Chapter 2 – NESTs and Gallows
Disclaimer: see previous chapter.
I would hold this story hostage but I'm not like that and I wanted to update :P
So here it is!
…
"Hey there," Sideswipe chuckled.
Maple turned to Nina; "How do you know about NEST?"
"You know I don't see my dad much anymore?"
"You said he was in the army," Maple nodded.
"Sort of," Nina grimaced, "My dad is part of NEST – or he would be if that asshole in pinstripes wasn't trying to get him shot by firing squad,"
"And you couldn't tell me because…?" Maple was hurt that one of the closest people to her had been keeping something this big.
"If I didn't they'd lock up my dad," Nina replied, "He wasn't supposed to tell us anything but I sort of hacked his computer when I was 9,"
"You're kidding?" Sideswipe asked, "but that's top secret NEST stuff! They've got the best anti-hacking system on the planet, I should know – Optimus sorted it out!"
"Yeah well Optimus clearly didn't bank on a nine-year-old who's mum used to work in quantum physics," Nina replied, "She used to leave me in the technology department because she thought it was safe – until the incident on my ninth birthday when I hacked into the site's mainframe and rewrote one of the most complicated bits of software – increased their efficiency by 25%" she shrugged, "but the local authorities thought it'd be a bad idea to let me anywhere near computers so they put me with this guy who stole cars for a living,"
"Carson Hathaway?" Sideswipe asked, "What happened to him?"
"Shot in the head by his wife because he cheated on her with the next-door neighbour," Nina replied, "she killed him as well,"
"Him?" Maple asked, "What do you mean?"
"Carson, for all his initiative and creative car-thieving genius," Nina grinned, "Was sleeping with Mr Jackson when the wife weren't looking," she added as an afterthought; "strange that she got off with another woman in prison,"
"Oh the irony," Maple and Sideswipe commented simultaneously as Sideswipe drove into the airport and onto a plane. As soon as they parked the seatbelts disengaged and Maple and Nina were hauled out of the car by men in uniform. Maple was dazed enough as it was without the added shock of being watched by several other vehicles (the largest of which was a truck painted in USA colours).
Nina, on the other hand, wasn't having any of it.
"Abduction!" she yelled, "Violation of the declaration of human rights! I want to see a lawyer! GET THE HELL OFF ME!" she swung one shoulder forward and sent two of the men flying over her shoulder as several others rushed forward to subdue her. Before they reached her they were interrupted by two voices.
"Stand off!" a man with major stripes ordered the soldiers.
"Nina!" another voice yelled, "Stop!"
"Dad!" Nina broke through the ranks of soldiers and flung her arms round her father, who hugged her back.
"It's been a while,"
"3 years," Nina replied, "Not even a video link!"
"I e-mailed you when I could, didn't I?"
"Hardly ever!" Nina snorted.
"You're lucky Galloway's not here," the major chuckled, "Your dad's meant to have no contact with his family,"
Nina said something very unladylike.
"Nina!" her father scolded, "Manners! This is Major Lennox, Major, my daughter and –" he looked over at Maple, "This must be your accomplice; Maple, isn't it?"
"She's my friend, dad," Nina replied, "and she can pick any lock and start any engine whether she has the keys or not. She's a genius."
"She'd have to be if you're friends with her, hackmeister," Captain Izzard chuckled, "Nice to meet you at last, Maple Hood,"
"You too, sir" Maple replied as Nina turned to Major Lennox.
"Care to explain why we've been abducted?" she and Maple asked simultaneously.
"Not abducted," Lennox replied, "Rescued from the authorities,"
"Ah, the old anarchy excuse," Nina grinned, "I remember it well."
"We contacted your parents and got their permission –"
"And used Chevy here as bait?" Maple finished, "Why?"
"Because we needed something flashy that you two would find irresistible," Lennox replied.
"You people," Nina rolled her eyes, "you always think you're smarter than everyone else."
"That's because they have us,"
By the time Nina and Maple had registered that the lorry had been talking, it had started to transform.
"Shit!" Nina yelled as a red-and-blue autobot appeared sat where the lorry had once been.
"Nina," her father warned.
"Sorry dad,"
"This," Lennox began, "Is –"
"Optimus Prime," Nina cut in, "last of the Primes if you don't count the fallen."
"Even if you do count the fallen," Sideswipe replied, "Prime defeated him about a year ago,"
"Really? Cool," Nina grinned, "but Megadouche is still at large?"
"I'm guessing he's the evil one?" Maple asked.
"Uh… one of them, yes," Nina replied, "and probably the most annoying of them."
"Sounds fun," Maple grinned, "When do we start?"
"As soon as we land." Lennox replied.
For the next two hours Maple and Nina contented themselves with stealing a computer of the hood of a black four-wheel-drive and hacking into the NEST system before reading everyone's files (presumably to find something to blackmail Galloway with).
Nina was just putting the laptop away when the plane juddered and she overbalanced with an indignant "Eep!"
"Have we finally taken off?" Maple asked.
