A/N: Humans/OC ahead warning! I tried hard to make them a contributing part of the story without letting them steal the show or eclipse canon characters. That said, thanks in advance for not flaming. Under the new rules I have no way of responding to anonymous reviews, but I do still appreciate them. So thanks!
She rolled over with a groan, jarred out of a sound sleep by the telephone's incessant jangling. It was just out of reach of her sleep-clumsy fingers, too. She managed to grab it on the third ring, almost falling out of bed in the process.
"Hello?" she wheezed.
"Hey, Shelley. Want to go swimming?"
Shelley groaned. At this moment, Amy's cheerfulness was downright nauseating. "What are you doing up so early?"
"It's half past nine, silly. What gives?"
"It is?" Shelley squinted at the blurry wall clock, then gave up and carefully patted the nightstand until she felt the smooth wire of her glasses. Sure enough, the black hands resolved into 9:31. She had overslept. "It is. Drat. I was up late babysitting Maggie."
"Ohhh." Amy's voice conveyed immediate understanding. "I thought they were going to pick her up at seven."
Shelley pulled her glasses off to rub at her eyes wearily, trying to pull her scattered wits together at the same time. "That was the plan, but their car blew a water hose on the way home. By the time they got it towed and came to get her in their other car, it was close to midnight."
"Ouch." Amy was amused but sympathetic. "How bad was it?"
Shelley pressed two fingers against her temple and looked at the pile of clothes she hadn't bothered to dump in the hamper the night before. "Well, she got into the maple syrup when I wasn't looking, dumped a twin pack of Cheerios out and ground them into the carpet with Peter's Tonka trucks, and flushed three bars of bathsoap down the toilet." She snorted. "Said she was big enough to go to the bathroom herself, so I let her. Stupid me."
She heard Amy snickering. "Yes, it clogged," she finished testily.
"Sorry, 'Shell - but I'm sure glad it wasn't me." Shelley could almost see Amy's grin. "Do you need to clean up, then? We can swim later."
"No," Shelley said instantly. "I mean yes, but the housework can wait. I had to suffer through three Barney sing-along movies last night. I've earned a nice swim. Besides, I cleaned up the worst of the mess before I went to bed."
"Great! I'll meet you at the mailbox, then."
"Oh, one more thing!" Shelley remembered just in time. "Can you bring the towels? I haven't had a minute to do laundry, and I used the last of our clean ones to mop up toilet water."
Amy clucked disapprovingly. With Shelley's household suffering from a chronic shortage of clean towels, such a move had not been prudent. "Should've used the mop instead."
Shelley sighed in agreement. "I was in panic. So can you?"
"Sure thing. Watch out for jumping hoes."
Shelley growled and hung up in mid-cackle. There was definitely a good dunking in that girl's near future.
-
It was a beautiful summer day, and his assignment was the last thing on his mind. The road was smooth, the sun was up, the wind was free, and so was he.
Until he caught a flash of crimson from somewhere up ahead. His happiness shot into overdrive and all but wiped his mission straight off his processor. He accelerated in pursuit of the colorful sparkle dancing several car lengths ahead.
"Does my imagination deceive me? No, it's a beautiful classic Mercedes - and in showroom condition, too!" He fishtailed in delight, provoking honks and yells from the drivers behind him. The noises sailed in one audio receptor and out the other. He was oblivious to the world outside himself and his sighting. Nothing could stand in the way of love, least of all the driving laws!
...not while Prowl was absent, at least!
"Hey, you lovely dream on wheels, you!" he called happily. "Why's a beauty with lines like yours keeping the speed limit?"
There was a chuckle, both pleased and amused. "Wouldn't you rather hit on someone your own age?"
On his viewscreen, Sideburn gaped. His mind went blank with surprise. Sheer inertia kept him hurtling forward.
Unfortunately, it was at precisely this point that the freeway took a swing to the west. He shot off the road and flattened an exit sign. The crimson sparkle winked cheerfully and disappeared, swallowed up by distance.
"Sideburn!" T-AI's voice sounded annoyed, which was par for the course when she was talking to him, but there was also a note of concern. "Are you all right? Come in, please!"
Sideburn stifled a groan as he transformed. She would pick this moment to check specifically on him. Why not Skid-Z or the Spychangers or Rapid Run? Still, it was nice to have someone worried about him.
"I'm fine, T-AI," he assured her hastily, as he scrambled to his feet and looked ruefully at the damage. "I just, ah, missed my turn."
"So I see," the hologram said dryly. Consulting her locations map, no doubt. "It's nice to have you so focused on a mission, for once, but try to spare some attention for the road. Okay?"
