Authors' Note: Happy birthday, RK-Striker-JK-5! Here's a chapter from the Botosphere in celebration! SpiritofEowyn was in rare form researching the ongoing fallout of the modified Twitch, and it was fun realizing Sharsky's and Fassbinder's goof explained quite a few terrifying events in 2011. Hope you enjoy!
When Sharsky stumbled through the door fifteen minutes later with a stack of pizza boxes, he was grinning like a kid on Christmas morning. Sam, however, looked like someone had died - or like someone was going to. It wasn't an expression Lisbeth had seen on him before. Cam was also uncharacteristically somber.
Leo took one look at Sam and smirked triumphantly. "'Bout time we hit the R&R cabins again."
"You miss the twins that much?" Sam grumbled in answer, and Leo grimaced. To the rest of the room, Sam announced, "Get packing. Cam's going to run Lisbeth home so she can get ready, too. We're going to the island."
Lisbeth frowned in confusion (while Fassbinder engaged in an intricate high-five with Sharsky). "What island?"
"The island - that's all you need to know for right now," Sam said, breaking up his former roommates' fist-bumping and shooing them toward the bedrooms. "At least three days worth of clothes," he called after them. "And don't forget the deodorant!"
He turned, but Lisbeth was already on her feet with purse in hand. "Work will expect me on Monday. I don't have any more vacation time because I used it all up for the Broadway workshop."
Sam glanced at Cam before meeting her gaze. "Fifty years from now, when you're looking back on your life, aren't you going to wish you had the guts to come with us?"
"Um...rent?"
Cam started laughing and gave her a reassuring pat on the shoulder. "I've got your six. Let's get to it."
"No, seriously," Lisbeth started to protest, but Sam spoke over her. "It will be taken care of. Trust me."
Lisbeth was shocked to realize - despite everything - that she did trust this serious side of Sam. "Three days?"
He shrugged. "At least, but they'll have laundry facilities. Is there anybody besides your roommates and work that'll miss you if you're gone that long?"
"I... I should tell my parents if I am going out of the country; I'll need to give them and my roommates an explanation."
"Just tell them you and Fassbinder are going on a road trip so you'll have spotty cell coverage. Call your work and tell them whatever excuse you think they'll buy - stomach bug, broken leg, death in the family - and if they're still unreasonable, quit." She opened her mouth to protest, but Sam added, "'Bee said he has your back. He's got the resources to keep a roof over your head and food on your table until you find another job."
Still Lisbeth hesitated. "Is this really going to be worth it?"
Sam's grin was a familiar one this time. "No question."
Nodding decisively, she turned to Cam and followed the holoform out to the waiting alien robot. As soon as she was buckled in and the car was in motion, she asked, "What island?"
Like before, Bumblebee spliced soundbites together while his holoform pretended to drive. "We're going to a...military base. You will meet the...rest of the family...there."
"Like Optimus?"
"Yep! It's your boyfriend's...first time there."
"And all this is because of the cyber-STD he caught?" she wondered.
Bumblebee used her own voice in answer. "All this is because of the cyber-STD he...wrote...He saved our lives."
The pieces fell into place then for Lisbeth. "He wrote a virus for you guys and that's what was making the big one - Megatron - look like he was having a sneezing fit without the actual sneezes?"
"Bingo!"
Lisbeth's breath rushed out in a whoosh. No wonder he and Sharsky were doing a manly happy dance. "Why bring me along, though?"
Bumblebee drifted to a stop in front of her apartment. "Because you know...Now hurry."
Lisbeth took a deep breath, opened the car door, and ran to her apartment.
…
Twin Oaks was not difficult to reach from Tranquility. The moment that Mikaela had been ordered to Nellis for evacuation to Diego Garcia, RaFly had received her own orders and set to work finding a path that would allow her to arrive at her designated post in an expedient manner without finding herself in heavy traffic or a remote area. Twin Oaks could be reached within three hours at what Samuel Prime referred to as "Granny speed" and while cutting through the Angeles National Forest, she would be able to unobtrusively exceed the recommended speed limit without drawing unwanted attention from the California Highway Patrol.
