Instability

by Steelfeathers

Post-ROTF. On board the air craft carrier headed back to Diego Garcia, Sam has a slight mental breakdown.

11. Love, and all that implies

Sleep was a funny and rather tempermental thing.

Sam could fall asleep at the drop of a hat in front of the TV or nose down on the desk in history class, but whenever his fatigued mind needed sleep the most always seemed to be the exact time he could not force it to shut down. Have a final exam the next morning? No problem! Just wiggle under the covers, bury your head in the pillow and prepare to spend the next six to eight miserable hours making friends with the cracks in the ceiling. Funny how he seemed to wander around criminally stupid whenever he most needed to be quick on the uptake, then just when it would be appropriate to slip into a vegetative state, he found himself doing everything from constructing elaborate arias to following the tragic lives of those cracks in the ceiling. Well, maybe not the aria part.

On that particular night (and he only knew it was night from looking at his watch), he uncovered a previously hidden talent within himself for creating horror stories. Unfortunately, they all seemed to follow a similar theme; Bee encountering the Mirage, Bee losing to the Mirage, the Mirage feasting on Bee's titanium bones. Thown into the mix was a gut-twisting, spine-tingling array of Mikaela dying in a plane crash, Mikaela dying in a car wreck, Mikaela being gunned down by a mugger, Mikaela being gunned down by a Decepticon, Mikaela turning away from him and telling him flatly that she never loved him, that it was all a joke, even as the plane/car/mugger/Decepticon rendered her a splatter of blood and brain matter. Oh, and little bits of Optimus quietly saying that he was an ugly, disgusting, worthless little smear of organic matter and that he should never have been kind to him or told him about Bee's past, because it was obvious the human could never be trusted.

Needless to say, when he finally crawled into bed at 10:30, he could not get to sleep.

Dave had come by earlier, discovering him still hard at work at his surprisingly vast collection of Decepticon-bashing doodles. Sam hadn't been able to tell whether the look on the agent's face meant he was amused or disturbed. As it turned out, Sam had whiled away the entire dinner hour fruitlessly combing his brain for plans to piece what was left of his life back together and drag his sorry carcass from the hole he had dug. (Though he only had a scrapbook full of exploding stick-robots to show for it). So Dave had brought him a small tray of food, mysteriously filled with all his favorites (likely courtesy of a pre-pissed Bumblebee): pizza, macaroni and cheese, green beans, an apple and something that looked very much like a brownie. He had hailed the man as an angel, taken a bite of pizza to apease him, then promptly spat it back out again once the door closed behind him. The tray still sat there, untouched, on his desk. He left it to congeal, not the least bit hungry, and wondered if he would awake in the morning to discover a new species of sentient bacteria had spawned overnight.

Though Sam was convinced, given the endless litany of images running before his mind's eye, that he would never sleep, at some time around mindnight he finally drifted off. His dreams were not what he would have expected. Instead of seeing anyone maimed or being yelled at by anyone, he observed Bumblebee doing a host of the very normal-- yet at the same time very strange-- things. Each snippet of Bumblebee-favored dream featured the yellow scout in his camaro disguise, just driving. Never with a passenger, never involving Sam himself or Mikaela or anyone else. Sometimes he watched as if he were a bird overhead; sometimes he seemed to be standing right beside the Camaro, mysteriously drifting sideways along with it as it sped down the highway. But the scenary of the dreams was unfamiliar-- vast stretches of muddy roads winding through tropical jungles, gravel paths leading through semi-arid scrub along which passed donkeys and scores of men and women with coal black skin, a city built from layers of sagging slums filthy enough to put those in Egypt to shame.

But then his dreams mutated once more back into the familiar stream of Bee/Optimus/Mikaela horror, and the strange images of Bumblebee faded to the back of his mind.

At some point the nightmares became too hideous to allow him to remain asleep. He sat straight up with a gasp, forehead beaded with a sticky film of perspiration, hands fisted in the sheets. As usual, the source of his fear did not accompany him into the waking world-- after registering where he was (some barren room deep in the bowels of NEST) and that there was no reason for his sudden panic, he flopped back against the bed and looked at his watch. 2:13.

He swore up and down in the most creative way he could think of. Naturally, after spending an eternity trying to get to sleep, he would wake up only two hours later. Way to use those time management skills, Sam. Knowing he would rather deal with feeling shaky and sleep deprived then waste another few hours trying to imagine that the cracks in the ceiling looked like rainbows and unicorns rather than metal monsters that would kill them all, he threw back the covers and swung his legs over the side of the bed. And sat there, massaging the side of his face.

Horror, despite being undefined horror, still trembled through him. The two people he cared most about in the world could have been in danger at that exact moment (--silly, childish, overreaction--) and he would never know. If only he could just CALL and see if they were okay--

Sam almost slapped himself for his stupidity. He could call them-- he had both their phone numbers stored in his blackberry. Unless, of course, someone had taken away Mikaela's phone for security purposes, or Bee changed his call sign so that Sam couldn't contact him....

Sam shut down the thought before it could turn into another runaway guilt train, switching on the light and levering himself off the bed. A quick search through the heap of clothes left in a puddle on the floor turned up the marvelous little device, and he quickly switched it on, vibrating like a tunning fork in mingled excitement and anxiety as it powered up. As soon as the American flag filled the background (--so much lost, nothing gained-- no more home--) he punched in Mikaela's number and brought the phone to his ear. Nothing. Not even a dial tone.

Furious with the way the universe seemed determined to thwart him, he looked back at the screen to make sure he had the number right. Only then did he notice the little blinking icon in the corner that meant he had no signal.

(Duh, Sam. Way to be a genius. You're only beneath, what, a hundred feet of solid bed rock?). If he wanted to call anyone at all, he would need to borrow one of the land-lines hooked up in the bustling command room. Either that, or make his way to the surface. Deciding he would much rather not have to face anyone, he pulled on his new hoody over the top of his baggy t-shirt and slipped the phone into one pocket, practically sprinting (well, okay, shuffling) for the door as he went.

Then, thinking better of wandering around an alien fortress without some way of protecting his feet from loose nails or other freaky alien stuff, he backtracked to the wardrobe and fished out the pair of tennis shoes. Not bothering with socks-- not even bothering to waste time sitting down-- he hopped around on one foot while pulling a shoe on the other.

Not a particuarly bright move, given his overall coordination. He wobbled, stumbling back, and began to fall-- he flailed out with his good arm, trying to grab the edge of the desk as he passed to stop himself, and ended up slicing open the outside of his forearm on the sharp corner. A white hot flash of pain erupted along his arm as the flesh was torn open, though it faded again in the wake of an abrupt introduction to the floor. (Ow.)

Groaning, he sat up and inspected the damage to his arm. The cut was fairly long-- about six inches-- though not very deep, bleeding only sluggishly. It stung like hell, though, so shaking slightly with adrenaline he ventured into the bathroom to clean it up. There was no disinfectant lying around, so he settled for scrubbing it clean with soap and water (OW! OW! OW!) and winding toilet paper around it in a make-shift bandage. Slightly icky, giggle inducing, but effective-- blood seeped through and spotted the paper in places with red, though for the most part the bleeding appeared to have stopped. He pulled the sleeve of his hoody over his injured arm, hiding the gorey bandage from view.

Possesed of much more caution and less fiery need than he had minutes before, he went back into the main room and put on the other shoe, sitting down this time before trying to slip it on. His injury did do one positive thing, though-- it settled the fear twanging like a guitar string in his chest, wiping away the last wisps of horror carried over from dreamland. He was exhausted, reluctantly hungry, and in pain from two injuries instead of just one (though the broken arm definitely won out on the agony scale, alien miracle drug or no). For a moment he contemplated simply getting back into bed and trying to sleep for a few more hours. He needed to have all his wits about him if he intended to approach Lennox the next day without a plan, and the same eyes that had refused to cry before now itched and stung with tiredness.

But....

But he couldn't just let things lie in their current state. If his estimation were correct, Mikaela would be boarding a plane back to the US in a little under 20 hours, giving him only 20 hours to try to figure out a plan, maybe less. Then there was the issue of Bumblebee. Bumblebee, who may or may not have been fighting for his very life at that exact moment (--invisble hands clawing, grasping, tearing-- Bumblebee, no!--), and who, seemingly, hated his guts.

Heart twisting at the very thought of Bumblebee dying before he had the chance to apologize, he pushed himself to his feet, swayed dizzily for a moment, then headed for the door at a more sedate pace. No mishaps befell him this time. He flicked off the lights and exited the room without incuring another injury.

It was disturbing to meander down brightly lit hallways with his body clock telling him that it should be dark during the wee hours of the morning. He wondered at that for a moment, then realized that the lights were probably dimmed in the military barracks for those who stayed on base over night. He was probably the only overnight resident in this part of the base, and therefore whoever controlled the lights saw no reason to inconvenience those working the late shift to make the hallway lighting reflect the sun so many feet above.

While his original plan had been to backtrack to the elevator, start it up, and call Mikaela and Bee from the surface, the daytime lighting and the presence of a continual stream of worker bees (who looked at him strangely for wearing pajamas) did the trick of waking him up and brought him back to his senses. Not only was the command center likely to be filled even in the middle of the night, he didn't know the password to start the elevator. Neither did he particularly relish the thought of being shot for setting off the proximity alarms they surely had at ground level. No bullets for Sam today, thank you. If there was another way to get to the surface, he could waste days trying to find it and might still be thwarted for the same reasons. His only choice was to abandon the cellphone plan and seek out a land line in some back room where witnesses would be scarce.

