Ellie's Point of View:

I'd always wanted to travel the world but I'd never really had enough money to do so. There had been holidays (though mostly I blocked them from my memory because mom had done something or other to make me not want to remember them) and that small mini break Cordelia's fiancée had paid for during the break between our second and third year to Ibiza...not that my parents knew about that one. I'd had plans to travel during a gap year away from college but had never gotten around to it, finding myself to immersed in my course and studies and unable to see myself having no permanent home for a year. This wasn't my idea of travel to be honest. We were the most wanted, our faces known on every TV screen and plastered over the worldwide web. Having to hide my face was not something I liked and was not getting used to easily, Sam however was the most in danger and so had gone all out...by all out I meant a cap on his head. He wasn't cool enough for a cap but hey-ho, needs must. My hand kept drifting to my empty pocket, reaching for a phone that wasn't there in desperation for a text that wouldn't come. My phone had been crushed under the tyres of an autobot and with it all my hopes of contacting Will.

I hated being so dependent on his voice, on his words, I was desperate to hear him just to get me through these next few hours, hear him form some sort of plan in that soothing voice that always told me things were going to be okay. Hell, I just needed his presence to calm me. He had this aura of authority, one that screamed of confidence, one that said I know what to do. Clearly I didn't, because Sam was parking outside a rundown looking deli shop in god knows where, and I didn't know because I'd fell asleep in the car! I needed to be on the ball dammit! The sign read Cappuccio and Simmons, and alarm bells began ringing in my head.
"Who is this guy again?" I asked Mikaela as Leo headed in to check if the coast was clear. The yellow and red cap on Sam's head was covering his face but I couldn't refrain from tugging it down over his eyes teasingly, making him reset it with a scowl.
"Robowarrior, that nerdy geek alien guy Leo's rivalling with on the web." Mikaela said with a roll of her eyes. My eyebrows furrowed slightly, the words Simmons and alien not sitting well in the same sentence for me. The deli was small, a corner shop cramped into a city of skyscrapers, brick and metal. People were queuing inside though so it must have been popular. Tiptoeing, I looked through the window and felt my eyes go wide,
"You've got to be fucking kidding me." I groaned. Sam and Mikaela exchanged glances as Leo walked up to the counter and I took a deep breath before heading in after him. My lucky wasn't getting much better anytime soon clearly.

Leo excitedly began pointing him out, looking particularly proud of himself as Sam walked in and repeated my earlier sentiments,
"You've gotta be kidding me." his expression was one of pure disbelief as I snorted and crossed my arms over my chest. The deli smelled something horrible and the fluorescent white lighting was hurting my eyes. Simmons stared at Sam looking equally as shocked before he glared at me slightly and began hustling everybody out. A swarm of pissed off customers were herded to the door and Simmons, white uniform and all, came to a standstill before us as Leo asked if we knew him.
"Old friends." me and Sam quipped together.
"Old friends?" Simmons scoffed and I pinched the bridge of my nose as he began listing the things we'd done to him, "No more security clearance, no retirement all because of you and your criminal girlfriend, look at her now, so mature." I flew it him before he'd even finished the sentence, shoving him against the counter and narrowing my eyes on him,
"Don't start okay? We're up shit creek without a paddle and you're gonna help us, end of, no snippy comments, no muttering under your breath, no nothing, just, help." I growled. God I forgot how much I hated this guy. Simmons shoved me back, the tension rippling between us in waves as a squat woman I assumed was his mother (she was ugly enough) came out complaining about fish.

