"Worse than you thought? What exactly did you think?" I asked, getting worried. Was I going to drop dead or something? As if reading my frantic and overly paranoid thoughts, Ratchet quickly explained "Well, it seems that you and that Allspark shard are now bonded." "Is that even possible?" Jumpstart asked. "Wait a second, bonded? The heck does that mean?" I cut in before Ratchet could reply to Jumpstart's query. "The Allspark shard has chosen you as a carrier. Its power is now entwined with your life force, at least partially." Ratchet stated bluntly. I picked the metallic shard away from myself. While it sat on my palm, it warmed on my hand as if it were proud of itself. Wait. Pride? Emotion? "Is this thing alive?" I asked suddenly. Ratchet shrugged. "Not as far as we know. The Allspark is a mystery even to us in some aspects. This is the first time anything even remotely of this sort has ever happened in the history of the Allspark, as far as records go anyway, so I can't really tell you what will happen."

Optimus Prime chose this moment to put a hand on Ratchet's shoulder and guide him slightly away from the group. "I do not wish to pull another innocent organic into our war, is there any way to remove the shard?" Optimus asked. "No. Removal of the shard would kill her." Ratchet replied, shaking his head. "If you're going to talk about me and my future, at least include me." I chimed in, causing all Autobots present to turn their heads toward me. "Why do you guys seem so surprised? I'm not deaf." I said in reply to their shocked expressions, crossing my arms in annoyance. "You can understand us?" Jumpstart asked me. "Duh. You're speaking plain english. What's not to get?" I said, confused. "But we are not conversing in English. How do you understand Cybertronian?" Optimus said. I realized with a start that he was right. If I focused on their voices, I could hear that they were clicking, whirring, and beeping. Yet that garble somehow translated to coherent words. "...As far as I knew, I didn't..." I muttered, my arms dropping to my sides in bafflement. Was I even speaking in English? Yes. I was. One thing that was normal, at least.

"It must be your bond with the Allspark. The link is leaking into you some of the knowledge stored within the Allspark." Ratchet hypothesized. "I wonder what it's getting from me?..." I mumbled, looking down to the shard around my neck. I was pulled from my thoughts as a harsh blue light washed over my body. Squinting my eyes at the origin of the light, I was slightly surprised to see Ratchet's face when the light winked out. "Interesting..." Ratchet mumbled. "The frick was that?" I asked. "A simple scan. I'd like you to return regularly so I may see how the bond is affecting you." Ratchet said. Apparently that was some kind of dismissal, because Jumpstart approached me and laid his hand in front of me. Some little voice in the back of my head corrected Servo, not hand. Shaking my head as if it would shut the voice up, I climbed into Jumpstart's open hand, and he took my away. The others stayed to chat. I had no doubts that it would be about me.

"Well, what now?" I asked of my much larger wine red companion. "Well, now you have to go talk with the lawyers, and I have to go out on patrol." He said. "Ugh, seriously? No one likes lawyers!" He chuckled. "Well, you are knee deep in a government secret that's been hidden for 2 years. You didn't think they'd ignore you, did you?" I huffed. "Stupid government." Jumpstart set me down on top of the catwalk in the center of the command room. He called "Good luck!" over his shoulder before he left.

Perfect. I have no clue who anyone is or where I'm supposed to go. Thank you Jumpstart. I groaned mentally. Looking around the catwalk, I spotted the man who I'd met earlier. Figuring that he could help me, I wormed my way across the crowded catwalk to where he stood, looking over the shoulder of a man at a console. "Lennox?" I asked shyly. He turned and greeted me with a "Oh! Miss Sinclaire! What's up?" The formal name he gave me seemed out of place in his otherwise casual sentence. "Please, call me Eva. And Jumpstart told me I had to sort out a few things with some lawyers or something?" "Oh. Yeah, That's kinda important. I'm just glad I'm not the one who has to deal with all that. I just shoot Decepticons. Follow me, I'll get ya where you need to go." I gratefully followed the soldier to meet my doom with the lawyers.

An hour later I emerged from the offices used by the Public Relations officers. (It was one of the few rooms without an Autobot-sized door.) Basically, I'd signed a huge contract that pledged that I would stay silent about the Autobots. (And Decepticons too.)