In the interests of finding an unused conference room somewhere, he began to detour down the loneliest, oldest hallways he could find. There was a visible difference in the contruction material of the walls that allowed him to track approximately when they had been built. The smooth, white paneling seemed to be characteristic of the newest areas, bare metal plating belonging to a construction period before that. Those few tunnels shaped from raw concrete appeared to be the oldest of the bunch. Whenever possible he turned down concrete corridors, until he found himself wandering along a hallway old enough that the wires for the overhead lighting had not been hidden away and orange moisture stains created swirling patterns on the walls.

When he felt that he was far enough from civilization (far enough to be partially lost, in fact) not to be bothered by a random passerby, he began opening doors. As the hallway itself was large enough for a transformer to fit through, some of the doors were similar to roll away metal garage doors and far too heavy to lift. The rest were human sized, though most of those were locked tight. The ones that weren't led to other hallways, and he had no desire to become even more lost than he already was.

Turning onto another empty hallway, a faint trickle of sound caught his attention like a hook snaring a fish. He turned his head this way and that, trying to determine its source past the myriad of warped echoes, and was drawn to the corridor branching off to the left. He turned the corner and started down the decrepit hallway, listening intently to the otherworldly sound. The hairs on the back of his neck stood on end as it began to grow louder; it reverberated from the sloping concrete walls, dripped like water from the sagging bundles of wires running overhead, turned the buzzing orange light eery and foreboding-- like the wane, flickering lights of a deserted subway station just before the unnamed horror emerged from the dark. If he had to compare the sound to anything, he would have said it resembled a cross between a generator shorting out and two rusty metal plates grinding against each other. Whatever it was, it wasn't a sound he would hope to hear on an in-flight airplane. Or riding in a car. Or anywhere, period.

The corridor he had chosen dead ended onto another transformer-sized door. Except that this door, unlike the others, stood open. Here the sounds reached their peak-- still no louder than a washing machine, they nonetheless grated painfully on his ears. As impossible as it seemed, the jaw-grinding sound held a note of almost infinite sadness, intangible yet all the more real for its ghostly, ethereal quality. It was the essence of anguish as expressed through sound, an agonized symphony composed by the wounded and bleeding heart, as beautiful as it was terrible.

With the sense the he had stepped out of time and place into a world where he did not belong, Sam crept slowly towards the open door, peering around the edge into the dusty gloom within. Several blinks were required for his eyes to adjust to the sudden drop in light. But when he could finally make out what awaited in the gray pall, he wished he had never succumbed to his curiosity.

It was a graveyard.

In humans, the very name brought to mind images of grassy fields spotted with headstones, gnarled oak trees holding back the dreary patter of rain and shading black processions of mourners with their leafy bows, midnight scares with flashlights and pillowcase ghosts. Sometimes creepy, sometimes sorrowful, and even sometimes peaceful, but only growing things and carved stone, nothing more.

This graveyard made its home not in a small field, but in a cave of concrete. There were no headstones, no trees, no statues of angels. The four bodies stored within remained uninterred-- four empty metal corpses laid out in a row. No caskets, no head stones, only twisted armor still bearing the death wounds, only unlighted optics which stared like glassy eyes, unblinking. Sam leaned against the door frame, suddenly very grateful he had not eaten anything as he recognized those within. Jazz. Jetfire. An Autobot he could not name and had never seen, most likely a new arrival who had come to Earth only to find his death. They had not been spread across the room to fill the space, but had rather been laid out in carefully measured garden plots. Made sense, of course, to have space set aside and ready to fill with the dead that would undoubtably come.

Mudflap.

Skids.

Rachet.

Ironhide.

Optimus.

Bumb--

(No. Don't think about that. He's coming back-- he has to. I haven't gotten the chance to say I'm sorry. He can't leave before I get to say goodbye...).

But as Sam slowly pulled himself away from the horror of seeing those who had only so recently been alive, he came to realize that he was not the only living being occupying the room. In the opposite corner from the other three deactivated Autobots lay the Arcee. And leaning over her, arms braced on either side of her body, knelt Jolt. Optics darkened until their glow could hardly be precieved in the dark, he fidgeted restlessly, moving as though he could not find a comfortable position, one hand coming up to touch her then retreating away again. Slowly, piercingly, it dawned on Sam that his movements were not from boredom or anxiety, but from pain-- the electric blue robot swayed and shuddered, rocking back and forth, caught in the iron grip of an internal agony that screamed for release when there was none to be found. And he realized that the grating, sorrowful sound he had heard came not from malfunctioning equipment, but from Jolt.

As if suddenly coming to a decision, the bouncy, happy, electric-blue robot braced himself more securely over Arcee, moving one hand to rest lightly on the armor over her chest. Crackling energy raced along his body, and with the buzzing thunderclap of a circuit connecting a forked bolt of bluish lightning leapt from his hand into her body. It snapped and seared along the outside of her armor, throwing out tiny arcs of electricity, then finally disappated. Nothing happened.

A metallic whine briefly cut through the grating sound of anguish-- a harsh, jarring note like a scream of frustration. Leaning away slightly, Jolt placed both his hands over her spark chamber, blue armor beginning to spark and hiss with captured lightning once more. Another resounding crack, and the stored electricity raced down his arms into the unresponsive metal. This time the scrap beneath his hands jerked slightly, then lay still. Nothing. No movement, no life. Dead, dead, dead.

"We feel sorrow, but we cannot cry," A voice whispered quietly from behind him. Jerking around as though he himself had been electrocuted, Sam looked up to find Sideswipe kneeling behind him, silver armor gleaming harshly in the orange light, watching the scene unfold in the Autobot graveyard.

"What...." Sam gasped out, not quite remembering how to speak, and motioned helplessly to Jolt. Equiped with sensors powerful enough to track an ant from three miles away, Jolt should have long since noticed their presence. The god-like being should not have continued to kneel there unaware of his surroundings, caught up in a vice of grief so human that the sight of it frightened Sam far more than any Decepticon had the power to do. Neither realizing nor caring that he had an audience, the blue Autobot once more charged himself with a lightning storm worth of energy, and again he unleashed it into the corpse beneath his hands. The anguished scream that followed when once again life did not return to Arcee forced Sam to clap his hands over his ears.

"We were a quad," Sideswipe explained, manner subdued. (--how strange to see something so powerful, so alien in its construction crouching in a concrete hallway and speaking in a human voice--). "After the destruction of Vector Sigma, we fled Cybertron together and began roaming the galaxy, looking for allies and a place to settle in peace. But we could remain nowhere for long, as most planets proved inhospitable."

"U-unfriendly natives?" Sam heard himself ask. He could not tear his eyes from Jolt-- though he felt sickeningly like a voyeur, he was drawn to the scene the way passing motorists were drawn to look at the carnage of a devastating highway wreck.

"No." The sound of purified sorrow grew in volume, winding around them, digging deep into Sam's bones with an exquisite pain. Another powerful jolt of energy-- another shock with the defibrillator to a heart long still, another inhuman sob of immortal despair. "Most planets in the universe produce no life. We were....lonely beyond words. I had my bonded brother, and Jolt....Jolt almost had Arcee."

As though finally reaching some indefinable point of desperation, Jolt abandoned using his hands alone and pulled the unresisting metal corpse into his arms, clutching it desperately to him in a way Sam had never seen from the alien visitors. Being robotic in nature, they did not usually engage in physical contact. Unless they were fighting, or unless there was no other way-- no words to speak, no radio to use, no sub-space message that could be relayed-- they refrained from touching. But now, when no other contact was possible, physical touch became a refuge, a panicked line cast out into the black eternity, hoping the one they sought would grasp the other end. Once more Jolt filled himself with the energy of a powerplant, of a lightning storm, and this time when the current was unleashed it twined around them both, crackling over deepy scarred pink without effect, glancing off and dissipating into the stale air.

Jolt's anguished song became a trembling howl, so full of sorrow that Sam felt a tear escape silently down his own cheek. It was the agony not only of a single loss, but a lifetime of loss, an eternity of loss. Sam had no idea whether Cybertronians died from old age, but even thirty million years might as well have been an infinite number of years. Another crystal drop of moisture followed the first, running down his chin and darkening a circle on the concrete floor. Humans, at least, only had to wait forty or fifty years before joining those who had gone before them to the other side. An immortal, he suddenly realized with a stab of sympathy, had no such promise to hold on to. For them, death truly was the end. He shivered violently, shuddering away from the thought of what it would be like to shake hands with the grim reaper every day as the Autobots did, always knowing that beyond the smiling skull lay nothing but a void of darkness, a night with no dawn.

Sam somehow knew, without needing to be told, that this was the not the first time Jolt had tried to bring Arcee back to life.

His mouth had gone dry. He swallowed a few times, running his tongue over his teeth, and finally gather the courage to ask, "'Almost had Arcee'? W-what does that mean?"

Displaying a gentleness contrary to what Sam had seen the day before, Sideswipe lifted him into his hands and pulled back from the open doorway, turning away from the metal and concrete graveyard. Though he could no longer see Jolt, the robotic cries continued unabated, painting a picture as vivid as reality behind his eyelids. Sam wondered how long it would be before the image faded entirely. Something told him it would be a very, very long time, if ever.

"They initiated a spark bond about fifty of your years ago," Sideswipe answered quietly, voice only a murmur, "But Jolt was reluctant to complete it at first. By the time he finally came to his senses, everyone was needed to fight back against the Fallen, giving them no opprotunity to cement the bond....and when the enemy finally fell, it was too late."

