By Fang Wolfsbane

She had lost time of when she first started hanging out with the giant robotic beings that called themselves Cybertronians, more specifically, Autobots, the 'good guys' in the tale of some ancient war against another faction known as Decepticons.

She didn't know who exactly these Decepticons were that Highdrive told her about, but from what she could tell, they weren't exactly all that great to begin with, rather cruel if Ratchet and Optimus's constant interruptions were anything to go by. Prowl didn't feel like sharing his opinion, but she and Sari did manage to find out that Bulkhead and Bumblebee had attempted to join the Elite Guard in the hopes of defending their home planet against the other faction. It turned out both of them were dropouts.

From what they told them, Cybertronians didn't have that big of a difference in their day-to-day activities. Their planet, Cybertron, sounded similar to Earth, except they didn't have robots to do most of their work for them. Sari argued that it was because they were robots themselves in a manner of speaking. None of them had been able to deny it.

Optimus seemed a bit uneasy over having robots around that had no sense of sentience about them, even Ratchet and Prowl seemed irritated about it, but the three younger bots didn't seem all that worried about it. She figured it had a lot to do with the age gap, after all, before Sari's father really gave Detroit its big technological boost, a lot of the older generation had been reluctant about accepting the possibility of relying on technology to do what they themselves have done for years. She couldn't blame them. Even with her job, she sometimes had to struggle to keep it just because she was human.

It hadn't been until that thought occurred to her that she realised how late it had gotten. It was almost three A.M. when she begged one of the bots to take her home. How Sari had managed to stay out so late without getting at least one call from her dad, she didn't know, but Bumblebee had been all too willing to escort the two of them to their homes.

Sari was taken home first, all the way to a building everyone in the city knew as Sumdac Towers. Tyla nearly sprained her neck looking up at the sheer size. Even Bumblebee seemed surprised that such small creatures needed buildings that reached so high. Sari promised them both a tour later down the road and snuck back inside, expertly avoiding any security drones lurking nearby.

Next, Bumblebee took Tyla back home, asking her for more details on human life, as she and Sari had done with him and the other Autobots. Pulling to a stop near the building she lived, the two spent about another hour lost in discussion before Tyla was finally able to drag herself away from the curious bot.

With a wave goodbye, Tyla waited until she couldn't see the yellow car anymore before she turned and headed inside, trying her best to keep quiet, every soft creak in the floor sounding like an alarm to alert the other residents of her return. Luckily no one felt up to investigating.

When she finally made it to her room door, Tyla froze, feeling a cold sensation trailing down the middle of her back. Looking back, she spotted a door down the hall closing slowly. Apparently someone had been curious enough to try and see what was going on. She ignored it and dug around for her keys, slid it in the lock and made sure to lock it from the inside. Just in case, she told herself.

Her breath probably smelled, but she didn't have the energy to grab her toothbrush and jog down to the bathrooms to take care of it. She couldn't even bother for the toilet. The moment she entered her bedroom, she fell face first onto the bed, listening to its creaking protest.

S he must have gotten about an hour's worth of sleep before her alarm dragged her back to the world of the woken. Narrowing her eyes, she wished for nothing more than to toss it out the window as she pushed herself up for another day of working for the little rest that she had to rely on to make it through the day.

2