Chapter 11: In which Geri puts her foot down
The rain was turning into a drizzle, but rivulets of water still trickled across the surface of the highway, and Wildrider's headlights reflected off an iridescent film of oil or gasoline floating off their surface. He drove over that deliberately, just to feel the friction turn suddenly to slickness, the road becoming black ice.
He compensated automatically, leaning into the skid as it carried him off the road and over the hard shoulder. It was fun to hit spills when police cars were chasing him, to lure them onto the slick surfaces as well. There was always that moment of panic when they realized they were out of control, which was the perfect opportunity for him to turn his own skid into a one-eighty spin and bring his guns to bear on them.
Now, though, there was no one around and even riding the ice didn't improve his mood. He came to a stop well off the side of the road and switched his headlights off, though he didn't bother to turn the music down.
"Why do we need to go to a cop stop?" He heard an undertone of tense suspicion in his voice that reminded him of Breakdown. "If you want to tell them what's happened, use a pay phone."
Geri put her elbows on her knees, and pressed her knuckles against her eyes. "I should have gone to the police from the start," she said without looking up, and Wildrider had to turn the volume down to hear her. "But it's not too late. They can question this Mr Stover, whoever he is, and find my dad. And they can figure out what the heck is going on, because we're out of our depths here."
Wildrider couldn't really argue with that. "Okay, then call 'em and we'll let 'em handle it. But we'll watch from close by so we can jump in when they screw things up."
Geri raised her head. "I think we're more likely to screw things up. Could we please leave this to people who are professionals?"
The moment I take her to the cops, it'll be over. They'll never let her stay with me, even if it's just for a couple of days more. "They won't take you seriously. C'mon, think about it! This Stover is rich – he's got a plane, a ranch and a bunch of thugs working for him. You think the police are going to believe you over him?"
Geri straightened up. "You heard what Mr Maramis said."
"Yeah, I heard what he said when he had a Stunticon's guns trained on him." Wildrider thought of human legal rituals – thank Primus he'd watched so many movies. "You think he'll talk when he's safe with the cops and can get a lawyer to look out for him?"
Geri looked uncertain, and Wildrider quickly pressed his advantage. "Face it, kiddo, we got no evidence the cops'll believe. Slag, they'd think I popped a cerebro-shell in you. We're better off if you stay with me."
"Is that right?" The unsure expression vanished. "Wildrider, I got locked up in there because of your idea."
Frag, I was hoping she'd forgotten about that. "But I got you out."
"But if I had gone to the police in the first place, you wouldn't have needed to," Geri said. "Look, I'm too tired for this and I don't know why we're arguing about it anyway. You don't have to go to any more trouble for me. You can leave me at the police station and then go back to the other Decepticons. I'm sure they must miss you by now."
For all his mental problems, Wildrider was the most emotionally stable of the Stunticons. Unlike Motormaster, he wasn't bad-tempered; unlike Dead End, he was never depressed; unlike Drag Strip, he didn't need to excel at everything and make sure everyone knew when he succeeded. Which was good, since as far as Wildrider was concerned, it was difficult enough being a headcase without being a snippy, mopey, rageaholic headcase.
Dead End had once told him that terrorists were usually brooding, grudge-against-the-world types, but Wildrider figured that the way Vector Sigma had made him, he could cause just as much trouble for the opposition and still enjoy life. Besides, someone in the team has to be cheerful, he'd thought, and it sure as slag won't be you or Motormaster. Even when he was alone or it was quiet, he became nervous and twitchy rather than angry; it took a lot for him to lose his temper.
He was losing it now, though. After he had knocked himself out escaping the Protectobots, rammed into an electric fence and nearly been squashed flat by demolition machines, he was still driving, still pushing himself past the point of exhaustion. And she wants to just get out? Go off with the cops and leave me? That's it, game over, end of the road?
No way.
No. Fragging. Way.
"No," he said and started his engine again.
Geri sighed. "All right, if you don't want to go anywhere near a police station, that's fine. Would you let me out at a pay phone, then?"
"Forget it." Wildrider slammed the accelerator and wrenched the steering wheel to the left, tires squealing as he slewed on to the highway again. He watched Geri through the internal sensors to see how she would react, but she just looked tense and wary, like most humans when they were around him.
