Jamerson looked around from his new spot in a room that was far too small for the number of people currently crammed inside.
There was himself of course, Flint, Maggie, Glen, The secretary of Defense himself, the survivors of the Qatar base attack, who'd they'd all been introduced to a few hours prior, which consisted of William Lennox, Robert Epps, Jorge 'Fig' as he preferred to be called, who was laying on a stretcher with a massive puncture wound through his left kidney, and a few others and of course Simmons and Banacheck.
And at the centre of the room, taking up a good chunk of the space, was a large glass box with it's own little door.
He could only guess what that was for given that this room had a notably, and worryingly, higher amount of damage to the exterior walls, looking very much like claw marks.
And bullet holes.
Glen had even only a few moments ago, made the mistake to joke that one set in particular were from Wolverine, evidently from his now cowed state, the others in the room, Jamerson included, weren't having that.
Then again, Fig had laughed too, much to his own pain given he'd pulled at his patched up injury.
"Alright! Anyone got any digital devices? We need to show you what our crown jewel can do!" Simmons called, clapping his hands together.
Jamerson was almost immediately pulling out the memory stick that had been given to him by the Harpies, if this box could somehow bust it, he'd be more than happy. So, without much hesitation, he tossed it to Simmons, the techs had already done all they could to crack the thing, and had failed, so it was as good as dead space at this point.
Simmons caught it without even looking in his direction, looking over the tiny storage device, he whistled as he ran his thumb over it, twisting it about in his hold. "Oooh, this the little bugger?" He asked, but all Jamerson answered with, was with a nod. "Good quality, durable build. 64 gigabytes of storage? Not surprised you used it. Welp, never put tech from an NBE in here before." With that, he was opening the little door in the box, and placing the little metal memory stick inside.
"Goggles on everyone, don't want any of you going blind now." Banacheck called out, urging everyone to pull the heavy goggles over their faces.
Jamerson had only just finished putting on his when Simmons gestured for Banacheck to pull an ridiculously oversized switch on the wall.
Once it was pulled down, a low thrum built within the room, the air becoming charged with static, making the hair on his arms stick up on end.
"We take the energy from the Cube, and funnel it into that box right there. And what happens next… well, best to see for yourself huh?" Simmons seemed to joke.
A tiny mechanical arm dropped down to the memory stick, hovering over it for a moment before there was an impossibly bright flash, causing him to flinch back, as did the others, despite the thick tint of the goggles.
Once it was over, he pulled the goggles off, just in time to watch the memory stick shake, memory sticks didn't shake.
"What the…. Jesus Christ!" He heard William shout as the memory stick suddenly erupted into a flurry of different parts, reforming almost instantly into an absolutely tiny little spider like creature with a singular green orb staring out at Maggie.
"Holy shit." Muttered the woman, hand clutched over her chest.
The thing stayed perfectly still, whilst the singular orb swivelled around on the little cable it was attached to, taking in them all.
Then, it shifted back, within a moment turning back into the memory stick.
Simmons eyebrows lifted in a display of mild surprise. "Hmm, normally they put up more of a fight than that. Probably too small or something." The agent remarked, picking up a small remote with a singular red button that his thumb hovered over.
The near silence that had fallen in the room was shattered not a moment later by a ear splittingly loud siren that erupted from the speaker built into the wall.
So sudden was it that Simmons actually dropped the remote in his sudden need to cover his ears, like the rest of those in the room to try and drown out the volume.
'DANGER! DANGER! MASSIVE STRUCTURAL FAILURE DETECTED IN THE MAIN DAM SUPPORT! EVACUATE! EVACUATE! EVACUATE! PROTOCOL 5. , ALL PERSONNEL MUST EVACUATE TO HIGHER GROUND. DO NOT USE THE ELEVATORS. THIS IS NOT A DRILL. THIS IS AN EMERGENCY, ALL NON-ESSENTIAL POWER IS TO BE SHUT DOWN TO PREVENT RISK OF ELECTROCUTION.' A booming voice called over the wailing siren.
