1Mom came home around 10:30, the smell of perfume still lingering on her maroon business suit. I sat curled up on the couch, watching Blue-Collar Comedy, laughing my head off at Larry the Cable Guy. The hoverboard I held safely tucked under the blanket with me, its reassuring weight on my lap. For some reason, I had thought it a better idea to show it to her myself than have her find it. Not that it would really matter; she would get mad at me either way.
"Hi honey!" She called happily to me, her voice straining to convey the emotion she never really felt. I could tell though that she was tired and worn, and I answered just as superficially, both of us keeping up the charade.
For a moment she disappeared into the kitchen and I heard the sound of her rustling around in the fridge.
"There's nothin' in there." I called, my eyes still focused on the TV. No matter how hard I tried to absorb the prevalent humor, it was all lost on me beneath the guilty weight of the hoverboard.
I heard my mom sigh and come back into the living room. It was "that sigh", the one that said I have bad news. I waited for her to go first.
"Honey, can you turn off the TV for a minute? I have something I need to tell you."
Without a word, I switched off the glowing box, cutting off Larry at the punch-line of his joke, and turned to look at her.
She came over and sat next to me on the couch, and I thanked my lucky stars that she didn't sit on the hover-board.
"Hm?" I asked.
"Well, I have some good news," She began, composing herself, her eyes stubbornly roaming anywhere but onto my face.
"My boss offered me a promotion..."
"That's great! But you seem rather morbid." She half-laughed.
"Yes, I suppose so. The only problem though, hon, is that I would have to move to Alaska"
I shrugged. That was no big deal to me. I liked snow and ice and cold weather. And besides, it was really beautiful up there anyway. I wondered if I should just come out and tell her about the hover-board from the mysterious sender-
"And so, I thought you could stay with a good friend of mine in Fort Max."
I choked on the words rising in my throat. So she did know someone in Fort Max after all. That might explain the hover-board.
"Who?" I asked, felling depressed again. She just wanted to leave me here- get rid of me. I guess I can't blame her though. After all, being a single mom had been hard on her. But it still hurt.
She hesitated a great deal, which surprised me. Why didn't she just come out and tell me? It wasn't THAT big a deal.
"Well, honey, he's..." She trailed off. I tried to grin but found I could not. It really wasn't funny at all anyway.
"Your boyfriend?"
She winced. "No, not... no, he's not." I sensed that she wanted to say something else, but changed her mind. Why couldn't she just tell me?
"He's a transformer." I gaped. My mouth was so wide it could collect flies.
"YOU are involved with the robots?" I asked.
"Transformers, dear." She corrected.
"Whatever. But you KNOW them? As in personally? As in well enough to ask them to take care of a 15-year-old? And WHY exactly are you trying to dump me with a bunch of robots in the first place?"
"Yes, I know them. I...worked for them, a few years ago, before you were born." She sighed deeply. "And I don't want to have to uproot you to take you with me. You need to stay in school."
Yeah, right. About as much as I needed a hole in my head.
"Aren't there schools in Alaska?" I tried one more time, propping my elbow on the armrest, holding my chin in my hand and staring at the darkened TV screen.
"Well, not anywhere near where I'll be staying. Besides, you'll like it at Fort Max. There are lots of parks where you can sit after school and work on your paintings, and there's lots of places to explore..." She trailed off. I could tell she was trying to get me excited about it, she really was. I had to give her an A for effort but a D for execution. Instead of making me exuberant at the thought of living within the Autobot hot-spot city, all her little speech did was drag my spirits even farther into the mud. Even though I knew that I would eventually grow to like it- I always did- right now I just wanted to dig my heels in and have nothing to do with it. As a mild expression of defiance, I refused to look at her.
"Honey..." She started, reaching a hand to my short, tousled blond hair and petting it affectionately. Ok, now I admit, its hard for me to stay mad at anyone for long. I took the bait and turned to look at her over the tops of my wired rimmed glasses with my creepy, glowing yellow eyes. I small smile lifted her haggard face as she looked at me.
"You're such a pretty young lady, Ariana. If only you would nicer clothes..." I pulled away, rolling my eyes. We had had this talk WAY too many times before.
"Mom..."
"And you have such pretty eyes. I keep offering to get you contacts but you keep insisting on those hideous glasses." She was trying to tease me affectionately, trying to lighten the mood. I tried to play along.
"Hey! These are SOO in right now mom- the vintage look rocks! Besides," My head dropped minimally. I didn't want to add my own sorrows to my mom's, "My eyes are ugly anyway."