Somehow, that didn't make him feel any better.
"Are you going to let me out at all?" Geri said. Her voice was low and cautious.
"If I feel like it." Wildrider sped up – that always improved his state of mind – and thought of everything he had been told about the superiority of Decepticons over all other forms of life, especially organic ones. Maybe he should have made that clear at the start, asserted control right away. Still, it's not too late. "You're just a human, so you'll do as I say. Get it?"
"Got it," Geri said, and released the catch of her seatbelt.
"Hey, put that back on!" Wildrider said. At the speed he was going, she would never survive a collision or even a sudden stop without the seatbelt.
Without answering, Geri leaned back in her seat. She stretched her legs out and crossed her ankles as if her sneakers weren't dripping water that saturated the floor mats.
"Didn't you hear me?" Wildrider dialed the radio's volume down even further to make sure she did. "Put your seatbelt on before you hit the windshield! The glass won't break, but your face will."
Geri turned as if looking out of the window, absorbed in the view. Wildrider tried to refasten the seatbelt with a mental command, which didn't work – and which had never needed to work before, since no one had ever ridden in him without all but nailing themselves to the seat. He released the accelerator, then wondered why the frag he was reducing his speed because of a human's stubbornness, then imagined what would happen if he collided with something. The back-and-forth ruined what was left of his emotional equilibrium and he yelled at the top of his vocalizer.
"Put the slagging seatbelt on!"
Geri blinked, raised a hand and pressed a fingertip against her ear. Then she closed her eyes and settled down against the back of the seat as if about to go into recharge.
Wildrider took the first exit ramp, hardly aware of where he was going, and burned speed along an access road until he came to a turn. He veered into it just sharply enough to send Geri thudding shoulder-first into the side of the door. She bit her lip and muscles tightened in her face, but she didn't make a sound, much less put her seatbelt on.
Wildrider felt suddenly tired, ready to sag down on his slowing tires. He'd fought too many enemies that night; taking Geri on as well was the last straw. Especially since he didn't know how to deal with her. He could always transform, drag her out and shake her until her teeth rattled in her head, but he had a feeling that that still wouldn't make her wear the seatbelt, much less talk to him afterwards.
And he didn't really want to hurt her, though he wouldn't have minded at all if she felt as frustrated and furious as he did. He came to a stop well off the road, tires sinking into a smear of mud, and turned off both his engine and radio. The rain had stopped entirely, and the clouds began to drift out of the sky to… to wherever clouds go, Wildrider thought. He had never given that matter much consideration.
He tore his attention away from the clouds and looked back at Geri. Her breathing was audible - with the radio off, he could tell - and she rubbed her knuckles beneath her eyes every now and then, but she still wasn't speaking to him. Stubborn little glitch, he thought, as if I didn't have enough problems already. And I have no idea how to fix this one.
"You're being really unfair," he said.
"I'm being unfair?" Geri's voice was hoarse and she sniffled, then wiped her face with a sleeve that was already soaked through. Wildrider felt relieved, though; at least he'd finally got a response. "Th-that's rich, coming from someone who's keeping me a prisoner."
"I'm not keeping you a--"
"Yes, you are. You won't let me out. If I won't take that kind of thing from – from other humans, why should I take it from you?"
Wildrider almost replied, Because I'm stronger than any number of humans, before it occurred to him that he hadn't been able to force one fragging girl to put one fragging seatbelt on. He huffed air through his vents. "Because if you don't take it from me, someone else'll slag you in no time. No, forget someone else – if I hadn't stopped, you'd be dripping off the dashboard right now."
"So?" Geri said.
Wildrider gave her a careful look to make sure he was speaking to a small bedraggled human, rather than to a shiny dark-red Porsche. "You'd really rather get scrapped than do as I say?"
Geri sighed, and for the first time since he had stopped, she sounded tired rather than defiant. "Wildrider, this isn't about doing what you say. I don't mind that, honestly. But I don't like being in a cage, even a cage with wheels, and I'd rather be – be scrapped than kept in one." She hesitated. "Wouldn't you?"
Wildrider thought of the time he'd been captured by the Autobots and thrown in their brig. He'd hated hated hated it, and only the presence of the other Stunticons had made it at all bearable. "I guess," he said reluctantly. "But what if those guys find out that you went to the cops?"