So loud was it that he barely made out Banacheck shouting for them all to leave the room.
Somehow in the rush he ended up being one of the two pushing Fig's Stretcher.
The room was evacuated in moments, leaving the little memory stick trapped in the box to unfurl back out, it's optic bouncing in mirth as it moved to the side of the box, and with a sharpened leg tip, cut a hole through the glass, pushing the cut circle out, the little memory stick clambered out, quickly scaling the side of the box and up to the vent above, where it easily slipped through the grate and into the waiting talons of it's overseer
Keen fluctuating eyes watched as the doors shut on their own, the sirens still wailing above.
Keeley sent a ping to her master, pausing long enough to, with one talon still on the ground, push the memory stick mini-mini bot into her holoforms plumage, where it quickly took hold, it would be safe there.
Shuffling back down the vent away from the room, Keeley returned to the panel she'd torn off from inside the vent, it was a simple meter, but the dam was connected by a singular isolated network, so it was all she needed to give her master full rein over the dam.
That included the alarm system, and the other meters that were displaying this false information.
~Oh what fun games we play. The humans, our puppets, bound to their strings. Oh how we make them dance for our glee.~ She cooed, looking at the little cable she'd plugged into the meter, which was in turn stretching all the way back to where her true form rested, just outside of the broken vent, where she was transmitting control of the entire dam to her master.
The sirens continued to blare their warning, they'd wait until there was no more personnel leaving the dam before the other Harpies and their 'guests' moved in from their hiding places, the security cameras already showing little to no life anywhere in the da… Ira had spotted something… there was a group of humans trying to hide themselves… at the order of a very recognisable human.
"Yah know what tah do." Her master's command came over their bond.
She gave a little chitter in reply, shuffling back down towards where the moderately sized group was trying to hide, the mini-mini bot providing her with full facial scans with each, which she promptly sent back to her master.
She would make sure they didn't interfere. Personally.
Even if she had to fly her full frame into the building, wasn't like anyone was going to see her use the front door now...
Downstream of the dam
It was perplexing really, Optimus mused, turning his attention again to Aria and Wren, who had landed a few minutes ago behind the same boulder he'd taken to hiding behind close to the edge of the gorge.
Dusk had finally fallen only a short while ago, replacing the brightness of the day with the colder inky blackness, the stars high above and the only just visible crescent of the moon being the only light around them.
He and his Autobots had left ahead of the Harpies, who had remained in their holoforms with their true frames hidden away.
It had raised an interesting question for him to add to the pile of ever growing inquires he planned to make.
Were they unhappy with these forms?
It was obvious that they'd spent the majority of their lives as humans before this 'Space time anomaly' occurred, melding them with the same species as their avian companions, and Cybertronians at the same time, creating the strange amalgamations they were now.
Something nudging his side cut off the Prime's thought process as the twins shifted beside him, though it was already too dark to make out what part of the silhouette poked him.
Though the slight reflection of his own optics managed to catch their visor as it turned to him.
"Keeley is taking care of some stragglers, but Ira's given us the all clear. Signal your mechs, we're going in." Wren stated, before pushing themselves upwards with the last spanse of their wing support.
They were already clambering over the boulder before he could nod, that same grinding sound reaching his audios when their right pede was moved, despite the brace and Ratchet's attempts, the noise at least had only been quieted, not completely silenced.
Clearly there was still more for his CMO to begrudgingly do. He knew Ratchet wasn't going to leave the injury as it is, it just wasn't what Ratchet did.
Which meant that he'd likely have to insist that they remain in contact at least once the Allspark is secure. Or otherwise taken care of…
He hadn't had the time to address the issue with his unit…
"Prime?" Aria's call from a little ways ahead alerted him to the reality he hadn't actually moved, nor let the rest of his mechs know to move in.
