Chapter 51
Author's notes: So, uh, two chapters have stretched out to five for the "good stuff" that I've been building up towards. This story just keeps demanding more and more words. I'll be posting several more chapters over the weekend. I'm going to be out of town again, but I'm hoping to find some time to do some final edits and get everything up.
(And right at this moment, I am sitting in frustration on the couch at home, waiting for FedEx to deliver my power cord for my good laptop. I can't leave until the power cord arrives. Growl. As soon as it arrives, I'm on the road. Truck's loaded and ready to go.)
Optimus's cab was quiet, air-conditioned, with comfortable leather upholstery. Sam sat somewhat nervously in the passenger seat, arms folded, staring out the window. He tapped a foot and fought the urge to chatter like Bluestreak. Optimus, for his part, idled for a moment as the other Autobots rolled forward, heading for the gates after the public had left. He didn't move until everyone else was rolling out.
"Thank was a pretty good speech," Sam finally offered the compliment as a way to break the silence.
"Thank you," Optimus replied, "and I hope your people feel the same way."
"Good luck with that." He couldn't keep the skepticism out of his voice.
"Have more faith in your own kind, Sam." Optimus's tone was a little chiding. "It will simply take time."
"Huh." Sam ran a finger over one of the bruises on his arm. It was a little sore, like the black and blue marks on his ribs, though even that evidence of the accident would soon be gone.
"How are you feeling?" Clearly, Optimus had noticed him inspecting his damage.
"Better. Bee didn't mean to hurt me." He hunched his shoulders added, "He's really fond of Windy, isn't he? It's like they met and clicked immediately or something."
"Love happens that way, sometimes." Optimus sighed, and started to roll. "Other times, the partners take far too long to recognize the obvious. And the subject of love reminds me, Sam. Mentors aren't always perfect, and sometimes they say things that are harsh and cruel with the best of intentions, or at least no true ill intentions."
Sam ran a hand over his face. He had feared that Optimus might want to talk to him about his dad, though he had also hoped the leader of the Autobots would have more important things to do after the speech. Optimus, true to form, considered his people's welfare more important than anything else in the universe. Sam was less than pleased to be a target of that concern, however. Grudgingly, he said, "I take it you heard about the argument with my father."
"Which one?" Optimus's response was gently teasing, a little, and if he'd replied in any other way Sam would have completely clammed up. He truly did not want to talk about his problems with Optimus. Teasing, however, was something Sam knew and understood.
He smirked a bit and replied in kind. "Okay, okay, we have had a few."
"You know that Bee has asked me a few times about what to do in regards to your father. He's been aware that your father is hard on you, and that you take it badly, for a long time. I've advised him consistently that it is your battle to fight." Optimus's voice held deep regret, "Sometimes I wonder if that was the best course of action."
"Oh." Sam shrank down in the seat. "He loves me. My father, I mean. Not Bee! Well, he does, I mean, he loves me like a friend. Not like that."
There was a prolonged period of silence from the leader of the Autobots, in response to statement. "Would you like me to have a word with him?"
"My father?" Sam hoped Optimus was talking about his father and not Bee.
"If you wish."
"Umm. No. World of no, big boss. It'll just make it worse. He would never listen to what you were trying to say, and then he'd harass me about it later." Though, Sam thought with the blackest of amusement, he would love to be a fly on the wall during that discussion.
Optimus sighed. "I fully believe he loves you, Sam. I will simply tell you what I told Bee, when he was a very young soldier who had just joined my army, and that is that you are a distinct person from your family. You are free to believe what you want, make the choices you feel best, and love whom your heart desires. Sam, your parents have given you many strengths, have taught you well, and raised a son who is a true hero. You have saved my life, and your world, twice. I owe them a debt of gratitude for the courage and honor that they have instilled in you."
He felt about two inches tall, for some reason, and he said softly, "But sometimes I hate my father a little."
"And having heard a few of the comments he's made to you, I am surprised you do not hate him even more." Optimus's tone turned wry. He stopped at a light, and Sam heard the turn signal click on the steering column of the truck. Optimus started to make a left turn, then stopped and waited patiently as placard waving Nobots filled the street in front of him. Police were quick to clear them away and Optimus proceeded down the street.
"But I love him. He ... you're right. He's not all bad. I just don't know what to do when he's such a jerk. He calls me gay, and I hate it." Sam hunched his shoulders.
"Would you like to know of a tactic I've used quite successfully on obnoxious lobbyists and politicians and the like, when I was leader of my own people?" Optimus said, tone wry. Apparently, it was a rhetorical question, because Optimus didn't wait for Sam to respond. "I walk away."
"... huh?" It was such an unexpected answer that Sam could only make a questioning noise.
"It's surprisingly effective. I will listen to reasoned, polite arguments. I'll even tolerate impassioned speeches. However, the moment the speaker begins to lose respect for me, and begins to be insulting or demeaning, I walk away. I will not tolerate rudeness. I remove myself from their presence as many times as necessary, until the lesson is learned. If someone wishes to speak to me, they must remain reasonable, or the discussion is over."