There were two more men behind the counter, one smashing a mallet over meat with very goofy looking teeth was just simply staring at the little woman, and Simmons's snapped.
"You don't get christmas bonuses standing around! You want those new teeth you saw on Sky Mall?" he demanded.
"It's my dream!" the man snapped, slamming his mallet down again with wide eyes.
"Then go help her." Simmons growled, looking frustrated. Acid boiled in my stomach and I clenched my fists to keep from losing my temper. Why was anything involving this guy never easy?
"They got your face plastered all over the news alien boy." Simmons said, waving his arms theatrically before declaring he wanted nothing to do with us and beginning to walk away. Sam was clearly getting desperate while I wrinkled my nose against the smell in the place, watching him go after nasally little Simmons,
"I had a little crab alien plunge something into the soft tissues of my brain and start projecting images like a freakin' home movie, on top of that I'm a wanted fugitive-"
"Er, we, we are wanted fugitives." I chipped in. Sam nodded once,
"We are wanted fugitives." he amended, "So you think you got it rough!" Simmons blinked, looking at him dumbfoundedly before his eyes narrowed on him,
"Projected images you say?" he asked thoughtfully. Sam nodded and Simmons jumped into action, throwing his thumb over his shoulder and saying "To the meat locker!"

I groaned and forced myself to follow, staring at the back of Simmons head disgustedly. Already he had begun to take over, already he was pretending to be the oracle of knowledge and my god did it piss me off. He pissed me off. There were dead pigs hanging from hooks in here and I almost gagged, trying to ignore the sad looking trotters sitting in the corner where they'd been discarded after being cut off. Bile rose in the back of my throat but I pushed it away, my stomach churning and the smell making my nausea worse.
"Dead pigs...yuck." Mikaela complained.
"What you are about to see is top secret." Simmons said firmly, eyes glancing between each and every one of us as he knelt down and gripped the handles of a vault in the floor, "Do not tell my mother." He threw open the metal trapdoor and descended down a set of stairs as Leo whined about swine flu behind me. I motioned for him to go first and wrinkled my nose,
"It's freezing in here, so the bacteria can't breed." I assured him. It was warmer down below but the room was cramped. It was like he had a whole underground home back here with files and boxes full of no doubt national security level documents stacked from floor to ceiling. A television was whirring in the background but I paid it no mind and Simmons hunted for files. The room smelled musty, looked old, and I sat on the steps to avoid getting in the way. I was unable to pay attention as he waffled on, his voice irritating my ears while I stared at the files and wondered if they knew he'd taken all of this from Sector Seven.

Will would have had it all confiscated. A small sigh escaped me as my mind wondered back to the man I was missing more than anything. I could almost see his face, imagine his reaction when I told him Simmons was the one who we had to go to get some help - if I got to tell him. Shaking the thoughts away I tried to focus on what Simmons was saying, spotting the photographs on the table and the projection of an Egyptian building with the glyphs scrawled on the side.
"Shot in 1932." Simmons declared, "These the same symbols you're seeing in your head?" Sam nodded and my stomach flipped. Symbols in his head, how had I let that happen to my little brother? "How did they end up drawing the same symbols?" Simmons asked animatedly, in his element I imagined, "Aliens!" he pointed at Sam for dramatic effect and I rolled my eyes. "Project Blackknife, aliens in disguise, we detected radioactivity all across the country, "I pleaded, on my knees to get S7 to check them out, but they said the readings were miniscule and I was obsessed. Me! Can you imagine that?" he demanded, looking slightly traumatized.
"Yes." I snorted, shaking my head and pushing to my feet to get a closer look at the images. All of the older photographs kind of made my skin crawl. How long had they really been here?

Simmons shot me a withering glare but ignored my input and instead focused back on Sam, who was looking only slightly perturbed.
"Megatron said that there was another energon source here, one Earth." Sam explained as I frowned and Simmons repeated his words like a parrot. I gave him a slap upside the head to shut him up. Leo smirked at me and I rolled my eyes in reply as Sam carried on, "He said these symbols would act like a map to lead me to it." If the deception's got their first...I didn't even want to imagine what they would do. Earth as we knew it would be gone, the world destroyed in metal and fire and no Optimus to stop it. My heart clenched painfully and I tried to ignore the grief welling in my chest.
"Did you talk to your autobot friends about this?" Simmons asked.
"No whatever this is it precedes them, it predates the autobots." Sam replied with a shake of his head.
"Then we'd need to speak to a decepticon, but I'm not exactly on speaking terms with one." Simmons said, looking a little disheartened. Oh no, he didn't think he was coming with us on this did he because I swear-
"Actually, I am." Mikaela said, and my head snapped up in shock.