Ironhide and Ratchet were with Kia, while Jazz hid elsewhere.
Sending off a simple confirmation that it was time to move in to the three mechs, Optimus made quick work of swinging each pede over the boulder and stepping up to where Aria and Wren now stood, half turned to him, but helm turned towards the spotlit damn, giving him only the silhouette of the back of their helm.
It was strange watching those odd protrusions twitch and flutter, the majority of the movement being on the left side, Aria, whilst those on the right remained mostly low against the rest of the helm, Wren.
"They're moving in." He voiced, watching as they nodded and began walking, their frame hunching forwards and wings flaring out somewhat for balance as their frame shifted, their right pede grinded and what he now realised were actually surprisingly long tail feathers, dragged slightly along the ground behind them, knocking pebbles and dust as they went. He couldn't actually see them, but the sounds were telling enough.
It was out before he even knew he was thinking it. "Is there something wrong with your frame structure?"
Almost immediately his processor ground to a halt as their helm snapped back around to him, the paleness of their faceplates lighting up bellow their visor as they tilted their helm up to look, no, glare at him, he didn't need to see them to know their optics had narrowed at him under their pitch black visor.
"You really better watch that mouth Prime. A loose tongue is one easily sliced off." They snarled, leaning up closer so he could make out the parted lip-plates and the curved metal blades hidden behind.
His frame leant back in instinctual reflex, as his vocaliser tried to spit out an apology with his processor still struggling to catch back up with the present.
"That… that came out wrong. I am deeply sorry." He finally managed to get out after a few failed attempts.
All he got was a huff back from them, before they were moving towards the dam again.
Then they speak.
"It's hardly like you're the first person to ask. Only difference is you're not holding a scalpel to our skull."
He paused in his own steps again. Muttering under his vents so quietly he couldn't even hear it, but he knew he said it.
"What?"
Nothing else was spoken between them until they finally stepped into the spot lit concrete at the base of the dam, where Ironhide, Jazz, Ratchet, and Kia were already waiting for them.
Finally he could see Aria and Wren standing in the light, it was odd really, but not something he could so easily focus on when Kia started talking.
"We have an hour at most before they all start heading back. So look lively mechs." The darker brown, cream and rouge femme remarked, already walking again, followed by Aria and Wren, towards the main entrance, which was noticeably short compared to his own height.
It would seem they were right, he was going to have to stoop quite a bit at least if he wanted to get through the tunnel himself.
It would also seem that their 'hosts' for lack of a better word at present, where far more anatomically adapted to entering the tunnel given the fact he was pretty certain his main strut would snap in half if he tried to curve himself that far forwards so as to rest the main strut of his non-existent wings to the ground, and begin walking on all fours down the tunnel like it was just another perfectly natural way of getting about for them, which for all he again knew, was in fact the truth of the matter.
With a single gesture, for his own mechs to follow him, he moved to lower himself into a crawl, an undignified position, but the scrape of his audio arrays on the top of the curved tunnels roof signified the necessity of it.
They were like this for a ways before he felt it, the Allspark, it was a feeling difficult to describe, but he recognised it like none other.
It was calling out.
The urge to rush to it was indescribable, but at the same time, he found himself stuck behind the Harpies, who were going towards a separate chamber, away from the Allspark.
That was when it dawned on him where they were being led to first.
Megatron.
Maybe convincing everyone to hide in this cramped storage room was a bad idea.
An opinion that only really dawned on Jamerson when after about ten minutes the sirens died down, as did the calls on the intercom.
Hushed whispered went between Glen and Maggie, the Secretary of freaking defence was sending him unamused looks from where he was crouched on the floor, along with Simmons and Banacheck, Flint was jittery, checking his watch every twenty seconds, with the pulse on his temple actually visible, apparently he was still waiting for the damn to fail and his imminent death to finally arrive.