"Oh, my father would freak if I walked away from him."
"Yes, he would." Optimus agreed. "But he would have to 'freak' without you as an audience. Am I right in suspecting that you cannot win by directly confronting him?"
"Yeah, he never backs down, even when it's obvious to everyone he's wrong." Sam stared out the window. There were Nobots on one side of the street, and Autobot supporters on the other, and they were screaming at each other. Mounted police were riding between the groups, as well as cops wearing riot gear. He hoped that the protests would not escalate.
"Sam, sometimes the direct approach is not best. Even if your father is furious at you, there is little harm to you if you refuse to speak to him until he is calm and polite. Simply walk away, and let him fume. He is an intelligent man, and he will figure it out eventually, though I imagine there might be some drama on his part until he learns you will no longer play your role in his games."
"Games?"
"He's amusing himself at your expense, isn't he?"
"Yeah, I guess."
"And he doesn't realize how harmful and hurtful his words are."
"I'm not gay," Sam said, suddenly, then cringed into his seat.
Prime was silent for a long moment again. Finally, he said, "If you were gay, it wouldn't change who you are. You would still be the same person."
"I like women." His voice shook when he said it. "My father's always teased me about being gay, and I'm not. He's wrong! It hurts and I just wish he'd stop."
"I am led to believe that some human men have an attraction to both sexes. Regardless of your orientation, you would still be Sam, a hero and a friend. I suspect your father might be more worried that you would turn into an embarrassingly effeminate caricature of a gay man than anything else. He is very concerned about image and appearance, and it would threaten his own self-image to have a son who was insufficiently masculine by your society's standards." Optimus's words were calm. They did not contain the eerie, emotionless stillness of a mech who was upset, but he simply sound simply unruffled. "And I also firmly believe that he loves you enough to eventually accept you as you are, even if what you are is not entirely what he wishes you to be."
"He'd just give me hell. He'll pick on me until I cry and then he harasses me for crying!" Sam bounced the back of his head off of the seat. "He'd never accept me. Not if he really knew ..." He bit his lip, and didn't finish that statement. It was far too hard to admit.
"He loves you, but he has been very cruel to you." Optimus said, serenely. They stopped at a traffic light again.
Suddenly, an egg sailed out of a crowd to their right. It smacked into the windshield, and Sam said, "Shit!"
"Do not be alarmed," Optimus said, calmly, as a bottle broke in the same fashion. His windows were made of material that was distinctly tougher than glass, and no damage was done other than to Sam's nerves. Ahead of them, half a dozen other mechs waiting on the light to change were being hit with garbage and more eggs. Mikaela and Wheelie scrambled for cover inside Ironhide's cab, and Sam held his breath until they were safe. "We expected some degree of protest after my speech. The authorities will disperse it."
"I hope nobody gets hurt." There was a rather large mob of protesters gathering on a street corner. They started to spill out into the street towards the mechs, then scattered when the police arrived, lights flashing on patrol cars.
"As do I. Injuries from any riots will be on my conscience. The police say these protests are localized, and the media is being very scornful of them and showing video from Egypt and Mission City which portrays us as heroes. In the end, our presence on Earth will be deeply beneficial to humanity, but that does not help those who are injured today." The police parked in the intersection and waved the Autobots through before the light changed.
Someone threw a molotov cocktail, then, hitting one of Arcee's forms dead on. Arcee went down, skidding sideways along the pavement. Flames streaming from her chassis, then she transformed and Inferno hit her with a blast of foam. A second later she was back on two wheels and all three of her calmly cruised down the road between Ironhide and Sideswipe.
"Is she okay?" The police had caught the man who'd thrown the bottle of fuel. He watched as they carried him off towards a patrol car, physically lifting him up as he apparently refused to walk on his own.
"Gasoline does not burn at a high enough temperature do do anything other than cause cosmetic damage. She was simply startled by the fire." Optimus sounded a little more annoyed now. "Many of the comments I'm reading on the internet by reasonable people are positive, Sam. The hate you see here is simply fear, and we will eventually be able to defuse it by working actively to build bridges with those who are afraid of us."
"Good luck with that, Optimus." It was hard to believe the Autobots would ever be accepted by humans when a mere speech by Optimus generated garbage-throwing riots.
"It won't be luck, Sam, just deliberate and hard work and time." Optimus sighed. "A bit ago you said your father would never accept you if he knew something. What was that?"
"I really don't want to talk about it." He was not going to discuss his issues with any alien robot, particularly this alien. He picked at the seat belt, and stared down at his hands. Ahead, the line of Autobots had stopped at a barricade and the police were moving wooden barriers aside so the 'bots could proceed. The police had allowed crowds fairly close to the Ark earlier, but had since cleared the streets for 'safety reasons'. Nobody could approach within a quarter mile of the alien ship without authorization.
