FINDING HOME

CHAPTER 5

BY VOODOO QUEEN

AUTHOR'S NOTE: Hello, Dear Readers! I hope you're all having a lovely day! Many heartfelt thanks to all those who have taken the time to read the first 4 chapters of this story and add it to their alerts and faves. Extra special thanks to those who have taken time to leave reviews and comments: Alelphe24 and Edges05. You are appreciated!

This chapter was updated on 10/23/2021 to correct spelling, grammar, flow, and other things my editing software missed.

DISCLAIMER: I DON'T OWN TRANSFORMERS, JUST MY OWN ORIGINAL CHARACTERS AND PLOT.

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After the drama in the hangar, the rest of the morning had gone smoothly. Shaken from her earlier experience, Doe had been more than thankful to have Monroe there to keep her company. The two had adopted a sort of buddy system, neither particularly wanting to wander a base full of possibly volatile robots on their own. Doe believed Monroe had mostly suggested the arrangement for her benefit, but she wasn't going to complain. After a brief indoc, they had completed the basic newbie tasks together in relative silence, like dropping off their medical, dental, and personnel records, and signing in with various departmental staff. They had been able to complete all the basic tasks by lunch time.

"Alright," Monroe chased the chicken and noodles he'd been eating with a swig of cola. "You know I have to ask. What the hell was with the robot guy this morning? That shit was seriously intense."

Doe looked up from her ham sandwich, wide-eyed, and shook her head. "I don't...I don't know."

"I mean," Monroe shoved another forkful of food in his mouth and chewed thoughtfully. "He acted like he knew you. You know? Hey...you alright, OS2?"

Doe dropped the potato chip she'd been nibbling on back down to her tray. The tingly heat in her chest had dissipated from earlier and she'd been left with a feeling of throbbing emptiness which bothered her more than the electric warmth had. It was almost enough to make her want to go hide somewhere and cry. She pressed a hand against her breast to try to stave off the sensation. Something was wrong with her and had been since she'd touched that silver Lamborghini, she knew. "Honestly, I'm not sure."

Monroe raised a brow in question, "What do you mean?"

"I don't know. I just...listen," Doe leaned across the table, lowering her voice and forcing Monroe to lean forward as well to hear what she was saying. "Last night," she started, "Master Sergeant Epps was showing me around and it drove up next to us and bumped him."

"The robot? Uh," Monroe's brow furrowed. "Sideswipe? The silver one?"

"Yes," Doe nodded. "Sideswipe. So, he bumps into Epps. Epps drops his bags and some of his stuff falls out onto the ground. With me so far?"

"Yeah," Monroe agreed, nodding. "I'm with you so far."

"Alright," Doe swallowed. "So, Epps is yelling at this car, robot, whatever, and it was weird as hell, but I thought I'd pick up some of his stuff for him, you know?"

Monroe nodded.

"While I was doing that, I must have touched the car and it just..."

"What?" Monroe prodded the woman to continue, "What happened?"

"I think it- he shocked me." Doe shook her head. "It was so fast. I just...I don't know what happened. Ever since, though, I feel...weird."

"Weird?" Monroe looked at the woman with concern. "Weird how?"

"It's hard to explain," Doe rubbed her chest. "It's like a hot electrical buzzing or tingling. It doesn't hurt, exactly. It's kind of...I don't even know how to explain it. Sometimes it's more intense, sometimes not. When we were in the hangar earlier it felt like it was going to bust its way out through my ribcage."

"Did you go to medical after you got shocked?"

Doe shook her head. "No. I didn't think I needed to at the time."

"Well, you might want to think about it, just saying." Monroe cleared his throat. "I mean, those things are from a different planet. We don't know what kind of diseases they're carrying. For all we know they could have space rabies or some shit."

"Space rabies?" Doe snorted in amusement despite the gravity of the situation. "Seriously?"

"Yeah," Monroe shrugged. "Giant rabid robots from outer space."

Doe couldn't help it and laughed out loud. "Sounds like a bad sci-fi B movie title."

"Or," Monroe continued as-a-matter-of-factly, "it could be radiation. Ever think about that? Is your hair falling out? Are you pissing blood?"