Which was fair by him, Jamerson had gone on a hunch, not fact, yes they'd all seen his memory stick turn into a little demon from hell, the pictures and the news reports of that suburb in California being wrecked five ways to Sunday, but clearly not everyone was fully convinced as they all sat/crouched as close together as possible, even Fig had forced himself off his stretcher so they could push it down the corridor to avoid taking up unnecessary room and draw less attention to the door.
The real reason for his concern was the realisation that the only way out was through the door they had entered through, and with his ear pressed to the cold steel, he could hear something coming towards them.
Namely, something which scrapped against the concrete.
He'd already told everyone to shush, and felt his heart nearly stop when the steps finally reached in front of the door, and stopped.
Then, breaking the silence, a little chirp.
Now everyone was frozen still. Lennox was even aiming his gun at the door along with Epps.
The silence was palpable, the sudden tension so thick it was near suffocating.
Broken when something slipped between the thin gap of the doors, it was too dark to see what, but the telling clack of the lock breaking was enough to cease every heartbeat in that room.
What came next was the grind of the left door being pulled open from out of sight.
Jamerson gulped, waving to the others to stay down, lifting his ear away from the right door he pushed himself up, and peered out.
Almost immediately, he found himself eye to glass glowing orb.
Letting off a startled shout he backpedaled into the door, hissing at the sudden pain up his back at the impact.
Keeley. It was Keeley, he realised as she chittered, the bird, in its upright position, being level to his own height of 6'5.
Finally after a few moments of the mechanical bird obtaining a look of 'are you broken', possibly defying the laws of nature in the process but that had gone out the window a while ago for him, he found his tongue and tried to use it. "God damnit Keeley you nearly gave me a heart attack!" He exclaimed, gesturing to her in general. "I knew you lot had something to do with this!" He continued, his previously shocked features morphing into jubilation.
But when reality caught back up to him, he felt his gut drop.
Keeley was here… which meant that Ira was likely here… and where Ira was it was a safe bet to say so were Arien and Kia.
"Good God."
His head nearly snapped clear off his neck with how fast his head turned, finding none other than Mr John Keller standing next to him looking at Keeley with a mix of horror and intrigue.
Gulping he gestured to Keeley, not daring to risk his fingers getting too close. "Sir… this is Keeley."
Mr Keller blinked a few times before he spoke. "Is this the leader?"
He almost laughed, it might of been the adrenalin, or the stress, or whatever, but the fact he nearly punched himself in the mouth to stop himself from laughing at the Secretary of Defence suggested he might just be ready to book himself a nice place in a padded cell.
A few of the others had also worked up the courage to poke their heads out, including Maggie and Lennox who were staring at Keeley in jaw dropped silence.
Keeley just clicked her beak, that lethally sharp set of metal blades not a foot from his head.
God she could kill all of them and they'd not be able to do shit.
She was looking at the Secretary, head tilted to the side and metal feathers ruffled up a bit, making her look somewhat… cute… Out of all of them, he'd spent the most time with Hera, what with Arien looking after him and keeping the others away from him, so he wasn't really sure what Keeley's whole deal was.
At least it wasn't Kia who'd found them, she didn't hide the fact she wanted him dead.
Which made the fact that she was likely here all the more worrying…
Maybe Arien would keep him safe again for old times sake?
Probably not.
He felt a tug on his shirt sleeve, turning he found Simmons had now joined him at the door, and was trying to pull him back away from Keeley with fear in his eyes.
Fear was in all of their eyes.
And Keeley could see it. She was smirking, he knew she was.
Like she knew a horribly dirty secret that was going to get them all killed.
Then, she was stepping towards them, form lowering to balance out with her tail feathers spread wide in their wedge shape.
He backed up into the room, causing the others to do the same.
Keeley somehow managed to scowl at him snapping her beak before promptly pushing him out of the way like he was a dead bundle of tumbleweed by sheer fact that she was bigger than him and wanted him out of the way.
"Hey!" He exclaimed, but she completely ignored him, eyes locked on… Maggie?
