Readers:

It is apparent that Mira and Merrick's story is intriguing you all, and that it's been well received on the site. So well received, in fact, one of my my reviewers-the wonderful grapejuice101-has offered to make a poster featuring the Autobots, the enemies, and Mira along with her son, Merrick. The link is: cgi/set?id=127951791. Shout out for the poster! And on that note, PM me is anyone would like to do further artwork for the story.


Chapter Three

...

It was unmistakable, the sound of rubber eating gravel and kicking up stones. It, mixed with the thumping of helicopter blades shattered Mira's resolve-and her heart. Swinging around the 50, she brought up the scope and peeked the barrel through the broken windows to see the barrage of black SUV's and choppers setting up a perimeter. The boat creaked beneath her as Ratchet backed away from the window, and she looked at him over her shoulder, breathing picking up.

He glared at her, "I thought you said no one was following you," he hissed somewhat darkly. Mira didn't know if it was the fact they'd been found or the accusation causing her stomach to drop to her ankles, taking her heart from her chest with it. Ratchet might as well have torn it out himself and shot it with the stare he was giving her.

"No one was!" she whispered desperately to him, "you know I'd never-"

He put up a hand, "It's not important now!" he hissed, "get out of here, before they find us. Optimus would kill me if-"

"-Optimus isn't here." she said squarely.

With that, she abruptly turned on her boot heel and trucked herself down to the main floor. Lifting the fifty, she silently stepped into the water and looked up the staircase, where Ratchet watched her carefully. He nodded to him and saluted to him in Cybertronian; the right arm crossing the chest to the heart. He nodded once to her, did the same, and commed her. "Take care of yourself, Miriam. I couldn't live with myself-"

"It's okay, Ratchet. I'll be fine. Watch your six," she whispered, water up to her chest now. Wading towards the east of the docks, she graciously dipped beneath a soggy planked dock until her feet hit the shoreline beneath it. Stopping to catch her breath, she looked over her shoulder and brought the scope back up. Ratchet was gone, and flashing lights hit the water and bounced images onto the empty, now lifeless riverboat.

Her ears were teaming with pumping blood and adrenaline, which caused her heart to throb hopelessly. Mira realized only after her lungs began screaming that she was holding her breath. Releasing it, she watched and listened as the sounds of heavy-laiden and armed Cemetery Wind soldiers boarded the vessel, their flashlights bobbing as they climbed the stairs. The emblem, still glowing, she tucked beneath her shirt and lowered the 50.

Taking off from the beach, she stayed in the water to cover her tracks and ran a good 15 yards before rounding back to her previous location. Shimmying under an old, probably old barbed-wire fence, she rolled onto her stomach and situated the sniper a good 45 yards from the beach. She watched through the scope the scene unfold.

There was a man with a receding hairline, silver hair, and a tough looking presence leading the operation; using hand signals and silent motions she was familiar with. He ordered another squad around the back of the riverboat, and she tapped her ear to bring the comm alive. "They've got you flanked and surrounded, Ratchet."

No reply.

The choppers bobbed in the air, their searchlights scanning. Reaching to her left hip, she felt around for the familiar camera she usually carried. Upon its nonexistant presence she cursed herself for forgetting-it was being repaired by the Cade Yeager she'd employed for the job. Mumbling to herself, she gave her attention back to the scene unfolding before her.

She couldn't hear their commands and voices, only their guns popping off shots. She imagined their boot falls and the shifting of equipment, the familiar click as round were chambered. Her own heart was hammering so loudly she figured they could hear it down there. She watched the man in charge again, then gave her full attention to the roof of the riverboat, where the two smokestacks sat still with rusting age and uselessness. There was a team circling them and tapping on the steel; she heard the echo.

Then, all at once, there was a scream of rockets and an explosion of steel, orders, and fire. A loud cry-a male one-hit the air with such force it knocked the wind out of Mira's lungs. Immediately she recognized the cry as Ratchet, and watched his hulking form sail through the air before crashing into the beach, a mess of transformation. Instantly his vehicle mode was gone and kicking up sand in the team's faces as they continually fired high-power shots and grenades at him.

Mira picked herself up and moved across the yard, dodging holes and scattered pieces of boats, building, and machinery. Sweat dripped down her back and soaked her shirt, her boots slipping on loose stones. She fell forward, catching herself with her lower arm, unwilling to let the 50 go from her grasp. Shoving herself up, she ran down the embankment towards the main-road.