"Okay," he said sheepishly. She was letting him off easy this time, and they both knew it.
Grateful that she hadn't pressed him for details, he did his best to straighten the crumpled sign, trying valiantly to ignore the grins and catcalls of passing drivers. The sign was much shorter after he poked it back into the ground, but no less informative. He himself had suffered nothing worse than a few scratches.
He gave the sign one last tap to make sure it wouldn't collapse under the blackbirds, then transformed and eased back into traffic in a slightly more businesslike state of mind.
Still, he kept one optic peeled for another sight of that colorful flash.
Just in case.
-
It was a short walk to the mailbox, but by the time Shelley got there Amy's mood had changed completely.
"What's wrong?" Shelley asked, scanning her friend's grim face. "Are those dirty too?"
"No, we had plenty of clean laundry." Amy hefted the rolls of terrycloth tucked under one arm. "It's just... I scrubbed and waxed Dad's stupid car last night, as a surprise, and he took off to work right after I called you without saying a word about it. About anything. I might as well have been invisible."
As usual, Shelley wasn't sure what to say. What answer could she give that would help? There were some things even the best of friends couldn't fix.
Instead, she silently laid a hand on Amy's shoulder. Amy scowled across the fields.
"Do you still want to go swimming?" Shelley asked gently, after waiting a good five minutes.
"Yes." Amy exhaled stubbornly, putting the hurt aside. "I'm not going to let this ruin my day. You bring sunblock?" she asked, holding out one of the towels.
Shelley accepted both towel and question with a nod, taking the abrupt change of subject in stride. "Of course I did."
"Well then. Let's go..."
-
Well, life wasn't all oil and roses. Every turn took Sideburn deeper into the almost deserted countryside, and every new road offered fewer and fewer vehicles to pass, race and admire, until finally there were none at all. Only the clouds above and the cows below greeted his scans. After a few miles he gave up looking and moved to the center of the road, figuring he might as well put all that asphalt to good use since there was no one else around.
Therefore it came as a complete surprise when he rounded yet another tree-blinded corner to be greeted by the same well-waxed crimson sparkle.
"Hello there," it called. "Fancy meeting you here."
This time he took out the fence.
Even in his state of shock, he had the presence of mind to steer between the posts. Still, it wasn't pretty. Mourning doves scattered, wires sang and snapped, four-by-fours uprooted and cracked, and sharp points raked painfully across his armor with anguished, audio-jarring squeals. His panicked rendition of the Tarzan yell did absolutely nothing for his dignity, but did add a kind of noisy flair to the crash.
It was over before he ran out of breath, his brakes bringing him to a stop with streamers of barbed wire still festooning his alt-mode. He waited for the kind of pain that would signal major damage, but felt only the kind that signaled major pain, and thanked every blessing of heaven that there had been no irrigation canal on the other side of the fence. If the incident could be compared to an aircraft carrier landing at all, the arresting wires had definitely failed. The field itself seemed shocked into silence, as if stunned by seeing a vehicle trying to catch the birds.
Please, oh please, let T-AI not be checking on me. He held his breath, but no reprimand was forthcoming. The reprieve allowed him to verify that, if he really had needed to knock a fence down, he'd at least chosen the right side of the road for doing so. Going off the other side would have landed him in a fair-sized stream.
"Ow... that looked bad." The voice held a mix of shock and concern. "Are you always this accident-prone?"
Embarrassed, Sideburn transformed with exquisite care, trying not to let the strands of barbed wire catch on anything sensitive.
"I'm fine," he managed, wincing at the deep wirepoint gouges running across his car hood and straight through his windshield glass. "Almost, at least."
He stepped gingerly out of the tangled wires and turned to face the speaker.
He blinked. His spark rose up to the heavens and then plunged back down to his toes.
Swishing her legs in the cool stream water was a sweet-faced femme.
She was red.
She was classy.
And she was old.
"Wh... who are you?" he managed at last, the question sounding half-hearted. He couldn't help it. His curiosity had been swallowed by disappointment. Her armor had the high gloss and burnish that only the best of care could maintain; she was obviously well-powered and in good spirits. But her face had the angular tearlines of age, and her optics radiated the kind of wisdom and calm that comes only from a lifetime of experience.
No doubt about it. She was old enough to be his creator.
She gave him a knowing look. "Ah, take away the youth and good looks and their interest splatters like a water balloon. Still, it was nice while it lasted." She grinned at his obvious discomfort. "Oh, don't worry - I'll get over you."
