Chapter 10

"Is that him?"

"Yeah."

"But he looks just like a normal car."

Jasper laughed softly. "I think that's the point."

Fifteen minutes after Jasper had arrived at Caitlin's apartment, he was leaving it - and Caitlin was coming with him, to Autobot Command. He was enormously happy that he'd managed to convince her, and not necessarily for professional purposes. He'd never admit it, but just the sight of her had brought back fond memories of their time together.

Caitlin stood on the kerb, nervously biting her lip. "Is it alright?" she asked. "Is it safe?"

"As safe as an alien robot can get, I suppose," Jasper shrugged, "but he won't bite, I guarantee it." Seeing that she still looked unsure, he added, "Look, just say hello. Can you do that?"

Caitlin nodded slowly and let out a tentative, "Hello?"

"Greetings, Doctor Lightcap," the blue Chevvy Volt said. "Jasper has told me much about you, and I look forward to our partnership on this project."

Jasper smiled knowingly at her rather stunned reaction. "Caitlin Lightcap, meet the Autobot Jolt. If everything goes to plan, you'll be spending a lot of time with him and the others."

The passenger door swung open.

"Go on," Jasper nudged. "Get in."

Rather hesitantly, Caitlin did so, letting out a small gasp when the door shut after Jasper, and the seat belt clicked itself into place.

"It's weird, I know," Jasper grinned, as Jolt accelerated down the road. Caitlin's eyes grew ever wider as the pedals, steering wheel and gearstick all moved eerily by themselves. "It threw me at first," he continued, "but you get used to it."

"I've never met any human who hasn't been disturbed by the initial experience," Jolt agreed. "Your reaction is quite normal, let me assure you."

"Right…" Caitlin said shakily, before letting loose a flurry of questions. "So...um...is everything made of metal, like the seats or the tyres? How do you speak as a car - through the speakers? What if someone was to detach your steering wheel? Would you still be able to transform? If you're an alien robot car, do we even need seatbelts?"

Jolt chuckled. "Very inquisitive, I see," he said. "I can see why she will be a valuable member of our small team, Doctor Schoenfeld."

Jasper just smiled. This was the Caitlin Lightcap that he remembered from college: spitting out several questions at once, her mind fiercely inquisitive. His heart twinged - all the long-buried memories of their time together came roaring back to life, and he gazed at her fondly. He'd been devastated when they were forced to split...maybe, just maybe, this project could…

He shook his head, clearing his thoughts. There were more important things at stake that personal fantasies. His attraction to Caitlin must not impede the progress of the project; that had to come first. The world had to come first.

With that resolution made, he tuned in to the explanations Jolt was now giving for Caitlin's questions.

"...something the size of a steering wheel, there would be no discernible difference in our appearance, but if something the size of, say, the engine, were to be removed, you would notice," Jolt was saying. "We'd still be able to transform, but our appearance would have to be altered in some way.

"As for the seat belts, well, with our reflexes it's practically impossible for us to have an accident, or at least one where you'd be injured. It would take much more than a truck, or even a train, to put a dent in us. So no, you don't have to wear a seatbelt, but in the interests of abiding by the law, and the fact that I'm an Autobot, I must insist that you do."

The rest of the drive to Autobot Command was made in silence - not that it was a long drive anyway. Caitlin mainly stared out the window, contemplating the future. Only twenty-five minutes ago, she had been in her apartment, not doing anything with her life, just lazing around. And now she was going to meet the Autobots. The Autobots! The situation seemed so absurd it was hard to believe it was real. But it was, and god, was she glad of that.

"Here we are," Jolt announced suddenly as he passed a 'restricted area' sign. "HALT Headquarters, coming up."

"Huh?" Caitlin said, snapping her head round to look at Jasper, confused. Hadn't they been going to Autobot Command?

"Autobot Command is underground," Jasper explained quickly. "The big white building from the TV is just where the Liaison Team operates."