The wail of sirens and screech of helicopter blades halted her. Stopping short, she dived left and took cover behind a storage shop, watching as dust from the road kicked up around her. The sky was live with the choppers, all silently crying if their pursuit of her friend. Ratchet was a good 500 feet ahead of them, and only when the last car to pursue him left did she head towards in the general direction of the truck.

Suddenly, she decided, she couldn't help him as Ratchet swerved left, winding his way through the shipyard, hoping-she assumed-to loose them among the ships and buildings scattered there. CW was still on his six when they fired a rocket from the chopper, it exploding into Ratchet's flank. It sent the Autobot into a transformation, his bi-pedal mode swinging around after pushing himself up from the ground.

Doubling back, Mira approached the fight out of sight. Tears were pooling in her eyes now and panic had all but seized her. Severe shaking had plagued her nerves now and fear played a record of horror in her head. Her judgment faltered, she didn't realize a steep embankment and slipped down it, her body sliding against stone, shrubbery, sand and rocks. Pain shot up her back as cuts formed, her black longsleeved v-neck torn to bits.

The cars had circled Ratchet now, the choppers staying their searchlights on him. The man with the silver hair was standing before Ratchet, talking. Ratchet had left his link open, and she could hear every word. It enraged her and caused her to tremble even more. Burying her hands in the sand, the 50 over her shoulders now, she clawed her way back up the embankment and parked herself between two shrubs, a clear view of the standoff-circle around Ratchet now visible. She swallowed hard and listened.

"...I lost a sister in Chicago, you'll get no sympathy from me."

Ratchet was about to protest when the guns came up. "I am Autobot. An all. What has happened to you humans?" He was silenced when the man's hand went down and a barrage of bullets cascaded into Ratchet's body. Surprised, Mira fell onto her backside, only to scramble back to her knees to behold. A scream erupted from her as Ratchet tried to flee, desperation in every movement, but she slapped a hand over her mouth, the other clawing into her skin to keep it cemented there. Tears had began to sprinkle her marred, dirty face.

Then, the impossible happened. Return fire-coming from Ratchet's own blaster, bombarded the ground and sent human bodies soaring through the air and into a wooden building, which splintered to bits under their weight. Ratchet was crying out in desperation: "What has happened to you!?" over and over, doing his best to survive the continuous bombardment.

Scarred, Mira brought the 50 around and set up for a laying position. Slamming a magazine into the chamber, she began to focus her aim on the man with silver hair when a huge explosion sent her scrambling to see what happened. Ratchet's body rolled in a somersault as a huge piece of him went in the other direction. Only when he righted and began to hop furiously did she realize it was his leg that had sailed in the other direction. A scream ruptured from her, and she stuffed a fist into her mouth. Pulling herself down and back towards the wreckage, she pinched her eyes shut and began to sob.

Rampaging fury bombarded her as she turned around, to find Ratchet on the ground, continuing to fire at the humans. Tears rolled freely now, Mira unable to stop sobbing. Her body burned violently and trembled atrociously, ripping apart her nerves. Ratchet stopped firing when he became weak, his voice beginning to fade into an exhaustive breath as the humans closed in around him.

Then, the humans parted. A charcoal black, low-seated muscle car slowly made its way into a circle. It was plastered with wealth and vehemently smelling of trouble. It circled around Ratchet not once but twice, the entire air quiet around them. A seizing filling gripped Mira in the heart, a feeling that this was not in the least bit good. She swallowed thickly, her tongue almost catching in the back of her parched, burning throat. She watched as the car parked, clicked off its lights, and sat still for a brief moment.

Then, suddenly, it violent transformed into a flipping and twisting mess of metal. It began to take form, into a slender but powerful frame of a being she did not know. First the legs formed and then the shoulders, the chest splitting apart to lower the spark-chamber into place. The face-plating finished situating and before Ratchet stood a broodingly evil figure with a presence as wicked as night itself. His eyes, a deep and depressive green, bored into Ratchet with disgust. Mira found no trace of allegiance on him-Autobot or Decepticon. He was a Neutral.

"I will ask once," he spoke. His voice was rich, like a dark, venomous honey; baritone and obviously authentic. It sank into her brain like fangs, and sent chills down her spine. Mira's stomach flopped over and bile began to attack her throat with burning vengeance. The mech's hand began to twist and turn, settling into a huge ion cannon with a horrifying hook on the end. He took slow, practiced steps towards Ratchet; much like a predator about to spring upon prey. Mira began to tremble so violently it crossed her mind briefly that she might've been seizing.