"Nope," Lennox replied, "We've just landed."
"No way," Nina scrambled to her feet as the back of the plane opened and the troupes marched out "How the hell did you do that? Teleport?"
"No," Lennox answered, "Fast plane and a good pilot,"
Everyone exited the plane and Captain Izzard took the two girls straight to the autobot hanger.
"So dad," Nina asked casually, "What's Galloway's next ingenious plan to get you killed?"
"Probably you, Nina" her father replied, "I wouldn't be surprised,"
"You're acting under orders though," Maple commented, "He can't get you shot for that, can he?"
"He shouldn't be able to," Nina replied, "But this order sort of countermands Galloway's one – the one that says he isn't allowed any familial contact – and Galloway's been looking to get Lennox fired as well,"
"Why?" Maple asked; the car, which had been introduced to them as Ironhide, chuckled.
"Because Lennox told him how to use a parachute when on a mission," Ironhide began, "They'd set of the alarm that usually means you have to do a parachute jump and when Major Lennox told Galloway that after jumping he needed to pull the chute –"
"Galloway, in his infinite wisdom," Nina's dad chuckled, "pulled the chute while on the plane and was subsequently sucked out by it."
"Fail!" Maple and Nina giggled, "Epic fail!"
"And apparently it's all the Major's fault," Ironhide continued, also chuckling as he pulled into the hanger with the other autobots.
The three passengers disembarked and headed for the kit room.
"What do you think you're doing?" a voice asked behind them; they turned to find a man in a pinstriped suit glaring at them disapprovingly.
"None of your business," Maple replied, "And you're out of uniform, you could be court martialled for that."
"Thrown in the glass house," Nina added, "cold showers, little food and damp towels."
"What's the glass house?" Maple asked with interest.
"Army prison," Nina replied, "Uncle tam's told me some really nasty horror stories about it,"
"He would know," Maple grinned.
"Of course he would," Nina replied, "He's my uncle,"
"Major Lennox asked me to take the new recruits to get kitted up," Nina's father explained to the pinstriped man.
"Countermanding my orders?" the man asked.
"Yeah," Nina replied, "because he's a major and you're just a civvy with really bad fashion sense"
Maple snorted.
"What's your name, rank and number?" pinstripes asked
"One; none of your business. Two; weren't you listening to Captain Izzard just now? Three: how the hell should I know? I only just got here," came Nina's impertinent reply.
"Fail," Maple added, high-fiving her friend.
"I could have you arrested for impertinence," pinstripes snarled.
"No you couldn't," Nina replied, immediately deciding to do an impression of the airmen from the Armstrong and Miller show, "Because you is rubbish and your mum goes chippy in her slippers,"
"Nina," Captain Izzard warned, "Mind your manners; this is Mr Galloway of the CIA"
"CIA?" Maple asked, "He's a mister and he works for the CIA but he's trying to exert authority over NEST?"
"Now that's a fail if I've ever seen one," Nina added.
"Seriously," Maple went on, "You work for a different organisation, you have no rank whatsoever and you think you can just lord it over all of us?"
"Pulling rank over people when you have no rank to speak of?" Nina asked, "Epic. Fail."
"I was given clearance by the President of the US," Galloway replied.
"Clearance to be here," Nina replied, "Not to lord it over everyone. Did I mention that we read your file? We know all about the melon incident."
Galloway paled and walked quickly away.
"The melon incident?" Maple asked, "What's that?"
"No idea," Nina replied; "I just made it up."
Captain Izzard laughed and led the pair to the kit room.
…
After the pair had been kitted up and treated to a grand tour of the base (lead by none other than Optimus Prime) they were taken back to the hanger to be briefed by Lennox.
"Here's the situation," Lennox began, "Megatron has been trying to get into our computer system for several weeks,"
"You want us to eradicate him like a virus?" Nina asked, "No problem."
"Not quite," Lennox replied, "Starscream's been at it as well – what's so funny?" he asked as Nina and Maple started giggling.
"You don't want to know," Maple grinned, "as in, you really don't want to know,"
"No, I really do,"
"You wish you hadn't asked," Nina warned.
"Just tell me why you're laughing," Lennox replied.
So Maple launched into a very detailed explanation of a conversation she and Nina had had on the plane about Megatron and Starscream being porn stars on cybertron.
"Told you you didn't want to know," Nina grinned at the horrified-looking major.
"I'm telling your father," Lennox replied.
"Dammit!" Nina sulked, "You evil, evil person!"
"Your own fault,"
"I warned you but did you listen? Hell did you!" Nina responded, "your fault."
The mock-argument continued for a couple more minutes before Lennox returned to briefing the two recruits.
"We need to find out what they're after," Lennox explained, "and we need to stop them getting it."
Nina snorted again.
"What?" Maple asked.
"Considering our previous conversation," Nina answered, "Major Lennox keeps making a lot of innuendo comments,"
Maple thought about it for a moment and then burst out laughing.