The proposed route also allowed her to pass near Edwards in case of an emergency but there were few indications that the Antelope Valley was to be involved in the current crisis. Nevertheless, it was best to arrive at the Lennox ranch without making trouble of any kind on the way.
Given that GPS communication and satellite tracking were both compromised, she prepared for traveling off the proverbial beaten path roughly an hour into her journey. Her alt-form blended in very naturally with the cars of Palmdale's local Wal-Mart and she surveyed the population for several minutes before choosing an appearance. Rebecca Segretti made her way to the road maps in a pair of high-waisted jeans and a white t-shirt and emerged fairly quickly and captured the image of the route to Twin Oaks with her optics. She left the map neatly on the passenger seat should she need to reference it again, but the scanned image was sufficient.
It was fortunate that Megatron's attack had not coincided with rush hour traffic, but as it was, she found herself at the barbed wire fence and welcome sign at Sarah Lennox's ranch just after 1 p.m.. Major Lennox was dressed in jeans, a t-shirt, and cowboy boots as he lounged against a small shack just inside the property. She wasn't sure if she should salute or tip her non-existent hat. (She made a note to herself to search through her holoform library in the "accessories" folder for ranch-appropriate attire. Surely, someone had already programmed a Stetson into it at some point.)
She could have tracked Ironhide on her own from the entrance-regardless of the technological shutdown, there were ways to recognize one of her own through more conventional methods-but she opened her right door as soon as Major Lennox approached.
"Welcome to our humble home," he said in a grave tone that did not match his pleasant expression. "I thought we could do this the easy way and give you directions."
"I appreciate the trouble you have gone to," she responded in kind. "If you would prefer to drive, I would be happy to yield control of the steering and propulsion tools."
"It's fine," he reassured her. "Take a left up here."
By the time she parked and Major Lennox exited the chassis at a structure surrounded by displaced heavy machinery, she was aware of Ironhide's symptoms, current conditions, and Rachet's most recent instructions. As she observed the area she discovered one other thing was significantly out of place: Ironhide's favorite cannons. They sat, disconnected from the Autobot, on the ground outside the building.
"He insisted on being as harmless as possible when he started getting twitchy," Lennox explained with an almost sympathetic grimace.
"It is prudent in any situation for a patient to be divested of anything that could cause himself or others to be put in danger," she replied approvingly.
"I'm glad it was his idea," Lennox said. "He's been a little dramatic about the whole thing and being forced to strip down on someone else's say-so would come off as the end of the world as we know it."
Ironhide was not prone to such human histrionics in her experience, but he did have a propensity for taking pride in his invulnerability. The voluntary surrender of his most effective weapon without attempting to negotiate alternative precautions was unusual, but understandable in the circumstances.
"Have any of the other vehicles on the property been infected?"
"We're not that fancy," he chuckled. "You won't find any Cybertron-worthy tractors around here. Though the desktop in the kitchen has been randomly opening and closing its CD drive and, on the recommendation of the Witwickys, we have quarantined the waffle iron. Just to be safe."
Waffle irons were, traditionally, not equipped with the necessary networking capability, but humans had peculiar aesthetics when it came to the most trivial appliances, so she did not understand why the Lennoxes had internet-enabled breakfast appliances when their riding mower appeared to have not been upgraded since the late 20th Century. Out of respect for her hosts, however, she would not question their judgment on such matters.
Rather than transform to her base form, she took on the holoform's appearance and circled the garage for an evaluation. She could see a few structural weaknesses that may have predated Ironhide's more explosive episodes, but had probably not been aided by his unpredictable physical symptoms. If needed, they could attend to structurally reinforcing anything that had been damaged once he was on the mend.
"I think he could use a friendly face," Major Lennox commented as he strolled along beside her.