I wandered back out to the command room. The sound of the elevator caught my attention. Instead of seeing the wine red Autobot I was hoping for, I saw a yellow Autobot with a brunette young man by his feet. Pedes. The little voice corrected again. Shrugging it off, I was surprised to see the young man wave at me. Weakly waving back, he took that as invitation to come closer. "Hi!" He said. "Hey." I replied. "I'm Sam. Sam Witwicky." He held his hand out for me to shake. I took it and said "Evalyn Sinclaire. But please call me Eva." Sam nodded up to the large Autobot looking down at our conversation behind him. "This is Bumblebee." Bumblebee whirred and waved. "He's got speech problems." Sam explained. Bumblebee gave an offended beep from behind him. Sam ignored him. "I see that you're in civilian clothes. So, how'd you get pulled in?" Sam asked. "My car turned into a robot." I said with a shrug. "Me too!" Sam said, "I guess that's one thing we have in common." "Well, I don't think that you ever had an Allspark bond to you." I said, displaying the shard necklace. "And I bet you never had every government in the world looking for you." Sam countered, placing a hand on his hip. "I knew I saw you somewhere! You were all over the news!" Sam sighed. "Tell me something I don't know. Hey, wanna go watch a movie?"

I was halfway through Back To The Future II. Sam had to go after the first movie finished, and Bumblebee was taking him home. That left me alone in the oversized rec room. The old 1980's movie looked even cheesier than I remembered when blown up on the Autobot-sized screen, which made it all the better. I was pulled from my movie when metallic footsteps approached the tiny human-sized couch from behind. Throwing my head back I could see that it was Jumpstart, despite the fact that I was seeing him upside down. "There you are! Where have you been?" I asked him, flipping right-side-up again. "While I knew you were busy, I was getting reacquainted with the old gang." he shrugged. "Wanna go for a drive? You still haven't tried my new alt-mode." "Sure." I hit the power button and the giant screen went dark. Jumpstart grabbed my leg, dangling me upside down and I squawked in disapproval. He chuckled and set me onto his palm. He then exited the base.

Folding down into his vehicle mode, I got my first good look at it. He was a shiny, new, wine red Toyota Sequoia SR5. This is much nicer than the old, dull, Toyota Sienna that first appeared on my driveway. I thought. The passenger door swung open directly in front of me. "Hop in." Jumpstart invited. I happily obliged. As I plopped myself onto the comfortable black seat, the door shut after me and the seatbelt snaked over me. He then took off.

"Been a while since I've had this much knowledge of a passenger." Jumpstart commented. "Huh?" I asked. "Last time I was giving you a ride, most of my internal sensors were deactivated to conserve energy. I mean, I could tell where you were, but now I can feel everything down to your heartbeat." I stiffened. "I can feel that too, calm down." He said. I slowly did as he said. I nearly jumped out of the seat when I felt it move. I probably would have, were in not for the seatbelt restraining me. The best I could manage was leaning away from the back of the seat. "You ok?" Jumpstart asked. "Did your seat just move?" I asked. "Yeah. It did. Chill." Jumpstart said, using the seatbelt to pull me back. I allowed him to, and I felt the seat move and stiffened until I realized that the seat was molding itself to the curves of my back. "Comfy." I commented sincerely. "I thought you'd think so." Jumpstart said.

"So. Can you feel... this?" I asked, poking the seat. "Yes." Jumpstart said simply. "This?" I placed my hand on the dashboard. "Yup." "This? I lightly tapped the floor with my foot. "Yes, I can feel everythin- Hey! That tickles!" He broke off as I poked my finger in between the folds of the seat. "Oh, really?" I asked evilly. "Don't you dare." Jumpstart warned. I ignored him as I mercilessly repeated the action that had tickled him on different areas of the seat. "Hey! Quit it!" he protested between laughs. I was so intent on my torture that I didn't notice the person next to me until he grabbed my wrist. "Ack!" I cried, yanking my limb out of the mystery man's grasp. He sat up from leaning over the center console in the driver's seat. One hand on the wheel, he said "You really are jumpy tonight." in a voice that was all too familiar. "Jumpstart? Since when can you do that?" I asked, poking the man. He was solid. "Since I wasn't almost dying from lack of energy. It's a holoform. A holographic projection made solid with nanobots." "Dying from lack of energy?" "Yeah. No biggie." "No biggie!" I didn't know which to swat, the seat or the man. So I did both. "Well, I'm alive now, so who cares?" Jumpstart defended. "You better makes sure it stays that way." I scolded. Jumpstart sighed. "You sound just like Ratchet."