"Then ask!" Ratchet shot. This made the Neutral growl and grimace at him, lifting the edge of his lip plates into a snarl. He brought the ion cannon around and leveled it at Ratchet's face. This brought a squeak into Mira's throat as her eyes widened.

"Where is Optimus Prime and the femme," came the slow question. It was so low and slow, it was almost a sensual threat. Mira's fingered dug so deeply into the sand the grains felt like needles beneath her fingernails. She bit her lower lip to keep it from trembling. There was silence, so cold on the air that it threatened to freeze the breath in her lungs.

"Never."

It was so sudden it sent her heart exploding into an even faster pound, if possible.

A look of disgust painted the Neutral's face, and he looked down, shaking his head, disgust seizing his eyes. Shifting his body to face Ratchet sideways, he began to charge the weapon and spoke low, hushed again in a nasty, thoroughly evil tone.

"Then never has come." He fired the blast, it crashing into Ratchet's chest.

It was like slow motion. Mira screamed bloody murder, her right leg extending behind her into the sand to push herself up. She knocked over her 50, sailing over the bushes and down the embankment. Ratchet's body lurched as the blast ended inside his chest, his optics fading into nothingness as the Neural approached his body. The only sound was Mira's sobbing, which she assumed they could not hear under the thumping of chopper blades.

Placing a foot on Ratchet's abdomen, the Neutral lowered the hood into his chest and thrust it into his armor. It dived low, before he seeringly ripped it from his chest, brutally. Ratchet's body slightly lifted with the motion, then fell back to Earth roughly as the mech lifted a dark, sphere of cables and metal from his chest. Mira's stomach rose fully and she vomited into the sandy embankment as she realized it was Ratchet's very spark-his life force. The bot's hand transformed back into the fingers as before, the spark disappearing into his arm. He didn't so much as look as Ratchet as he walked away from the scene, transforming as he went. He skidded from the shipyard and into darkness.

Ratchet's comm was nothing but static in her ear, and she laid incapacitated as they began tethering his body to the choppers. She watched, numb, as his body was lifted and hauled away, the rest of the team making their way away from the location. Soon, their lights and noise were gone, leaving her with nothing but the light of the stars overhead, and the lapping of water against the docks to comfort her. Numb tears rolled down her face and into the sand around her.

Pushing herself up, she walked back up the embankment and grabbed the fifty, bracing the grip against her wrist and resting the heaviest part of the gun on her shoulder. She walked back to the truck as a soldier would as if returning from a battle. Tossing the gun into the backseat, she climbed into the driver's side, sat motionless for a moment, and made sure her windows were down all the way. Then, looking to the sky, she closed her eyes and let out the deepest, gut-bearing scream she'd ever screamed in her entire life.

It echoed across the waters, and hopefully into the stars.

...

Cade Yeager tossed his over shirt on the workbench littered with specks and parts, tools, metals, blow-torches, saudering kits, socket sets, ratchet attachments, computer print offs, and schematics. It added only to the chaos that morning, a long morning that had only increased one hundred and fifty percent as Lucas finally decided to show up to perhaps do something productive with his body today.

He'd spent all night working on the flipping camera-and boy, did he get it done. It was a bigger task than he had anticipated, but he'd finished it. The entire shutter needed replaced, having been friend by some type of electrical jarring system, then cracking straight across. Seating himself at his computer, he scratched his head furiously when he caught sight of something in the screen of his computer. The barn door opened, and in stepped Tessa, his daughter.

"Dad?" she asked, "Whose phone number is this?" she stomped into the barn, an attitude already forming in her teenage voice. She tossed the camera case at him, where a phone number was clipped to the strap. She crossed her arms at him and bored a glare into his face.

"A client, as if I need to explain myself to you, missy," he circled around in his chair and reached for the camera across his heaping pile of projects. Be wound the strap around the lens and stuck the camera into the case, zipping it closed for emphasis. "The owner of the camera needs called that it's fixed. She'll be coming to get it ASAP I'd guess, since she wanted it last night."

Tessa groaned. "She? A she left you a phone number?"

He gave her a confused look. "How else was I supposed to get a hold of her? Carrier pigeon?" he asked rhetorically. Tessa had stopped, staring frozen at the object-the elephant in the room, you could say-sitting dilapidated in the middle of his barn-lab.