Jolt's mournful song faded from hearing as they passed from concrete to metal to white paneling, though the sound of it continued to echo within his mind as though it had never ceased. Sideswipe's tale raised a torrent of memories in his mind, showing him violent flashes of the battle in Egypt-- at the mention of Arcee, the mental recording halted over the split-second flash of a cannon blast blowing open the side of her head just as she approached the two humans. That was it. No dramatic speeches, no heroic theme music as the valiant warrior goes out in a blaze of glory. One second she had been there, alive and real, and the next-- BOOM. She was dead. (--how can something so terrible happen so quickly?--)

For once content to hang unresisting in the metal grip, Sam felt a prickle of curiosity returning. "What's a spark bond?"

The angular head whipped towards him, posture radiating astonishment.

"Have you truly spent nearly two years in our presence and never once heard of a spark bond?" Sideswipe asked at last.

Sam crossed his arms over his chest, feeling slightly annoyed. "Most of the time I was only around Bumblebee. And things like freaky alien bonds weren't usually topics that came up a lot."

"Of course. Bumblebee," Sideswipe murmured, almost to himself. Though the silver robot possesed no eyes to speak of, the chrome visor remained tilted in his direction, and Sam couldn't supress the creepy-crawly feeling that he was being watched intently. "I don't know whether to applaud him or gun him down myself. No wonder you have no idea."

Sensing a mysterious undercurrent of exasperation to the words, Sam held his silence, waiting for Sideswipe to finish his explanation. He didn't know what Bee could have had to do with Jolt's bond to Arcee, but he chalked up the silver Autobot's annoyance with the scout to another one of those weird alien things he would probably never get.

At last Sideswipe continued, "The easiest way I can describe a spark bond is to compare it to some of your tribal rituals involving the exchange of blood between newly weds."

"...You mean they swap lubricant or something?"

"Hardly. I should have mentioned that it's a very inadequate comparison, especially since the process of spark bonding involves the equivalent of swapping all blood rather than a small sample. And no physical liquids are used in creating a spark bond.

"What, then?"

In almost no time it all they had returned to the recently contructed portions of the base. Although the hallway they occupied was remote enough that no one else lingered in sight, the overhead lights held a day-glow brilliance rather than an orange tint, and neither bundles of wires nor water stained concrete could be seen under the flouride-white paneling. Coming to a stop, Sideswipe set him lightly back on his feet, retreating back a step and lowering himself into a crouch as Sam turned to face the silver Autobot.

"Energy," he replied, "A spark bond is achieved by synchronizing the radiation signatures of both sparks. With both 'vibrating' at the same frequency, they are able to slip easily into contact with one another, almost to the point of merging. Though most of the time they remain separate, an unbreakable link is created between them, a bridge of sorts woven from the essence of both sparks."

"Okay. I think I mostly understand that. But how are the sparks synchronized?"

"Through an exchange of energy, as I have said. Both partners in the bond give their spark energy to the other, and that energy is what forces every metaloid cell to alter its structure to resonate with the other spark. Attempting the bond can frequently be very dangerous-- normally, draining the spark of energy results in death."

Sam felt himself going as pale as the walls. "Then why aren't those who do it dead, then?"

"Because each partner giving energy recieves energy as well. Normally, our bodies will reject the energy from another spark, but by purposefully draining their own spark, each partner forces it to accept the energy from another, thus creating the bond. Back on Cybertron, some speculated that the practice came about accidentally through an attempt by two dying friends to each save the other, resulting in the spark synchronization."

Sam shuddered again, trying to rid himself of the last vestiges of horrified sorrow that lingered from the encounter with Jolt in the graveyard. He only partially succeeded; the haunting cry of despair continued to echo within his memory, but concentrating on the logical-- though slightly disturbing-- discussion of soul bonding helped take some of the chill from his bones.

"So Jolt only had a partial bond?"

"Yes. The first threads of the bond can be established without an exchange of energy, since infusing another with surface radiation is not draining enough to require an influx to replace it. Jolt was afraid to risk Arcee by having her drain her own spark, so he gave a tiny portion of his energy to her to establish the first tenative link between them. His desire to protect her robbed him of the chance to know the completion of a full bond."

"Is it like marriage?"

An electronic snort. "I told you that the comparison to the human bonding ritual was inadequate. We have no genders, which means we do not mate as you do. The absence of mating renders monogamy obsolete. I have seen many cases of circular bonding, and even one instance where fourteen individuals had decided to bond. Most of the time, however, the partners in a spark bond do not branch out beyond the inclusion of a third member, and in some cases the bond between two individuals is so deep they see no need to bond with anyone else, even after their partner's death."

The horror returned like the tidal rush of the ocean as the implications of that sunk in. Jolt and Arcee hadn't just been close to getting married-- they'd been on the brink of joining their very souls. Sam couldn't fathom the pain of losing Mikaela for even a few decades, much less for millions of years. The thought of not only losing a girlfriend for an eternity, but losing a soulmate for an eternity.....he felt as though he had been granted a glimpse down an impossibly dark well, a well which descened down, down, into the abyss, down past all thought and reason, down into the black eternity from which nothing returns. The strength Jolt must have possesed to continue living, much less to continue living with any degree of sanity and (--good God--) an upbeat attitude....all their inhuman physical strength couldn't hold a candle to the strength of their minds and mechanical hearts.

Trembling with a fresh surge of awe and sorrow, Sam stumbled across a question that had first occured to him when boarding the aircraft carrier, one that had soon slipped from his mind in light of other events. "Is that why Jolt wasn't on the aircraft carrier with us?" Sam tried to say, but only managed to whisper. "How did he get back?"

The silver visor tilted towards him, but he couldn't judge any emotion from the rigid face.

"When he felt Arcee's death through the bond, he was almost out of control. Luckily he was able to come back to himself rather than fall into insanity, and he demanded to be airlifted alongside her back to base. Prime should have come too," he suddenly growled, "But of course he was far too stubborn to see to his own wounds."

Sam's mind whirled, little red flags popping up right and left as Sideswipe straightened again in preparation to leave. Apparently, having a long discussion with a human was cramping his style.

"But that doesn't make sense," Sam protested, "I thought we all had to come back on the aircraft carrier because there weren't enough cargo planes to lift everyone out!"

Sideswipe blew out a short burst of static that was almost a snort. "As if. For all the things you have accomplished, you seem rather thick when it comes to the motivations of others." The silver alien cut him off before he could object, adding, "Everyone could have been easily airlifted from Egypt, but Prime vetoed the plan, deciding that it would be better to take the week long trip by boat instead."

Sam could only gape, still not following the train of thought. "Why?"

"Because of you, as smallish and mostly uninteresting as you are," despite the harsh bite of his words, Sideswipe crouched once more to bring them to the same level, "For some reason above and beyond honor that I've yet to figure out, he cares about you. Enough to delay his own healing to give you a week of relative normalcy with your creators and mate."

In the wake of the silver Autobot's revelation, the weighty parasite of guilt began to writhe and squrim again in his chest. Optimus had done nothing but try to help him, and he'd gone and given the compassionate robot the equilvalent of a bitch slap. There was no way he could ever show his face around him again, not without sensing a common ancestry with the pond-scum maggot. Maybe he could simply crawl into a dark hole and pull the hole in after him.

"What about you?" he asked, mostly to distract himself, "Why weren't you there in Egypt?"

Sam had anticipated hearing that Sideswipe had been incapacitated due to an injury, rendering him unable to join the other Autobots. So it came as a shock when the robot abruptly stood up, stance going rigid as he towered over the human.

"Think about what Jolt looked like moments ago," he growled, growled, in a manner so alien that Sam was forcefully reminded that he was speaking to a being from another planet rather than a human in funky silver armor. "Think about that sound you heard, and remember that he never possesed a full bond." Sideswipe turned from him, visor catching the light in a menacing glint. His voice fell, becoming a quiet rumble no less terrifying for its lack of volume. "Perhaps that will give you an idea of what it's like to lose a fully spark-bonded brother."

Without another word, the silver alien turned his back on Sam stalked away down the corridor, retreating back into the bowels of the subterranian base-- returning to the graveyard; returning to Jolt, the only surviving member of his quad.

It was far from cold inside NEST, but even after he had uprooted his feet from the floor and spent five minutes retracing his steps through the hallways, he still could not stop shivering.

NNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNN

Despite his earlier fears, it seemed that the techie traffic DID slack off towards 3am. Where before there had hardly been enough room between bodies to squeeze in a mug of coffee (though somehow they had still managed to do just that in abundance), now only about fifteen human workers monitored the various screens in the cathedral-sized command room. The few that looked up at his entrance stopped to stare, obviously not expecting to see a teenager in striped pajama pants and a brown hoody come wandering in like a displaced ghost. Those that smiled he boldly walked up to and announced that he wanted to go topside, to which he recieved even more strange looks and endless variations on the word 'no'.

When he asked around for an open landline, some kind soul at last took pity on him gave him directions to a room used for experiments that would most likely be unoccupied (and would most likely boast of an unused phone). Thanking the man, he shuffled off to find the indicated room.

Though the hallways in that particular portion of the base were also new, the number of people he encountered soon dropped to zero, leaving him free to sprint the rest of the way without fear of being observed. At last he came upon another titanium blast door at the end of the hallway and pressed his palm into the pad.

::Access Denied::

"What?"

He had yet to encounter a door with an identification pad that would not open at his touch, and the fact that this particular one now rejected his clearance came as a shock. Abruptly angry at the way inanimate objects seemed determined to stymie his efforts to talk to his girlfriend and best friend (--please, be safe--), he jammed his hand down onto the pad again, fully expecting to be rejected once more. So when the panel lit up green with a warble of affirmation he could only stare in shock, jumping back as the door slid open.

"Okay, that was weird," he announced to the hallway. But determined not to squander his good fortune, he hurried inside before the door could decide to be spiteful and close on him again.

