The Diplomat

When I was a kid, I wanted to grow up to be president. Well, I'm not president yet, but I'm possibly more powerful then any government official on Earth. I have not only the audio sensor of Optimus Prime himself, but I've also known him longer then almost any human alive. Threats don't work on me, and I'm above bribes, at least for now.

I'm invulnerable.

Perhaps a bit too invulnerable.

A series of bombings five months ago killed over seventy-five people and injured hundreds. I don't even remember where it was, that's pretty pathetic isn't it? Somewhere poor, some third-world Middle Eastern country with religious fanatics and women dressed in more cloth then you'd find in an entire fabric store. Some place that only gets on the news when large amounts of people die.

So they sent me out there for public relations purposes. Shake a couple of hands, talk to people who had just lost everything that was important to them and had no idea who I even was. You know, the usual garbage.

There was a lot of blood on the ground, rubble and gore everywhere. While I was walking to my car to leave, two people walked by carrying child with his head bashed in. A couple of the members of my entourage gasped, or shuddered slightly. I didn't feel anything. A twinge of regret and disgust at so much pointless death, maybe, but mostly I just felt empty. Numb.

I wanted to break down and cry right there or even burst out laughing, just so I could have some emotion, could have what I was supposed to have in that situation. Oh, I played my part well, the sympathetic look, the kind words, but inside I had nothing. Compared to what I'd seen during the Unicron Battles, it was nothing.

I've seen thousands of living beings destroyed in a single instant through the actions of a single monster. I have looked into the face of the chaos god himself; I've actually been inside him while he threatened the people I cared about. I saw things no child should have to see.

Nothing really scared me after Unicron. The nightmares stopped when I went off to college, although I still get flashbacks every once in a while. Those are still scary. But not the occasional car bombs or the death threats I get in the mail every week or so. I've become a bit detached from those sorts of things, I suppose.

My friends grew farther away as well after I got into politics. I'm on a much more formal relationship with Prime, and I rarely get to talk with the other Autobots outside of a quick hello or some kind of report. I don't think Rad is even on this planet anymore, but I've never gotten around to checking up on him or the other boys.

I have bigger things to worry about.

Conflicts over using a castle in Scotland as an Autobot outpost. Dealing with tree huggers who don't seem to understand that the environmental benefits of using energon are more then worth the little bit of digging we have to do to get at it. Fat corporate CEOs who want to turn every important development and technological advancement into a money-making scheme.

And don't get me started on the lunatics who think we should negotiate with the transformers using nuclear weaponry, or the religious nuts who think the Autobots are spawn of Satan or whatever evil one they profess to hate. They don't get that the Autobots helped save not just our planet but also thousands of others from being consumed by a greater darkness then they can hope to comprehend.

And as bad as the regular Joes are, the Federation officials are even worse. I have to practically twist their arms and fling them against the wall kung-fu style to get what I want. They make everything so hard when the right answer is mind-numbingly obvious. I know what's best, and so does Optimus Prime and everyone else with sense, but those bureaucrats are so stubborn and pigheaded, it makes me want to scream.

I need Federation funding to build a crucial energon mining facility on Mars that'll help solve Earth's energy crisis? Too bad. I still have to threaten, grovel, plead, bargain, and fill out a couple dozen forms in triplicate just to get into meetings with the right people. My age and gender play a lot into it, but I think some of them are just plain resentful of me, of what I can do.

That's part of why I keep Laserbeak around in my office; a little reminder that the person you're talking to is more then just a woman half your age in a purple business suit. I have the power of an entire army of giant robots behind me. I went into the middle of a war than spanned entire galaxies while I was still in high school and I don't care if you were in Vietnam, Iraq, and Afghanistan all at the same time because there's nothing you've done that can beat that.

It's incredibly stressful, of course. I can't even begin to count the number of times that I've gone without sleep for days because of some project or other and then had to be perky the next morning for an interview. But then come those times when I can sit back and be proud of my accomplishments, of what I've done with the power I've gained.

No one can push me around or tell me that I won't amount to anything because I have become something, a great something. Something no one else has ever been, or ever will be.

I'm the first and only Earth Ambassador to Cybertron.

I wanted to show a different perspective on Alexis outside the overdone angsty-over-Starscream bit. She seemed a lot more formal and withdrawn by the time Energon came around, with no more ranting about "stupid boys" or cheering her friends on. So I thought I'd write out this little drabble and see what she was thinking. Now I'm starting to wonder whether that was such a good idea.