"Ehm, it's not - I mean, I didn't mean - ah..." Sideburn waved his hands vaguely and floundered, his cheeks heating at the thought of being so transparent. "You surprised me, that's - all. No one's ever talked back before."
"Ah, so that's the first fence you've demolished?" she inquired with an air of surprised interest. "You took it like a pro."
"Is it the - well, the truth is..." Caught off guard, Sideburn could only sputter. He had the uncomfortable feeling that he was being laughed at, if ever so politely, and decided to change the subject. Any topic would do, just so it was different. He grasped at the first thing that came to mind. "The truth is that I'm, ah, looking for something. Yeah."
"Really?" The femme perked up. "So am I. You wouldn't happen to have seen an electromagnetic pulse ray generator lying around, would you?"
"A what?" he asked in bewilderment. "No, I'm just looking for a warehouse." Thanks to T-AI's careful directions, he knew exactly where it was, too. She hadn't wanted a repeat of the Skid-Z fiasco. Sideburn gestured down the road. "It's just a few miles that way, I think."
"Hm, so close. Do you mind if I join you?" She saw him hesitate as he realized what he'd just gotten himself into, and added, "I promise not to scare off any younger models." She winked disarmingly.
His cheeks warmed again. Somehow, her teasing got under his armor a lot faster than his brothers' reproaches did. "Aren't you worried about me misbehaving?" he hedged.
"Oh, no one wants to hassle an old lady like me," she laughed. "Besides, you and your fellow bots have been in the public eye for quite some time now." She pointed at his insignia. "You're well known for upholding your oaths to protect the innocent. But don't let me slow you down, if you're in a hurry," she finished graciously, offering him an easy way out.
He considered uncertainly. She too wore the Autobot insignia, but sported no visible weapon. He wasn't sure if taking a civilian along was such a good idea. On the other hand, how ultra-secret could a wrecked warehouse be? Especially since he'd already spilled the beans about its location?
There was another motive worming its unpleasant way around in his spark. The responsible side of him (which had such an uncomfortable way of surfacing whenever Koji was around) felt just a tiny bit guilty for recoiling because of her age. After all, old bots had feelings too. She was still a Transformer and deserved to be treated as such, even if she wasn't fresh out of the factory. If he let her come along, maybe it would help make up for his first reaction.
Besides, there wasn't much to keep her from trailing him if she really wanted to. Better under his eye than out of his sight.
She waited patiently for his answer, face calm, the occasional swish of her legs in the water breaking the silence gently.
"Sure, you're welcome to come if you'd like to," Sideburn decided, the invitation sincere. "It may be pretty boring, though."
"Oh, that's okay." She pulled one foot out of the water and balanced on it to transform, then eased onto the road. "We older folks are easy to entertain. Why, just watching a bunch of ball bearings roll around on the floor can keep us spellbound for hours."
"All right already - I'm sorry," Sideburn groaned. "Do I need to bring you flowers?"
"Don't let me get to you, kid," she soothed. "I haven't had anyone to tease for a long, long time. That's all. The flowers are a nice thought, though," she added, sounding tempted. One headlight winked.
Kid. Sideburn banged his fist against his helmet a few times before transforming. Prowl would never have gotten himself into something like this, he groaned inwardly.
"Let's go," he said wearily.
-
"Are we there yet?" Amy called. For the fourteenth time.
Shelley squelched a sigh with all the strength of her will. Amy was making an almost too determined effort to enjoy the outing, and Shelley would be horsewhipped before she made so much as a squeak of complaint about the methods Amy employed to combat her pain.
Even if they were driving Shelley bananas.
At least this time she could give her a different answer. "Yeah, we're there all right," she called back amiably, flipping her towel over the bridge railing. "Looks nice and cool."
Not far from where the bridge crossed the stream, erosion had hollowed out a basin that was considerably deeper than the rest of the stream. The resulting waterhole was a favorite summertime resort for the neighborhood children. Bullfrogs haunted the banks and water insects skimmed along the surface, and in its depths lurked the occasional bass or sunfish. The jewel-toned dragonflies darting about added an almost opulent touch.
"Sure does," Amy agreed, flopping her towel next to Shelley's. "Beat you in!" she added, and darted towards the water.
"In your dreams," Shelley sneered, lunging after her. Her longer strides quickly ate up Amy's lead, and they hit the water at about the same time with a spectacular double splash. Shelley promptly reached over to shove Amy under.
It was just the first of several dunkings.
-
It was, as he'd said, just a few miles down the road. The potholes slowed them down a bit; the old femme was especially careful to avoid them, and he found himself waiting up for her. Still, they were there in a matter of minutes.