"I'm sure you're correct, sir," RaFly responded, "but this is a patient and you might say that I am reading the chart before taking his vitals."
She was certainly not equipped as a field medic, but it would be negligent of her not to be thoroughly aware of the sickbay's structural integrity before entering, especially when it was built by humans.
She allowed her holoform to vanish as she returned to the alt-form and immediately transformed so she could address Ironhide face-to-face, as it were.
He did not look his usual imposing self. He was in base form-it was prudent to have all parts accessible should mechanical intervention be called for-but his posture was more slouched than she was accustomed to. Nevertheless, Ironhide was her superior in this circumstance and she gave him a formal bow before speaking.
"I hope I find you well, sir."
His response sounded close to a snort of amusement, but he inclined his head. "Thank you for coming, RaFly. Your prompt assistance is most appreciated. This fragging Twitch is aggravating. Do you have any symptoms?"
She immediately compared his stature to the proportions of the garage and discovered that, barring more violent spasms than had already been documented, there was a relatively low chance of him bringing the roof or walls down on the inhabitants of the space.
"None yet, sir. With any luck, I digitally quarantined in time."
…
There were not that many advantages to flying commercial. The food sucked, the seats were designed for hobbits, and the flight attendants never let you have a whole can of something caffeinated.
On the other hand, Fassbinder thought as he surveyed his seating options, a C-17 was definitely designed for people who were too badass to want peanuts with their ginger ale. Today's flight wasn't that full-as soon as they were airborne, there was a migration effort that made him suspect people had some kind of hive mind. There were plenty of open seats lining the walls, but there were knots of people in similar uniforms talking in very intense mutters as if they were rehearsing for a sequel to something starring Jack Ryan.
If he had been twice as idiotic, he would have tried to eavesdrop. It was his natural response to anything too classified to discuss at a normal level, but there was a Code of Professional Conduct that replaced the TOS for The Daily Buzz and it included respecting national security.
So, without an in-flight movie and not wanting to risk any of his electronics, Fassbinder did what any good boyfriend would and turned to his significant other for meaningful interaction.
"So, a week in New York," he said brightly. "I bet you learned so much."
That was definitely the right opening line. In thanks for him not asking about the crazies at Times Square, Lisbeth interlocked her fingers with his and grinned back.
"I did," she responded. "I got to work with a professional improv troupe's creative director for the morning session and I've got a lot to work on."
"Comedy I assume?" All he could think of were the high school shows that had started with an argument and always seemed to end with someone getting left behind in an awkward situation. "I mean, I don't think Shakespeare or George Bernard Shaw needs a lot of improv."
"True, but there are a lot of physical dynamics that need to be flexible in the rehearsal process and I'm hoping to use what I learned with next term's productions. It can't hurt to provide some spontaneity if the director wants to go in a different direction…"
He loved it when she talked nerdy, even if he didn't always understand the nuance of what she was describing; but even then he was always interested in getting tickets to opening night of the end result. He was still listening as attentively as possible to her discourse on a lecture given by a Broadway set designer when he heard a pointed cough.
Lisbeth had paused for breath, so he glanced in Sam's direction. "Yes, Alienboy?"
Now that Lisbeth was actually aware of the reasons for the name, he had no qualms about digging up the familiar nickname.
"We've got a worldwide crisis, several branches of the military coordinating emergency measures. Could we focus on the situation at hand?"
"I haven't asked my girlfriend about her trip yet," he said. "I'm not allowed to tinker with anything connected to a power source. People have been threatening me very creatively with an air gapped laptop. I'm not going to butt in on anyone I'll have to salute first. So yeah, the situation at hand is that I'm going to make sure I pay attention to my honey before she thinks I don't care about this stuff and before I'm too busy restoring order to get some private time."
"After what you pulled, the closest you're getting to 'restoring order' is organizing the office supplies for the lowest-ranking data entry person on base," Sam guessed.
"Gee, thanks," Lisbeth drawled in addition. "I'm glad I get to be your sentient distraction."
