she arrived. I found a relatively save spot between two large and rusty dumpsters. A rat scurried away when I got close, but other than that, the spot was empty. I sat down in the shadows, pulling the jacket closer to myself. It was a little too small for me and a look at the label earlier had revealed it was extra large. Shit. I must have grown already.

A drop of rain hit my cheek, then another on my leg. I looked up into the sky. No stars were visible, but huge amounts of clouds, intent on pouring their much needed contents all over the dry landscape. Every once in a while, lightning twitched along the horizon, a few small rockets hissed, rising up into the air before exploding in a colorful burst of sparks.

My stomach hurt. I had no energon; all I had was the gas in the canister. I wasn't so sure if I should try and drink it, after all who knew that stuff wouldn't poison me? Still... I was hungry. The last time I had refueled had been in the cell and it hadn't been a lot. Merely a few sips. I was hit by the rain more frequently now, but I didn't bother looking for shelter, enjoying the feeling of water on my body.

I opened the canister and sniffed at its contents, it smelled like ordinary gas. Tentatively, I tried a sip- only to spit it out immediately. It tasted terrible, just terrible. Offended by the disgusting aroma still lingering in my mouth, I closed the plastic vessel again and shoved it aside. Gas wasn't an option, then. Wiping the taste off of my tongue didn't work either- also, the taste sensors didn't seem to be only on my tongue anyway. Well, I could still try diesel, or oil or ethanol... but I would certainly not get energon anywhere. I didn't even know of what exactly that stuff was made of, only that it tasted good and made me full.

I leaned my back against the dirty wall behind me. I couldn't wait until Chelsea showed up. It would be nice to see a familiar human face again, although my own looks would probably freak her out quite a bit. In a way, I felt bad for calling her; I didn't want to drag her into this story, I didn't want to cause her any trouble. But I wouldn't stay with her anyway. I'd ask her to take me back to our city, the city where I had grown up and which I knew inside out, where it would be relatively easy to hide and not be found by the Autobots... I could hide in the abandoned warehouse, near the highway in the old industrial district. I trusted Chelsea. I had known her for almost my entire life and she was one of my closest friends. If she had called me and asked for help, I wouldn't have hesitated to do anything in my might to do so.

There wasn't much I could do until she showed up though, and so I waited. Hours passed. I crouched behind the dumpster when a helicopter flew overhead, but the spotlight didn't catch me by a long shot and so I thought of myself as being safe for the moment. I couldn't recharge. Although the temperatures didn't drop as low as to resemble those in my cell, it still was pretty cold. But the cold was not the reason I didn't find any rest.

The scratches I had inflicted upon myself ached, I held my arm close to my chest, but the burning sensation didn't subside in the slightest. I spent my time with counting the few cars that were passing by. This was a relatively small town, so the traffic was rather sparse; throughout the whole night, I counted a total of 32 cars. Dawn was slowly nipping at the horizon and a thin coat of rime covered my body where the rain couldn't wash it away. I brushed it off carefully. Then, a familiar car pulled onto the parking lot and a girl with shoulder length, straight black hair stepped out. She looked around somewhat cluelessly, only to find there was no one there. It was still rather dark outside, she couldn't see me, not even when I stepped out of my shelter. Of course I remained in the shadows at first. She called my name.

"Here. I'm here." I said quietly. Chelsea turned into my direction, eyes squinting.

"Joelle?" I hesitated to reveal myself completely. How would she react?

"Chelsea. I'm glad you came. You can't imagine what I went through."

"What... what happened? Your voice sounds strange. Are you sick or something?"

"I..." I looked at my childhood friend. She looked a little confused and very worried. "You gotta promise you won't freak out now. You must know I'm still the same person, even if I don't look the same anymore. Okay? Please promise me."

"Okay, okay, I promise. Come. Let me see you. How bad can it be?" I vented a huge amount of cold morning air before stepping out into the light. I should have known she would react a little more hysterical than she'd let on.

"HOLY SHIT! WHAT THE FUCK IS THIS?!" She jumped back behind her car's silver hood. I slowly continued towards her across the wet pavement. It had been raining cats and dogs for the last hours, now was no exception. I raised my hands in a reassuring gesture.

"Please... I... please don't be afraid. Please. I need your help, Chelsea. They'll find me if you don't help me. They mustn't find me. Please..."

"I don't believe you're... how am I supposed to know you're the one you're pretending to be? Prove it. Prove you're really Joelle, my friend Joelle." I sighed, lowering my arms. What was there only the two of us knew? I thought back to what we had experienced together in the past. My face lit up. I remembered a time when she had been staying over at my place and we had wanted to make some chocolate custard. It all had ended in a disaster when she'd misjudged the speed descriptions on my mom's mixer and the custard had been splattered all over the kitchen walls.

"Oh shit, moving the lever to the front means 'extra fast'? How retarded is that? Remember that one?" Her jaw dropped. Slowly, very slowly, she left the safety of her car's side and walked towards me. I remembered her to be a little taller than me, now she was noticeably shorter. She stopped in front of me, staring up into my face. The rain had long since soaked her black strands and was dripping onto her soaked gray jacket. Her hand lifted to touch my jaw tentatively. She flinched at the feeling of metal beneath her fingers. Tears were welling up in her dark brown eyes.

"Oh my god. It really is you. Oh my god, what the fuck happened to you?"

