N/A: Sorry about the delay of the chapter. I had a covid related death in the family and didn't feel like writing much.
Chapter 2
Tranquility, Nevada
Sam got home at exactly eleven. He had the best evening ever! At first, it was utter crap, but then he offered Mikaela Barnes a ride home, and everything fell into place. Oh, how he loved his car! And Mikaela, of course!
Jenna was right. All he needed was a conversation with Mikaela to see if they would work well together. After a few fumbles, he managed to not completely, er, not totally embarrassed himself. And apparently, Mikaela was a car junkie. According to her, she could take his car apart and put it back together again. However, the car seemed to shiver in fear at the talk of dismembering the car, which was quite understandable if you thought about it.
Sam was just amazed at his luck. But as he stepped through the backdoor into his house, ready to tell everyone the details of his date, he saw the looks on his parent's faces. It was the same looks they had when they told him that Grandpa Witwicky had died.
His face fell, and he swallowed, bracing himself for the worst, "What happened?"
His Mom opened her mouth but then burst into tears and practically ran from the room. Sam bit his lip. Okay. This was bad, "Sam, son. Let's take a seat."
Oh god. It's bad. Sam thought as they sat down on the couch.
"Um. There was a news report. One of our bases was attacked."
"Uh, okay." Sam said, not getting why everyone was upset.
His Dad blinked, "There were no survivors." Sam still looked confused, "The base was in Qatar."
It was like water was rushing over Sam's head. His eyes widened, and he breathed out, "Jenna. Did-"
Dad cut him off with a shake of his head, "No."
Tears welled up in Sam's eyes. He was just told his brother-in-law was dead and his sister was a widow, "Is Jenna okay?"
Dad looked at Sam strangely before showing a grimace, "She fainted at the news. She's been unconscious since. I put her in her bed upstairs for some privacy. I figure that's where your Mom is now."
"Can I-" Sam began.
"Best not. Let Mom take care of her. When she comes to you, you can talk to her. Leave her be for now."
It was two in the morning, and everyone was asleep in the Witwicky household. Jenna had woken up around midnight and had bawled her eyes out before falling into an exhausted sleep. Her mother was curled up asleep next to Jenna on the floor. Sam and her father were in their respective beds.
Suddenly the Camaro starts up by itself. Sam jerked awake and sat up to see his car being stolen from his bedroom window. "Hey! That's my car!" He yelled. The car backed out of the driveway while Sam frantically fell out of his bed and scrambled for his shoes. He half-ran half hopped as he pulled his shoes on and put on his jacket.
At the commotion, Jenna woke up, startled. She looked around her darkroom to see the hallway light turn on and heard Sam's distraught yelling. She looked down to see that she had fallen asleep in her clothes. She pushed back the covers and pulled on her shoes. She carefully stepped over her Mom, who was still sleeping even through the chaos.
She pulled open the door in time to see Sam rush down the steps to the first floor. "Dad! Call the cops!" Jenna rushed out of the house to see Sam pulling away on his bike after his car, which was speeding down the road. She sighed, slung her bag over her shoulder, grabbed her mother's bike, and raced after Sam.
She caught up to Sam shortly, thankful for the yearly exercise requirements for S-7 employees. "SAM!" At her voice, Sam swerved his bike at her voice, "What the hell do you think you're doing?"
"Getting my car back!" Sam yelled back to her.
"By getting yourself killed?!" Jenna saw Sam wince at the low blow.
Sam pulled his cell phone out of his jacket pocket and dialed 911. While waiting for the operator to answer, he said to Jenna, "I'm just gonna follow him till the cops show up and let them do the rest!"
"Hello? 911 Emergency! My car's been stolen. I'm in pursuit. Right. I need all units-" At that, Jenna raised her eyes but let Sam make the phone call, "The-the whole squadron. Bring EVERYONE! No. No. Don't ask me any questions, alright? My father's the head of the neighborhood watch."
At that, Jenna groaned. Lying to the cops on record…. She'd need to teach some common sense to Sam once they were done with this. Sam hung up, and she drifted her bike closer to Sam. "You do know they record every call they get, right?" She yelled to Sam.
"Why?" He yelled back.
"Because last time I checked, Dad wasn't the head of the neighborhood watch! There is no neighborhood watch!"
"Small details!"
Jenna knew that she wouldn't win the argument right now. She needed to save that for later. Right now, she had to focus on not letting her brother do anything stupid.
After a while of playing cat-and-mouse with the Camaro Theif, the Camero eventually pulled off into the junkyard across town. The Camaro revved its wheels and charged at the locked gate. It broke open and tore into the junkyard proper. It spread across the train tracks, right before an oncoming train, the train bell ringing loudly.