The room he found himself in was large, though no where near as large as the command center. Although shealthed in metal and ringed with advanced machines and consoles that defied description, there were no platforms for humans to stand on, no giant screens mounted on the wall, nada. Even the center of the room was left conspiciously bare, save for a wooden table that looked very out of place in the sea of metal and two swivel chairs. And despite the techie's assurances, he was not alone in the room.

Off to one side, a cord from his wrist jacked into a piece of equipment, stood the green Autobot that had ealier given him a friendly salute. This time he did not look up, but merely warbled something in Cybertronian to the other occupant of the room. A tall man in a white cowboy hat stood with his back to Sam near the table, facing the green Autobot.

At the alien rumble, the man replied in english, "It's alright, Hound. In fact, it'll be good for us to get some data on the interaction capabilities. Just continue to monitor the energy usage the way you've been doing."

His voice startled Sam. Rather than the rough country drawl he'd been expecting, the man spoke with a smooth baritone timbre that held both unquestionable authority and compassion at the same time. To Sam's ears, it could have been a replica of Jesus' voice-- if Jesus had been into blue jeans and cowboy hats.

"Is this a bad time?" He called to the man. The good natured part of him hoped that he wasn't fouling up some uber-important experiment; the selfish part of him did a voodoo dance that they would slink away like kids caught shoplifting and leave him to make a phone call in peace.

The green Autobot-- Hound, the man had called him-- looked over to him as he spoke, then flicked a glance at the cowboy wannabe rather than reply. Strangely enough, the Autobot seemed almost nervous, though Sam hadn't the faintest idea why. The man turned as well, though unlike the alien he greeted Sam with a warm smile, the expression somehow far more genuine than any other smile he had ever seen. Like the man was really happy to see him, even relieved, but without getting all giddy and mushy about it. Weird.

"No, no. Not at all. Come join us!" he beckoned.

The sound of his voice, coupled with the small, kind smile gracing his features, washed over Sam in a way that seemed so familiar he couldn't help but offer a tiny smile in return. If he didn't know better, he would have said that he had met the man somewhere before.

Now that the stranger had turned around, Sam was able to take better stock of his appearance. Needless to say, it certainly made an impression. The guy was tall, maybe six-five or so. Well muscled, but not bulky, like a man used to working hard every day and gaining the lean, powerful build to show it. His clothes were simple, but rather exotic for any place other than a farm in Texas-- tough blue jeans, brown leather boots, a red flannel shirt with the sleeves rolled up to expose steel-banded forearms. And, of course, the white cowboy hat nestled on a head of thick brown hair. His face was handsome, as far as Sam could tell (not being a girl and unable to really judge other guys), but somehow bland-- cheek bones sharp but not too angular, jaw strong but not bulging, eyes a faded-denim blue that was both enrapturing and forgettable. All told, he just looked normal. Or he would have, if not for the network of pale scars running across every inch of exposed skin. Though hardly noticable even up close, the sight of them caused Sam to shiver, wondering just what had made them and how the man had gotten so very many.

Despite the impulsive desire to simply turn around and find another room-- unused, this time-- Sam found himself walking towards the displaced table and chairs, keeping a careful distance from the stranger. Familiar or not, anyone who smiled like that-- like they knew him-- usually turned out to be bad news.

"I know it's, like, really late at night, but is there a landline in here I could use to make a phone call or two? I have some...friends I need to check up on. You know, see if they're okay."

The man frowned sympathetically, approaching him slowly. Sam held his ground, not quite sure what to make of a guy that would wear a cowboy hat indoors, much less in an underground super-secret base in India. Hopefully he was just quirky and not a homicidal fruit loop.

"Hate to be the bearer of bad news, son, but we've shut down the phones in here for the moment so that the electrical feedback doesn't interfere with the experiment we're running."

Sam wanted to let loose a frothing blue cloud of swearing at the news, but he suddenly felt far too tired and beaten down to really care. Instead he just sighed, slumping a little, and shrugged.

"Lost cause, I guess," he glanced towards Hound, finding the green Autobot's attention once again riveted to the flickering screen of data before him. "Well, good luck with your experiment, whatever it is."

He turned to go.

"Hold up a minute," the man called to him, striding closer, "You don't look so good. Everything okay?"

The gathering frustration inside of him suddenly welled up and bubbled over. Without turning around he shrugged again, threw up his hands with a grunt, and started making all sort of aborted gestures of frustration with his arms, ending with a shrug again. Great. He just had to go and make himself look like a lunatic.

The man stepped closer, stopping about three feet behind him. "Need someone to talk to?" He asked kindly.

"No!" Sam snapped, then felt guilty. It wasn't the cowboy's fault that everything was so screwed up he couldn't even get out a phone call. "No," he repeated more calmly, "Everything's great. Everything's fine. Of course it is! I've only lost my chance to call my girlfriend before she leaves to go home, my best friend hates my guts, and to top it all off I went and said something awful to this guy that's done nothing but try to help me, and--" Aburptly he cut himself off, realizing something. He turned back around to face the man, whose expression had morphed to one of polite concern, and smiled sheepishly. "Alright. Maybe I could use someone to talk to. But I'm warning you-- I have a lot I need to bitch about."

Normally Sam wouldn't have even considered spilling his guts to a complete stranger, but a little voice in the back of his mind kept whispering that he knew the guy from somewhere and that he could trust him, hat and all.

The warm grin spread once more across the man's face. "I think I can handle it."

Trying to make up for having been a babbling jerk, Sam made the first move and stepped forward, holding out his hand. "Sorry about all the weirdness. Let's start over. --Hi, I'm Sam. I'm new here."

The man's grin stretched even wider, eyes glinting in a way that made it seem like he was enjoying an inside joke, and he held out his own hand in response. "Nice to meet you, Sam. Name's Orion. Orion Pax."

They clapsed hands. Despite Sam's wild fears of having his bones ground together in a test of manly fortitude, Orion's grip was strong but not painful, skin pleasantly warm and dry.

"Orion? Like the constellation?"

Again the mysterious smile. "My family has a thing for stars."

Sam relaxed his grip, preparing to end the handshake and step back. But the act of stretching out his arm had caused the sleeve of his hoody to ride up slightly, exposing the toilet paper bandage underneath. Blue eyes zeroed in on the incriminating glimpse, and when Sam moved to reclaim his hand Orion refused to let go. Instead the man pulled him closer, using his own grip on Sam's hand to twist his arm around, exposing more of the bandage.

"Hey!" Sam squawked in outrage. Orion ignored him, using his other hand to force up the sleeve of his hoody, revealing the blood-spotted dressing shielding the cut he'd gotten from scraping his arm on the corner of his desk. Gingerly the man grasped the crook of Sam's elbow, turning the captured limb for a better look at the tightly wrapped paper coils. His eyes narrowed.

"You should get that looked at," Orion instructed at last, releasing him.

As soon as he was freed Sam backed away, huffily tugging his sleeve back into place. He wanted to be furious at the way he'd just been man-handled and had his privacy invaded, yet something about Orion kept him from being mad at him for long. The sense of familiarity was so strong the man's name had been a let down-- he knew, beyond a shadow of a doubt, that he'd never met an Orion Pax before. But even that could not dislodge the sense of primal recognition.

"No offense," he said suddenly, trying to keep the conversation going and shake off the unnerving feeling, "But what's with the clothes?"

Orion only shrugged, once more at ease. "It's casual friday."

Now Sam had factual proof that the man did, indeed, have a screw loose somewhere. "No, it's not. It' thursday."

"Actually, because it's almost three hours past midnight, it IS friday," Orion explained patiently. Oh. Duh.

"Um. Well, uh..." (--don't look at the hat-- don't look at the hat!--)

Regardless of his firm mental commands his eyes roved upwards to goggle at the white cowboy replica. Following his gaze, Orion lifted his left hand and touched the brim of his hat, affording Sam a glimpse of a gold wedding band encircling his ring finger.

"Don't like my hat?" He asked in a mock wounded voice.

"I like it in priciple," Sam stressed, trying not to further insult the man, "Just maybe not at 3am in a metal warren full of space aliens. Adds another excess layer of strangeness."

Sam winced at his own words, but Orion responded with a patient smile and swept the hat from his head, running his other hand through his hair to shake out the hat-shaped impression. He looked much younger, and somehow much more imposing, without the hat-- maybe 28, 30 years old at the most, with an aura around him that wouldn't have been out of place for an actor playing King Aurthor.

"Much better," Sam approved, watching as Orion began to absently rotate the hat around and around in his hands. With a chuckle, the man placed it on the table and sunk into one of the swivel chairs, spinning around once before propping his feet up and motioning for Sam to join him.

Sam hesitated, but only for a moment. Sure, the guy was a little strange (and a LOT intimidating) but he already felt curiously at ease around him, instinctually trusting that he meant no harm. So with an internal shrug, he plopped himself down in the other swivel chair, taking a moment, as Orion had, to simply enjoy spinning around and around.

"So....you married?" He asked. There. Nice and simple. A safe conversation starter.

Or so he thought. Orion's smile faded slightly, eyes growing distant for a moment. When the smile returned it seemed more forced than before, tinged with ancient sadness.

"Was," He answered as lightly as ever, "But my wife was murdered many years ago by my best friend."

Sam stopped spinning. His mind reeled from the sudden blow of the unsoftened revelation, all the polite questions he had stored up (--'got any kids?'--) fizzling away on his tongue.

"...That SUCKS," he said at last, unable to think of anything remotely comforting to say. What was he supposed to tell the guy-- 'I'm sure she's in a better place'? He didn't think he had the stomach to come out with that one, given that the horror of watching Jolt trying to bring Arcee back to life still lingered far too fresh in his mind.