"I'd... rather explain this in the car. I don't want to be seen out in the open."

"Okay. Okay uh... where are we going?"

"Home."

XXXXXXXXXX

"So let me get this straight." Chelsea said, taking another sip of her energy drink. "You've been kidnapped by a race of almost extinct alien robots because they want you to have babies and you're an alien yourself and now you've escaped and are on the run from them."

"Yeah that's pretty much it." I was sitting on the backseat of her car, mostly obscured from the views of the people in the other cars on the highway through the tinted windows. I was wearing Chelsea's sunglasses and a dark brown baseball cap. We had already driven the biggest part of the distance to our hometown, the landscape was already looking more familiar, forests and lakes starting to border the highway instead of desert.

We had spent the past hours talking, with her telling me about how everything back home had been in such a chaos, how they had all been so worried, how badly my parents were taking it and with me telling her about my imprisonment, the surgery, the escape. She had seemed to have trouble fighting back tears at one point or another, but by now she was relatively recomposed.

"I still can't believe this is real."

"You're not alone there."

"So what are you going to do? I mean, is there some way to change you back or something?" I sighed, looking out of the window.

"I fear I won't ever be able to just live a normal life again. Or to be human again. As to what I'm gonna do, I'm not so sure myself. I think I'll try and hide out in the city, but it could become more difficult when I get bigger, which I'm pretty sure I will."

"Well, maybe you could, you know, stay with me and my mom, I don't think she'd mind." I shook my head vehemently.

"No way. I don't want to endanger you. I don't know what the Autobots will do to you if they find me at your place. No. I'm better off alone."

"And" she looked at me through the rear view mirror. "what if you ask the police for help? I mean, maybe they could help you."

"I don't think the police or the government could do anything to help me. Technically, I'm an illegal immigrant. Besides, with the military aid the Autobots seem to be providing I doubt they will risk their good diplomatic relations just to protect someone who's not even a member of their species. They'd probably hand me over as soon as they see me."

"But you can't just live on the streets. What will you eat... or... do you even eat?"

"I... was given energon while I was back at their base. It's some kind of alien fuel, but I certainly wouldn't be getting it anywhere on this planet other than from the Autobots, so... I don't know what I'll 'eat', no. Certainly not donuts." She drove on in silence for a while. I wondered what she was thinking. What would I have thought if something like that would have happened to one of my friends? I should never find out. A huge black GMC pickup truck pulled up beside us. I shrank down into the backseat. This wasn't good. The rain was still pouring down on the highway.

"Um, Chelsea?"

"Yes?" I pulled the collar of my jacket up on either side of my face to hide myself a little more.

"Please don't panic, but... I don't think that's an ordinary truck there beside us." She looked to the left, where the black topkick refused to pull further ahead or fall back, remaining in its place.

"Oh my god, you think it's one of them?"

"I'm pretty sure it is."

"Oh shit. What am I supposed to do?"

"Act normal. Don't panic. Maybe he doesn't even know I'm in here." All warning I received was Chelsea's horrified shriek before the black truck beside us rammed the side of our smaller car violently, driving it against the guardrail to our right. Chelsea lost it and pressed the pedal to the metal, but the truck easily kept up with us.

"OhmygodohmygodOHMYGOD!" She made a sharp right turn to catch the next exit, almost overturning the car. I looked out of the rear window, only to see the black truck drifting into a u- turn and racing after us. It was followed by a few army vehicles. When I turned back to look out of the front windows, I could only catch a small glimpse of a red car honking and speeding towards us with screeching brakes, but it was too late to do anything.

Everything went so fast. It smashed into the driver's door brutally, sending the car spinning out of control, coming to a sudden and shuddering stop when it crashed against something else. Subconsciously, I had curled up in a protective ball on the backseat, my safety belt holding me in place and preventing me from being catapulted from side to side too extremely. When my hands let go of my head, what I saw made me cry out in horror. Chelsea's lifeless face staring back at me, upside down, neck bent over the back of her seat, mouth wide open, pure terror written into the expression she had carried in the last second of her life, her blood covered head almost severed from her body, which had been crushed by the other car along with the biggest part of our car's front, only just attached by a few sinews...

I screamed. I thrashed. I tried to open the seat belt, but my hands were too clumsy in my panicked state. Finally, I managed to rip it out of its mountings and hurriedly scrambled out of the broken side window and into the pouring rain, my jacket getting caught in the shards. I wriggled out of it and ran, screaming. People in cars gasped and screamed as they saw me, but I didn't care. I didn't look back. I just wanted to get away.

The highway was crossing an old residential area with run- down houses. I ran across the road junction, jumping and climbing over wedged in cars, stumbling over the guardrail and almost landing on my face, but always running on and on. I didn't know if someone was following me, I just wanted to get away.

Chelsea. She was dead because of me. She was dead! Oh god. I felt sick. The rain was obscuring my view, everything blurred, the noise all around me was ear- shattering. Suddenly the world tumbled around me, I was ripped off my feet, something had hit me and tangled with my limbs, a net, wrapped around me, I couldn't get up, then I saw Ironhide in his bipedal form, kneeling down with a syringe in his hand, I felt it pierce my neck, I screamed, I wanted to struggle, but I couldn't, he was holding me down. And then, everything went dark.

Wow, that went fast. Anyway, please review.