"Sam," Optimus said, very seriously, "I have a personal policy of not involving myself in the private lives of my people unless their problems start to interfere with their work, or cause discord among the team. You may not want to talk about it, but I suspect you need to. There is friction between you and Bee, and I cannot allow that to continue if you are to work closely together."
"So you're appointing yourself my shrink?" He couldn't keep a note of resentment out of his voice.
"No," Optimus said, "in this, I am approaching you as a friend."
He sighed, "Sorry, Optimus. I just ..." his heart was racing, his throat felt tight. He closed his eyes, for the world was suddenly far too bright. He wanted to run, but he couldn't, and he couldn't breathe and his heart was thundering, pounding, in his chest.
"Sam." Optimus's words were concerned. "I won't push you any farther today. I am very sorry. I did not intend to upset you nearly to this degree, and with the reception in a few hours, it was cruel of me. You should enjoy this evening. You've worked so hard for it, and you've earned a bit of fun."
"It's okay. You didn't harsh my squee, I was already pretty de-squee'd." He covered his face with his hands and leaned as far forward as the seatbelt would let him. "I can't, I can't, I can't tell anyone. I can't."
"Sam, please, accept my apologies." Optimus sounded deeply distressed. "I didn't mean to upset you to this degree, and I believe I've made your upset worse. I didn't know how traumatic you found the subject."
He scrubbed at his eyes, fiercely willing himself not to cry. "I like boys, okay? Always have. I just can't do anything about it, because my father'd freak, and it's not ... I get sick whenever I even think about it ... I know it's not wrong, but I can't even breathe when I think about it."
Optimus said, quietly, "We're almost to the ship. I owe you an apology. I thought you were upset, but not to this degree. This is not minor and I should have chosen a better time, Sam."
Sam was silent, struggling for control. He wanted to vomit, but the thought of barfing in Optimus Prime's footwell was enough to make his heart race even faster. "I've never admitted that to anyone, ever. I try not to think about it too much myself, but sometimes I'll see a guy, and it's like he's so gorgeous, and ... damn it."
"Sam," Optimus's response was very measured, "there is nothing wrong with those feelings."
Sam made a fist and thumped the seat. "I know. -- Sorry. I didn't mean to hit you."
"You did not harm me." Optimus's pause was long enough to make him wonder if Optimus was talking to someone else. The Autobot tendency to comm each other with quick questions in the middle of a conversation with someone else had never bothered him before, but now he wondered if Optimus was asking Bee questions. It was a realistic concern, given the fact that Bee was his closest friend among the Autobots.
"Don't tell Bee!" He blurted out, desperately. "Sir, please! He doesn't need to know, he doesn't, he's got Windy, they're happy, he doesn't need to know, and anyway, I don't want that with him, I don't, I don't ..."
"Easy, Sam." Optimus's voice was soothing. "I was just telling Ironhide that I wanted to take a minute with you when we arrived."
"Oh." Sam blinked at the dash. "You won't tell anyone, right? Please?"
"I swear on my honor." Optimus's voice was grave. "I would not wish to cause you pain, Sam. We've done quite enough of that over the years as it is."
Optimus's tires bumped up the ramp into the hold. He pulled off to the side, and shut his engine off. There was a ticking of cooling metal, but he made no other sound. Sam leaned back in the seat and said slowly, "It doesn't really matter one way or another to you guys, does it? It's just not relevant."
"Your orientation? Not to most of us, no, it does not." Optimus's voice relaxed just a little, "Only one of us would care at all, and you might wish to speak to him and tell him what you have told me."
"God no." He knew who Optimus was talking about. He saw Bee as male, and to Bee, his attraction might matter. "Anyway, he's got Windy!"
"Very well." Optimus sighed audibly. "I look forward to the party tonight. It's been a very long time since I've seen my soldiers enjoy themselves. I will see you then, Sam."
"See you later, boss." He managed a credible smile, and hopped down from the truck when Optimus opened the door. Out of habit, more than anything else, he scanned the room for Bee's mech half and Mikaela. Bee wasn't back yet, but Mikaela was standing over by the stage, talking to a blond human man. For a moment he thought the blond hair belonged to Bee's organic protoform, but the man was too tall and the hair was pulled back in a rough topknot that he had a hard time visualizing on Bee. He wore a leather jacket, skintight jeans, and a glittery shirt.
Mick van Knight, of the Van Knights, Sam recognized with a flash of star-struck awe. He headed in that direction. Mikaela smiled tightly at him, and his heart, which had been elevated just a little by Optimus's words, sank again. She wasn't smiling with her eyes. "This is my boyfriend, Sam Witwicky."
"Hey!" Van Knight said, cheerfully, "You must be something else to win the affection of this gorgeous lady. I was sure disappointed to find out she was taken!"
Sam's stomach twisted in on itself. Mikaela was stunning. She was the sort of beauty who turned heads, including, apparently, those belonging to famous rock stars. She was not happy with him, and Van Knight had just made a rather blatant statement of his interest. He was gazing at her hungrily, openly, obviously.