"This is it?" she asks, tailing him inside through the shredded roll door in car mode. "Looks pretty thrashed."
"Like a Terminator fight scene," Sideburn agreed, transforming and crouching to inspect a heap of twisted metal. "Only with laser scoring instead of bullet holes. What on earth was this?"
The femme transformed and dropped hastily to one knee. "Hey, that looks like it might have been the EMPR!" she exclaimed. "How on earth did it get so flat?"
The EMPR? Oh, right. Her electromagnetic pulse ray generator. Something complicated-sounding which, if she was correct, had been reduced to a jumble of highly compressed recyclables.
"Godzilla, maybe? Or a really big bulldozer." Sideburn was as puzzled as she was, if not more. "How can you even tell what it used to be?"
She pointed to some squashed wire tangles that might once have been conductive coils. "It had solenoids like that. And buttons like these. And a lever about this size - if not this shape," she finished wryly, picking the deformed component up and turning it over in her palm.
Huh. He'd let her come along to make her feel better, and now she was giving him information. "Assuming it was your EMPR generator, what's it doing here and where did it come from?" he asked, straightening.
"I can't tell you for sure how it got here," she admitted. "But I know that it was taken from the Metalectrix grounds by Predacons."
"How can you be so sure?" he asked in surprise.
"I belong to one of the Metalectrix employees," she explained. "I scanned his car for my alt-mode, at least. That was... well, never mind how many years ago." She chuckled. "Anyways, my owner works late a lot and I often wander around at night waiting for him. He's convinced that he can never remember where he parks," she added with a grin. "Sometimes I even go for a drive in town. Well, I was walking around near the laboratory bays one night and heard noises inside."
She paused, obviously reminiscing.
"And?" Sideburn prompted, becoming interested in the story in spite of himself. "What'd you see?"
"Well, a minute later the bay door slid open and this big shark Predacon peeked out. Something warned me to get out of sight, so I dropped down between two big trucks and kept quiet. He didn't see me." She pursed her lips. "He popped back inside and it wasn't long before he was back with three others. They were hauling the EMPR. I knew that project had been shelved because of budget issues, but still, they had no business just taking it."
She shrugged. "Unfortunately, there were four of them and only one of me, and I've never been much of a fighter. The best I could do was follow them."
She stopped then, her mouth twisting a little.
"You couldn't keep up?" Sideburn asked dubiously, after waiting as long as he could stand to.
She snorted. "Oh, I could keep up just fine. But they stopped halfway here to take a breather and argue about how heavy the generator was, and whose turn it was to carry it the rest of the way. Then they started talking very quietly about what they were going to use it for. I tried to tiptoe closer in bot mode to listen, and, eh..."
She cleared her throat. "Well, to be honest, I tripped. It was dark and I'd forgotten about the cattle gates." She shrugged again, this time in embarrassment. "Made an inglorious amount of noise. Fortunately, they were all too spooked to come investigate. They ran off howling something about Optimus or Scourge or (worse yet) both being onto them already." She laced her hands together and smiled at the memory of their panic. "It was a close shave. I was too shook up to try tailing them after that. Besides which, they left the road. I don't think I could have kept up across country."
Sideburn did some quick mental calculations. "That must have been quite a few weeks ago. Why were you out looking for it today, specifically?"
"Ah, that's the crux of the matter." She stood with an odd carefulness, one leg cocked gracefully behind the other, and peered around the building as she spoke. "The theft wasn't noticed right away. The Predacons were very quiet and tidy about the whole thing. They closed the door behind them, replaced the lock covers neatly, and left everything except the EMPR in place. The budget issue was straightened out just recently... and when the company went to unshelve the prototype it was, of course, gone." Her mouth quirked. "It never occurred to me to report the theft myself. It would have been, well, difficult." And she shrugged her Transformer shoulders. "Now my owner is being accused of having something to do with the theft. There's no proof other than that he was the one to lock the bay, and I for one know he didn't do it, but the mere accusation is already causing problems."
"The Predacons don't usually enlist native help when they want something," Sideburn conceded. "So if you can prove that the Predacons took the EMPR, it would help clear this guy's name. He must be important to you."
"No." She looked at him sideways, one optic ridge quirked negatively. "He isn't. In fact, I don't like him at all. But others will suffer if he loses that job." She kicked at the heap of metal. "I had no idea where to look, since I lost the Predacons that first time, but I had to try."
"Ah..." Sensing a sore spot, Sideburn nudged the conversation in another direction. "Well, the Predacons were definitely here." He pointed to the laser scoring on the wall and the trail of concrete rubble marking Sky-Byte's escape route. "And maybe a Decepticon as well. Wish we had some idea of what they were up to. Optimus would like to know." And Prowl, he added privately, would have to admit that even his irresponsible little brother was good for something, if he came back with some solid information.