"What is that?" she pointed at it, then looked at him, glaringly again. "A truck? You seriously bought another truck?" She walked towards it and stopped directly in front of it, crossing her arms. "Look at the holes! The rust! Dad!" she exclaimed, walking back over to him, one hand gesturing furiously at the truck, "does it even run?"

"No," he interjected, "but the engine's worth at least three hundred bucks if I scrap it and sell it out for parts," he pushed her towards the entrance of the barn, "don't you have homework or something?"

She stopped and turned on her heel. "Dad!" she shouted at him, "you can't keep spending money like this, on, on...junk!"

"Don't use the 'J' word in here, Tessa Marie!"

She rolled her eyes and moaned, pressing her fingers against the bridge of her nose in frustration. "I can't do this anymore," she sighed, "once I graduate, I'm so gone!" Before he could retaliate, she stormed out of the barn as mad as she'd come into it, slamming the squeaking door so hard it bounced off the frame and open again. Cade waved her off.

Grabbing the phone from the desk, he punched in the number and got a voicemail to a cell phone. Leaving a message informing Miss-Lennox, was it?-that her camera was done, he tossed the phone back onto the desk. Rubbing the back of his neck, he looked around the barn at all the half completed projects that were supposed to be worth something once he finished or scrapped them entirely.

Tessa was just as frustrated-and concerned-as he was. All her life he'd been promising her a bigger, better picture than what he could develop. Day after day those pictures slowly burned into nothing more than hopeless ashes and failures, as each of his inventions flitted off to discontinued states and lost causes, or "dead-ends". Yeager Robotics hadn't completed one invention, having survived solely off repairing other peoples machinery since its birth.

No wonder Tessa was done.

Frustrated, Cade walked over to a support beam and rammed the steel-toe of his work boots into its beam. It vibrated slightly at the impact, shaking off the old dust of grinding matter and age, only to settle back into the old, falling apart state it always was in. Gripping the beam with calloused fingertips, Cade rested his forehead against the wood, trying somehow to picture a day that wasn't falling apart of failing.

He saw nothing.

Then, opening his eyes, he saw something he hadn't tackled. It was old and falling apart, like everything else. But, he knew beneath that deoxidizing metal there was money in that engine, a promise of hope and perhaps a month of paid bills. Pushing himself off the beam with one arm, he approached the truck and placed a palm against the metal, grainy from dust and remnants of a theatre older than it was. He hung his head and sighed, trying not to imagine the amount of work, bloody knuckles, and trials that inevitably laid under that hood-all for about three hundred bucks of profit.

"Well, tough guy," he sighed to the truck, exhausted from just thinking about getting underneath it to begin loosening bolts and screws, "time to see what you're really made of."

...

Mira arrived back in town around seven in the morning, exhausted and running on whatever grief hadn't eaten within her. She managed to get herself changed before appearing into the diner for a cup of coffee and a lemon, powdered sugar donut. Only after seating herself within the Silverado did she remember how hard and long that trek was last night, and resolved to toss the donut out the window and forego the calories for the day.

She managed the drive to Conner's house, drying up her face and sniffling up her tears. She exited the truck, knocked on the front door, and was welcomed inside by Conner's mother. She called up the stairs for Merrick, who barreled down with Conner in a lively banter. Both of them shot outside, Merrick after Conner with a toy gun shouting military orders. They vanished into the corn-field behind the house.

"Miriam?" Conner's mother touched her wrist, jerking her back into the present. Startled, Mira looked at the woman and reached for Merrick's backpack, which was hung on a hook by the door.

"Yeah?" she asked quietly. Conner's mom gave her a curious look, and then dared the next step. Mira hated the thought of having to explain her puffy eyes and lackadaisical expression, but was pleasantly surprised when she asked the next question.

"Merrick told me you met Cade Yeager yesturday. That right?"

Mira nodded slowly, her eyes dropping in a slow blink. She pushed up her glasses on her nose and answered carefully. "Yes, that's right. He's fixing my camera."

Conner's mouth slapped a damp dishtowel over her shoulder and crossed her arms, leaning against the banister rails leading upstairs. "Cade's a good man. Smart."

"Mhm," Mira answered, half interested. She knew where this conversation was going, and didn't want to follow. Turning on her heel, she reached for the screen door and stated, "Martha, I really need to-"

"-Cade lost his wife when his daughter Tessa was born. He hasn't had a woman's touch in awhile," she stopped the screen door from opening with a thick hand, "and he sure could use one."

Mira furrowed her brow. "And? What does it matter?"