Mikaela pouted, "I dunno, I might not be that taken if you keep up with the flattery."
Sam laughed, knowing Mikaela flirted like that with everyone. He'd heard her use the exact same tone on the Circle K clerk.
"Girl," the singer said, with a grin at Sam that Sam didn't like at all, "you ever get tired of dating the high school boys, look me up. You've got my e-mail address."
"Hey," Sam said, annoyed at Knight, if not Mikaela, "She is taken."
Mikaela tossed her hair, and turned her pursed lips in Sam's direction. "What, my little Sam's jealous?"
"He is kinda short," van Knight observed. "You could do better."
They were both teasing him. He knew it, but he still balled his fists, rage rising. Only the awareness of just how bad it would look for the Autobots if he threw a punch in reaction to a bit of sophomoric humor saved Van Knight from a broken nose. All in all, he'd had a pretty crummy day and it showed no signs of getting any better.
"Hi Mikaela! Hi Sam!" He was rescued by Bluestreak, who came trotting over. "You must be Mr. Van Knight! I love your music, Bee sent me some files, and I really like the way you harmonize with discordant numbers ..."
"Huh ...?" To his credit, Van Knight didn't seem to be afraid of giant robots. "Sorry, didn't follow that, err, Bluestreak, right? I think my drummer rode with you."
"Math." Mikaela said, succinctly. "Autobots love music, but every one of them sees it as artistic math."
Sam stared up at Blue, who gazed back down at him very briefly. One optic shutter flickered shut. Had that been a wink? Of course, with Autobot hearing, every 'bot in the hold had probably overheard Van Knight hitting on Mikaela. He supposed the only question was if Bluestreak had decided to intervene on his own, or if one of the others had put him up to it.
Van Knight blinked. In a very different tone of voice, one that was both serious and curious rather than blatantly flirting, he said, "Well, there is a lot of math involved in music ..."
Bluestreak nodded happily, and said something that sounded like Greek to Sam. A lot of Greek, involving octaves, fractions, division, amplitude, and a few words Sam didn't even recognize as being human. Van Knight brightened even more, however. He hitched himself up to sit on the edge of the podium and responded in the same language. Blue chattered back. Van Knight made expansive gestures with his hands. Blue projected a diagram of something and pointed at it, and Van Knight blinked rapidly at this demonstration of Autobot holomatter, then hesitantly touched the diagram. They started discussing the subject, whatever it was, with real enthusiasm.
He edged closer to Mikaela and whispered, "Are they actually speaking English?"
She said loudly, "Mr. Van Knight, if you need me, ask Teletraan to hail me. Just say 'Teletraan' and ask him a question and he'll know you're talking to him. I've got to go help with a few things."
"Bye, sweetie," he waved cheerfully.
As soon as they were reasonably out of earshot, Sam groaned. "What a slime ball."
"Hey, I think he's sweet," Mikaela protested, sounding wounded. She pouted at him.
"He was hitting on you! In front of me!" He protested. "And you wre encouraging him!"
"What, feeling a little insecure, Sam?" she giggled.
"Yeah, I am." He caught her arm, and stepped into an alcove, pulling her with him. "Mikaela, look, I love you so much. You were flirting back with him and ..."
She pulled her arm free, and glared at him. "What, don't trust me, Sam?"
"Pit!" He borrowed an oath from the 'bots, having run out of obscenities of human origin on this day. "Mikaela, I love you."
She just looked at him for a moment. "Then trust me to recognize that I've got a good thing with you. What, are you afraid I'll leave you or something?"
"Yeah, actually." He closed his eyes, and leaned against the wall. "This has been a really shitty day, Mikaela. I don't want to fight with you, too. I'm losing Bee and I don't want to lose you too."
The words were uttered before his internal censor had time to react to them. He realized what he'd said, remembered that Mikaela could be nearly as perceptive as Optimus or Bee, and opened his eyes to see she was staring at him. It had been his tone, heartbroken, that had undoubtedly clued her in. She whispered, "Losing Bee?"
He straightened up from the wall. "I didn't mean it that way. You know what I mean."
"I think I might." She searched his face, all semblance of humor vanishing, then she said quietly, "You should have said something to him long before now. Now, it's too late."
"Mikaela, I didn't mean it." He shrugged, trying to affect an appearance of calm that that he absolutely didn't feel. The nausea was back. Had someone written secrets he never wanted anyone to know on his forehead for the world to see? "Anyway, there's us. If I had to chose, I'd chose you. I love you, and I committed to you first."
She sighed, and ran a hand over her hair, and said, "Okay, okay Sam. I get it. C'mon, I'm going to go change into some jeans so I can help with the setup for the party, and I'm going to get someone with no boobs to babysit the band."
"My dad," Sam suggested, "or one of the marines."
Mikaela considered for a moment, then said, "Epps."
"Epps," Sam agreed, with a smile. "He'll probably be happy to be pulled off the security detail for a few hours."
