Disclaimer: I don't own Transformers, copyright Hasbro, Seibertron's Heavy Metal War game, or War For Cybertron, just the characters that I created for my own usage on said games. I'm not making any money off of them, I just play the games for fun.

Author's Note; this is what happens when you watch too much "Parking Wars" while working on Transformer customizations... even if it takes a few ...years... to finish writing it once you've started the idea... In fact, is "Parking Wars" even still on the air?

-o0O0o-

"Dramatis Personae"
'Parking Authority'
By J.T. Magnus, 'Turbo'

-o0O0o-

Anyone who ever made jokes about somewhere being too quiet didn't know what it was like, the driver of the tow-truck decided, for it to actually be too quiet. The day had been way too easy, so far. Some days were like that, some days even went by with nothing going wrong and everything going smoothly. Those were the worst days on the job, because you were always left wondering when something was going to happen, they made a person nervous. The truth was, he prefered the chaotic days where it seemed like every five minutes there was another call, every call was another irate citizen and every car was another challenge. They were easier on the nerves. They didn't leave him time to think and wonder, mostly about the circumstances surrounding his 'partner' with the Parking Enforcement. He just was not sure what to think about a giant shape-changing robot from another planet - technically two other planets since they had originated on one and then ended up leaving there and settling on a second - that came to Earth and took a nine-to-five job like any human would do - it was just so incongruous, not what someone would expect, and it still made him wonder.

Then the day wasn't so quiet anymore.

"Tow-Six, Dispatch," came a voice as the radio inside the cab crackled to life.

The driver reached down to grab the mic, "Dispatch, Tow-Six, go ahead."

"Tow-Six, we have a boot for immediate tow for you, twenty-forty Walker, black Ford Mustang, license number F-N-T-M-two-one."

"Dispatch, roger. Tow-Six out," The driver hung up his mic and frowned, "Sounds familiar."

"It's the one that got away from Boot-Three last Thursday, drove off with the boot on," a voice informed him, coming from the truck's radio, "Seems like they're not giving it a chance today."

"Which means there's a chance we could be driving right into a confrontation," the driver observed.

"Part of that depends on how fast we get there - the ridge-cut is crowded this time of day, I suggest we take the tunnel."

"Tunnel, right," the driver nodded, glancing at his side view mirror to make sure the lane was clear before he moved over in preparation for a U-turn at the next intersection.

-o0o-

The day most definitely wasn't quiet anymore. By the time Tow-Six had arrived at 2040 Walker, the owner of the Mustang was also on the scene, arguing with the team operating Boot-Four van by claiming that they, of course, had no parking tickets and that the Parking Enforcement was just trying to steal their car. Tow-Six pulled up in front of the Mustang and had started to back into position when they were forced to stop because the owner had run in front of the Mustang and was now blocking them.

"I don't care what crap your computers say, you're not taking my car!" The owner snarled, pointing a finger at Tow-Six as the driver opened the door to get out.

"Sir, you need to move."

"You want me to move? Fine, I'll move," the owner sneered before walking around to the driver's side down, getting inside the car and locking the door; rolling the window down just enough to be heard, he taunted, "This moved enough for you? Now get that thing off my car before I call my lawyer!"

"Sir, please get out of the car. Out of the car, sir."

"I ain't getting out as long as you got that thing on it!"

"What's the situation?" Tow-Six's driver asked as he joined the boot van team.

"Neighbor saw us putting the boot on and called him; we got the boot on just before he got out here, but he immediately started threatening to cut it off, so we called in for a tow."

Meanwhile, the Mustang's owner was continuing to rant, "I'm gonna sue you! I'm gonna sue you! And I'm gonna sue you! And I'm gonna sue the city too!"

Tow-Six's driver cocked his head to the side for a moment, "Do you think it could be medical, some kind of episode or overdose?"

"No," one of the team from Boot-Four shook her head, "He's too, well, I can't say 'rational', but he's too much in control for that."

"Do we need to contact the police?"

"Allow me," a voice came from the tow truck before it seemed to explode in a flurry of moving parts and reform into humanoid form. Reaching out, it gently tapped on the roof of the car, "Sir, please exit the vehicle."