"Oh, right." She peered back out the window, looking up at the pristine building, with the giant, red Autobot logo emblazoned on the side. It reminded her of the White House in a way - not just because of the similarities in colour, but because, just like the President's residence, it was rather revered. The Autobots were, to many (and especially the news media), stuff of legend, with their Liaison Team being commonly regarded as heroes as well. So arriving at the building where they operated was somewhat trepidatious.

But before she could express that sentiment verbally, Jolt had pulled up in front of the main entrance and opened his doors. "This is where I leave you for now," he said. "Major Lennox wants to meet with you first, Doctor Lightcap. He'll show you to Autobot Command shortly afterwards."

Caitlin and Jasper exited the Autobot, and watched him drive over to a small building on the other side of a runway.

"Service elevator," came a voice from behind them, "takes him down to the other Autobots."

Caitlin and Jasper turned; a smartly uniformed man had left the big white building and was walking over to them.

"Major William Lennox," he greeted, offering his hand, "Commanding Officer of HALT - that's the Human-Autobot Liaison Team," he explained. "We decided to start using the acronym officially the other day. PR department's idea - though it'd be easier for the public to say."

"Um, doesn't everyone just call you the 'Liaison Team?" Caitlin asked, frowning.

Lennox nodded. "They do, as I attempted to point out. Didn't help; got outvoted, unfortunately." He sighed again. "So now I have to roll with it. Quite the headache. Anyway, please, come inside."

She and Jasper followed him inside the doors, Jasper giving her an encouraging smile as they crossed the threshold. The foyer of the building was quite large, with reception desks positioned at the far end, below labelled portraits of all eighteen Autobots. Another two, she noticed, were hung separately on the wall to the right. Her stomach lurched, and she recognised them as the ones who had been killed by the kaiju in Cabo. She'd forgotten about them, she realised with a twinge of guilt. What they'd done deserved to be remembered.

The rest of the foyer was taken up by comfortable looking furniture, with a few water coolers and pot plants dotted in between. There were doors to other areas of the building, as well as a couple of elevators along the left wall., with strange looking paintings hung between them.

"Welcome to HALT HQ," Lennox said, "Just a couple of things you should know, Doctor Lightcap. For starters, if you agree to help Doctor Schoenfeld with his project, you'll be employed by the PPDC - that's the Pan-Pacific Defence Corps. We use a lot of acronyms here," he said, with an apologetic smile.

"I'm used to it," Caitlin said quietly. "I worked with DARPA."

"Which brings me to my point," Lennox continued. "If you sign up with the PPDC, you'll have to consider your employment with DARPA terminated. That won't be too much of an issue?"

Caitlin frowned. "Potentially. My research…I'll need it to help Doctor Schoenfeld. If I'm not DARPA anymore, they might not let me access it."

"Shouldn't be too much of a problem," Lennox said dismissively. "Try getting it yourself via the normal method, and if that fails, just come to me and I'll help."

"Er - right." She wasn't particularly convinced that would work either. She knew DARPA was very protective of its projects and didn't just give out research data, even to former employees. There was a long and vigorous process to get anything approved, with a lot of red tape involved - even for an organisation like the Liais- HALT- whatever they called themselves now. Still, she'd jump that hurdle when she came to it; no use worrying about it just now. There was a lot more to think about right at this moment.

Lennox led them over to one of the reception desks, past a couple of similarly uniformed HALT members, who were murmuring quietly to each other, but not soft enough that Caitlin wasn't able to pick up a few sentences:

"...hear about Manilla?"

"They goin' bust, aren't they?"

"Yeah, I can't believe it! That's where all the aid went...the other places barely got any, but they're almost back to normal!"

"They didn't get nuked, though..."

Once again, Caitlin's stomach twinged. No one liked to think about the fact that a third nuclear bomb had been detonated over a populated area, of what happened when the Autobots couldn't reach a kaiju in time. They'd been incredibly lucky that nukes hadn't been used more often.