"The cops will already be investigating what happened back home, and if my dad's in Colorado, that means he was taken across state lines. So the FBI can get involved too, and I can help them find my dad sooner. Don't you think so?"
Guess you've got it all worked out. Wildrider restarted his engine and his tires kicked themselves free of the mud, spinning hard. "Yeah," he said as he drove back on to the access road, heading back the same way he had come. Put that way, you don't need me.
"Just so you know…" Geri refastened the seatbelt as if too preoccupied to notice what she was doing, rather than capitulating her side of the battle. Her eyes were reddened, but she spoke with a quiet seriousness. "I've been thinking about this for some time. It's not a spur-of-the-moment thing. When I thought I was trapped there with no one to help me, I made up my mind that I'd go to the police once I got out."
"But you knew I'd come to get you out, didn't you?" Wildrider said, checking his maps to find the nearest city. He sped up to take the exit ramp that led back up to the highway, past a taxicab that nearly plunged off the ramp to get out of his way. "I came right away."
"After stopping to pick up some computer games," Geri said, patting the boxes piled on the seat around her. "Or are these DVDs? The boxes are the same shape."
Good thing she doesn't have optics, Wildrider thought, she's enough trouble already. He decided to ignore what she had just said. "You didn't think I'd get you out?"
"Well… no," Geri said. "I mean, I know you like to have fun and not take things too seriously, so I thought you were done with me. Anyway, it doesn't matter--"
"Whoa whoa whoa!" Talk about adding insult to injury. "Back that up! You thought I'd lose you and just leave?"
Geri moved one shoulder in a small shrug. "I thought that was what Decepticons did. Guess I was wrong?" she added hastily.
"Fragging think so?" Wildrider said. Decepticons never let anyone steal from them. "Anyway, I'm a Stunticon."
"What does that mean?"
Wildrider had never before really thought about what that meant, since being a Stunticon was something he took for granted. It meant he was part of an elite squad of strikers and destroyers who owned the roads, smashed anyone who thought otherwise and answered to Megatron alone (if they weren't too busy when he summoned them).
There's more to it than that, though, he thought and reached out to the other parts of his mind, of himself, that would know better.
It meant being the best, according to Drag Strip.
It meant crushing anything in the way, according to Motormaster, including the gang of weaklings and idiots under his command if they stepped out of line.
It meant being doomed from the moment of their creation, according to Dead End, since they were so fundamentally flawed.
It meant never being alone, according to Breakdown, because when trouble came, the Stunticons shored up each other's weaknesses and closed ranks.
And that's it, he thought. Geri could be annoying and he couldn't have kept her for much longer, even without her habit of asking to leave. But she had still been part of his team, under his command. No one messes with what's yours, said the part of him that sounded like Motormaster.
He couldn't have explained any of that to another 'con who wasn't part of a gestalt, and one who was wouldn't have needed explanations, so telling a human was out of the question. "Doesn't matter now," he said as he roared down the I-49, heading towards the city of Sutter Creek just forty miles away. The clouds had gone. The night sky was clear, though the illuminated signs along the highway and the neon lights of nearby buildings were closer and far brighter than the stars.
Geri fidgeted with the ties of a sweatshirt that was no longer white. "I guess you'll go back to the Decepticons now?" she said after a moment.
"Nope." Wildrider wondered what was the point of her showing the least interest in his life if she wanted him to hand her over to the other humans and then go off by himself. Humans are so weird. "Can't do that for another couple of days."
"Why not?"
"Cause I got kicked out." He had a feeling that most Decepticons would not have admitted that, especially not to a human, but it wasn't like he had anything left to lose. "I was racing and knocked down a door, so I got a six-day timeout."
"Just for knocking down a door?" Geri said. "Geez, that's rough. Good thing no one was hurt, though – who knows how long you'd have been kept out then?"
"Uh, yeah. Exactly." Wildrider decided not to mention that Skywarp had been behind the door at the time.
"So that's why…" She hesitated. "I wondered how you had the time to stay with me, and why you didn't have to check in with your superiors or anything."
As far as Wildrider was concerned, he had only two superiors – Megatron and Motormaster. Since the one didn't want to see him around the base and the other was probably going to pound him into the floor in the very near future, it had been a relief not to speak to either of them.