"Oh, you're my favorite distraction," Fassbinder said, resting their clasped hands on her kneecap. "You can babble about Pygmalion any time you want. But you're my highest priority for the time being."
She rolled her eyes.
Plus, quality time was the most romantic thing he could provide on a plane full of brass, well ok, only a few people were actually in uniform, but the effect was still there. Even if an admiral wasn't the one to interrupt a make-out session, it would be horror beyond imagination if Glen and Sharsky went looking for something to relieve their boredom and found them trying to get some privacy.
"If you don't mind," Lisbeth interjected in Sam's direction, "I haven't heard anything about his week other than the havoc he wreaked."
He flashed a rare innocent look at Sam. "I haven't even talked about the pizza and Poltergeist movie night."
Sam grumbled something about there being better Spielberg to watch for the end of the world, then went back to minding his own business.
...
When Mikaela drove up to the Nellis AFB checkpoint on her motorcycle, the guard there took one look at her driver's license and waved her through. She smiled behind the helmet face shield - there were advantages to being associated with NEST. If the organization you worked for didn't exist, neither did all the usual paperwork involved in getting onto the base. After the four-hour drive it took to get here, she appreciated not getting bogged down.
Maggie was waiting for her outside of a nondescript building that Mikaela had only visited a couple of times before.
Mikaela parked her bike, pulled off her helmet, and strode toward the Aussie. "Hey."
"Welcome." Maggie pushed the front door open, and Mikaela stepped into the blessedly air-conditioned room. Maggie gestured toward a water cooler. "Need a drink?"
Mikaela gratefully downed three paper cups of cold water before saying, "I got here as quick as I could. What's going on?"
"We appreciate that, since our plane arrives in about twenty minutes." Maggie led her toward a desk that was occupied. "Glen was the first one to find it 'in the wild' so to speak."
He barely glanced at Mikaela. "'Sup."
Mikaela blinked in surprise - it wasn't the usual reception she got from him, or from any guy for that matter. Then she looked more closely at the computer screen he was working at. "Is that Cybertronian?"
"It is," Maggie confirmed. "And it's the reason you, me, Glen, and the entire Prime protection unit are being recalled to DG."
Tearing her gaze away from the screen, Mikaela said, "I'm still not following."
"It's a virus," Maggie explained, "a Cybertronian one that Bumblebee handed over to Sam's former roommates."
Mikaela felt her heart sink - there was no way for this to end well. "And they set it loose on the internet?"
"Not directly. We think that our internet traffic is being monitored by Decepticons and the virus appears to have escaped through them. That's why our recent communications with you have been so vague. We're not entirely sure how deeply we've been compromised."
"Wait, how do you know Decepticons are spying on our internet traffic?"
"Because it's moving up their ranks fastest." Maggie went to another workstation and pulled up a video feed. "A report from Bumblebee." In it, Megatron looked like he was having convulsions of some kind while threatening Sam.
Fury filled Mikaela, mostly driven by the panic of seeing Sam in a fusion cannon's way and knowing she couldn't help him. "Why didn't I hear about this already?"
"Because it only happened about seven hours ago and we're under radio silence now. Before that, 'Bee sent this directly to us and to DG, since he recognized the symptoms. Usually it's similar to a cold for them, more annoyance than anything. That's why Bumblebee selected that particular virus to hand over to Fassbinder and Sharsky. But they modified it, and now it's something really nasty."
"So… 'Bee gave those goofs the Cybertronian code for the sniffles and they turned it into something like cyber-Ebola?"
"More like pneumonia. As near as we can tell, it's not particularly deadly but it is highly debilitating," Maggie clarified, "and it's now spread over the entire world."
"But it's Cybertronian," Mikaela protested.
Maggie shrugged. "Bumblebee wrote an interface so that Fassbinder and Sharsky could manipulate the code. The virus has a very advanced AI, though, and it's evolving. It's installing the interface along with replicated Cybertronian viruses on anything it can. Phones, laptops, cars, servers…"
Mikaela let out a low whistle of surprise. "So that's why the world's gone wonky. Are we safe to fly?"