"What? No! Nothing like that," Doe vehemently denied any other ailments. "I've been through Rad-Con DC training. I don't think I was radiated."

"Still," Monroe pressed, "if it doesn't start feeling better you should get it checked out. Seriously, OS2. I mean it. There's no telling what that thing could have done to you."

"I will," Doe promised. "You're absolutely right."

"Good." Monroe finished up the last of his lunch and glanced at his watch. "Shit, man. We have to bounce." He looked to the woman seated across from him. "Where do you have to go next?"

"Uh, just a sec." Doe dug around in her pocket and pulled out a folded-up itinerary. "Building H-3. What about you?"

"C-5." Monroe sighed, "I guess this is where we part ways for now."

"Yeah," Doe glumly agreed, "I guess so."

#

Venturing out on her own in a new place had never been one of Doe's favorite things to do, especially in a place like this. She'd had no choice, though. After saying her goodbyes to Monroe and agreeing to try to meet up again for dinner, schedules permitting, she'd gone in search of building H-3 which was to be her new workspace. As she walked, her eyes darted around her in search of any alien robots that may be lurking nearby. Thankfully, her search came up empty and she reached her specified location without incident.

"Excuse me," she approached one of the guards stationed at a security checkpoint right inside the building. "My name is OS2 Doe. I'm supposed to be reporting for duty."

The man looked her up and down. "Do you have a copy of your orders?"

"Yeah," Doe nodded uncomfortably and handed the man a folder. "Here they are."

The man read over them, seemingly unimpressed, and handed them back. "Go straight through the middle to the back door. Go out and hang a right. You'll see the entrance to a bunker. Take the freight elevator down. Once you're there, have a seat and wait. Don't touch anything."

"Oh," Doe swallowed nervously. "Thank-thank you."

Following the man's directions, she'd walked through the building slowly, taking in the scenery with eager eyes. It was an Operations Center of the highest caliber. The equipment was spectacular, even more so than what she'd worked with in her ship's CIC, and the personnel monitoring it moved about with practiced ease and efficiency. For the first time since she'd learned of her transfer, she felt a bit of excitement at her new situation. That excitement was short-lived, however, once she'd reached her destination.

The outside of the bunker had looked old and unassuming. A posted sign declared that no unauthorized personnel were allowed beyond the freight elevator in both English and a strange glyphic text she could only assume was the alien's own language. The freight elevator seemed to be a recent installation. It was all shiny steel compared to the dull, worn look of the rest of the place. She'd stepped inside and pressed the button that would take her down beneath the earth to her new life. She wasn't sure what she'd been expecting, perhaps a brightly lit, technologically advanced workspace like the one she'd passed through on her way. The reality, however, was far different.

Stepping off the elevator, Doe noted the bunker was huge, certainly large enough for even the largest Autobot, Optimus Prime, to move about in comfortably with plenty of space to spare. That was about the only thing it had going in its favor. It was old, that much was painfully obvious, and she guessed the place may have been a holdover from the Cold War. It was dark and dank as if it hadn't been used in a significant amount of time. Ancient, yellowed lightbulbs flickered high above giving the space an eerie feel. It was devoid of any furniture or equipment and her footsteps echoed ominously in the empty, cavernous space. In all, it reminded her of a long-forgotten dungeon.

"Hello?" Doe called out as she wandered farther into the bunker. It was dead silent, and she couldn't see anyone else in the place. The space was abandoned. She began to wonder if she was even in the right place, if she was even supposed to be down here. "Is anybody there?"

Silence answered her.

"Great," she sighed and checked her watch. She didn't know where she was supposed to be, but it obviously wasn't here and to top it off, she was late. She turned around, intent on making her way back to the freight elevator and getting out of the strange dungeon-like bunker when, suddenly, the elevator's doors rolled shut. Doe cursed under her breath, taking note that it was headed back to the surface. She hurried over and pushed the button to recall it and leaned against the wall to wait for its return. In her mind she imagined the choice words she'd have with the Army asshole who'd sent her down here once she made it back upstairs.