It was strange, Bee thought, to sit inside Ratchet's cabin. He perched on the edge of a bench and regarded the other two occupants with mixed exasperation and fondness.
Doc, braced against the motion of stop and go rush hour traffic with one hand on a cabinet, regarded Bee intently. Judy, next to him, was in full mother-hen mode. Bee felt the whisper of scans sliding over his form. To the Camaro half, it would have been blatant. His humanoid protoform had far fewer sensory arrays.
Doc frowned, and pinged Bee with a medical code that triggered a reflexive dump of recent errors and system data. His dark look intensified. "Bumblebee, when was the last time you ate?"
He ducked his head, a bit embarrassed. "I had a blueberry muffin for breakfast. It was good."
"That's hardly a complete or nutritional breakfast. Far too many carbs, not enough protein, and probably not enough calories to support the exertions you made. In addition to low blood sugar, you are also mildly dehydrated." Doc slid a hand into a subspace pocket attached to his hip and produced an apple, a peanut butter and jelly sandwich, and a plastic bottle of milk. "Eat."
"Can he get cavities?" Judy said, curiously.
"He most certainly can," Doc said, "and I will personally let Ratchet smack him silly with a wrench if he does."
"We know you, Bee," Ratchet added, sounding amused. "We had a bet on how low your blood sugar would be."
Judy giggled. "You guys should have let me know he needs to eat. I didn't know that. I'll make sure he does in the future. And Bee, we're having you over for dinner in the future. Understand?"
"Yes, ma'am."
"I'd appreciate it," Doc said, "he is not going to feel hunger like a human does. It will manifest as minor non-painful alerts noting his blood sugar levels are dropping and that his stomach is empty, but it will not affect his mental state. That was deliberate; we didn't wish to compromise him with hunger in an emergency for the mere sake of realism."
Bee sat on the edge of a bench in the back of the cabin, and took a careful bite of the sandwich. It stuck to the roof of his mouth, and he was glad for the milk. The taste was not bad, despite the gooey consistency. However, he handed the apple back to Doc and explained. "I don't think I like apples."
Actually, he'd tried to eat an apple earlier, and had nearly choked on a bite. There was a distinct and complicated learning curve to eating, and he had no desire to damage his protoform in front of two of the mechs who'd created it.
Doc frowned, but started to return the apple to his storage space. Judy Witwicky held a hand out, "I'm hungry too."
"Oh, sorry, Mrs. Witwicky," Doc handed it to her. "The apple's all I have."
Bee ducked his head, a bit embarrassed to be eating a sandwich when Mrs. Witwicky had nothing but an apple. He should have thought about it. He offered one half of the sandwich to her, "Do you want some of this?"
"This is fine," she waved a hand airily about. "I'm good with an apple."
He took another bite of the sticky, gooey sandwich. His sensors informed him that it had a high percentage of healthy fats. The bread was whole wheat. It was nutritious. Good for him. And not bad tasting. He finished it in several bites, and then discovered his fingers were sticky. He eyed his hands. He was wearing jeans and a t-shirt; the tux was hanging up back in the cabin on the Ark. He suspected Sam would simply have wiped his hands off on his jeans, and after a moment's consideration, tried to do the same. However, the jam and the greasy ground nuts didn't wipe off easily.
"Got any cleanser?" he asked Doc and Ratchet hopefully.
"Not organic-suitable, no. Sorry." Doc shrugged.
Bee made a face and licked his fingers clean, then wiped his damp hands on his pants. He hoped he wasn't going to need to shake anyone's hands.
Judy rolled her eyes. "I can definitely tell just which boy-child you got your table manners from."
"Sorry?" He offered the apology tentatively.
Her laugh was light and musical. "Oh, don't be. It's just funny seeing you do things Sam does. Bee, you're over a hundred thousand years old, and you act like my teenage son. It's hilarious."
Ratchet snorted. "You're only now figuring out that Bee's our version of Peter Pan? He's never going to grow up."
"Well, if I was Peter Pan, it would certainly make Windy happy, what with the flying and everything."
Doc smirked. "The maturity level between Bee and Sam is certainly about the same. Bee, do you have any other issues?"
"Some minor pain from my feet. I'm not sure if it's enough to trigger errors you'd have seen." He knew that Doc would have his bolts if he wasn't totally truthful. Bee bent over and pulled a boot off. He wiggled his toes in Doc's direction. Doc bent over and squinted at Bee's toes, then made a face. "You've got blisters."
"Oh, ouch, Bee!" Judy exclaimed, when Doc moved back and she could see the damaged skin,. "That looks like it hurts!"
"Hnh. Got any of that magic cream?" he asked Doc, and forbore mentioning to Judy that, on the scale of his usual injuries, blisters barely rated about dented armor.
"I've got band-aids. If I repair the damage with nanytes, you will not develop the calluses you need to prevent future damage." Doc crouched down, propped Bee's foot on his thigh, and produced alcohol swabs and bandages. Bee hissed and swore when the antiseptic touched the raw skin. Doc's armor was bumpy and hard under Bee's heel, and his fingers cold.