"Oh honey..." She started in that way that told me she was about to deny what we both knew to be the truth, if only to keep up this charade of ours.
"Mom, you know it's true! I mean, come on! It's almost biologically impossible for someone to have yellow eyes except by random mutation." I pouted. My mom smiled at me, reaching an arm around me and bringing me into a hug.
"Don't worry about what the kids at school say. After all, what do they know? You'll make new friends at Fort Max. You're a sweet girl, Ari- people will see that in you. You've just got to keep a good outlook and not let the things people say bring you down."
We sat in silence for a moment while I mulled over her words, storing them away for a time when I was sure they would make much more sense. Right now though they didn't seem to apply. I took a deep breath, bracing myself for the onslaught when I told her about the hoverboard. I knew she would start the hole 'what-have-you-been-posting-about-yourself-at-those-websites-Ariana!-I-told-you-how-there-are-bad-people-out-there-who-want-to-hurt-little-girls' speech.
"H-hey mom?"
"Hmm?"
"Would this friend of yours at Fort Max have known me previously by any chance?"
My mom slowly withdrew her arm, pulling away from me.
"What are you not telling me, Ariana?" She asked seriously. I knew I was in for it now.
"Because they sent me this." I slowly withdrew the hoverboard from under the covers, keeping my eyes lowered as she took it out of my hands. She would see the engraving in 4...3...2...1-
"When did you get this?" Her voice was damnably neutral. I risked a glance at her face and found no anger there, only wonder.
"Today, a few hours before you came home. The guy who delivered it said the order came from Fort Max," I gestured to it, "I assumed that that would mean your friend."
I waited for a long moment, hardly daring to breathe, and to my utter amazement she handed it back to me with a small smile.
"Well, I guess this means I'm going to have to buy you knee pads before I go."
I gaped at her. That was definitely not what I was expecting.
"Well, there is this cool shop up on Riverwood avenue..."
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I don't think I ever remember being as nervous as a was the day we drove into Fort Max. I clutched the hoverboard in my lap, hanging on to it the way a drowning man would a life preserver, scrunched down in the seat so that no one could see me through the window unless they really tried to look.
The time spent passing through the all-access residential district passed like a dream. But by the time we reached the checkpoint beyond which we would need security clearance to pass, it slowly came to me how monstrously LARGE the city was. We had been driving for a good twenty minutes and I had still yet to see the boarders of the city.
At the checkpoint the car slowed to a stop. A large robot approached our car and spoke with my mother, and she in turn spoke to me, but I couldn't hear her over the crescendo of my own pounding heart.
Mom got out of the car and talked to the two robots, both about seven feet tall. (large, yet not as large as I had originally anticipated Transformers being. The news made it seem like they were a good three stories tall.) One of them spotted me and smiled warmly, but I didn't return the gesture. Instead, I opted to sink lower into my seat. My shyness had over come me once again, but it didn't bother me in the least. Though I had never particularly shared the vehement hate my neighbors held for the alien visitors, I hadn't particularly liked them either. When I was younger, one would sometimes stop by my house, but not for very long. I never saw it, only heard it talking with my mom. She made me stay in the kitchen during those visits. Now, when this one regarded me, I could only shy away. I was liking Fort Max less and less by the second.
When Mom got back in the car, she handed me an ID badge and told me to pin it somewhere on my shirt, and because I disliked something drawing attention to my boobs, I pinned it on my sleeve.
We drove in silence for a few moments. Then I asked: "Were those your Transformer friends back there Mom?"
"Well, I know them, and they are my friends, but they weren't the ones I was referring to. And they're not Transformers, honey- they're Minicons."
I stared at her. "There's different kinds?"
"Yep! You'll get to meet them soon."
"Oh." I paused. "Do I have to?" Mom laughed, though she seemed a bit unsettled by my question, as though she didn't know wether to take it in jest or not.
"Ah, we're here!" She called merrily, the car pulling to a stop in a sheltered overhang. I was about to reach for the door handle to get out when suddenly the car jolted and the platform it was on turned, rising up to another level. I gasped out a strangled cry. That was unexpected.
When we finally came to a stop and mom got out of the car, I felt it safe to do so too and followed suit. We were standing in some sort of large entry way inside one of the towering superstructures that constituted Fort Max, and there was not a window in sight. I found no comfort in that fact.
Mom popped open the trunk and I went around back and fished out my small suitcase, my backpack already slung over one shoulder. As soon as the trunk was closed and we stepped away from the car, the platform swung around again and the car was pulled away into an opening that appeared in the wall and was swallowed up.