When the elevator returned, however, it wasn't without occupants. When the doors rolled open again Doe was horrified to see two of the giant robots step out. They seemed to be arguing with one another in a strange clicking, chirping language that seemed oddly familiar, but Doe couldn't place where she'd heard before. She was too busy pressing herself back against the wall and trying to remain as invisible as possible. So preoccupied with her own self-preservation, it took her a moment to realize that these bots hadn't been in the hangar earlier.

One of the bots was larger than the other by a significant bit. The larger one was painted a bright, fluorescent green and looked pretty pissed off if the way he was stomping and waving his arms around was any indication. The smaller silver/gray one didn't seem too concerned about the green one's attitude, though. Doe noted that he moved slower than the other and with a significant limp. If she didn't know better, she would have sworn he was laughing at the bigger bot which only seemed to make it even more angry.

As quietly as she could, Doe tried to scoot closer to the open elevator doors and make her escape. Her movements didn't go unnoticed, however. The smaller of the two homed in on her location almost immediately. He seemed to brighten, his face forming an expression resembling a smile. The incident in the hangar still fresh in her mind from the last time one of these things had decided to pay attention to her, she decided she was so going to murder the guard that sent her down here if she lived long enough.

"Hey," the smaller mech elbowed the green one in the abdominal region, his words switching flawlessly into English as he shuffled in the woman's direction. "As much as I'd love to stand here and continue to listen to you lecture me, Ratchet, I've got a pretty femme here that needs my undivided attention."

"A femme?" Ratchet's optics searched out and found the object of the other mech's attention and, giving her a nod of recognition, continued on with an exasperated sigh, "I'm sure she can wait five minutes for your attention. This is serious, Jazz."

"So is this." Carefully kneeling to get closer to the woman's level on unsteady legs, he grinned at her. "OS2 Doe, I presume?"

"Uh," Doe nodded. "Y-yes."

"Perfect," the mech exclaimed. "I'm Jazz and the nagging bucket of bolts behind me is Ratchet."

Ratchet scoffed, "This 'nagging bucket of bolts' is the Chief Medical Officer with the power to remove you from duty and weld your aft to the ceiling if you don't stop acting like glitch!"

Jazz grinned at the woman, "He doesn't really mean that."

"The Pit I don't!" Ratchet raved, "This is the third time this week that I've had to reconnect and recalibrate your ambulatory neural filaments. The next time you try to contort yourself into some fancy, little sports car I'm going to leave you there flopping around on the ground."

"Nah," Jazz chuckled. "You wouldn't do me that way, Ratch."

"Want to try me?" Ratchet dared, "Go ahead and see what happens. And for Primus' sake, stop externalizing you spark core force field! It's diverting energy flow from your system's automated maintenance routines!"

"Come on, Ratchet," Jazz laughed. "It helps keep my body work buff! Be honest," he directed his attention to the woman. "How does my chassis look?"

"I-uh..." Doe looked around herself frantically for an escape. Finding none, she answered the bot hesitantly. "It looks...really nice?"

"See," Jazz turned back to Ratchet with a triumphant smirk. "The femmes dig it."

"Oh, yes," Ratchet rolled his optics. "She looks quite impressed. I'm sure half-slagged piles of scrap that are barely holding themselves together really get her motor revving."

"Oh, that's cold, Ratch." Jazz frowned, "Real cold."

Ratchet focused his attention on the human femme. "Ms. Doe, was it? Do me a favor. If you see the Lieutenant doing anything more strenuous than sitting on his aft staring at a computer monitor, let me know. I've recently acquired some new nano probes I've been dying to try out."

Jazz shuddered at the threat as he watched the CMO turn and disappear back into the elevator before turning back to the female. He chuckled at the bewildered expression on her face. "Believe it or not, that actually went better than I expected it to. Don't let Ratchet worry ya. He's a good mech. I just like to push his buttons."

"Oh," Doe stuttered as she watched the mech gingerly rise to his feet, swaying a bit before regaining his balance. "I-I see."

"Anyway," the mech threw his arms out in a grand gesture. "I'd like officially to welcome you to our new crib. I know it's not much to look at right now," he admitted, "but I promise you, by the time we're finished, we're gonna have this place tricked out like you wouldn't believe."

END OF CHAPTER 5

TO BE CONTINUED...