Lennox reached one of the desks and smiled down at the receptionist. "Hi, Marlene, just the forms for Doctor Lightcap, please." He turned to Caitlin. "It's just all bureaucratic crap, I'm afraid," he said, handing her a pen. "Stuff to do with the fact that we're on a military airbase; I'm sure you know the drill."

Caitlin nodded and got busy signing. "There wasn't anything about the Autobots?" she asked when she was finished.

"No, they insist," Lennox replied. "No NDAs of any kind - pretty much everything we do here is public knowledge anyway."

Marlene took the signed papers and replaced them with a second, much fatter, wad.

"The PPDC's employment forms," Lennox said. "You don't have to sign them straight away, just when you're absolutely sure you want to help Doctor Schoenfeld with his project."

"Oh, well, um, I probably will…"

"Excellent," Lennox nodded. "Now, I'm sure you'd like to see the Autobots?"

"Yes!" Caitlin blurted out, before she could stop herself.

Lennox chuckled. "Thought so. Follow me." He led them over to one of the elevators. "We wanted teleporters, but they haven't invented them yet," he joked, pressing the button. "That's one thing we might beat them to. Maybe."

Jasper laughed; Caitlin cracked the faintest of smiles, still rather overwhelmed by what was happening.

With a ding, the elevator door opened, and they all piled into it. Lennox pressed a button labelled 'A', and the elevator lurched into action, slowly descending to the Autobots' base.

"Who's in today?" Jasper asked Lennox interestedly.

"Optimus, Ratchet, Mirage, Wheeljack," Lennox replied, listing them off on his fingers. "Jolt, obviously. I think the Wreckers are around too, and Ironhide as well."

"Hard to keep track of them?"

Lennox rolled his eyes. "Don't you know it. They don't tell us who's going where unless you ask. Not that contacting them's a problem, but it'd be nice to have some sort of roster."

The elevator rocked slightly as it stopped its descent; a second ding, and the doors opened, revealing a long, wide, brightly lit corridor, with a nondescript door at the end.

"Nearly there," Lennox remarked, walking forward at such a brisk pace that Caitlin struggled to keep up. He reached the door and pulled it open, stepping back to let them walk out onto a metal balcony that overlooked a large room. The walls were lined with shelves full of advanced equipment, the function of which she could only guess. She let out a gasp; in the middle stood Optimus Prime himself, flanked by several of the other Autobots. There was a blue one that seemed oddly familiar, and with a start she realised it was Jolt, in his humanoid form.

"Hello, Doctor Lightcap," Optimus said. "My name is Optimus Prime. On behalf of my Autobots, it is a pleasure to meet you."


Jasper sent Caitlin's employment forms off to the PPDC before the ink was dry, and within a fortnight, they'd been assigned to a facility in Pittsburgh. This pleasantly surprised him, as it allowed to see his son while still working on the project. He'd resigned from his position at Carnegie Mellon, though - juggling a university job while undertaking a project of this scale wasn't something he was capable of. But regardless, the allocation to Pittsburgh came with their preliminary funding; a small budget for him, Caitlin and Jolt to demonstrate the potential their giant robot - mech - idea had. The same applied to the handful of other projects the PPDC was also considering. Only one project would be approved and receive full-scale funding, and they had to make sure it was them. Not purely for egotistical reasons, but because, as Jolt had told him just before Caitlin was recruited: "Yours is one of the few ideas that makes any sort of offensive and defensive sense." They had to come out on top for the good of humanity, and with Caitlin and Jolt helping him, Jasper was confident that they would do so.

The facility itself wasn't particularly big; just a medium sized hangar and a couple of smaller rooms, one of which would become Caitlin's laboratory. It wasn't much, but it would do. More importantly, though, Jolt could fit inside.

"So," Jasper said once their brief tour of the facility had concluded, "where to begin?"

"I thought we answered that," Jolt said. "The drive mechanism. That's why we recruited Doctor Lightcap."

"Yes, yes, yes, I know, but where do we start now?"