"Yes, it does," Orion murmured quietly, looking away from him, hands clenching briefly into fists before relaxing again. "But enough of that. You're here to bitch at me, not the other way around. Besides," he grinned again, "It's a very long story, and far too depressing to tell right now. So go on-- you were looking for a phone?"

"Well...." Sam stalled by trying to prop his feet up to mirror Orion's posture, failing miserably when he realized his legs weren't long enough. "See, to understand why I needed a phone, I'm going to have to spew a lot of background information. Otherwise you'll end up totally lost."

Orion gestured with an open hand, the corners of his mouth twitching at Sam's failed attempts to put his feet on the table. "So spew."

But Sam couldn't, not with an audience. He glanced up at Hound, wondering if talking to Orion was such a good idea after all with the green Autobot in the room (especially since he didn't know whether or not Hound would keep what he learned under his hat). But Orion, sensing his discomfort, waved away his fears.

"Don't worry about Hound. He's got his hands full monitoring all the data coming in. 'Sides, I have it on the highest authority that he's good at keeping his mouth shut."

"Well...." Sam gripped the arms of the swivel chair, settling for watching the floor whirl beneath him as he pushed himself around and around. "Here's the thing. See, I have this friend..." And he stopped, not knowing how to continue.

"Go on," Orion urged, not looking the least bit impatient. The quiet acceptance in his eyes blostered Sam's courage.

Sam spun another six or so rotations before coming to a stop. "Okay. So I have this friend. Let's call him Bob. Bob isn't like any other friend-- not like a guy who's just fun to hang out with. He's one of those friends who not only says he would kill someone who tries to hurt me, he means it too." He paused, glancing up to gauge the other man's expressoin. To his relief, it was one of polite interest rather than fear or revulsion. Sam continued, "So Bob and I, we've been through a lot of things together, seen some seriously scary shit, and mostly we've tried to watch each other's backs. But now that everything's calmed down again, a lot of things in my life had to change to make sure everyone I love stays safe. One of those things is having to take a....very long vacation from seeing my girlfriend, so I wanted to try to call her before she left. But my cellphone doesn't work down here....."

He trailed off, realizing he was rambling. "Anyway, that's only part of the reason I was looking for a phone. The main reason is that Bob had to leave again to do something uber dangerous, and I'm just so freaked that something's going to happen to him--" He broke off, hunching over in the chair and fisting his hands together behind his neck. He suddenly couldn't breathe properly. "He's probably the best thing that's ever happened to me, and he's out there all alone-- and he could get killed!" He curled even father into himself (--alone, all alone, no one to help him-- Bee, no!--). "And the worst part is, I said something awful to him before he left trying to keep him from leaving, but it didn't work and now he hates my guts!" He made a strange, hysterical little sobbing noise in his throat. "He might die before I can tell him I'm sorry!"

Eyes screwed tightly shut, he never saw Orion scoot closer so that their chairs were touching. He jerked slightly when an arm came around his shoulders-- not pulling, not shaking, just holding him tightly, holding him together in a way he hadn't realized he needed. And suddenly he didn't care that it was a complete stranger, much less a guy, that was offering physical comfort. He soaked up the contact like a man in a desert would lap up fresh water, shuddering under the solid presence of Orion's arm.

"To top it all off--" He scrubbed a hand across his face, trying to regain some of his dignity. Though he pitched his tone to be slightly sarcastic, it came out trembling with shame and fear instead. "--When I tried to force Bob not to go, I ended up saying something that really hurt this wise, brave guy who's been trying to help me. Hell, he saved my life, and I was enough of a bastard to go and throw it all back in his face by waving around the thing he regrets most for everyone to see."

Sam shuddered, raking a hand through his hair. It was a mark of how upset he was that he didn't squirm away or offer any sort of protest as Orion drew him gently to him, tucking his head into the curve of his shoulder. His teenaged pride told him to buck away from the one-armed hug, throw off the slow cuddle. He told his teenaged pride to go leap off a bridge.

For a long moment they simply stayed that way, Sam basking in the feel of the fatherly contact from someone who didn't want to see him die a horrible death, someone who didn't think he was too vile to hug. Orion, for his part, didn't seem too eager to let go, either.

"It seems to me," the man said softly, chest rising and falling beneath Sam's ear as he breathed, "That if this...guy....is as wise as you say he is, he probably knew that you were trying to help your friend and has already forgiven you."

Sam snorted at that, pulling back from Orion. For a moment the arm around his shoulders tensed as if to keep him from leaning away, but then it released him without a fuss.

"Yeah. Right." Sam snorted caustically, clenching his hands between his knees. "Knowing my luck he won't even want to be in the same room with me again, much less look at me."

Reluctantly tearing his gaze from the flopping laces of his tennis shoes, he looked up to find Orion watching him with a kind of quiet intentness, blue eyes filled with so many things he could not name, though once again he got the impression that somewhere in there was sardonic amusement in response a hidden irony he had yet to stumble across. Looking into Orion's eyes, the flash of familiarity once more flooded through him, creeping along his spine with the whirling disorientation of a powerful dose of deja-vu. Sam couldn't suppress the overwhelming feeling that he knew the man from somewhere.

"Were you ever a kindergarden teacher?" He blurted out a random speculation.

To his surprise, Orion threw back his head and laughed.

"No, thank heavens. Althought some days I feel like I am." With a sighing chuckle, he reached out and reclaimed his hat from the table, returning to spinning it in his hands.

Suddenly realizing that he had practically bawled all over a stranger, the tips of Sam's ears burned brightly pink. Enough bitching. Time to steer the conversation back onto more stable ground. Because even though he could have simply gotten up, thanked the man, and left, he shied away from the mere thought. He could leave, but he really didn't want to.

"So...what do you do around here?"

Orion leaned back into his chair, settling himself into the more relaxed air of the conversation. "Well, mostly I'm a strategist, but I do lead my own team out on the field sometimes. Then it feels like I'm a real cowboy in need of a cattle prod!" He chuckled again.

Sam only slumped at the pronouncement. "Great. Now I feel totally useless."

"How so?" Orion raised a curious eyebrow in his direction, still twirling the hat in his hands.

Sam slumped even more deeply, crossing his arms over his chest. "I'm stuck here, and I can't do anything! Everyone's running around risking their lives to stop the Decepticons, and I'm just left sitting on my hands-- I can't do a lot of fancy stuff with computers, I can't coordinate air strikes, I can't use a gun-- heck, I probably don't even have the necessary qualifications to be a janitor!" He furiously mashed the heel of his hand into his eye. "I want to do something to be able to help Bum-- my friends, but I'm just a worthless little human that probably couldn't even fight off another human threatening me a knife, much less beat back a Decepticon."

Eyes fixed on the hat in his hands, Orion asked, "Do you want to learn how to use a gun?"

"Oh, I don't know," Sam burst out, shrugging, "Yes, I guess. My friends probably wouldn't let me go out and help them, but at least if I could use a gun without shooting my foot off they wouldn't have to worry about hanging over my shoulder all the time to make sure the slightest little thing doesn't jump out of the closet and tear me to shreds." (--and Bumblebee wouldn't resent protecting me so much if it wasn't a 24-7 job--).

"I have something of a rep with Lennox. I'll talk to him and see what I can do about you learning to use a gun," Orion stated firmly.

Sam did a double-take at the steely promise, looking up in shock. "Why?" He blurted, "I mean, not just why would you help me get shooting lessons, but why all this--" he waved a hand at the room in general, the depth of the situation only just beginning to dawn on him, "--why let some random stranger spew all their garbage in your lap when you probably have better things to do?" (why hug me when even I didn't know I needed it?). "Not that I'm complaining, but normal people don't just do things like that for strangers."

"Well, Sam," Orion answered with an enigmatic grin, swiftly tucking his hat down over Sam's head and giving the brim a friendly tug, "Maybe because you looked you like could use a friend."

"Sir," a new voice interrupted them, startling Sam. He looked up to find Hound facing them, optics fixed on Orion (...sir?). "The power cells are almost depleted."

Orion sighed deeply, heaving himself from the chair. "Have you collected the data you needed, Hound?"

"Yes, sir. More than I had expected. This has proven to be a very useful test run."

"Good to hear," Orion replied, inclining his head. Then, he turned back to Sam with a smile.

"Rachet and I are in the infirmary. He's almost driven me nuts pestering me to get you down here to have that cut on your arm looked at. Why don't you come stop by and say hello?"

Sam could only gape at him, trying and failing to puzzle out the bizarre statement. What on earth was he talking about? He spoke almost as if he were in two places at once.

But before he could piece together a response to Orion's nonsensical words, the man did something he would never have imagined seeing anywhere but on a magician's stage. His body fizzled, as though interrupted by static-- and then he simply disappeared.

Sam cried out in shock, pushing back violently into his chair. The motion caused it to tip over, sending them both-- chair and pajama-clad human-- crashing to the floor.

"WHAT the FUCK?!" He shouted from his position on the floor, kicking out at the chair in an attempt to right himself. Without a doubt, he knew that things could not just simply disappear (not unless there was a space bridge involved). Apples couldn't disappear, dogs couldn't disappear, and people most certainly couldn't disappear. But because he doubted Orion had the x-men worthy ability to turn both himself and his clothes invisible, he must have disappeared. Not only that, but a hand flailed around in the vicinity of his head revealed that even his hat-- his solid, undeniably real hat-- had vanished into the vast unknown with its owner.