"Before you do a long walk again," Doc said, "we'll put some athletic tape over the pressure points on your feet to prevent this from happening."
"How's your mental state?" Ratchet asked, bluntly.
Bee was unsurprised by the question. "I will never be completely used to two sets of input. However, I believe I'm stable. Why?"
"Because you'd best not interface with your little boyfriend if you're not one hundred percent." Ratchet accelerated aggressively around an SUV. "If you don't think you're ready, for any reason, I will be happy to make it a medical order that you're not to interface with anyone. Any reason, Bee, do you understand? No questions asked. If you think you need to put off tonight, for your own good and Windy's, you'd better tell me, and I'll make it happen."
Ratchet was offering him a way out, Bee realized, if he wanted to tactfully delay things with Manywinds, he could. However, there was a very basic problem with that, and Doc realized it as soon as Bee did. Doc stated, "Relationships need to be based on honesty, Ratch. Bee can't lie about his reasons for delaying the interfacing, because Windy would find out later."
"Hnh." Ratchet grunted. He accelerated again, "We have paparazzi following us, by the way."
Bee, whose Camaro half was trailing Ratchet and Sunstreaker, was well aware that they were being followed by several SUVs full of photographers. He said, "Do you think we need to lose them?"
"We can't do so safely. Just ignore them." Ratchet made a harrumphing noise. "Sunstreaker's going to try to draw some of them off, though."
:Sunstreaker,: Bee said, even as the yellow Corvette accelerated past Ratchet, over a comm line the four of them were sharing, :Be careful.: :Yeah, yeah, don't run the squishies over.: :Don't cause a secondary accident, either,: :Yeah, yeah. Do we have some energon to spare for a couple transcans?: :Plenty, why?: :Because I'm going to transcan something and rejoin you guys in a few minutes,:
:Authorized,: Ratchet replied, with a snicker audible in his voice. :Make sure there's no cops watching, and jam that photo radar installation a mile ahead.:
Sunstreaker accelerated hard, faster than any mortal car could. From a 65 mph start he smoked his tires, fishtailed, recovered, hit 85, and -- probably reluctantly -- slowed down to allow the paparazzi to catch up. Faced with two sedately driving Autobots, and one that was zooming ahead and swerving through traffic, the photographic stalkers chose the more exciting option. Only a handful remained behind to watch the Camaro and the Hummer.
"You might want to put your seatbelts on," Ratchet warned, as he took an off ramp at slightly above the recommended speed.
Sunstreaker gleefully transmitted video showing that he was repeatedly letting the paparazzi close the gap and then shooting ahead again. There were close to two dozen cars trying to follow him. Ratchet chose a course that would put some significant distance between the two groups, so that hopefully they could pick the kid and her family up before the whole mob rejoined them. Sunstreaker, meanwhile, also pulled off the freeway because the Corvette he was chasing had done so. He put on another rubber-burning burst of speed, accelerated out around the corner and out of sight of all of the photographers, passed the other Corvette (honking cheerfully as he did) and transcanned another car, a small SUV. He flipped a U-turn and returned the way he'd come, just in time to see at least twenty other cars surrounded the confused driver of the strange yellow Corvette.
:Worked,: Sunstreaker reported with satisfaction. :I so rock!: :You do,:
The kid lived in a run-down apartment complex in a sketchy part of Los Angeles. Bee called the kid's mom, who answered tentatively, "This is Emily."
"Hi Emily, it's Bumblebee. We're outside, but there's a couple of photographers that followed us. Is there some place private close by that you'd want us to pick you up? They can be pretty persistant and they won't leave you alone."
A squeal greeted his words. "I can't believe you're actually here to pick us up."
"Not a problem," Bee assured her.
"I'm not worried about the photographers," the woman said, finally. "Let 'em be nosy. It's probably good PR for you guys, and anything we can do to help ... we're ready when you are. Thank you so much."
"Okay. We're in your parking ..." Bee's words were interrupted by his surprise when Ratchet hit his horn. A photographer had tried to climb on Ratchet's bumper to see through his back window. He completed the sentence, "...lot."
"Step on my aft again and I'll report you for assault," Ratchet growled loudly at the man. His weapons capacitors started to hum. "No touching!"
"What was that?" The woman on the phone said, sounding startled. She'd probably heard the honking inside.
"Our chief medical officer, who volunteered to tag along because it gets him out of helping set the party up," Bee said, with a mental grin. "He's a search and rescue Hummer. Looks kindof like a big ambulance."
"Oh."
"You've probably seen me on TV, I'm a Camaro. And a guy. Sunny should be here in a moment. However, I'm not sure what he'll look like when he gets here."
"We're coming out," the woman said, "and thank you, again."
Ratchet honked again, this time because they were trying to peer underneath him. The medic growled, "Do I look up your skirts, ladies?"
