Notes: Revised May/11. Reposted June 30/11
Life Deals Twisting Changes
Chapter 10 – Getting Caught
It was nearing dawn when Ironhide pulled into the driveway; he noticed there weren't any lights on yet, except for one. He suspected it was Lennox's wife tending to their baby. It didn't take long, afterwards, for more lights to turn on and one of the lights he knew was Katherine getting up. He waited patiently for her to get ready and do her normal morning routine.
It was nearing eight when he Katherine walked out of the door and moved towards him. Her long dark hair was pulled back in some sort twist and she was wearing a pale green dress with a white blazer. The outfit slightly reminded him of the one she wore when he saved her life. He remembered her complaining about a white jacket being ruined because of the fighting.
She climbed in, placing her things she had on the passenger seat. "Let's go 'Hide."
"'Hide? What the hell is that?"
"A nickname."
"Isn't my name sufficient?"
"Don't you get tired of hearing your name called? Don't you wish that you could shorten your name down?"
"No. All I wish is that life could be a little more simpler and I wouldn't have to stay in this form so much."
"I suppose you get tired of having to be in the same mode."
"That it does. Now could we get going and no more calling me 'Hide. Got it."
Katherine smiled. "Sure…'Hide."
Ironhide growled as he revved his engine and pulled away. If only she knew exactly why he didn't like the name, she might not be so amused to say it.
As Ironhide drove, he noticed that Katherine seemed a little distracted. "Is something the matter?" he asked.
"No. Why do you say that?"
"Well you seem distracted."
"Just thinking about Charles." Her explanation was partly true she was partly thinking about her boyfriend but she was more wondering how she could get information on Hawaii without Ironhide noticing. She had been searching for many days trying to find anything about the sightings her brother spoke of but it seemed there was nothing.
When they arrived at the newspaper. Ironhide made his way to the underground parking. There he allowed Katherine to get out and make her way to her station, while he waited in the parking lot, which was very annoying to him, worse than sitting in the driveway at the farm.
As Katherine approached her desk, she noticed Johnny's office was opened. She looked up to see he was asking her to come in. She placed her purse and other things on her desk before proceeding to the office. Just as she stepped into the office, the door shut and she continued to take a seat in front of the desk, near a big window.
"What's this all about?" she asked. "I need to prep for my interview."
"You're not doing it," he stated simply.
"What?" she asked. "Why? This guy has got the leads to all…"
"I know. The interview is getting passed to Alice. I have something better for you."
"Something better? What can be better? You said yourself you would never pull me out of an assignment that was good," she fumed, getting up.
"All right," he said calmly. "I can give you back the interview if you'd like or I can give you a research assignment that's off the record, on finding someone from Hawaii."
Katherine stopped her ranting and quietly sat back down, controlling her anger. "Hawaii?" That is where her brother went.
"See my wife is Hawaiian and she feels something is wrong. And knowing my wife, I never ignore her worry. My wife was speaking with her sister last night when suddenly the lines went dead. I would like you to figure out why."
"What about the interview? I have many people expecting to see my reports from day to day."
"Alice will be ghost writing it. She's going under the alias as you and she'll be conducting your interview as you, while you go and dig up some information for me. Now if you would like to do the interview that's fine with me, I'll just get Alice to do the search for me."
"No, I will," Katherine said. She stood up and started to walk out. As she opened the door, she stopped. "Is that all you wanted sir?"
Johnny nodded. "Can you close the door behind you?" He watched as she left. When he was alone, he frowned as he saw something out of the shadows walk towards him. The man was wearing a dark outfit; Johnny couldn't even see his face only could see his eyes. Johnny had to blink a few times as he thought the man's eyes glowed red.
"You done well, Mr. Burns."
"I don't like lying to her."
"You'll get over it." The man quickly was to the Johnny's side holding a knife to his throat. "Or you'll never see your wife again."
"What the hell do you want with Katherine?" Johnny whispered, gulping for air.
"That's none of your concern. All you need to know is that I need her away from them. You're main concern should be towards your wife. She is quite charming."
"Bastard," Johnny hissed. "Leave her the fuck alone."
"Just do as I say and she'll not be hurt. You call for help in any way shape or form and her unborn child…"
"I get it," Johnny hissed again.
"Good. I have good eyes on the Internet, phones…well all communications."