"What the fuck?!" He repeated, scrambling painfully to his feet. Not an easy task when sporting a broken arm and tangled up with a swivel chair. "What was that?!" He shouted at an approaching Hound. "How did he do that?!"

"I thought you knew, Sam," the green Autobot told him with a touch of confusion, "I was informed that you had seen a few of our holograms before."

"Yeah, but when they were things like floors and stuff! Not....people...." He trailed off, because he HAD seen a hologram of a human before; Barricade had polished off his disguise with the addition of a sinister mustache man in the driver's seat. But there was a huge, glaring difference between the Decepticon hologram and Orion, a man he still half refused to believe had been nothing more than an illusion-- not only had mustache man remained as wooden and unmoving as a blow-up doll, he was far from solid. Orion hadn't just conjured a hat to put on his head-- that, he could grudgingly accept, might have been fake-- he had also shaken his hand, grabbed his arm with enough force that Sam couldn't pull back, and held him to his chest (a chest that had moved as he breathed and thudded with the drumming of a heartbeat). Sam would readily admit that he didn't know much about hologram technology, but he was pretty sure light warped into a specific shape couldn't mimic body heat or the weight of an arm across his shoulders. That was impossible.

"Are you telling me," he finally choked out, wheezing a little with a familiar constricting pain tightening around his chest (--not there, never there-- of course no stranger would want to touch you--), "That Orion wasn't real?"

"The hologram you saw wasn't real, yes." Oh God. Sam let his eyes slid shut, reaching out to brace himself on the table. "But Optimus Prime is very real."

"Optimus?" He looked up in confusion, "But what...."

Suddenly, all the signs coalesced in his mind. Blue jeans, red shirt-- red and blue armor. Blue eyes-- blue optics. Really tall. Battle scars. 'Strategist...lead my own team...'

"We have been creating a new species of hologram," Hound affirmed, "And Prime agreed to be my first test subject. It worked far better than we had expected, especially in regards to simulating solid matter."

But Sam couldn't care less about how well the experiment went. The bottom dropped out of his stomach and he groaned, "You mean I just spilled my guts to Optimus Prime?" Wait. "And he hugged me?!"

"It would seem that way, yes," the green Autobot informed him, sounding just a little bit smug, though his optics held a warm, friendly glint.

"...Perfect."

NNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNN

After his disasterous discovery of Hound's new hologram project, Sam had longed to slink back to his room and hide under the bed for a day or two, stewing in his own misery. But apparently that wasn't on the agenda any time soon with Rachet howling for his blood-- Hound gently but firmly herded him towards the infirmary, where the leader of all Cybertronians and a mad doctor awaited his arrival.

Hound, he soon discovered, was more than willing to chat him up along the way. Most of the time the Autobots had to be prodded into revealing any information-- and even then they were likely to come out with the most concise, scientifically accurate answer possible-- so the fact that he had stumbled across a robot that actually liked to gossip was surprising, and refreshing.

...At least it was, until he discovered the green Autobot only really wanted to discuss his precious holograms.

"One of the largest problems we've encountered in traditional hologram use is the inability to project an image outside of a certain range or around a corner-- by their very nature, holograms follow a 'line of sight' path from whatever is projecting them, rendering them all but unusable in covert operations."

Sam nodded mutely as he plodded along behind Hound, mind wandering. During reasonable day light hours, such a topic would have fascinated him, maybe even dragged him into an intense technological discussion with Hound. But as most of his available processing power was going towards keeping himself upright, he could only catch every other word.

Hound didn't seem to notice or mind; he continued to ramble without Sam's input. "The only concievable way to solve the 'line of sight' problem is to create a remotely controlled transmitter that is connected to the Autobot deploying the hologram. Of course, it would be rather impractical to have a little black box on wheels zipping around wherever the hologram was needed, so I came up with a method of using microscopic nanomachines that could be self-propelled to project the image instead. Unfortunately, however, 90% of the mass of each nanomachine is taken up by the energy storage unit that provides it with power, leaving little space for projection equipment. As a result, each can only create a pinpoint of light, but a cloud of several billion working in conjunction is able to construct an entire image."

With only another teaspoon full of enthusiasm more, Hound would be bouncing and skipping down the hall rather than merely walking. From what Sam had so far been able to glean, the green Autobot was the equivalent of the hologram sensei for the alien visitors, possesing the most powerful projection capabilities of the group. Optimus came in a close second, thus the reason for using the alien leader as the guinea pig to test Hound's 'nanomachines'.

"Another advantage of using the nanomachines to create a hologram--" (oh yeah, definitely bouncing now), "--is the ability to simulate matter through the carefully controlled use of complex electrical charges. Heat, texture, weight-- all can be briefly replicated by twisting the interaction of the molecules at the atomic level through the use of such charges. Though," the green Autobot cycled air through his vents in a parody of a sigh, "There are several drawbacks I have not yet been able to find solutions for."

"Sounds good," Sam mumbled, scrubbing his face and squinting in the harsh light. Funny how he could feel wide awake while sitting in a swivel chair talking to a hologram and be seconds away from collapsing while walking. He really didn't want to see Optimus (though his emotions had become such a tangled jumble he was hard pressed to say why), and he absolutely dreaded having to submit himself for inspection to Rachet. Wasn't there a human doctor to look after human injuries?

"One of the biggest problems is the length of time 'solid' holograms can be used. Replicating a solid object drains enormous amounts of energy-- just shaking your hand robbed Prime of half his battery life-- which means that such a hologram can only exists for 17 to 18 minutes at the most, 25 if physical contact is kept to a minimum to reduce how long the nanomachines need to simulate things like pressure--"

Why did everything in the base have to be so far apart? Sam speculated that it was all a cosmic plot to make him have to walk as far as possible on only two hours of sleep and an empty stomach. If he were designing his own super-secret base, he would make the rooms rearrangable-- that way, the place he needed to get to would always be right next door to wherever he was at the moment.

"--another problem we've encountered is the low retrieval rate for the nanomachines themselves. Their size and complexity almost guarantees that some precentage will simply stop working, and others are lost in transit when being recalled to the host transformer. Optimus lost about .19% of his nanomachines while speaking with you, a number that is far too high for any degree of efficiency--"

"Wait," Sam blinked, catching onto the tail end of Hound's rambling tangent, "He lost them? Where'd they go?"

The green Autobot turned to look back at him briefly, optics whirling in a manner he had come to associate with being scanned.

"A few are still floating around in the air in the experiment room, but the majority have remained attached to you."

"Ack!" Sam skidded to a halt, brushing frantically at his hair and clothes, "Where?!"

But then he happened to turn his good hand-- the one he had used to shake hands with Orion-- a certain way, and a silvery dusting on his wrist and the palm caught the light with a faint shimmer. He stared at the coated flesh in fascination and revulsion, twisting his arm this way and that to find the edges of the silver glimmer. It wasn't noticable without the light touching it at a certain angle, and even then it could have been mistaken for a fine sheen of sweat.

Backtracking at Sam's exclaimation, Hound crouched low over his shoulder to examine the human hand for himself.

"No need to worry," he soothed, "Even carrying a full charge the are harmless, and now that their powercells have been depleted they are no more than powdered metal. Dust."

Sam brushed his hand on his pants, looked at it again, then brushed more vigorously. The silver sheen remained. "It doesn't act like dust-- it's not coming off!"

"It will eventually. The nanomachines aren't smooth like grains of sand-- they have many barbs along the outside surface, similiar to sea urchins, that can hook into the upper layer of skin and prevent easy removal. But nonetheless, when your body sheds that surface layer of skin they'll come off." He stood, motioning for Sam to follow. "Come on. We're almost there. I've already had to shut down one of my internal communication channels to block out Rachet."

With a resigned sigh (and one last stubborn scrub at the palm of his hand), Sam started after the green Autobot. "What was he bitching at you for?"

"Letting you walk," Hound grunted.

Frustrated ire began to rise in his chest, uncoiling like a snake with a warning rattle of its tale. "'Letting me walk?' I'm not a china doll-- I don't need to be carried! I've slogged my way through 18 years of life on my own two feet without needing to be carried (well, okay, minus those times riding in a car, but those don't really count), and I don't plan to start now."

"Relax!" Hound held up his hands to ward off a continuation of his tirade, "You don't see me agreeing with Rachet, do you? I wouldn't be on his shitlist right now if I did."

Sam deflated. "Oh. I guess not. But still," he ground on mulishly, but without his former heat, "You'd think making it through Mission city, killing Megatron, finding the matrix in the middle of the desert, and running back through a virtual shooting gallery to revive Optimus would convince him that I'm capable of looking after myself."

"What I think," Hound answered mysteriously, not looking back, "Is that after watching you make it through Mission city, kill Megatron, find the Matrix in the middle of the desert, and run back through a virtual shooting gallery to revive Optimus, Rachet doesn't want you to need to capable of looking after yourself. He can be a regular mother hen that way."

Before Sam had time to wrap his mind around the cryptic message in Hound's words, the green Autobot stopped outside a set of roll away double doors that would not have looked out of place attached to one of the airplane hangers on the surface. They were closed when the pair arrived, but at some unspoken signal from the hologram guru they split apart and winched themselves open, gliding without even the faintest squeak of protesting gears.

Peering into the vast room beyond-- expansive in terms of floor space, but not as lofty as the command center-- Sam realized that what he had already seen of the base was so far from alien that it might have been mass produced by Mcdonald's. Here, in a room designed specifically for Cybertronians, the true nature of the robotic visitors at last came to light. 'Alien' was the only way he could possibly describe it-- so far from what he had ever seen or imagined that it was almost beyond comprehension.