"There's no way for them to find out that you helped me, is there?" Geri said, twisting her fingers together. "I mean, if you got kicked out of your home for just knocking down a door…"
Wildrider sped into the city at just over a hundred and fifty miles an hour, blasting apart a sign about the Sutter Gold Mine when he remembered at the last moment that he no longer had a working forcefield and couldn't ram anything. "They'll find out, but I don't care."
"Why not?"
A siren started up and a police car pulled out from a cross street, so Wildrider slowed down just enough to shout, "Hey, you! Which way to the station?" The only reply he got was a yelled command to stop, so he sped up again.
Why do they have "To Serve" painted on their sides when they won't even answer a question, let alone obey you? he thought as he pulled up his maps and zoomed in. Maybe it's to trick criminals into a false sense of security. He hurtled on at the same breakneck pace, the black-and-white struggling to keep up.
Geri had rested an elbow on the back of her seat and twisted around to listen to the exchange, but she turned back as he accelerated. "Why not?" she said again. "Why was it so important for you to rescue me?"
"Why the frag are you asking all these questions?" Wildrider took a sharp turn, nearly skidding on two wheels, and headed for the police station at the end of the road. "What does it matter?"
"I guess it doesn't," Geri said. "I'm sure you did it because you're naturally kind and generous and go out of your way to help--"
"Oh, cut the slag. If I hadn't done it, I'd have gone crazier." Wildrider tried to explain as he hurtled into the parking lot of the police station. "Everyone else is the brakes. I'm the accelerator. If all you've got is the brakes, you won't be going anywhere, but if all you've got is the accelerator--" He drove in a circle around an island in the parking lot as he hit his horn, giving off a continuous blare that nearly drowned out the black-and-white driving up.
"You keep going faster until you crash?" Geri said, then turned her head as a dog began barking.
"Yup. Hey, they got a K-9 unit!" Wildrider was almost amused. Humans really were obsessed with small furry animals, and he would have liked to see what that could do against a Stunticon.
"Bite me!" he yelled, and did another rotation of the island as he waited for more cops to arrive – considering how many people seemed to want Geri kidnapped, it would be a good idea to have an entire precinct present when he handed her over. Just circling the island was getting boring, but the wet surface of the parking lot gave him an idea.
His steering wheel spun in one direction as far as it could go, and he shifted into reverse. More police officers ran out of the station, guns drawn, and took cover behind parked cars as Wildrider floored the accelerator and lurched back. His front wheels lost their grip, sliding across the wet asphalt, so that his front half spun around his rear wheels.
Geri grabbed at the door handle as she began to slide too, so Wildrider threw his steering wheel into the other direction, spinning it so fast that it was a blur. He was starting to think that a giant chunk of Styrofoam, with a human-shaped cavity cut in it, would be better for his passengers than just a seatbelt.
The front wheels rolled sharply to the other side, then made a three-hundred-degree rotation around Wildrider's near-stationary rear wheels. There was a stench of hot rubber in the air.
"What are you doing now?" Geri's voice was tense and breathless.
"Donuts. I heard cops like those." From the orders bellowed at him through a bullhorn, though, the police seemed less than appreciative, and Wildrider thought that they would soon be exchanging fire.
The reception committee's as large as it's gonna get, he decided, and came to a stop. One of his doors opened. "There you go," he said, trying to sound as cheerful as always.
"Let the girl out!" the deputy with the bullhorn shouted at him.
"What does it look like I'm doing, slaghead?" Wildrider screamed back, then spoke in a slightly less strident tone. "Go on, kiddo. They're waiting."
Geri was still holding on to both the door and the edge of the seat as if she couldn't risk letting go. "Would you…" She released her seatbelt and swallowed hard. "Would you be even crazier than this without someone around to, uh…"
"To keep me sane?" Wildrider shifted on his tires in a vehicular shrug. "I guess. It's started to happen twice so far, but it's gotten better. It feels weird, like I'm driving off the ground and floating away. Hey, maybe I'd go wherever the clouds go."
Geri swung her legs down off the seat. Wildrider watched the cops and thought he might have smirked if he had been in robot mode; it was fun seeing them unable to shoot him. Though that inability would last for all of a few more moments, and for some reason he didn't feel much like smiling.