The room suddenly grew dark for a moment and when the light shone back in, the man was gone. The knife that was held to his throat was stabbed into the desk. Johnny leaned forward, taking a few deep breathes. He walked over to where he had a basin of water and washed his face, trying to get color back in his cheeks. From the first day he met Katherine, the man in black had haunted him. He was quite surprised Katherine didn't see through his lies but of course she didn't really know him well.
Katherine made her way to the underground parking. But as she got to the level where Ironhide was parked, she decided she was not going to use him this time. She knew he would figure out what she was planning. He already had warned her about the Decepticons. But this problem was with Johnny's wife, what if the Decepticons were involved? What if she could help the Autobots flush out the Decepticons?
Just as the elevator doors opened, she ducked back into the far corner, waiting for the doors to close before clicking the button for the main level where she left for the streets to call for a taxi. She promised herself she would be back in time for when the interview would take place so she could get Ironhide to drive her to the location and he would never know the difference.
She told the cab driver to take her to the library where she would begin her research project. She first wanted to know if the state of Hawaii ever had any other communication problems before. It didn't take her long to get to the library as the morning rush hour traffic was now over. Signing in and going straight to a computer, she began her research. As she dung deep into her search, she lost all track of time. When the time came for her to go to her interview, she was nowhere to be found. Unknown to Ironhide, she had eluded him.
Ironhide felt something was wrong it had been an hour since she was supposed to meet up with him to go for an interview and it began to worry him. He saw a woman exit the elevator and head to her car. Another half hour went by before he activated his hologram. He stepped out, preparing to head upstairs when a yellow Hummer rescue vehicle pull in.
"What are you doing here?" Ironhide asked.
A man climbed out of the vehicle and walked up to the Ironhide's hologram.
"I came to talk with Katherine but when I went into the building, to ask for her, the receptionist said she left a few hours ago out the front door. She said she found it quite peculiar that she left as she has her own vehicle, meaning you."
"Damn it!" Ironhide hissed. "She must have overheard me and Lennox…"
"Did I miss something?"
"Only that Captain Lennox thinks the Decepticons are in Hawaii and she has gone out to check it out. She must have overheard and now she's checking up for herself. I told her the Decepticons are dangerous!"
"Optimus won't…"
What ever Ratchet was going to say was left in the wind as Ironhide deactivated his hologram. The hologram reactivated in the truck, as he revved his engine and squealed his tires, leaving Ratchet in the smoke of burning rubber as he sped away up the ramp, which led up to the busy streets of the town.
"Like this," Ratchet mumbled as he waved his hands trying to clear the smoke.
As he drove away, Ironhide began scanning the town. He had to try and find Katherine before she got herself into trouble. The problem was he had no idea where to begin. As he continued driving, an idea came to mind. He pulled into the nearest parking lot and stopped. He was going to need to concentrate on doing two things at once and trying to concentrate to keep his hologram from blipping, driving and scanning was complicated enough as it was.
Once parked, he opened his web browser as he continued to scan the town inch by inch. He began doing a search on checking what humans would do if they wanted to do a research. His searches kept coming back to libraries. Closing the browser, he then made his way to the library. He hoped that she was there. He knew Optimus was going to need to be informed about her going heading out on her own.
"Ironhide to Prime."
"What is it?" Optimus asked, within a few moments.
"Sir, I don't know how she did it, but she eluded me."
"What? We need to find her before the Decepticons do."
"That's as long as it's the Decepticons that are back," Ironhide stated. "I should have watched her more carefully. She's working for another newspaper; I should have realized that she would do something like this. Ratchet informed me she was missing. He was going to speak with her."
"Ironhide is there any way she could have over heard you speaking with Captain Lennox, when he left?"
Ironhide growled. "That is a very possible chance. Reporters are very sneaky and resourceful."
"So if she was to have heard, she could be trying to find out if the rumour is true."
"I'm an idiot," Ironhide scowled. "I should have secretly followed her to her office so she'd be safe."
"Ironhide," Optimus snapped. He realized his weapons specialist was rambling. "Find her. Then bring her here. I would like to talk to her."
Ironhide snapped out of it. "Yes, sir. Ironhide out."
It took several minutes, as he was in rush hour traffic, but he managed to find the library and found the nearest parking spot. Being sure his hollemitter was secured, Ironhide stepped out of the truck and made his way towards the library. As he entered the library, he used his skills and hacked into the computers. It was going to be a slow process, as he needed to hack into all the computers. He patched in history researches, medical researches and a few others. Guessing they were projects for some sort of schooling. But none of them were searching places specifically. As he continued his browsing, he started to search around with his eyes. He was expecting Katherine to be using a computer and searching up Hawaii, which was where her brother was stationed.