It might also get him out of explaining exactly how he'd ruined his paint job.
The femme pointed out the long slash across the small double sliding door. "Do you know of any bots who carry a sword?"
"Oh, yeah," Sideburn grimaced. He'd noticed that right away, of course. Which was why he'd tagged Scourge on the end of the possible-guests list. "He's hard to forget, once you've seen him." He surveyed the sky through the gaping hole in the roof, caught a glimpse of fluffy white clouds sailing by far above them. The damage had cost that section of ceiling most of its support, and the area was slowly collapsing inward.
"It must have been quite a hairball," he mused, "whatever happened. But way out here, who would notice?"
"We could talk to the guy's daughter," she suggested. "Her friend has siblings in every grade - they're firmly plugged in to the local grapevine. Maybe they've heard something."
Sideburn was dubious. "Wouldn't his daughter be just a little bit biased in her reporting if she knows what's at stake?"
"Huh." Her mouth twisted. "He spends more time talking to clients than he does to her. She doesn't have a clue." And she brushed at her wax job, a self-conscious gesture, as though apologizing for something she couldn't help.
"I see," Sideburn said awkwardly. He felt a vague desire to help, but family counseling just wasn't his specialty. Optimus might have known what to say, but then, he had some family problems of his own. "Where do they live?"
"Not far." She transformed and led the way outside. "Come on - I'll show you."
-
The requisite dunking session over, the girls paddled around in comparative peace and quiet, hearing only the calls of scrub jays and Phoebe-birds. Then they sat on the warm bridge railing and split the lunch Shelley had packed, watching the fish dart for crumbs that made it past the jays. They spent another half-hour inspecting the dry parts of the stream bank for glittery rocks, bluish stones of otherwise ordinary appearance which sparkled like living things in direct sunlight. Of no practical value (aside from the occasional mashed toe), they were nonetheless highly prized among the neighborhood children for their beauty.
They were headed in for another swim when they heard the car engines approaching. Shelley was just turning to ask Amy where anyone could be in such a hurry to get to when not one but two cars whipped past, windblasting both towels off the bridge railing. Shelley's towel tumbled down into the water; Amy's, sucked along by turbulence, sailed after the two vehicles and landed in the sticker-infested vegetation adjoining the road.
"Hey!" Amy sputtered indignantly. "I'll never get that clean!"
Shelley fished her borrowed towel out of the stream before the current could sweep it away, and regarded the sopping terrycloth resignedly. "It's better than toilet water, at least," she remarked to no one in particular.
Amy blew her breath out in exasperation. "Mine's going to be covered with puncturevine."
Shelley grimaced in acknowledgement, her long hair swishing with the tilt of her head. "I'll help you pick it clean. We've got all day, after all."
"I can think of so many pleasanter ways to spend my time," Amy grumbled, and trudged on up towards the road.
"Hey, that was them!" the femme admonished, putting on the brakes. "Slow down and come back here. Easy, now - I don't want to frighten them."
Shelley had wrung out her soggy towel and hung it back up to dry by the time Sideburn backtracked; when the two Autobots approached on foot, she was crouched over the other towel next to Amy, helping her pick out the dozens of unfriendly stickers it had acquired.
"Hello, girls!" Sideburn called out cheerfully, pulling out his best friendly voice. "Nice day for a swim, hey?"
Shelley detected "young, flirty male" without even looking up and promptly vanished under the bridge. The femme exhaled noisily.
"I said..."
"Hey, I was just trying to be friendly!" Sideburn protested, looking hurt. He seemed to be offending females left and right today! "Do I look like I bite? What'd I say?"
"Oh, it's not what you said," she said, her tone apologetic. "It's what you are. Shelley's a little guy-shy." The Mercedes crouched by the roadside, her demeanor gentle. "Amy, dear, do you think you can coax Shelley back out here? We need to ask you two about something important. I'll make Mr. Personality here behave."
"Hey." Sideburn crossed his arms woundedly.
Amy was busy double-checking the femme's license plate number. "You're my Dad's car!"
The femme acknowledged with a lopsided smile. "The one and only."
Amy put her hands on her hips. "I knew Dad wasn't that absent-minded," she said accusatively.
Sideburn smirked. The femme looked embarrassed. "No, no he's not," she admitted. "It's just that I sometimes forget exactly which parking slot he left me in."
With a little coaxing from Amy, Shelley was persuaded to reappear and listen to the visitors, though she let Amy do most of the talking.