The tow driver shook his head, "Impound, do you have to show off?"

The robot looked over at their human partner, "Parking regulations say all booted vehicles must be off the street by seventeen hundred hours, I'm just doing our job."

The human rolled their eyes, "You're making a scene."

"Technically, they're making the scene... you could say that I'm saying 'Cut'."

"Don't start going Hollywood on me now," the tow driver sighed.

"I'm just doing our job, Steve," Impound repeated.

-o0o-

Impound sat on the blacktop outside the Parking Enforcement building, legs crossed and his arms resting on his knees as he talked to the camera crew that was doing the documentary on the group.

"The Autobots sit in their cave and act all aloof, apart from humans like they're somehow better. Us Martians, we're out here with humanity every day, living and working with people as equals. A lot of us even have jobs, myself included," here he waved his hand at the large sign on the building next to him.

He shook his head, "There's a difference between doing things that any human could do - and that many do actually do - and things that Transformers have advantages in. A Transformer working at a laboratory or a high-end electronics company might have an unfair advantage, but a 'blue-collar'... that's the term, right? A blue-collar job like this, it basically becomes a matter of who can do the job and who wants to do the job. I like to think that the only difference between me and any human in this line of work is that I save Parking Enforcement a vehicle since I can double as both tow operator and tow truck."

Impound frowned for a moment, "They still send someone out with me, though..."

-o0o-

The driver's jaw dropped and his eyes widened, "It's the damn robot aliens! Damn robot aliens want to steal my car and turn it into one of them!"

Boot-Four's driver looked up at Impound with an expression of curiousity on their face, "Can that even happen?"

"It's complicated," Impound answered. "But yes, it can happen in certain situations."

"Huh," the human blinked, not entirely sure what to make of the fact.

"I want to hear more about this later on," the other member of Boot-Four informed Impound. "This is something those Autobots have never mentioned, I don't think."

"High energy costs make it prohibitive most of the time," Impound shrugged. "I've only heard of it happening twice that even I can recall."

Tow-Six sighed, "Can we focus on the immediate issue here? Booted car, remember?"

"Call the police?" Boot-Four's passenger suggested.

"Nuh-uh, you heard the radio," Boot-Four's driver shook their head. "They're backed up almost two hours on non-emergency calls. We can't be waiting around here all day."

"The second we try to take that boot off to hook up the car, he's going to try and drive off, you know that, right?"

"So we hook it up first and then take the boot off."

"I don't trust this guy not to attack us or try to run us over if we go to hook the car up. Honestly, I'm surprised he hasn't tried to drive off yet."

"Simple solution," Impound decided, just before grabbing the Mustang by its bumper and lifting the front end in the air, driver and all.

"We're not supposed to release a car if it's already on the truck and in the air... you think this counts?"

"Well, he is the truck, and he's got it in the air, so... yeah, I'd say this counts."

"Never a dull day in the Parking Enforcement."

"Makes me glad he's not on ticketing..."

"I don't know, it might be nice to see if some people would be as willing to start screaming, cursing and threatening him as they seem to be with the rest of us."

"Sure they would. Think about it, they argue about tickets with the 'no parking' signs right there; they refuse to pay parking tickets and then complain when we boot or tow their cars; they've always got an excuse that it was their brother or mother or son driving, that they put money in a meter so it shouldn't matter if it was the wrong meter, that their ex-girlfriend got the tickets so they shouldn't be liable for them... Most of them would be just stubborn enough - or maybe stupid enough - to argue with a giant robot too."

"You're a cynic."

"I'm a realist."

"Yeah, and the guy who drinks the half-glass of water is a 'problem-solver'."

"Speaking of solving problems, what do we do with the guy in the car? Carry him to the lot along with the vehicle?"

-o0O0o-

Author's Note: For those wondering, the scene about turning a car into a Transformer IS meant to be a reference to the classic animated origins of the Aerialbots and Combaticons as personality chips placed into vehicles somehow altering them into Transformer bodies... Still haven't entirely figured out how that's supposed to have worked, anyway...