"All I'm saying is I know Cade, and he's a friend of Robert's," she referred to her husband, "and we worry about him. Now, if I was a single woman, I'd do it myself, but I'm not. So I might as well ask you."

Mira jerked her hand away from Martha and frowned, "I don't know what you're asking, Martha, but I don't appreciate-"

"-would you cook up something and take it to Cade's when you head over that way?" her request was quiet, and sent Mira into a silent mode. She watched Martha as she looked away, crossing her arms back over her chest, "I worry about him, that scrawny little thing he has for a daughter feeding him. I can imagine how much he'd probably kill for something not microwaved," she looked at Mira again, with a soft expression. "If you won't cook it, I will. It's just, the car's broke and Rob has the truck in Dallas."

Mira, feeling guilty and retarded for snapping at Martha, sighed. "I'm sorry, Martha..."

Martha smiled softly, "I can understand how you'd take it the wrong way, Miriam," she touched her shoulder gently and rubbed it comfortingly, "I could never imagine you doing something so...scanty."

Mira smiled at her and nodded. "Good to know. I'll cook something up for them and take it over."

"Good. Now get going," she shooed her out the door, "daylight's wasting and Conner and I have some cow's to milk. Merrick, Conner! Get over here!"

Both boys shot out of the cornfield. Conner dashed up the steps to the porch as Mira descended the last one. Merrick approached with a goofy smile, head to toe covered in dirt and sugar from the corn fields. Conner was no better and Mira handed him his backpack. Slinging it over one shoulder, he waved up at Conner before offering a quick bye and dashing for the truck. He opened the door and hopped inside.

"Merrick!" Mira chided, "What do you say?"

He quickly interjected a quick thanks before the door thumped back into place. Mira chuckled and waved to Martha and Conner before taking her place in the truck. The phone in the passenger's seat beeped a message of a voicemail, and she grabbed it. Before checking the message, she started the truck and shifted into drive and began making her way down the driveway. Pressing the phone to her ear, she listened.

"Hey, it's Cade Yeager, from the theatre. Got your camera fixed. Drop by whenever and we'll talk a price out." He left direction at the end of the message and Mira pointed the truck in the direction of home.

"I wonder if Cade likes fried chicken, huh, Merrick?" She looked into the rearview to find Merrick rolling his hands across the bottom of his semi wheels. A panging hurt stabbed at her heart as she thought of a familiar semi, and he looked up at her in the mirror, shrugging. She saw a trace of Will in his eyes as she added the next phrase "...and sweet potato fries?"

His eyes lit up, as did his face when he smiled. "Yeah, yeah! Sweet 'tatoe fries!"

She smiled, having to look away before too much of Will sent her into another crying fit. She did her best to fight back the tears she was still willing to shed for Ratchet, but refused to cry in front of Merrick.

...

"What do you mean you didn't get the location of Prime!" Attinger picked up a marble paperweight and tossed it in Savoy's direction, where it crashed into a potted plant costing at least fifteen hundred dollars, shattering the decor into a thousand pieces. Savoy had watched the weight until it crashed into the pot, then turned his head and gave Attinger a look of mock disbelief.

"Angry much?" he huffed.

"Answer the freaking question!" Attinger screamed again, rampaging for the man. Savoy side-stepped the raging man and put up his hands.

"The CMO was unwilling to give us the answer," he rolled his eyes, "then your asset came in and ripped the guy's heart out before we could press him!" His decibel rose a few inches and Attinger's nerves cooled a bit at the mention of the Neutral. He smoothed his suit and loosened his tie slightly, sweat beaming in the fluorescent light on his balding head.

"Well, then," he sighed, "I'll have a word with him."

Savoy rolled his eyes, "Obviously he isn't the talkative type," he seated himself in a chair and propped his feet up on Attinger's desk again. "What makes you think he'll listen to you?"

"He'll listen," Attinger smirked at him, "some of us let our words do the talking and not our bullets."

Savoy huffed again, rolling his eyes in frustration.

Attinger started towards the door, "I'll have a word with KSI on the remains of the CMO's chassi."

Savoy lowered his sunglasses over his eyes before replying, "There's one more thing,"

"What."

He laced his hands together and placed them behind his head, using his heels to raise the front feet of the chair off the ground, "Someone was there last night," he raised his brows, then lowered his glasses slightly on his nose to look up at Attinger over the rims, "someone not Cemetery Wind."

"Really? Who? Big Foot?" Attinger asked, obviously in disbelief. He checked himself in the mirror by his door before Savoy replied.

"No. It was a girl."