"All right, we're both here," the blonde said matter-of-factly. "What's so important that my towel has to wait?"
At a nod from the femme, Sideburn knelt and held out his datapad. "Have either of you seen something like this?" he asked.
The brilliant sunlight made the comparatively dim viewscreen all but invisible until the girls crowded closer and shaded it with their hands. The datapad displayed a press release schematic of the EMPR prototype, obtained from T-AI on five minutes' notice. Bless her efficiency.
He needed only to watch their faces for the answer.
"The paralyzing gadget," Shelley murmured.
"We had no idea," Amy said.
"You've seen it?" the femme pressed.
Amy nodded. "Yes, but it's definitely history now. These critter-mechs were trying to use it on this other big metal dude, and -" she hesitated - "he was awful mad about it. We're pretty sure he's the one who smashed it. Sorry, lady."
"It still helps," the femme murmured. "More than you know. You actually saw this happen?"
"Not all of it," Amy admitted. "We only went to the warehouse to get out of a storm, and we ran as soon as the real fighting started."
"Almost, anyways," Shelley murmured.
Amy's mouth quirked briefly, but she said nothing more.
"This big bot," Sideburn interjected cautiously, afraid to so much as smile lest he spook Shelley again. "What was he like?"
The girls exchanged another glance. "Big," Amy said simply.
"Black," Shelley elaborated.
"Mean," they both added.
"Scourge," Sideburn concluded. So Megatron's troops had been fighting amongst themselves. Interesting. He looked at his elderly companion. "There's your eyewitness proof."
-
"Somehow, I don't think they told us quite everything," she mused.
"Probably not," Sideburn conceded. He too had the feeling that the girls had suppressed a few details. "They don't know us, after all. But I think they told us enough to clear your owner."
"I hope so," the Mercedes murmured. "So what happens now?"
They were heading back to the freeway, Sideburn in the lead. They had offered to help de-sticker the towel before they left, but Amy had accurately predicted that their oversize fingers would pull off more pile than puncturevine.
Sideburn decided that he'd rather think about the femme's question. "I need to get back to HQ, that's for sure. Tell Optimus what I've learned, and - whoa!"
He swerved frantically to avoid a calf who'd lumbered into the road without warning. The Autobots were now passing the section of fencing that Sideburn had totaled earlier, and he realized that several cows had taken this chance to explore greener pastures. Worse yet, the sound of his engine seemed to wake their consciences. They bolted guiltily back across the road towards home, darting right in front of the Mercedes.
There was no time to stop. She veered off the road in a squeal of brakes, and Sideburn heard a tire go violently flat.
He pulled the fastest U-turn in the history of that road and raced back to check on her, feeling even more uncomfortably responsible than before. If he hadn't knocked the fence down, the cows would have had to stay safely in their pasture and she wouldn't have been hurt. He really WAS accident-prone today, he thought in exasperation. A lot of embarrassing things had happened since his favorite kind of vehicle finally talked back!
"Goodness, lady, are you okay?" He transformed and dropped to his knees beside her. "That sounded like it hurt!"
"You forgot the 'My, are you always so accident-prone?' part," she chided, her voice light but strained.
"Hey, I don't believe in kicking a bot when she's down," he chided in turn. "Besides, I'm the one who took out that fence in the first place. It's my fault the cows were out."
"Gallant of you," she acknowledged. "Call me chicken, but I don't want to look. How bad is it?"
Sideburn stretched out on the grass to inspect the flat, star thistles and amaranth tickling faintly across his underside. "Looks like you hit a piece of corrugated aluminum edge-on," he told her, looking at the punctured right front tire. Sure enough, there was a sharp-edged piece of metal pressed into the rightmost of her tire tracks. A rusted fragment from a drainpipe, maybe. "Does it hurt?"
She took a deep breath and let it out slowly, trying to steady herself. "No, not that much. I'm okay. I must attract freak accidents like Egypt drew plagues," she grumbled. "Well, there's no way I can keep up with you now. Go along and make your report - I'll be fine."
"Oh, no you don't." Sideburn sat back on his heels and crossed his arms. "It's strictly against the Autobot code to abandon ladies in distress." Unless you were X-Brawn and Kelly's schedule interfered with a potential crisis, he added privately. But the Mercedes didn't have to know that.
"I'm not in distress, just disgust. Stupid bovines."
"It's no use arguing," he said adamantly, glad for the chance to prove that his head wasn't entirely occupied by youth, speed and good looks. Imagine cows giving him a chance to show his better side! "You're stuck with me until you get that fixed. Say uncle already."