Long, twisting things that could have been vines or tentacles or metal tubes slithered like so many fat worms up the walls and over the ceiling, turning the room into a sloping cave. Looking down, he saw they continued across the floor as well, though unlike the ones covering the walls those under his feet had flattened out into an undulating mosaic to create a level walking surface. Strange devices and machines parted the mass like a curtain, rising up out of the floor, walls and ceiling in unrecognizable shapes. Here was a cluster of something that looked like a cross between several mechanical arms and a jack port the size of a dinner plate-- similar sets of appendages descended from various parts of the randomly sloped ceiling, though these ended in many-bladed knives and needle-sharp points and wickedly curved hooks that bent in every imaginable direction. Beneath each motionless metal spider sprouted a Stephen King version of a dentist's chair, each large enough to hold a Cybertronian. They possesed no padding to speak of, and in fact there were dozens of things that he guessed were jacks or plugs jutting from the surface like so many daggers. Some part of his mind registered that they were super-efficient versions of the operating table-- they were separated into segmented parts for each limb that could be raised, lowered, and tilted at exactly the right angle. And though he knew, intellecutally, that the knife-legged spiders and the chairs were meant to heal rather than hurt, he couldn't help but cringe away from them.

Looking through the safe, normal, human doorway at the alien lair beyond-- a lair of wires that looked like veins and sewer-stain bluish-green instruments of torture-- the fact that he now belonged to the creatures that lived there-- creatures that were in no way human for all their human mimicry-- slammed into him with the force of a Mac truck.

And suddenly, Sam was afraid.

But he never had the chance to act on his instinct to jack-rabbit, for the next instant Hound picked him up (causing Sam to flinch violently, heart trying to tear itself from his chest) and stepped through the doorway. The hanger door closed behind them automatically with a rolling hiss, sealing them inside.

Trying to breathe evenly (and trying not to look at all the wickedly sharp implements dangling motionlessly from the ceiling) he scanned the 'infirmary' for Optimus and Rachet. A bulging machine kept them from being visible from the door, but a few steps into the room Sam spotted them near the back wall. At the sight of the red and blue alien leader lying motionless in one of the chairs-- his colorful form and angular planes a vibrant counterpoint to the organic nature of the room-- a thrill of fear shot down his spine. His worry was only exacerbated by the presence of Rachet, who was engaged in leaning over the other alien and tinkering with something in his side. He remembered Sideswipe telling him that Optimus had ingored his own injuries to ride the aircraft carrier with him back to India. Had using the complex hologram drained his energy somehow? Had it stressed something not meant to be stressed?

"Here he is, Rachet," Hound announced in an exasperated tone, offering the human dangling from his clasped hands to the medic, "Safe and sound, just like I promised."

Rachet retracted his spindly fingers from Optimus and turned towards them, but at the moment Sam couldn't tear his gaze from Optimus' shuttered optics.

"Optimus?" He whispered (well, okay, squeaked).

In response to his frightened call, the shutters immediately spiraled open and his optics flared with a brilliant blue glow, gaze roving to the side to fix on the human. It was hard to think of Optimus as being quite so alien when looking into his very human-yet-not eyes. Maybe because they were filled with life, intelligence and emotion rather than the mindless instinct to lay eggs in people's chests (--definitely need to lay off the cheesy alien movies, Sam--). Something inside of him unclenched beneath that gaze. It made him feel...safe.

"What's wrong with him? Is he okay?" He demanded of Rachet.

But it was Optimus, instead, who spoke. "I'm fine, Sam. There is no need for you to worry."

"Perhaps you are 'fine' now," Rachet growled, reaching for Sam, "But it was foolish to agree to test an unknown piece of technology before I had finished attending to all your wounds. I hope you will not forget that you came dangerously close to permanently deactivating."

Sam flinched as the medic's spindly fingers plucked him gingerly from Hound's grasp and carried him to something resembling a flat workbench near where Optimus lay. He looked towards the alien leader as a series of metallic clicks and hisses-- like the sound of plugs disengaging-- arose in his direction. Without the slightest hitch in his movements, without any sign of strain, Optimus slowly sat up and swung his legs down from the chair, a myriad of wires and tubes (some no thicker than a hair) pulling free and retracting as he went.

Behind them, Hound twittered something in Cybertronian, recieving a curt response from Rachet and an agreeable rumble from Optimus. Sam twisted around to look back at the green Autobot as the spindly fingers set him gently on the workbench. Hound gave him another goofy salute, then ducked into a bow the way Jolt and Sideswipe had before. There was no doubt this time-- the Autobot was bowing to him.

"I'll see you later, Sam. If Rachet ever lets you out of his claws, that is."

Rachet hissed something that sounded quite foul over his shoulder, and with a reel of clicks and whistles that sounded suspiciously like laughter, Hound turned and left the infirmary. The door slid closed once more behind him.

Sam twisted back around to face Rachet, pasting on a bright smile. Maybe he could head the medic off at the pass. "Look....I know you want to do the whole doctor thing, I get that. But I really am fine, see? Well, maybe except for the broken arm part, but you already knew about that. So it was nice seeing you guys, but I think I'll just head back to my room now-- hey!"

Ignoring his rambling assurances, Rachet split apart the fingers of one hand into a dozen razor thin implements, using them to gingerly grasp the sleeve of his hoody and pull it up past his elbow, exposing the toilet paper bandage. With a single precise motion, one of the finger splinters sliced through the wrappings and pulled them away from his arm, unveiling the sticky, clotted mess the cut had become. Eew.

"This isn't that big of a deal! I mean, yeah, I cut myself, but I'm not bleeding like a stuck pig or anything! I'm sure whatever you were fixing on Optimus is way more important."

He tried to pull back, secretly terrified of those many jointed alien fingers, but Rachet's other hand came around behind his back and held him in place with strength a thousand times that of flesh and bone. Optimus slowly apporached the workbench, watching him over the medic's shoulder.

"Rachet finished the necessary repairs just as you walked in, Sam." The alien leader refuted his argument, voice holding a strangely calming tone.

"It is a moot point, regardless," Rachet said, bringing his head closer to the line of gore marring his arm, the intricate pieces forming his unique optics whirling ceaselessly, "And even though you are not bleeding 'like a stuck pig', leaving something like this unattended could still result in an uncontrolled growth of malignant bacteria."

Sam blanched. "W-what?"

"An infection."

"Oh," He cringed back again as Rachet's fingers began to transform once more, "But seriously, I can go get a human doctor to give me some Neosporin--"

"Sam," Optimus interrupted him, "Have you wondered why it is my soldiers have adopted the habit of bowing to you before they leave the room?"

The question came so far out of left field that it threw him completely off-balance-- he craned his neck to look up at the towering alien, frowing deeply. He had wondered, though he hadn't dared to bring it up, just in case asking made him look like a megalomaniac who thought people should bow to him and who interpreted an unrelated alien greeting as such to satisfy his mania.

"Yeah..." he answered slowly, then jumped as something cold and wet touched his arm-- he glanced down to find Rachet smearing a thick liquid the color of syrup down the cut, painlessly pulling away the black scabs. Now that he was able to look at it more closely, he could see that the edges of the skin didn't meet each other in the middle. Ugh. He needed stitches. Great.

"Sam," Optimus drew his attention away again (--he's trying to distract me!--), "I don't know how much Bumblebee may or may not have told you about our culture, but you should be aware that during the Golden Age-- a time before the Decepticons seized control and war consumed our planet-- religion was wide spread among our people."

He had to give Optimus credit-- he certainly knew how to ensnare someone's attention. Something sharp pricked his arm. He winced, glancing down to find three of Rachet's spidery fingers rapidly pulling a long thread so thin it was almost transparent through his flesh, sewing the two halves of the cut together at a mind-boggling pace. The liquid must have contained a numbing agent-- he felt almost nothing save for the occasional prick and a steady pulling sensation.

But as much as good sense told him to keep his eye on the medic to insure he didn't do something sneaky, alien, and invasive, he found his attention drawn back to Optimus like a nail attracted to a magnet.

"I didn't know robots could be spiritual--" Way to be insulting, dimwit. "--I mean, don't you guys run on logic and stuff?" He blamed his stumbling brilliance on a severe lack of sleep; it was hard to remember to be diplomatic at 3am.

"While we may be robots, Sam, we are nothing like human made robots. The difference between us is that we are alive." Optimus explained, luckily not seeming to be insulted. "And like all living creatures, we seek to discover the meaning behind our existence. In many way, our creation story is very much like yours, though it does not start with 'In the beginning there was the Word.'"

"Similar? How?"

"Our ancestors spoke of a benevolent, omniscient being called Primus that existed before all else and created the universe to end the terrible agony of being alone. They said that Primus created thirteen powerful beings to carry out His will, beings that were supposedly perfect in every way."

Sam's mouth went dry, thinking of what he had learned those few times he had attended Bible school. "Except they weren't," he whispered, enthralled.

"No," the alien's tone turned dark, foreboding, "One of them, the being named Unicron, did not wish to be a servant. It wished to be a god to rival Primus, and so it turned on its creator with the intent to destroy Him. But evil could not vanquish good, and Unicron's efforts failed, casting it into everlasting darkness."

"A baseless fairy tale," Rachet scoffed, finishing with his needle work and severing the end of the thread, "If there truly were a benevolent Creator, I would not have to watch so many sparks fade away in agony." His voice dropped as he turned away, hand returning to its original state. "And I would rather be cast myself into the Pit than bow before any Creator that saw fit to curse us with this war."

Sam looked up to find Optimus watching the medic sadly, his own heart twisting as he realized all the horrors Rachet must have seen on the battle field. And he wondered just how many Rachet had been forced to kill from mercy rather than leave to perish slowly in agony.