"MOM! The car!" I called out to her, dashing forwards as the tail end of the bumper disappeared.
"Don't worry, honey." She said, half laughing, "Max is just parking it somewhere safe for me until I leave.
"Max? Whose Max?" She smiled.
"The city, honey." I gaped at her with as little understanding as if she had just sprouted carrots from her nose or something. My mouth worked for a moment before my mind could fully wrap around what she had said and I blurted out: "Wait, you mean its ALIVE!"
"Yes of course. Didn't your Mother tell you?" A strange voice called out from behind me. I turned around to see a metal foot at eye level. I looked up and up... and screamed.
I think my mother must have somehow stepped in at this point because the next thing I knew she was hugging me around my shoulders saying that there was nothing to be afraid of while I stared dumb founded at the metal giant before me- well two actually. The second seemed to back off shamefully.
Screaming is hideously embarrassing, so I think I was thanking God at this point that it came out in just one loud shriek rather than just going on and on. And though I had been frightened and still was, I wasn't that scared. It was mostly shock. I could suddenly see the distinction between them and the minicons when the one near me kneeled down in front of me. Though it hadn't clicked before, the ridiculously high ceilings suddenly made sense.
"I'm sorry Miss. I didn't mean to startle you. I guessed I just assumed that with your mom being who she is you would have gotten used to seeing us by now."
Nope, it didn't register yet. I'm sure it would in a few minutes though, and I pass out colder than a wet mackerel at the thought of talking to a steel giant twenty times my size with a gun with enough torching power to make a bazooka seem friendly.
"Umm...actually, I've NEVER seen a robot before, beyond the little Lego kits I got for Christmas... mostly I've just thought that you all were some media myth sustained by tabloid caffeine..."
Oh yeah, it definitely hadn't registered yet if I could talk this rationally. My mom, thinking that it must have just really been surprise that made me scream slowly released her vise-like grip on my shoulders.
It was just now that I noticed the one in the back who had hung back all this time. He somehow seemed much taller and more imposing than the first, yet for some reason was unable to come forward. That was just fine with me. The less of these robots around the better. I was already uncomfortable and was thinking of things to say to get out of their presence to somewhere where I could be alone.
"Honey, this is Jetfire. He's the head of security at Fort Max."
"Howdy." The white and red robot greeted me.
"Hi." I managed to say clearly, but on the inside the word felt dull and flat.
"I'll be helping to show you around, get settled in, things like that. If you have a problem with something you can always come to me." Though his face with immobile, I could hear the smile in his voice.
I knew I should have said something along the lines of thank you, but the words died in my throat. They didn't feel right, and I didn't like the way they sounded in my head- hollow, dead. I opted for studying my shoes.
"And this," My mother continued as though I had said 'thank you', "Is the friend I was telling you about. His name is Optimus Prime."
I felt myself drawn to look up as he lowered himself down to my height on both knees, and immediately went back to studying my shoes.
"Hello, Ariana." His voice, so deep and gentle, seemed sad somehow. Struck by a sudden thought, I brought my hoverboard out into the open.
"Did...did you send this to me?" I asked, then immediately felt stupid. I of course had heard of Optimus Prime, the leader of the Autobots- he was all over the news. Yet somehow the hope that someone of great importance had enough time to care about a nobody like me seemed foolish. I felt myself flushing as soon as the words passed through my lips.
"Yes, I did. Think of it as a way of saying sorry for missing fifteen birthdays and Christmases."
Ok, this was definitely one of those 'huh?' moments for me. I cast I sidelong glance at my mom, wondering for the first time just how deeply connected with the transformers she was for their leader to reach invited-over-for-Christmas status. Her face was a mask that was tempted to be cracked by a small smile as she looked up at the Prime, unaware of my gaze. For a moment, she seemed so youthfully girly as she pulled a strand of her shoulder length chocolate brown hair behind her ear.
"Uh..." undignified, I know, but it was all I could say at the moment. For me at least, it was an incredibly awkward situation. Prime seemed to want to say something else, but couldn't quite bring himself to do it. It surprised me- the articulate, calmly collected alien leader looked out of sorts.
Luckily Jetfire stepped in to save the day on his behalf. He looked at my mother warmly, smiling as he stood up.
"Long time no see, Alexis."
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I'm back!
Muwahahahaha!
Run for your lives! I've got a bazooka! (Shoots flamers who don't like angsty stories)
(And no, for those of you who have your minds in the gutter, Prime and Alexis hooked up sometime after the Energon series- she was at least 25, ok!)