"Uncle," she said faintly, trying to hide her relief. No one liked being left behind. "You win."
"Now you're talking sense." Sideburn nodded in satisfaction. "Where's the nearest repair shop?"
-
Shelley wrung a few drops more from her towel and spread it over the railing again, hoping no more speedsters would come tearing through to windblast it off again. It was a lot easier to dry a towel than to sticker-pick it. "What do you suppose that was all about?"
Amy was looking ruefully at her own burr-ridden towel. "I don't think I even want to know," she murmured, and snapped the towel a few times. Stickers and lint flew everywhere, but there were plenty more where that came from. The thing was probably doomed to spend the rest of its days as a rag.
"Shelley." She turned to her friend with a troubled look. "Do you think I made a mistake? You know -- when I helped that big black guy? If he was bad, then, maybe it would have been better if..."
"No." Shelley shook her head firmly, filling the gap. This time, at least, she knew what to say. "I know I was against it at the time, but you did what you thought was right with the information you had at the time. No one can do more than that."
Amy searched her friend's face for sincerity, and found it.
"Things that happen later may make our decisions look better or worse, but that's out of our hands." Shelley turned her palms up, demonstrating their powerlessness in such matters. "We can only do our best."
Amy nodded soberly, reflectively. She draped her towel carefully over the railing and spent a few minutes smoothing out the wrinkles, a pointless exercise in keeping her fingers busy while she watched the water move below.
"Well," she announced finally, "all this intrigue is making me hungry. What say we go home and have some hot dogs?"
-
The femme, as it turned out, had a covert agreement with the local foreign car dealership. The owner gave her parts and repairs in exchange for occasional designated driver service. Sideburn guessed from her explanation that she wasn't wild about the arrangement, but a bot had to get maintenance somehow. She limped along on the flat until they made it to town, the blue Viper trailing along behind with uncharacteristic patience. They squeezed through the narrow alley leading to the back of shop with some difficulty, as the Mercedes again waited until the last possible moment to transform.
"Why don't you use your bot mode more?" Sideburn asked as he hefted the roll door open and then braced it up to let her through.
"Hurts. Knee's busted." She gestured to her right leg, and he realized that the knee had been swathed with duct tape in an attempt to immobilize it.
So that was why she had been soaking it. The cold stream water must have eased the pain somewhat. "How'd that happen?"
Her shrug was embarrassed. "When I tripped, following the Predacons on foot. Remember? There was this cattle gate, and I guess I didn't see it. Slipped, came down wrong... never quite healed. Klaus is competent enough with automobiles, but I wouldn't ask him to tackle a knee joint, even when he's sober."
She limped to the tire rack and hefted one out to replace her flat, then dug through the tool chest for a tire tool. "It's annoying, but I can live with it."
Sideburn glanced around the repair shop speculatively. Parts, equipment, tools and scrap metal were all within easy reach, though the tools were a bit undersized. But he'd always been good with his hands.
"I could fix it for you," he offered.
She paused in surprise, her expression ambivalent, and he could see uncertainty playing tug-o'-war with a strong desire to be fully functional again. "You sure you won't chop my foot off by accident?" she hedged, only half-joking.
"Hey, I was first in my mechanics class back on Cybertron, I'll have you know," Sideburn huffed. "I fixed Prowl's trimodulator just last week."
"Okay, okay. I didn't mean to insult your ability or anything," she said apologetically. "You seem like a nice kid and all, but I didn't know you could do body work. Of course I'd love to have it fixed."
She laid the new tire on the hoist and hopped up next to it, letting her bad leg dangle over. "Hack away, Doc."
Sideburn held up an index finger in remonstrance. "I don't intend to hack anything."
It was a simple wrench-twist injury, straightforward to fix in theory though challenging in practice. Resoldering some of the connective cables was delicate business. Sideburn lapsed into complete silence as he worked, the tunnel vision of intense concentration blotting out the world beyond his hands and the damaged joint. Some of the work was necessarily painful, but she made no sound, only clenched her fingers tightly across her other knee. As for the final result, Sideburn was as good as his word; the completed welds and splices were smooth and neat.
"Well?" Sideburn set the welding torch down and swept the tangle of discarded duct tape into a nearby trash can. "How's it feel?"
She flexed the joint experimentally, then accepted a hand down from the hoist and took a few steps across the shop. Her limp was almost gone.
"Wow." A delighted grin lit up her features, making her look decades younger. "It doesn't hurt anymore!"
She pirouetted sharply before Sideburn could stop her, then winced. "Well, not as much, at least."
"Whoa, go easy!" Sideburn admonished. "No bungee jumping or relay racing for a couple of weeks, at least."