The blonde analysts eyes were blown wide in fear as she tried to step back away from Keeley, who was clearly set on getting right up into the analysts personal space.
The men around her all tried to keep out of Keeley's way, pinning themselves to the wall as her ridiculously sharp talons scraped the concrete floor.
Maggie honestly had nowhere to go, and her back was to the back wall before he could really think of anything he could do.
Keeley was set on Maggie, and he knew there was nothing he could do really.
Keeley reared up again, feathers ruffling before she pushed the curve of her beak into Maggie's shoulder, causing the woman to completely lock up.
That was when he spotted it, the little spider crab thing that had been his memory stick clamber between the two and onto Maggie's shoulder.
She evidently felt the little thing, given her flinch when it's sharp legs dug into her skin like needles.
The micro bot swayed for a moment as Keeley pulled away and clicked at it.
It seemed to activate the micro bot or something, as, before Maggie could even throw the thing off her shoulder, it had climbed the side of her neck and was hovering over her ear.
He heard the sound of a guns safety click off from somewhere in the room and felt his stomach just give up and drop to the core of the planet.
Evidently Keeley heard it to.
The birds neck and head snapped around to stare at Simmons, the man being the one to draw his gun.
Before anything else could happen, Maggie screamed.
All attention snapped back to Maggie. There was blood, and a good bit of it.
Glen, who had been the closest to her, quickly became visibly sick from the gore.
Maggie was screaming for good reason.
That damn thing had just sliced half her ear off.
Keeley was just starring as the blonde tried to rip the thing off, but it's hold was absolute.
He watched in horror as the little pest transformed, half embedding itself into the flesh of her shredded ear.
The deed was done, her shoulder and half of her face covered in a splattering of her own blood as she stared out at them in horror, hand numbly touching the pest that had just merged with her.
He honestly felt like being sick himself, as did the others around him from the looks of it, Glen was the only one who'd actually lost his what? Breakfast? Lunch? Whatever the kid had last eaten, it had joined the remains of Maggies ear on the floor.
Then, Keeley clicked, and Maggie was staring at the bird instead.
"What?"
Keeley clicked again, swaying from side to side, sending her wedged tail feathers swaying themselves, brushing against the floor.
Maggie's eyes went from Keeley to him and the rest of the men in the room, at least half of them had drawn guns now, not just Simmons.
Keeley tilted her head to look back at him.
He'd never thought it would be possible, but that damn thing was smirking at him.
Whatever had just happened, she'd won, and she knew it.
Maggie… well, she was clearly more than a little shaken by what had just happened, one hand still cradling her ear, and in turn, the sentient machine that had just… whatever the fuck it just did he didn't want to know.
Then Keeley started really clicking, well, it was more than just clicking, it sounded more like she was talking, in bird.
God he needed his head examined.
But something else was happening, Maggie's eyes were widening, not in fear, but in awe.
"I… I can really understand you…" She stuttered out.
That got one hell of an excited trill out of Keeley, the giant bird was practically bouncing on her haunches, swaying from side to side still, and overall looking like someone happy drunk and having no idea where they were and not caring.
"By god... Did you know it could do that?" Mr Keller suddenly spoke up, looking at Simmons and Banacheck.
Banacheck didn't answer, Simmons just wildly gestured in Keeley and Maggie's general direction with a look of 'You expect us to know?!'.
When all of this was over, he was going to take that vacation he'd been putting off and get stone faced drunk and just try to forget all of this crazy shit.
Lennox and his crew looked equally as done with this as him. Lennox apparently wished to voice is own opinion on the matter.
"Sir, we fought with a giant metal scorpion in the desert and it's tail was still alive after we severed it. I think anything is possible right now."
Glen, who was still recovering from his spell, let off a pained chuckle, gesturing to Keeley. "You never answered us… this the leader?"
Keeley squawked at him.