Finally he came across a computer station that was set open to a page. What he saw on the page, he knew it was Katherine. But why was the page opened and nothing was moving. Figuring she probably was looking in on one of the books, he walked further in, ignoring the fine detail of the structure.
He found a woman sitting at desk, organizing. Ignoring her, Ironhide turned and walked to the far corner. He could see a glassed room, full of computers. They were all in use, expect for one. Near the entrance of the glass room, he saw a woman sitting at a small desk. Assuming she was keeping an eye out, he walked over to the glassed room and to the vacant station and eyed the open page more closely. It was opened to a search on unusual sightings in recent weeks in the state of Hawaii. Confirming his suspicion, he walked closer to the room but spotted her in an aisle, looking at a book, lost in thought. Anger clearly shown, he marched over to her and quickly grabbed her arm.
"What the…" She turned and was about to hit whoever grabbed her. But as she looked, her hand went limp and she dropped the book, looking fearful. "Ironhide," she whispered.
"You're fucking right," he whispered back, angrily. Before venturing in the library, he took the liberality to know the conduct in a library. "All I have to say is why? Why did you lie to me?"
"I don't know what you're talking about?" she tried.
"Bull shit. You lied to me about an interview. You deliberately eluded me and I want to know why. I knew something was wrong when you never came down to head to your interview."
"It's none of your business," she snapped.
"If you two are going to quarrel," the woman Ironhide saw behind the counter, came up, "Then take it outside. I will not tolerate noise in my library."
Katherine felt Ironhide's grasp tighten on her arm, indicating he wanted to leave and he wasn't leaving without her. Ironhide looked at the woman. "Sorry for being disturbing. Could you please let your attendant know she won't be returning to her computer?"
The woman nodded and watched as Ironhide gave Katherine a slight pull, pulling her through the library. When they got outside, Ironhide never released his iron grip on his charge as he continued to the truck.
A man who was walking up the steps of the library suddenly stopped as he watched a man forcefully holding a woman walk past him. He turned and watched as the two went across the street and climbed into a GMC Topkick. The man glared at the truck.
"So he found you," the man said to himself. "It took me 'til now to find you. I'll have to do better, next time. Soon though, she'll coming running to me. She won't let her boss be harmed."
Ironhide never noticed he was being watched as he controlled his hologram to get Katherine in the passenger seat. When she was in, he quickly got in and drove away.
"What the fuck is your problem?" Katherine snapped.
"You're the problem!" Ironhide stated. "You overheard my conversation with your brother and you decided on your own will, to look up the Decepticons. Don't your realize that is dangerous?"
"Like you care!" She crossed her arms.
"I'm protecting you!" he yelled.
"Only because you have been ordered by your leader and requested by my brother. It's not the same thing."
"Just because I'm protecting you, doesn't mean I don't care." He paused for a moment. "Call Mrs. Lennox."
"What! Why?"
"You are going to need clothing. We're going to see Optimus! He wants to talk to you."
"What about?"
"Ask him when you see him."
Several minutes of silence went between the two. For the time being, Ironhide was satisfied he was able to shut her up, but he knew it wouldn't last long. He pulled off the street he was on and headed towards the Lennox farm.
With a huff, seeing where Ironhide was heading, Katherine reluctantly pulled out her cell phone and called Sara. When Sara finally answered, Katherine sighed.
"Sara, it's me, Katherine. Listen I have been given an assignment and going out of town for a few days. I'm on my way back to pack some clothes for the trip. Could I get you to watch Persia while I'm gone."
Ironhide tried to listen in but with Sara's voice, he couldn't hear what was said on the other end.
"Thanks Sara, I owe you. When I get in I'll leave you my cell number so you can contact me in case you need anything."
Katherine hung the phone up and sat in silence for another few minutes. "There are you happy? My boss has asked me to search for something. He says Hawaii has lost communications and he wanted me to check things out."
"Really?" Ironhide questioned. "Doesn't that strike you as odd. I mean your brother has gone to Hawaii and now your boss says communications has been lost. What if your boss is leading you into a trap?"
"What is it with you Autobots? You're all so suspicious."
"After fighting the Decepticons for millions of years, one learns to develop a sense to always be on guard. If the Decepticons have remobilized in Hawaii, this planet would be in more danger and I'm not talking about loss of communications."