"Well, um, now that I've got my research from DARPA, I can start work on the interface that allows the pilot to drive the machine," Caitlin said, rather tiredly. It had taken a while to get DARPA to acquiesce to her request, and even then she'd had to make a visit to their headquarters with Jolt and a lieutenant from HALT. "I was thinking that, um, maybe you two could start building something to test the drive interface on. Once I've actually built one, of course."

"That's probably the best idea," Jolt agreed. "Something simple to start with. We don't want to build the whole thing only to find out you humans can't drive it."

"Definitely not," said Jasper. "So, shall we build, say, an arm as a proof-of-concept thing?"

Caitlin shrugged. "Sounds good to me. Just as long as you get one built."

"We will," Jolt said confidently. "Won't be too much of a problem."

Jasper raised an incredulous eyebrow. "You think it'll be easy?" He snorted. "If only. We're not really that good with robotics, in case you hadn't realised."

"On the contrary," Jolt said, "it won't be anywhere near as hard as you imagine."

"Why?"

"Because you have me," Jolt stated. "And lucky for you, I'm a very good and very experienced engineer."

"You're going to help us design it?"

Jolt gave him a puzzled look. "What did you think I was here for?" he said.

Jasper flushed and mumbled something under his breath.

"To be honest, however, it will be a new experience for me," Jolt continued. "I'm used to working with much more advanced technologies - but I suppose I'll be able to come up with something with the resources we have available."

"What you design would have to work for our purposes," Caitlin pointed out.

"Which is why I'm working alongside you two. You, Caitlin, have the knowledge we need to make the machines work for humans. I'm not Ratchet; technology like mind-machine interfaces are not something I could comfortably build and say with absolute certainty. Well, not designs meant for humans, at any rate."

"Then, um, why doesn't Ratchet help us as well?"

"He will, if you ask him. But have a good attempt at it yourself first. He doesn't like it when people don't try before asking for his assistance."

"Ah," Caitlin nodded, understanding. She'd worked with people like that before, and they generally got the best results from those working under them.

"Well then," Jasper said. "If that's all decided, shall we make a start?"

The others voiced their agreement. It was time for the mech project to begin in earnest.


Ratchet was worried, incredibly worried. In fact, he didn't think he'd been this worried since the days leading up to the Ark's departure from Cybertron. But there was no denying the results Teletraan had just produced.

"See, look here!" Wheeljack was gesturing aggressively at some of the readings displayed on Teletraan's screen. "This radiation is incredibly strange. Alien, in fact."

"We can't identify it?" Ratchet asked.

"It bears... some similarities to a few different types of radiation, but there's no exact match," Wheeljack stated. "And you know what that means, don't you?"

Ratchet did. An undiscovered radiation type…to say that was a big deal was a huge understatement. Why, as some like Crosshairs would ask? Well, as Ratchet realised, the Cybertronian race was one of the oldest in existence, and one of the most advanced. And yet, they didn't have this specific type of radiation documented.

It was possible that they had encountered it, and simply lost the knowledge like so many other things during the Great War, but Ratchet considered that unlikely.

"What is it similar to?" he asked Wheeljack.

Wheeljack smirked and gestured, Teletraan obediently bringing up several new windows. "That's the thing. The closest matches are Transwarp radiation types."

Ratchet froze. "You mean...?"

"Interdimensional," Wheeljack nodded. "The portal doesn't connect two points of space in the same universe, but two points of space in two separate universal streams." He seemed rather excited, given the implications of such a thing. Then again, given Wheeljack, it was the implications that were probably the reason he was so excited.

"That's... not good." It was extremely rare that they - that anybody - had to deal with other universal streams. The last time Cybertronian civilization had encountered something related to that particular subject had been Hytherion, and...

Ratchet the cut the thought off then and there. "Whatever is on the other side could be anything. Anyone."

"Yeah," Wheeljack agreed. "And given the Kaiju, they're hostile too."

Not good was understatement. This was bad, and had the potential to go from bad to cataclysmic.