Every single paparazzi was male. Most were shooting video. Bee snickered over the com, :You realize you just made TMZ.: :Oh, goody. I'm going to make a mug shot if they don't back the slag off. If they were any closer we'd be interfacing. They're in my space!:
"I'll distract 'em, Ratchet." Bumblebee transformed the Camaro, suddenly towering sixteen feet over the heads of the men with the cameras. He waved and played a clip of 'Who Let the Dogs Out' as the men spun to face him.
The girl and her mother appeared from inside an apartment. Both were dressed in stylish satin gowns, well tailored. The girl's was rich amber, strapless, and swishing around her ankles. Her mother had on a cream colored dress with a high neck and no sleeves. When he saw the girl's face, though, Bee's spark contracted. She looked ill: puffy, pale cheeks, bald, and painfully thin. She was moving like she hurt, and when she got closer he could smell the pain killing chemicals in her blood. However, her eyes were bright and alert and she was smiling.
Ignoring the photographers, who were snapping frantic photographs, she walked right up to Bumblebee, looked up at him and said, clearly and with enthusiasm, "You are so cool."
Bee crouched, lifted an optic ridge, and informed her, "Believe it or not, we feel the same way about humans. You guys are fascinating."
She giggled.
"Katherine," Emily said, "we're riding in the ambulance."
"Awww, mom, I don't need an ambulance." Katherine sounded very unhappy about this.
Bee shuttered an optic in a wink. "He is one of us too."
"... Okay." Reluctantly, she turned back and, moving stiffly, headed for Ratchet. Ratchet, after apparently sizing her gait up, deflated his rear tires and sank far down on his shocks so she could climb in easier, and Doc extended his hand out to pull her up. Her mother climbed in after her.
"Hi, I'm Judy," Sam's mom said cheerfully. "The mech you met outside is Bee and this is his other half -- they're one mind, two bodies. This is Doc, and our ride's Ratchet. Don't let him fool you, he's really a sweetheart, even if he bitches and growls about everything."
Bee waggled a smaller set of fingers in a wave.
"I am not a sweetheart." Ratchet objected, even as he shut his doors.
"Ratch," Doc said with a grin that lifted his faceplate up, "I do believe she has your number."
"Oh, shut up, you."
Ratchet started to pull forward, then blew his horn at several men with cameras standing in his path. They didn't seem too impressed by a Hummer, even a talking one, but when Bee marched his mech half towards them and made an irritated "out of the way!" gesture with one hand, and snarled, "MOVE! You're in the way!" they moved. They also shot video as they backed away. Bee planted both hands on his hips and glared imposingly down at them, unimpressed. The fact that he wasn't blasting the annoying parasites into carbon smears would probably count in his favor on the public relations score; he was well aware that most normal American citizens didn't have a very high opinion of paparazzi.
In Ratchet's cabin, the mother and daughter were staring at Doc and Bee with faint wariness and rabid curiosity, respectively. The girl sized Bee up for a moment, then said, "You're really one consciousness in two bodies? How does that work? Is one body, like, under remote control or something?"
"Kat!" Her mother scolded, voice rising in tone. "Sorry, she's so curious!"
The girl looked chastened, but also unhappy. Bee settled onto one of the benches and the girl claimed a seat next to him, snapping the seat belt tight. She shot the stretcher that Ratchet had formed a dark look, but didn't say anything. The way she looked, and as unhealthy as her vitals were, Bee suspected she'd had a few ambulance rides. "I'm sorry. I want to be a robotics engineer. It's just so fascinating."
She had, Bee remembered, around three months to live. The doctors had done everything they could for her. Her lifespan might be measured in mere weeks, or it might stretch past the three month mark. Death might come quickly, of a hemorrhage or infection, or slowly and painfully, of suffocation from metastasis to her lungs. It would come.
:Doc ...: Bee started to ask if there was anything they could do. Those bright eyes, that intense curiosity, deserved a future. She was sixteen, almost seventeen, and that was less than two years younger than Sam. She was older, Bee thought, than Sam had been when they had first met. It wasn't fair. :Unfair.: :We are sworn to follow the laws of this country, even the ones we don't like. It's one thing to treat Sam, who is
:I know exactly what you're going to say.: Doc met Bee's gaze. :Legally, we can't. We're looking at some options, not just for her, but for others. The situation is complex.:
Bee sighed a strictly mental sigh, and said brightly to Kat, "Curiosity is a good thing. We'd rather answer questions than have people run away going 'Eek! Monsters!'"
"That's certainly true," Doc sat down on the floor next to her as Ratchet accelerated out into traffic. "Transformers have sparks, what you would call souls, but which we know how to measure, manipulate, and control. In Bee's case, we split his spark between two bodies. It's linked on a quantum level, as are his processor core and memory core."
"So he has two sources of input to effectively one hard drive?" She considered the concept. "Do you have issues with data being overwritten by that? How do you prevent it? Some sort of partitioning process?"