"Are you meaning like Mission City?"
"Worse. Take Mission City and times a hundred fold."
Katherine gasped as a sudden wave of sadness washed over her. She continued to look out the window. She was beginning to regret in eluding Ironhide. She noticed that they were nearing the farm.
"Katherine, please don't take too long. I want to get to Optimus before night fall." He said as he pulled into the driveway.
Katherine reluctantly climbed out and went up to her room. But what she didn't realize she wasn't alone. She didn't even hear Sara speak.
"Who are you?" Sara demanded to the man who walked into behind Katherine.
The man sighed and turned to the woman.
"Oh, it's you. I haven't seen you since the day Mission City victims were put to rest."
"I know. I'm going on a trip with Katherine. Could you tell me where her room is?" Ironhide looked around the room. He had never been inside the house before. He quickly the house was old but the maintenance structure had been well maintained. Over in one corner was the playpen he had seen outside on the porch a few times. The other corner had a TV. A big picture window was directly above the playpen. Two sofas and two chairs surrounded around the TV. He heard some weird noise coming from the playpen. Walking over, he could see Annabelle hit buttons on a noisy toy with her feet as she kicked.
Sara came up behind him. "She loves to play with that. Eventually she'll learn to hit it with her hands instead of her feet. Katherine has a way to make her laugh when she's playing with the toy."
With his charge's name mentioned, his attention was brought back to what he needed to do. He turned to the woman and asked his question again.
Sara pointed to the stairs. "Her room is at the top."
"Thank you." Ironhide moved away and walked up the stairs. When he reached the top, he could hear Katherine cursing every word under the sun. He quietly pushed the door opened to seeing her standing by the window.
"Damn him and his orders. What the hell gives him the right to boss me around like that!" she demanded to no one. "He's so arrogant. He probably contacted his leader when he realized I was gone and that is probably the reason why he wants to speak with me."
She had something hanging out. He watched for a few moments longer before he realized that she was trying to escape out the window.
She stepped up onto the ledge. Even though she felt a little guilty, in the mood she was in, she couldn't stand being anywhere near the Autobot. Ironhide scrunched his brows as he entered the room and quickly snaked his arm around hers, preventing her from leaving.
Katherine snapped around, seeing who held her arm. She became furious. "You're impossible!"
With her free hand, she began pounding on Ironhide's chest, doing whatever she could do to get him to let go. "What the hell are you doing in here!"
"To make sure you're packing a bag and from the looks of it, you're trying to elude me again. All you think about is yourself. Do you realize how much danger you could be in if the Decepticons are back? Besides, you're so pissed at me that you're making a mess of your room and scaring that cat of yours."
The realization hit her like someone just punched her in the stomach. Her eyes scanned the room, finding Persia hiding in the opened closet. The arm Ironhide held went suddenly limp. She slowly dropped her other hand from hitting Ironhide. Seeing that she was not going to escape, he let her go and she moved to the closet, taking her cat into her arms.
"I'm sorry," she said to the cat. "I didn't mean to scare you."
"Why do you talk to it? Cats can't answer back."
"Cats are more understanding then people give them credit for." Katherine did everything she could to calm Persia down. Within minutes, the cat began to purr and rub her head against Katherine's arm.
Ironhide watched as she put the cat on the bed and grabbed a bag from nearby and began grabbing clothing from the drawers of a wooden desk. It was unlike any desk he'd ever seen before. The desk had six drawers and a huge reflector on top of it. Considering it reflected his image back at him, he assumed it was a mirror. He could tell she disapproved in having to leave.
When he knew she was finished, she zipped the bag up, gave her cat a kiss and walked out. Ironhide turned and walked behind her. Once reaching the main level, he walked to the front door and waited as Katherine gave her good byes to Sara and the baby. He noticed she wrote something on a piece a paper and assumed it was the number to reach her on the cell phone. It didn't take long before they were back in the Topkick and pulling out of the driveway, heading on a long drive to Tranquility, the town where Sam Witwicky and Mikeala Banes lived.
Ironhide traveled at normal speeds until it reached dark. The whole time they traveled, Katherine reminded quiet. He knew she would give him the cold shoulder but he didn't care. She was safe and they were heading to Optimus and that was what mattered. Once he was able to deactivate his hologram, which wasn't until after nightfall, he pulled it into high gear and drove at top speed. He wanted to reach his destination before Katherine began complaining again.