"We can't close it, can we?"

"Unlikely." Wheeljack answered. "You know none of us are all that good when it comes to dimensional sciences. Even studying it is a fair stretch."

Oh, what Ratchet wouldn't give to have Perceptor here right now. But that was enough doom and gloom. They had a job to do, and that job was analyzing the Portal. "Let's... just start running tests. We need to figure out how it interacts with energy and matter- why it lets the Kaiju out, but doesn't allow the ocean in, where it draws its energy from, how stable it is, everything we can figure out with what we have on hand."

Wheeljack nodded, and then picked up a few tools. "Way ahead of you. Any drop ships free?"

Ratchet finished typing something into Teletraan. "Not anymore." He shared a knowing look with Wheeljack. "Let us see if there are any volunteers to help us."


Deep space was something that he'd seen too much of, in his opinion. Interstellar dust, cosmic radiation, micrometeorites... After enough time, all of it simply became unremarkable beyond the effect it had upon him during his interstellar cruise.

Planets were markedly more interesting. Not always, but occasionally. A dead, barren world was no more worthy of his attention except as a place to hide, plant whatever quantities of Energon he'd require for the next trip, and then go into stasis conserving power. Living planets, however, places where life existed, beings gathered, were different.

Interesting enough to stave off the mindless boredom that came with nobody to interact with and nothing to see for years and years at a time. Even a Decepticon would be a welcome sight. For a while.

How unfortunate that he was no longer on a planet, but again drifting through space. He had not left because he needed to, but because he had received a message.

Optimus Prime had called into the void, speaking of a new world, a new refuge. He had said the war was over, he had said the hunt for the Allspark was at an end.

After so long, it was almost hard to believe.

But, it was Optimus Prime. The name alone was reason enough for him to listen.

And so, he had taken with him a supply of Energon for a long trip, made his way to some of the few remaining Space Bridges that were still intact, and got going.

It was unfortunate that he couldn't simply use the Space Bridge to jump straight to his destination, but he'd admit that a few years of travel was better than centuries.

In terms of cosmic distances, he had been relatively close to his destination when he had received the second message. Optimus spoke of large, organic and dangerous creatures. Optimus requested assistance.

He intended to give all that he could.

The time of his arrival would come soon. Sooner still for him than for everybody else; at the velocity he was travelling, time moved at less than a third of its normal speed. Out of habit, he checked and rechecked his course, and found no anomalies.

He let his thoughts drift back into a semi-recharge state, beginning to enter low-power mode. He trusted his calculations and his course, a trust born from countless successful flights. He knew, with absolute certainty, that he would arrive in a few deca-cycles, travelling at a velocity of 96.04% the speed of light, on a course that would take him away from any planets, just in case he had somehow miscalculated. He would slow down only in the final stages of his journey, and correct his course to arrive at the planet itself.

The planet which was apparently known as 'Earth'.

It was a pretty terrible name, in his opinion. What kind of self-respecting sapient being named their planet after dirt? Did they have other stupid names, like planet 'mud' or planet 'ground'?

Those were the last thoughts that went through his mind before he fully entered low-power mode, saving energy for the last leg of his journey.


Author Note: We're back! Sorry about the wait. The people behind the Jaegers have been assembled and have started work, and the Breach is starting to be investigated! Fun shenanigans with Ratchet, Wheeljack and the Breach will be coming next chapter.

Replies to reviews:

Storysmith112358: Where are the combiners indeed! No Autobot/Jaeger adapters, I'm afraid - human pilots only. And thanks!

DJ Kazma: Thanks! And yep, we're getting there...slowly.

Telron: Thanks!

Ryan Chessman aka Crys: Thanks!

kira444: Don't worry, we intend to see this through to the very end! Thanks!

Guest: The answer to that question is 'if it happens, it happens'/100

EXPERIMENT 2.0: Jaeger vs Transformer battles won't happen outside of simulations, and certainly not in the context of a Human-Autobot war.