"We should go in on foot!" Jenna called over to Sam, who was waiting impatiently for the train to go by. "This is the only exit. He'll be trapped. Then we can wait for the police."
"Good idea," Sam called back. He let his bike fall to the ground, and Jenna left her mother next to his. They both ran over the tracks once the train finished passing.
They went in and saw that the path diverged left and right. But Jenna noticed that the tire tracks veered right. Sam noticed too. "Let's go left to cut him off." He whispered.
Jenna took a deep breath, trying to calm her frayed nerves, "Okay. Let me go first." She took the lead under protest from Sam. But with one look, Sam apparently understood her need for her to control this situation right now. She didn't want to lose Sam like she lost… no. Too soon.
She moved through the rows of junk, trying to keep her training in mind while doing so. Since she was an archivist, she was rarely in the field and didn't do this type of action on a daily basis, "I hope I'm not going to get us killed." She murmured.
Suddenly the ground shook, and she pulled Sam down next to a wall of junk. An old hay silo with junk pilled around it made for a perfect hiding spot. Suddenly she spotted something in the periphery of her vision that made her stop and question if she was awake. She turned toward the shape and realized that it was a giant robot-looking machine. No. What it really looked like was…. NBE-1.
"Oh shit." She gasped, recognizing the magnitude of the situation. Another being like NBE-1. They were fucked. Unfortianltly, her gasp alerted her brother to the situation, and he pulled her down so that they were now crouching behind the wall of junk.
Slowly the two crouched back up and spied on the gigantic metal being that seemed to once be Sam's Camaro, given the yellow and black coloring on its outer plates, "Oh my God." Sam whispered. "You seeing this, Jenna?"
"Yes." She breathed back. She thought that NBE-1 would be the only alien that she would be in the presence of. Apparently, life had other ideas. Jenna and Sam both stared in shock as a bright white light erupted from the center of the being's chest and shot into the sky. If Jenna had to make a guess, she would bet her money on the alien contacting his friends.
Sam pointed up, and she followed the blue light higher to see a symbol of a metal face poised in the center of the beam. "E.T. phone home." Jenna commented.
Sam glared at her, "Not funny, Jenna."
Jena snorted, "I thought it was a good one."
Sam suddenly had an idea. He crouched down and flipped open his phone, and started a video of himself and Jenna. Jenna tried to lean out of it, but Sam kept on moving to include her, "My name is Sam Witwicky, and this is my older sister Jenna Lennox. Whoever finds this, my car is alive. Okay?" He held up his phone to the point where they could see the alien in the video and brought the phone back down to his face.
"You saw that? Since these are my last words on Earth, I just want to say, Mom, Dad, I love you, and if you find Busty Beauties under my bed, it wasn't mine." At that, Jenna raised an eyebrow, and Sam shot her a look, "I'm holding it for Miles. No, no, wait, that… okay. That's not true. It's mine, and Uncle Charles gave it to me."
"Sam! I don't think this is the time for that!" Jenna interrupted.
"I'm sorry," Sam said to Jenna. Then to the camera, "I'm sorry. Mojo, I love you." Sam handed Jenna the phone, "Want to say anything?"
Sam obviously thought that once the alien discovered that they had seen him, they were going to be abducted. That wasn't a bad conclusion, and Jenna placated him, "Mom, Dad? It'll be okay." She tried to give a reassuring smile, but it came out to be a grimace, "I'll look after Sam. Love you."
Jenna ended the video with Sam's protests of, "I don't need protection."
"Well, whose bright idea was it to chase after a freaking alien?"
Sam paused to think for the first time that night, "Point taken."
It was a bit later now, and the alien had stopped its signal for the night. They were walking around the closed junkyard, trying to find the exit. Jenna and Sam walked cautiously into another unfamiliar section of the junkyard when Jenna heard rattling. She froze and turned her head to see two guard dogs chained to the back wall.
The dogs began to bark aggressively as Sam took a cautious step to cross the open area. They suddenly broke into a chase, "Run!" Jenna screamed to Sam and the pair took off, the dogs at their heels. She thought that they were safe when the chain pulled at the dog's necks but her elation was short-lived as the bricks the chain was bolted to pulled free of the brick wall.
"Shit!" Sam exclaimed and the pair took off running again, "No. No. No! No!"
Jenna followed Sam, who was the better sprinter, over a wall of junk and around a couple of junk bends. Eventually, they ran through a hole and found that they had made their way inside of the junk silo. "No! You're a good dog!" Sam's voice cracked in fear on the word 'dog.' "Good dog! Good Dog!"
"There! The barrels!" Jenna pointed and climbed up onto the, conveniently, placed old barrels in the center of the Silo. "Climb!" Jenna held out her hand and helped Sam climb up on the other one.