Major Lennox rolled his eyes and waited for them to finish before continuing his briefing. After several interruptions Nina and Maple were finally told that their mission was to try and get to new transformers before the decepticons did.
"Stealing cars?" Nina grinned, "our speciality,"
"Seriously, you two," Lennox warned, "Decepticons are dangerous, you'll need to be pretty quick if you want to identify them and get out safely"
"Well Maple's good at reading people," Nina grinned, "And I'm a pretty fast driver,"
"With the rozzers in our area," Maple grinned, "you have to be,"
"Rozzers?" Lennox asked.
"Cops," Nina explained, used to explaining Maple's usual jargon; "Maple moved to London from Sheffield."
This bit of information meant nothing to Lennox, but he decided not to comment.
"Major!" Captain Izzard looked up from his laptop in the corner, "We've got company; two new transformers a few miles from here,"
You couldn't see Nina and Maple for dust.
…
"Come on Sideswipe," Nina grinned, hopping into the driver's seat as Maple clambered into the passenger's side, "Lets see what you can do,"
"I'm driving," Sideswipe said.
"No, Sides," Maple grinned, "Nina's driving because not even you can pull off her mental stunts."
"Wanna bet?" Sides challenged.
Nina floored the acceleration pedal and shot out of the hanger as sides strapped both of them in. A few minutes later the car jumped.
"What was that?" Maple asked.
"Speed bump?" Nina suggested.
"There aren't any in the base," Sideswipe commented.
Nina looked in the mirror, "Sweet!" she whooped, "we ran over Galloway!"
Maple and Sideswipe laughed and the new team sped out of the gate.
"You need to head east," Sideswipe commented, "That's where the newbies are."
"Roger that," Nina replied, twisting the steering wheel sharply and heading east.
"How the hell does she do that?" Sideswipe asked.
"Nina's basically a living compass," Maple replied, "she always knows where north is,"
"Which means I know where the other compass points are," Nina added, "logically."
"Southeast for three miles," Sideswipe relayed the new data to Nina, who jerked the wheel sharply in response.
A few minutes later they pulled up in front of a crater.
"Jay-zus" Nina muttered, "do you always do that when you land on earth?"
"We come from outer space," Sideswipe replied, "of course we do"
"Fine," Nina looked at the crater, "Douche-bags or our people?"
They clambered out and peeked over the edge of the crater to find a pair of robots fighting each other.
"One of each?" Maple suggested, shrugging.
"Only one way to find out," Nina's eyes glinted with mischief as she picked up a good-sized rock and threw it at the red one.
"Hey!" Nina yelled, "Metal mouth!"
The two robots turned to glare at her.
"Hey there," Maple commented, "Who are you guys?"
"I am Sunstreaker," the gold robot replied, "And this is Mirage,"
"Mirage welcomes the human females," Mirage (the red robot) said.
"You speak in third person?" Nina asked.
"Yes he does," Sunstreaker replied, "I was trying to get him to talk properly,"
"Well clubbing him round the head isn't going to help," Nina grinned, "Autobots or Decepticons?"
"Autobots," Sunstreaker replied instantly.
"Mirage is an autobot," Mirage concurred.
"Sunny!"
A flying silver robot tackled Sunstreaker – Nina noted absently that the car was missing – and a friendly tussle ensued.
"Hey Sides!" Maple yelled, "Get a room!"
"Ew!" Nina shuddered, "Incest much?"
"They're brothers?" Maple asked.
"You should've remembered that," Nina laughed, "You read Sideswipe's file,"
The two brothers stopped mock fighting and the three autobots clambered out of the pit before taking their car forms.
"You're a race car?" Nina blinked at Mirage, "Sweet!"
"Race you back to base then," Sides grinned as Maple got into the driver's seat.
"If anything happens to Maple," Nina warned Sideswipe, "I will hold you personally responsible. Twice."
"Roger that," Sideswipe mimicked Nina before speeding off with a gold Lamborghini in tow.
"Come on then, Mirage," Nina grinned, hopping in and putting on the seatbelt, "Lets see how fast you can run"
She floored the pedal and sped after Sideswipe and Sunstreaker.
…
Tada!!!!! And yes, Mirage does exist and he is an autobot. I checked on wikipedia and everything *grins*.
Anyway, now Maple has to do two chapters of Infinite White within the next 2 weeks, which makes me happy
On a slightly more irritable note; 3 people have alerted this story without reviewing. 3. I understand that alerting the story means you like it but does it really hurt that much to review? I get e-mails saying who has alerted/favourited the story, so don't think I won't find out. And I did say that of you like it then you should review or I'll – what did I say I'd do again?
Optimus Prime: send Megatron after them.
Voldy's Worst Nightmare: Yes, thank you Optimus. So please, please, please review, because you wouldn't like it if someone alerted your story without giving feedback would you?
Anyway. Rant over; sorry for ranting and being annoying, have a nice time reviewing! First reviewer for this chapter gets cookies and an autobot! But not Optimus, Sideswipe or Jolt because they're spoken for by Me, Maple and Paula respectively.