Optimus sighed, rubbing his brow with a large hand, a habit he had picked up from the humans. Sunstreaker and Sideswipe were (thankfully) not pulling pranks or causing trouble, and he had yet to find Hound and Mirage to talk to them about Earth and when they arrived.
Suddenly, Bumblebee and Ratchet came running from down the hall, skidding to a halt in front of Optimus who frowned slightly at them. "What's the matter?"
"They're gone!" Bumblebee blurted out, causing Optimus to blink in surprise.
"Who's gone? Start from the beginning, Bumblebee."
"I went to check up on Jazz and Blue, but they weren't in their quarters. Then I went to Ratchet, and he said he hadn't seen them since they left the command center. I looked all over the place for them, and haven't seen them." Bumblebee said in a rush. "I was going to pick up Sam and Mikaela from school and I was about to go out the gates when Lennox and Epps stopped to talk to me. They wanted to know why there was such a big caravan of Autobots going out 'cause they weren't notified of one."
"Bee came to me, Optimus, and I went to talk with Lennox and Epps. They saw first Jazz and Bluestreak, then Sunstreaker, Sideswipe, Hot Rod, Armonie, Hound, and Mirage leave, all in a big caravan." Ratchet told his leader who could hear the hardly-disguised anger hidden in his calm voice.
"Where did they go?" Optimus asked, rubbing his brow again.
"We don't know," Ratchet replied. "We tried hailing them on all our frequencies, but they're not responding."
Optimus sighed again. This was going to be a long day. "They're likely going to head toward Round Valley, where Katie said the base was. What they'll do there, I don't know, but we have no idea where the Decepticons are or if or when they will strike."
"We still have six days left of our ultimatum." Ratchet added quietly. "Either we send backup for them and hope to Primus that they succeed, or we stay holed up here and give them the shard."
For the third time in the space of ten minutes, Optimus rubbed his brow. Sometimes he hated being the leader.
-
Jazz pulled into a gas station, opening his doors and letting Snowy out to do his business. He shut his door as Hot Rod and the rest of his team parked around him. Jazz watched sadly as Armonie got out asking for a bathroom and getting something to eat and drink. He missed having to stop for Katie every now and then, and now regretted refusing to take her to Montana to see the sights.
He was torn from his musings as what appeared to be one of the workers approached him. He activated his hologram and climbed out, moving to lean against his hood. Cold amber eyes watched the human approach then slow down as if unsure.
"Sorry, sir, but I have ta ask. Are ya by any chance some'un by th' name o' Jazz?"
Jazz blinked. "Yes, that's me." golden eyes narrowed. "Why?"
The human just shook his head. "My God she was right." He dug around in his pockets and pulled out a grimy piece of paper folded in an envelope. "There was these two girls came here few hours ago. One was mute an' the other talked too much. The mute one asked me – wrote it down, actually – that when I sees a silver Solstice come drivin' up or by, I gots ta stop it and ask if it's called Jazz. If it was, I was to ask if he wants ta find his girl." He looked expectantly at Jazz.
Jazz's eyes narrowed. "What did they look like and what direction did they go toward?"
The man scratched his head, thinking. "The mute girl was real pretty. 'Bout my height with these pretty blue eyes and brown hair. The real talkative one was blond with blue eyes, a little taller than the mute one. They didn't give me their names, though. They were covered in dirt an' stuff, like they was hiking or something." He extended the hand holding the envelope. "If you was Jazz, then I had ta give ya this and not ta open it."
Katie and Maggie. Jazz took the envelope and "pocketed" it for later. "Thanks. How did they leave?"
The man shrugged. "I dunno. Looked like a gray semi truck, but I dunno. Listen. I gotta get back ta work, so, bye." With that, he left.
Hound's hologram appeared beside him, followed closely by Mirage and Hot Rod's. "Well, are ya gonna open it or not?" Hot Rod demanded as Armonie walked out of the store.
With nervous hands, Jazz opened the envelope, and started when a grimy length of silver ribbon fluttered out. Catching it before it hit the ground, Jazz held it up in his holographic hands and looked closely at it. It took a moment to realize that it was another ribbon-thin sliver cut from Katie's skirt.
"By the time we find her, that thing'll be little more than a miniskirt." Armonie said, looking the ribbon. "She cut it instead of ripping it; look how uneven the edges and width are."
"That's certainly true, on both counts." Mirage said with a nod. "What does the note say, Jazz?"
Quickly, eagerly, Jazz opened the paper until it was flat, leaning the large bit across his physical hood. In a corner, he found a few lines of scribbled writing. The ink was dark red, almost russety, uneven in color as if Katie had been working with a limited amount… using his olfactory sensors, he stared, eyes wide at the blood-written letters.
"Well?" Hound prodded gently, standing on tip-toe to peer over Jazz's holographic shoulder.
Jazz snapped out of it – really, what else did she have to write with? – and read the neat script out loud. "'Not much time. Must be brief. Caravan of five cars; we're in the gray semi. Looks like Prime. Others: Yellow, gray, white, red. Semi is the leader. Maggie and I are in him'. The rest is a map, I think."
True, the map was crudely drawn in what looked like a cross between chalk, blood, and what Jazz guessed from his scans was water. It produced an odd sort of ink, but it worked well enough. Comparing the map to the one he found on the internet, Jazz found that it was a very basic one, drawn by someone who doesn't have a good idea of where they were going, just where it was. Katie's map sported an X near the bottom left hand corner with a thick, squiggly line that went across the page to the middle of the paper. It ended in a jagged circle that was labeled as "Valley of Fire State Park". The line squiggled on, and next ended in a triangle labeled "Canyonlands National Park". Another squiggle led upward further to end in a crude drawing of a tree labeled "Sawtooth National Forest". There was a dotted line that led back behind the X to the target labeled "Tranquility".
Jazz frowned then noticed the scribbled notes in an area of the paper the "map" hadn't taken up. He read them silently to himself. In the top left hand corner read 'Not-so-secret bases'. Closer to the map itself was 'Taken from talks with Thundercracker and Skywarp'. Close to the squiggly between the jagged circle and triangle was 'Moving bases every two days'. Near the crude tree was 'Ultimatum is over'. In the center of the map, it read 'They won't take us by air; they'll take us by land. Why, I don't know, but they feel they should. I think it's because the cars and stuff have a better defense than the fliers'.
Armonie looked up at Jazz's hologram. "Hound, call Bluestreak and tell him what's going on. The rest of you, get ready to move out." He ordered. Within seconds, Hot Rod, Mirage, and Hound's holograms were gone, and their engines were running. Snowy had appeared and jumped into Jazz's front seat just as he made his hologram disappear. Armonie clambered into Hot Rod as Hound finished filling in the gunner. "Let's go, then!"
Jazz couldn't hide the eager rumble in his voice and engine, but was relieved when he heard a similar noise coming from the rest of the Autobots with him. Driving out of the rest stop, they sped off.