"The data's initially written to two separate sectors and then nearly instantly loaded into his normal file hierarchy by one centralized process, so that both protoforms perceive the data in real time. The delay is a fraction of a nanosecond." Doc was vastly simplifying the explanation, Bee recognized, but he was impressed that she'd thought of that problem at all. "A bigger issue we have to overcome is harmonic feedback between his processor cores."
"Harmonic feedback ...?" she said, clearly intrigued.
Doc launched into an explanation that eventually involved pen and paper borrowed from Judy, and diagrams, and math problems, and a lot of laughter from the girl, who seemed delighted beyond belief that the mechs were willing to speak to her. Bee realized, listening to her, that she had to be one of the most intelligent humans he'd ever met, bar none. Sam and Mikaela were average smart, and he'd spoken to a few scientists who were startlingly intelligent. This child seemed to have almost an intuitive grasp of quantum mechanics -- which was not an easy field of science even for mechs -- and she peppered him with questions as fast as he would answer.
Her mother leaned over to Bee and whispered, "I can't thank you guys enough for this. When the news broke that real aliens had come to Earth, she didn't sleep for two days. She was so excited. She loves science, particularly robotics, and you guys are the most exciting thing I think she's ever seen. She spends all day on the internet, scouring every forum, every web site, for any information."
Doc, overhearing the words of her mother, abruptly interrupted the girl's rapid-fire questions about how intense gravitational fields might interact with the quantum state via affecting the temporal link between the cores with a quick, "Katherine, would you like my e-mail address?"
That earned him a surprised blink and then a bright grin and an absolutely gleeful nod.
Doc scribbled it out on a piece of paper and handed it to her. Then they resumed the question and answer session. Bee leaned forward, watching, even as he turned the problem of 'defeating stupid laws' around in his head. There had to be a loophole, or if not, Optimus needed to do some heavy-duty diplomacy, or maybe they could get her into the earliest clinical trials possible ...
Bee studied his humanoid half with his mech half's of optics. His hair was mussed by the day's activities. He turned around, and picked a comb up from the suitcase of brand new maintenance tools he'd acquired, and with his mech half began to comb through his own blond hair. It was easier to do it that way, than to try to reach up behind his head with humanoid fingers and work blindly, or try to coordinate movements of one protoform based on what he was seeing with the other. Metal fingers nimbly manipulated the tiny bit of plastic, and the even thinner strands of hair, though he quickly discovered he had to be careful of the joints in his hand after catching a few hairs and pulling them out. Windy's pseudo-skin hand coverings made a lot of sense once you worked around organics for any length of time at all. They were just so fragile. He was just so fragile.
He swept his hair back into a low pony tail again, clipped it in place, and studied himself critically. Despite the application of sunscreen he'd acquired a little bit of a tan on his face during the morning's walk. Humans would consider that healthy, though Doc would gripe at him about cellular damage if he let it continue. He needed to find a stronger sunscreen, or start wearing a hat outside. His olfactory sensors informed him that he didn't have any unpleasant odors, and the tuxedo he'd put back on still looked presentable except for some dust around the ankles, which he brushed off when he spotted it.
Windy pinged him from the hall.
He absently opened the door with a quick burst of code. Windy bounced into the cabin. Bee glanced at him, then lifted two sets of optic ridges at his appearance. Windy had clearly just washed his armor (what there was of it) again because little droplets of water were still clinging to the surface. However, something was missing. Bee observed, "No wings?"
"Not for dancing. They get in the way." Windy rose up on his toes a couple of times. "I'm looking forward to dancing with you. That'll be so fun."
He laughed as Windy grabbed his short half's hands and proceeded to do just that, pulling him into the graceful steps of a Cybertronian waltz that Bee hadn't seen or done in a lifetime. Warriors generally went for something a little more high-energy than this, which was definitely a high-society upper-crust dance. Windy, he recalled, had been directly supported by Vermillion Prime, who had been fascinated by his research into the factors that led to the evolution of sentience in organic species. That probably meant that Windy had been invited to plenty of society events.
To tell the truth, he'd never been a guest at a party that had featured that style of dancing. However, and HightNotes, had provided the music to more than a few such balls.
Laughing, he triggered a recording of one of his old songs and tried to let Windy lead him around the room. Windy, grinning, dropped his hands to Bee's hips even as Bee did the same to Windy. For this particular dance, the leader wold have his hands on the shoulders of the other mech. Their hands collided, and Windy burst out in giggles. "Your hands up, mine down."
Windy, apparently, thought Bee had made a mistake. He hadn't, he generally followed when dancing with anyone his equal or higher ranked. It was habit. Windy's military rank was far below his, but he certainly considered the flier his equal given they were intended partners. No one would think it odd, at least no one who knew him well enough to matter, to see him let Windy lead. Anyway, they were in private.
"You ready?" He said, after spinning Windy around the room a few times. "I think I hear people arriving."
"Oh, I'm so ready."
Somehow, he didn't think Windy was talking about the party when Windy said that. He smiled hesitantly. "So am I."