She and Sam fled the room, leaving Leo Simmons and myself alone. Simmons gave me a nod,
"Miss Witwicky." he said coldly. My eyebrows rose,
"Simmons." I returned, refusing to let him get to me. Leo shrunk back from the tension rippling between us.
"Still running around with the aliens I see, how's your little boyfriend?" he sneered. My heart twisted at the thought of Will and my sour expression made him smirk, he knew he'd hit a nerve, "Oh dear." he chuckled.
"I work for NEST, you know, the people that replaced you? Don't make me get them down here to confiscate all this." I threatened, seeing his face go pale,
"You wouldn't dare." he snarled.
"Oh but I would! So I suggest you keep your mouth shut and, as much as it pains me to say it, help us...or I might just forego the confiscating part and torch it all." I promised, the dark undercurrent in my voice making him shudder.
"You drive a hard bargain." he grumbled.
"I just don't like you." I returned, huffing and turning my face away.
"Ditto kid." he mumbled.

Sam and Mikaela came back with a large metal box and a little blowtorch in hand. She barely warned us before opening up the lid and letting the contents loose. It lunged for us and I yanked Sam backwards in shock, jaw dropping and heart pounding ferociously as Mikaela yanked on the chain around it and held the blowtorch close to his face,
"Hey! Behave!" she snapped at it when it struggled as Sam disbelievingly asked her if she was training it. "I'm trying to." she said, sounding slightly put out by her lack of progress. However the little decepticon backed down and fell still, shaking the chain like it couldn't quite believe it was attached. It looked like it had once been an RC car before it had transformed.
"I spent my whole adult life combing the planet, looking for aliens, and you're carrying one around in your purse like a chihuahua." Simmons said under his breath.
"Trust me, it's cuter than a chihuahua." I grumbled, thinking of the time Mojo had once ripped my curtains as a puppy.
"You wanna throw down pubic head?" the little decepticon demanded. He was a lot like Jazz really in the way he spoke, but his eyes were red and clearly evil...well the one was anyway as the other seemed to have exploded.
"Hey, hey I'm so sorry. I'm sorry about your eye." Mikaela said softly like she was talking to a child, "But if you're a good boy I'm not gonna torch your other one, okay? I'm not gonna torch it just tell me what these symbols are, please?"

The decepticon grumbled slightly, looking down at the images under his feet before getting down on one knee to touch the image,
"Oh I know that that's the language of the primes. Yeah, where the frick did you get photos of these guys? They're the oldest of the old been here for thousands of years, looking for something." the little decepticon said. My eyebrows furrowed. So they'd been here looking for the energon source too? How had we never noticed! "I don't know what, nobody tells me nothing but they'll translate those symbols for ya, and I know where to find them." he added.
"Show us." Simmons and I commanded together, shooting each other a glare as we tried to battle out who was in charge here with a single look. The decepticon wheeled around and little green lasers shot out to pinpoint places on the map behind us. I followed the beams with my eyes,
"It says ones in Washington." I thought aloud.
"The Smithsonian air museum." Simmons said confidently. My eyes wheeled between the three tens and the man I despised, heaving a sigh from my lips as my limbs suddenly became tired and heavy,
"So...we're breaking into the Smithsonian?" I guessed. Simmons gave me an unimpressed look as Leo swallowed nervously. "Great well...to the autobots!" I declared with fake enthusiasm, jerking a thumb over my arm as Simmons had done earlier. Not only was I wanted fugitive but I could now add breaking and entering to the list...great...Will was going to kill me.