"Yes, Doc," she said meekly. "Can I change my tire now?"
"Sit down." He pointed her back at the hoist. "I'll do it."
Replacing the flat went much faster than fixing the knee joint. She spun the tire experimentally when he was done, testing its balance, then pronounced it satisfactory. "Good job, kid."
Sideburn grinned in satisfaction. She might be old, he thought affectionately, but she certainly knew a good mechanic when she saw one. "Thanks."
"No, thank you. It's so nice to be free of that limp." She looked at the large quartz clock visible through an office window. "And it'll be much easier to get home without a flat. I better scoot - I'm overdue for a recharge. All this excitement has been almost too much for my old spark."
They parted at the freeway onramp, the femme commenting that she hoped her owner had decided to work straight through lunch as he usually did.
"You won't forget, will you?" she asked anxiously, slowing to catch his answer.
"I'll talk to Optimus," Sideburn assured her. "He'll know what to do."
The absolute certainty in his voice must have eased her mind. "Oh, that's such a weight off my conscience," she said in relief. "It would have been worth four flats to hear that."
Sideburn shuddered at the thought. "Personally, I'm glad it didn't come to that. And it's been my pleasure," he added sincerely. "Without you, it would have been a lot harder to backtrack the generator."
"Glad to know your Senior Citizen outing wasn't a total drag," she teased. One headlight winked off briefly, and then she was lost in the traffic.
And Sideburn realized with a pang of surprise that he was sorry to see her go.
-
Not long afterwards, Metalectrix received a call from perhaps the most physically intimidating entity they'd ever dealt with (excepting the Internal Revenue Service). Ultra Magnus, after a longer than usual talk with Optimus, tracked down and wrung a panicked confession from Sky-Byte, who begged him not to say a word about the matter to Megatron. Scourge, for reasons best known to himself, had never mentioned the subject to anyone. (Although, as T-AI remarked to Prime, Scourge was hardly the talkative type). It was rumored around Headquarters that Magnus had put up less token resistance than usual when Optimus had asked that he find and question the shark. (Although, as Sideburn observed to Prowl, Magnus certainly had no problem with confrontations.)
The theft and destruction of the EMPR prototype was pinned firmly on the Predacons, and a certain Metalectrix employee was cleared of any involvement in the matter. Sideburn retained a healthy respect for those unpredictable, siren-like vehicles which might at any time turn him from a freewheeling cavalier into an empty-headed road hazard, merely by speaking.
Along with a lasting regret that he'd forgotten to ask the old femme's name.
-
The phone's incessant jangling pried her out of a deep, sound sleep, interrupting a lovely dream about maple syrup bottles with genuinely childproof caps and bar soap scientifically formulated to be invisible to childish eyes. She groaned and tried to muffle the ringing fiend with her pillow, but the spell was broken. She gave up and answered after the fourth ring.
"This had better be either really good or crisis-level bad," she growled.
Amy giggled. "Oh, you're so cute when you're grouchy. You really need to knock off this oversleeping business, though."
Shelley grabbed her glasses to check the time. "I am not oversleeping. It's seven o'clock, for crying out loud!" she said indignantly.
"I know; I just wanted to see if you would fall for it," Amy said merrily.
"How kind of you," Shelley observed dryly. "And why are you so horridly cheerful today?"
"Dad took the day off from work. I have no idea why, but he's in a really good mood, and he's taking me out to breakfast and a movie. So I won't be coming over until later tonight, if then," Amy explained. "I wanted you to have enough notice."
"He is?" Shelley blinked, then kicked herself mentally. "I mean - that's great! Don't worry about me - you just have a good time."
"Oh, I will."
"Good," Shelley repeated with strained patience.
"A wonderful time."
"Glad to hear it."
"A fantastic time -"
"Amy."
"What?"
Shelley closed her eyes and counted to three, very slowly. "Can I please go back to sleep now?"
Amy's voice practically bubbled over with cheerfulness. "Oh, I suppose. Hehe. See ya! Bye! Ciao! Adios! Auf wiedersehen -"
It could have been worse, Shelley reflected as she hung up with a good-natured bang. It could have been Amy's father calling to find out why great pinches of pile were missing from his daughter's beach towel.
She unplugged the phone, just to be on the safe side, and went back to sleep.
THE END
The Transformers: Robots in Disguise cartoons were produced by Hasbro/Takara and all relevant trademarks and characters belong to them. License to Chill itself is transfan domain and may be freely recopied or archived.
For Shalako and Dark Rider,
who were there
when I needed them.
-Tripleguess
September 2004