"At the moment, yes, but only because it's a NEST plane with Autobot-level virus protection. We need to get a handle on this, the sooner the better."
"Right. And our flight to DG arrives in…?"
Maggie looked at the clock. "Ten minutes, at this point."
"Just enough time to freshen up and use the little girls' room," Mikaela said. Because the johns on a C-17 sucked. And so did four hours on a bike without a pitstop.
A military escort was parked next to Mikaela's motorcycle when she, Maggie, and Glen left the building a few minutes later, and they all piled into his jeep for the ride to the airstrip where their plane was refueling.
Mikaela was used to her, Sam, and Bumblebee having the bay of the C-17 pretty much to themselves when they flew to Diego Garcia, so it was something of a shock to find it crowded, mostly with humans. Bumblebee was there with Sam, of course, but so were al-Sharif, Simmons, Leo, Fassbinder, Sharsky, and … "Lisbeth?"
She brightened when Mikaela approached her. "Hello stranger."
Maggie and Glen continued on to talk with Fassbinder, Sharsky and Leo, while Sam started drifting Mikaela's way.
"I didn't realize you were in on the secret," Mikaela said, feeling a little frustrated that she was apparently the last to know everything today.
Lisbeth didn't seem to notice, though. "Only since this afternoon, at least officially. I met Megatron, so..."
"You met Megatron?" And then Mikaela figured it out. "You were with Sam earlier today."
"Yeah. I was the reason he and 'Bee were in New York."
"Well in that case," Mikaela said, smirking and extending her hand, "welcome to the crazy life."
Lisbeth tentatively smiled and shook her hand, saying, "Thanks, I think."
…
The NEST base on Diego Garcia was still on high alert, and Optimus had been on duty for the last 72 hours. Bumblebee had reported to Ratchet on Tuesday what Fassbinder and Sharsky had done back, but they hadn't realized the virus had escaped until Glen found it in circulation on Wednesday, and the appropriate human intelligence agencies were then notified. The Autobots were mostly concerned about protecting humans from hardware that might randomly malfunction, but they didn't think it would impact them until Thursday night when Skids and Mudflap contracted the modified Twitch (or as Epps dubbed it, the "twitching awfuls"). Friday morning, Ironhide started showing symptoms, too, stranding him and the Lennoxes at Sarah's ranch. RaFly was ordered to go shelter in place with them.
Ratchet didn't dare put the twins in stasis since doing so would also diminish the effectiveness of their antivirus systems, but the human repair crew couldn't go near them for fear of getting squished during a twitch. Ratchet's solution was to immobilize the twins on berths in the med bay, which lasted for all of ten minutes before they decided the best available entertainment was medic-baiting because he had also turned off all the Autobots' comms for fear that they'd spread the infection.
When the twins broke out in a rousing chorus of the "Spongebob Squarepants" theme song, Ratchet stormed out the med bay, saying maybe if they tortured the virus long enough it would wither up and die on its own.
Sarah Lennox was the one who Friday afternoon suggested via a secure phone line that Ratchet allow the twins to watch cartoons on a projector and that he just tune them out by muting his own audials. The medic accepted the suggestion with ill grace, but there weren't really many other options at that point.
Skids and Mudflap were in a near-constant state of twitch and Ratchet couldn't even say for certain how many variants of the virus they were fighting. It was evolving rapidly and along lines that simply made no sense to him. He'd studied every digital virus known to Cybertron, and they followed predictable patterns of evolution. That was how Cybertronians got ahead of a virus and eradicated it - their own antiviral systems out-guessed the malware.
This virus, though, this virus was just alien enough that it slipped past their antiviral systems completely undetected and, even when he could isolate one variant and kill it, the anticipated daughter-lines of code simply didn't exist. He was fighting each variant individually while they were multiplying in the deep, dark recesses of the twins' processors. It was a battle he was losing, and while the infection had not been spark-threatening so far, it was only a matter of time before it evolved into something that was. So he'd muted his audials, encouraged his human repair team to bring their ear plugs, and worked in the blessed silence of his own mind while the restrained twins convulsed with full-frame twitches.