Maggie took that que to translate. "No. She's Ira's companion. She's smallest of the group." The very statement had an almost chilling effect on all those around him, as they took that information in, staring at Keeley, who stood before them easily the size of a small pony.
Maggie looked to him, almost pleading with him when she spoke again. "Just how big… are they?"
He responded truthfully. "Given that Ira carried Keeley on her chest… I'd say really big… Arien's the biggest out of all of them… I'd say… twenty seven, twenty eight feet tall, and I've only seen them stooped over in a cave."
He swore Glen looked like he was about to clean pass out at that, and he wasn't the only one.
He heard Simmons whisper something to Banacheck.
"They haven't even seen NBE-1 yet."
Why wasn't that statement reassuring?
Cosmopolitan
They were out on the balcony again, it was a nice, quiet place, which it currently was not, given the fact that his charges sire had arrived not half an hour ago and was still accusing him of kidnapping his daughter amoung other similar accusations.
He'd already burnt through a whole note pad trying to explain is innocence whilst his charge made her own, valiant, but futile, attempts to calm her sire down.
They'd been having another talk, just watching the world roll by beneath them, when they'd spotted a sleek grey helicopter approaching the hotel, at first he'd fretted it was a Deception, but the almost scripted appearance of a timid hotel staff member, allowed him to calm down somewhat knowing that it was merely his charges sire being dropped off, and that the man would be lead down to them.
Apparently the reason it has taken him so long to be dropped off was because he'd demanded a fully signed legal contract stating he wasn't being abducted, and that wasn't something those sent to pick him up could just pull out of their collective asses.
Back to the present, her father was still going, a vein dangerously pulsing on the side of his head as he continued to shout and him.
His hand had fallen still, much like how his charge had stopped trying to plead their case, apparently the new somehow agreed strategy was to just let him burn himself out and watch out for any kind of signs of a medical emergency that this level of high stress could cause.
Finally he could give Ratchet a retort when the CMO had a go at him for 'wasting time' watching medical dramas.
Evidently them stopping led to his charges sire stopping as well.
There was a tenuous silence for a few moments and all of a sudden he had the sudden wish that one of the Harpies were here, Wren preferably, she seemed to be the most level headed of the lot… which was weird given who she seemed to be sharing a body with.
He figured that out of all of their hosts, it would be the black themed one who could handle this situation best.
Whilst he was still lost in his own thoughts, his charge began trying to explain what had happened to her sire.
Not four words in and she was struggling.
He couldn't fault her, even he would have trouble explaining this situation to someone, let alone a sire who'd been worrying themself sick.
Evidently however, her sire wasn't really paying attention given that he'd pulled her into quite the impressively tight hug.
He stepped back to lean against the balcony barrier, elbows resting behind him on the metal, notepad held in his left hand, pen in his right, attention towards the far dark horizon to try and give the two privacy as they fully embraced one another.
By some stroke of fate, it likely saved their lives.
For only in the night would his holoforms eyes have spotted the fire of a missiles propulsion system hurtling directly towards them.
Notepad and pen were forgotten as he rushed forwards, mouth open in a silent shout, he collided with both, knocking them off balance before dragging each to the doors back into the building.
Already the haunting shrill whistle was audible, and the two humans were recovering from the initial shock, running to keep up with his vice like hold.
They only made it a few metres before the side of the building was hit, and a deafening explosion rang out through the building.
WOO! Cliffhanger!
I know people hate it when writers do this sometimes but please, no hate.
In line with updating this chapter I've posted an image showing a more accurate rendition of what the Harpies look like over on Deviantart, username Moonlightdeer739.
It took so long to update because chapter 15 proved to be a massive pain in the arse to get right, and it's nearly 7,000 words long.
Hopefully, given I've already stated chapter 16 the next update will not take as long.
But I am now in my second year of University and Adulting takes up a lot of my time not studying.
Anyway, hope you all enjoyed! Until next time!
Moon