"Whoa! Hey, hey, hey! All right! Oh no! NO!" The dogs had made it into the silo with them and were yapping and barking aggressively at their feet.
"Thought we were going to die by aliens, and it turns out it'll be Earth dogs instead." Jenna yelled to Sam over the dog's barking.
"Not funny!" Sam yelled back.
Suddenly Jenna heard the roaring of an engine and looked up just in time to see Sam's Camaro, er, the alien, burst into the silo and breaking some old plywood. Headlights shown into the dog's faces, and the engine revved loudly as the alien circled the siblings. The dogs ran away from the sound and car, but Jenna wasn't really focused on that right now.
"Please don't kill us! I'm sorry! Take the keys! I don't want them! Car's yours!" Sam took the keys of the car out of his pocket and threw them at the alien. Sam grabbed Jenna's hand and leaped off the barrels, and ran out of the silo and into headlights from a cop car.
"Listen, listen, listen!" Sam yelled at the car, putting his hands in front of its path, effectively bringing the cop car to a halt, "Good, your here."
"Let me see your hands!" Two officers were in the vehicles and were pointing guns at the two of them from behind their car doors. Not good. Jenna immediately went still and raised her hands, knowing that the situation could get worse if they didn't follow the orders.
But Sam was a different story, "No, no, no, no! The guy's in inside!"
"Shut up! Walk towards the car!"
Sam eventually realized what a bad situation they were in and did as instructed. He went silent, held up his hands, placed them on the back of his head, and walked toward the car. Jenna did the same.
"Put your head on the hood." The officer ordered. Sam glanced at Jenna before slamming his head against the front of the cop car. Jenna held back a wince and followed suit, but slower.
Well… this was an interesting night.
Jenna yawned as she watched her brother being interrogated by a police officer. They had spent the night in the town's jail cell after her parents refused to bail them out to 'teach them a lesson.' Jenna rolled her eyes but secretly agreed that Sam needed scolding. She, however, had only gone to keep Sam out of trouble… which, admittedly, she did very poorly. To illustrate their pissed-off attitudes, her Dad had come to the police station in his pajamas while her Mom had stayed home.
"Look, I can't be any clearer than how crystal clear I am being." Sam stated, exasperated as he couldn't understand why no one would believe him. Jenna hadn't said anything the entire time and had let Sam do the talking for them.
"It just stood up."
"It just stood up." The officer parroted as if he couldn't believe the words coming out of Sam's mouth… and he probably didn't, "Wow. That's really neat." Jenna watched as the second officer shook his head and shifted so that he was now sitting on a desk instead of leaning up against it, his arms crossed, "Okay, chiefie. Time to fill her up." The first officer ordered, grabbing a pee cup and three tissues and handing it to Sam. "And no drippy-drippy."
Sam took the pee cup and tissues, shocked as the officer continued, "What are you rolling? Whippets? Goofballs? A little wowie sauce with the boys?" At that Jenna snorted, drawing his attention to her, "And don't think I've forgotten about you, little missy." He handed her the same things he handed Sam.
Jenna was outraged, "I'm married!" She exclaimed. Then froze, realizing what she said. Sam and her Dad seemed frozen as well and she amended, "Widowed." She said softer.
Sam rushed to cover up her mistake, "No, I'm not on drugs."
"What's these?" The officer asked as the second officer threw Mojo's pain pills to the first officer. He shook the pills. "Found it in your pocket." He read the label, "Mojo. Is that what the kids are calling it nowadays? Little bit of Mojo?"
"Those are my dog's pain pills. You know… a Chihuahua… a little…"
"Chihuahua." Dad said, finally trying to help his children out.
The officer put his hand over his face dramatically and shifted ever so slightly to reveal that he had a sidearm strapped underneath his jacket. Of course, Sam zeroed in on it. Unfortunately, the officer noticed.
The officer gave a big cocky grin and held his hand up, "What was that? You eyeballing my piece 50 cent?" He stood up and hovered close to Sam, "Oh, you wanna go? Make something happen. Do it. 'Cause I promise you, I will bust you up."
"Are you on drugs?" Sam whispered at the officer.
Jenna let out a growl and got into the officer's face done with his shit and this entire situation, "Back off my brother or I will get you fired quicker than you can pull out that gun. This will be my one and only warning."
"Jenna!" Sam exclaimed, tugging on her arm, trying to get her to sit back down.
She glanced back at Sam who looked worried. She looked over at her Dad who had on a 'don't you dare do it' expression. She relented, "Fine. But I'm still calling in a complaint." She took her pee cup and tissues, "Where's the bathroom?"