That's also why every half hour or so, the manic strains of "Who lives in a pineapple under the sea?" rang out through the Autobot hangar.
It was chaos, Optimus mused to himself as several soldiers groaned at the sound, but at least it was controlled chaos.
For the Prime, the one silver lining in this mess was that he could feel the brother bond he shared with Sam steadily growing stronger. The C-17 carrying him (and basically every other military and civilian programming asset NEST had) was getting closer with each passing moment. He recognized the contented calm of Sam settling down to sleep, and turned to Epps. "Considering the length of time I have been on duty, I believe it would be best to recharge at least briefly before Sam and the others arrive."
Epps nodded, not even looking up from the report he was reading. "Sounds like a good idea."
They were planning on building a barracks for the Autobots, but it was currently being held up by the environmental impact study, so he dropped down into his alt mode and found an out-of-the-way spot to recharge.
Optimus was the first to enter the shared dream-space where they usually met, but he did not have to wait long on the remembered aircraft carrier. Only moments later, he felt Sam's approach.
"Brother."
"Optimus." Sam sighed deeply, drawing on the peace at the core of Optimus' spark, as he came to stand at his brother's side. As usual, they were the same height in their bond-dream. Suddenly Sam tensed, "Are we safe to dream together like this? I mean, I don't think either of us could get the Twitch…"
"We are safe," Optimus assured him, wrapping him up in a 'hug of the heart,' as Sam put it. "This connection is beyond mechanical systems or even the most fundamental code."
Reassured, Sam eased down a notch from his anxiety. "It's been one Pit of a day."
"Did you come to that conclusion before or after Lockheed Martin's systems contracted the Twitch?"
"Hadn't heard about that one yet." He ran his fingers through his hair in frustration. "I'm just glad we got out while the getting was good. From what I've been able to overhear and read, it seemed like the whole world was on the fritz. Trains, planes, and some cars halted, ATM's randomly spitting out cash, GPS systems down, even garage doors randomly opening."
"I will be grateful when your feet are safely on the ground at Diego Garcia," Optimus told him, letting his pent-up worry wash across the bond, along with his unfettered affection for his brother. "You didn't mention the most dangerous part."
Sam's shoulders slumped. "Oh yeah. Megatron."
"Of all the consequences of this day, that is the one that concerns me most."
Sam started pacing, his nervous energy crackling over their bond. "I know, Optimus, I know. And I also know what you're going to say - that you want me to stay on Diego Garcia. You know I can't. I can't be the Prime I was born to be if I'm hidden away on a tropical island. You're going to need a lobbyist and, if all goes well, an ambassador someday."
Optimus partially blocked the bond, hoping to hide his own despair at the words, "You are of no value to us dead."
Sam paused and looked at Optimus, his surprise pushing back against the block Optimus had erected. Eventually he straightened and said, "I stared down the barrel of a fusion cannon this morning, Optimus. If I was going to die by Megatron's hand, it would have happened already. It did happen but here I am - because it was my fate. I have to go forward trusting fate to get me where I'm supposed to be. Even we humans know that running away from your fate tends to turn out badly. And I like having both my eyes in my head, thank you very much."
Optimus tilted his head, puzzled.
"You haven't seen that play yet? Probably better that way," Sam said, pacing again. "The ancient Greeks were pretty gruesome. My point is that this doesn't fundamentally change anything."
"Withdrawal of your scholarships would change things."
Sam whirled and searched Optimus' optics and spark, nudging against the block on their bond again. Optimus let the block fall, let his brother in to see just how terrified he was at the possibility of losing Sam.
"You really would do that," Sam muttered, surprised.
"Yes, if it meant keeping you out of a fusion cannon's way."
"Slag."