The bullhorn shouted instructions at Geri to get out and walk towards the parked cars, but she didn't seem to hear them. "What'll happen if you lose it completely?" she said.
"And do something dumb?" Wildrider wasn't used to thinking about the future; that was what the other Stunticons were for. "I dunno. Maybe the Autobots will catch up with me and deactivate me. Maybe Motormaster will catch up with me and beat the slag out of me."
He tried to recapture some of his usual good spirits; he'd sounded entirely too much like Dead End for a moment there. "Maybe no one'll ever catch up with me again. Acceleration without brakes equals escape velocity." Just keep driving, keep driving, keep driving, no purpose, no stopping, no end in sight, nothing but the empty road ahead and the empty sky above--
Geri lifted her legs back in. "Let's go," she said.
"Huh?"
"I'll stay with you." She swung the door shut. "I don't want you to be hurt, not after you saved my life."
An unexpected warmth crept through Wildrider's circuits from the laser-core outwards, but he had as much pride as the other Stunticons. "I don't need you to look after me."
"I know," Geri said, refastening her seatbelt, "but I thought maybe you wouldn't mind my sticking around. Just until we get to Colorado."
"Well…" Wildrider locked the door. "Since I was heading there anyway…"
"And maybe you could show me some more of your cool moves along the way?"
"That goes without saying, kiddo." Wildrider started to head out. "You seriously need to have more fun."
"Good thing I bumped into you, then," Geri said. "Um, would you mind informing the police?"
That was probably a good idea, Wildrider decided. The cops seemed a little confused, because they were still yelling orders at him and the black-and-white that had chased him there was blocking the way out. "Change of plan, guys, the lady's come to her senses!" he shouted as he accelerated, aiming his lasers at the police car. "She's sticking with me."
Geri winced, though Wildrider wasn't sure whether it was at the sound of the explosion or the way he weaved from side to side in a hard zigzag just to make sure any bullets fired at him would miss his tires. "Come to my senses?" she said as he plowed between chunks of smoking wreckage and drove out of the parking lot. "This has to be the craziest thing I've ever done."
"Nah, that would be taking the seatbelt off." Wildrider didn't intend to let her forget that one.
"Not really." Geri smiled, very slightly. "I was sure you wouldn't let me get hurt. Though it wasn't a safe thing to do, I'll give you that." She ran her hand over the dashboard, feeling carefully. "You don't even have airbags, do you?"
"I think I have barf bags. Check the glove compartment."
tomorrow4eva : Glad you like Geri's sensible attitude. I wanted her to be the complete opposite of Wildrider – ultra-rational to make up for his frequent fits of halfwittery. And if you felt even a little bit sorry for him, this story did what I wanted it to do. Yay Wildrider. He might be a dangerous giant robot, but he's a lonely dangerous giant robot.
dixiegurl13: Thanks for the review! Wildrider would watch anything with fast cars or robots in it, but Breakdown prefers shows dealing with normal human lives ("What's the point of watching cars or robots when we're both?") and Dead End likes depressing films where everyone dies, like Shakespearan tragedies ("What's the point of watching anything else?")
Fire From Above: Hope you liked the showdown! Wildrider's great at coming up with ways to beat other machines, but not so good at basic psychology.
meteor prime: The Rubik's cube suggestion is… interesting. Makes me wonder how the different Stunticons would solve that.
I'm not familiar with most of Wildrider's music choices, because hard rock and heavy metal are not my fortes. But it's been fun trying to find songs that fit with whatever's happening in the story, and if they work for the readers I know I'm on track.
Though you'll have to wait for a few more chapters to find out who's behind all this…
Cybernetic Mango, Dragon260: Thanks for the reviews!
Taipan Kiryu: I'm glad you're enjoying the story. As you said, Wildrider will never be a conventional hero, but he's a lot more fun to write about and he's turned out to be surprisingly multifaceted.
And you're also right that this was a moment of decision for both of them. It was one thing for Wildrider to let Geri go when he barely knew her, and quite another to do so after he risked his life more than once to save her. Can't really blame him for expecting her to stick around after that, even with his complete disregard of sense and safety.
And yes, I'm planning lots of horses later on. ;)