"I guess....most of you guys don't really believe anymore," he said lowly. Optimus returned his luminous gaze to him.

"Some of us do." And the alien tapped gently on the side of his own head, tracing the delicate symbols etched into the metal armor.

Sam leaned forward slightly, narrowing his eyes at the twining runes. "What are those?"

To his surprise, Optimus chuckled. "Even the most logical of us sometimes fall to superstition. They are ancient prayers to Primus. For protection--" A curling wave over the sheath from which his battle mask would emerge. "For strength--" A claw-like symbol stamped into the apex of his shoulder armor. "For wisdom--" A rune that resembled spread wings on the left sensor fin framing his head. "For faith--" An intricate swirl near the place that, on humans, would be his cheek bone.

"You believe?" Sam asked in awe, for the first time taking stock of the dozens of symbols scattered across his body. At Optimus' explanations they took on new meaning-- they weren't merely alien words, they were religious battle tattoos.

"Yes."

"So....they bow to me because of something to do with religion?"

While they spoke, Rachet had gathered a length of gauzy material from somewhere in the room. He strode back to them with it dangling between his hands, not even glancing at Optimus as he brushed past him in his bee-line for Sam.

"Honor was an integral part of the old Code of Primus," the medic responded, cutting off anything Optimus might have said, "The bond created through the invocation of a life debt was perhaps the most binding of any intangible bond, simply because of the duty of honor laid upon the one whose life had been saved."

"Optimus already explained about the 'thrice-indebted' thing," Sam replied, equal parts confused and embarassed. He didn't like to think of himself as having anyone in his debt.

"You are forgetting the most salient point." Rachet coated the stitched cut with a sealer of some kind, then began to carefully wrap the length of material around his arm. --A bandage, he realized. He had expected something unfathomably alien. "You do not have just any Cybertronian in your debt-- by his own admission three times over, I might add-- you have a Prime in your debt, the last Prime, the leader of our people. As such, the debt of honor extends not only to Optimus himself, but to all those who place themselves under his command."

"And remember," Optimus added softly, "Though many have ceased to believe in Primus, all still cling to memories of our culture, of our home. They bow to you not only to honor what you have done, but to keep the spirit of our people alive."

Feeling unexpectedly small and ugly, Sam curled into himself a little, fidgeting with his new bandage (better than toilet paper by a long shot) until Rachet gently slapped his hand away. He didn't want to be a symbol of hope for an alien race-- he wanted to be Sam. Even if he had to try to be Sam while living in a top secret military base in India, he would have much preferred for everyone to mostly ignore him. Much less chance of not living up to their expectations that way. Besides, he really didn't feel like a hero worthy of much of anything. The real heroes were the ones that didn't come back (--a single shot, just a single shot-- BOOM-- her head's gone, oh God, her head's gone--).

"Whatever," he muttered, ears burning. So tired that he had begun to shake, all he really wanted to do was crawl into bed, pull the covers over his head and wait until the world stopped flipping upside down all the time. But he didn't think he'd be able to sleep until he could call Bumblebee and make sure he was alive--

"Wait!" he cried, head snapping up. "Optimus, can you use your internal radio or something to get in contact with Bumblebee?"

"Ah yes, your quest for a phone," he replied with a touch of amusement. "I apologize for misleading you with my hologram, Sam, though in my defense I never once lied. Not even about my name."

Sam waved it away. He still didn't really know how he felt about having vented his spleen to Optimus without realizing it, much less what to do with the fact that he had been hugged by a hologram (--hugged by Optimus--). Maybe he'd feel angry in the morning. Maybe he'd feel relieved to have gotten all that off his chest. But at the moment he only felt like a rubber band being pulled in six different directions at once, the only thing ceaselessly dominating his thoughts being the need to try to protect his friend, even if protecting him only amounted to badgering him over the phone. Pissed or not, Bumblebee was still his best friend. The robot would simply have to suck it up and deal with it. No matter what, Sam wasn't going to risk losing him on a sour note the way Jolt had lost Arcee (--a wail of unfiltered agony, the bare anguish of the soul--).

"Can you do it, though? Contact Bumblebee?"

Rachet turned his optics to Optimus; Optimus shifted uneasily.

"Yes. I maintain an open channel to each of my soldiers at all times," he tapped one of the blue fins sprouting from the sides of his head, "It is customary, while on missions, to broadcast a continuous feedback loop-- a signal indicating that nothing is amiss-- to someone on base, and to send detailed status reports every 2.3 seconds."

"Great!" He tried to smile, tried to block the way nervousness rippled from the alien leader from his mind. There couldn't be anything wrong. There couldn't be. "So, could you send him a short message from me?"

Rachet shifted closer to him, not speaking.

Optimus hesitated, clicking to himself. "Yes," he answered at last, "It would be a simple matter to do such a thing."

Sam started to relax, then realized that Optimus had never actually said he was going to.

"'Would'? Does that mean you can't-- or won't? W-why not?"

Rachet took another step forward until he was not quite hovering over him. "Sam. I must insist that you calm yourself--"

"I AM calm!" He erupted. He sucked in air through his nose, trying to settle his racing heart, but if nothing were wrong Optimus would have said so, Optimus would have told him if Bumblebee were hurt, if Bumblebee were dying, if Bumblebee were dead-- he wouldn't just keep standing there-- keep standing there-- keep standing there--

"What's happened?" Sam asked, forcing himself not to shout, not to jump up in a panic. To his credit, his voice came out fairly steady.

But Optimus was hesitating again. "Nothing--" (LIAR!) "--you should probably try to get some sleep, Sam. I left a message with Ironhide to pass onto Captain Lennox first thing in the morning. He'll be expecting you at 8--"

"What. Happened." (--oh God no, please no, pleasepleaseplease--)

Sam met Optimus' heavy blue gaze without blinking, without backing down, though on the inside something had started to scream---

"Precisely as I have said, Sam," he answered softly, "Nothing. No feedback loop, no status report. We lost contact with Bumblebee approximately 43 minutes ago."

Sam felt as though he were choking. "You mean," he gasped out, "that Bumblebee c-could have been KILLED while I was just sitting there talking to you, just sitting, just-- just--" Then another thought occured to him, one so powerful that he found himself leaping to his feet in rage. "You just sat there finishing some goddamn EXPERIMENT while Bumblebee might have been fighting for his LIFE! He could be dying RIGHT NOW, and none of you thought it would be a good idea to try to go HELP him?! What the hell is WRONG with you?!"

"Control yourself, Samuel, or I will be forced to sedate you," Rachet informed him coldly. Sam ignored him and moved to the edge of the workbench, trying to hide the way his limbs shook like branches buffeted in a high wind.

"Well if you people aren't going to go help him, I AM. I've got some money-- I'm going to get the biggest damn gun I can find, buy a plane ticket to Nigeria, and blow that mirage to kingdom come!" He didn't feel any calmer, not by a long shot. But he had a goal now-- a drive, a purpose. It sharpened his mind to a razor's edge, allowing him to chain down his hysteria.

"Sam," Optimus called his name softly.

Sam ignored him.

"Sam."

He sat down on the edge of the table and swung his legs over the side. It wasn't that far to the floor-- maybe only about eight or nine feet. If he remembered to bend his knees slightly and roll forward with the impact--

"STOP."

I'm not one of your soldiers, Optimus. (A good thing too-- you can't send me out and leave me, send me out to die--). I'm human. I have free will. Telling me to stop isn't going to make me. I have to save Bumblebee. I have to save Bumblebee. I have to save--

A hand whipped out and caught him just as he dropped over the side of the table. Optimus. Rather than replace him on the workbench or set him on the floor, the alien used his other hand to curl him into a ball against his chest, effectly cutting off all resistance.

"Stop."

Sam shuddered, feeling all the energy drain from him. Damn subconcious instincts. They had no right to tell him to relax when forced into the fetal position. He had to DO something-- He had to-- he had to...

"You must believe me, Sam," Optimus whispered to him with quiet insistence as his struggles finally ceased, "I have two very good reasons to believe that Bumblebee is neither dead nor in immediate danger. For the first you will simply have to trust me, as it is something I cannot yet tell you. For the second, it is logical that Bumblebee would abruptly shut down his communications if he came within striking distance of our mirage-- keeping an open channel would be tantamount to broadcasting his presence, which would either force his target to flee or put him into even greater danger. I know you hate to hear this, but at the moment no news is good news."

"Or really, REALLY bad news," he mumbled, mortified to hear his voice emerge as a whimper. Sam knew Optimus could hear him; after all, he had heard him outside the door to the experiment room and changed the code to allow him in. But the alien chose not to respond to his pessimistic grumble, only holding him silently between his hands, seeming to wait-- as Sam himself did-- for his heartbeat to slow. Surprisingly enough, he wasn't uncomfortable in the alien's grip, but it was rather strange to have to cross his eyes to look at the metal so close to the end of his nose. Some part of him tried to be afraid at the thought of how easily those robotic hands-- hands that had crushed concrete and bent steel, chewing open a car like thinly stretched plastic-- could snap his spine in his curled position, but long-buried instinct reacted to being warm and enclosed, forcing him to calm, to not be afraid.

At long last, Optimus said, "If I put you down, will you refrain from hijacking the first plane you can find?"

It was hard to imagine someone so serious making a joke, particuarly in such a grave tone of voice, but it suddenly dawned on Sam that Optimus was making a joke. Who knew robots could have a dry sense of humor.

"Yes." Pause. "But I'm not making any promises about the gun."

Apparently Optimus knew enough about human nature to realize that he, too, was joking (mostly), and eased the pressure on Sam's back, opening the clam shell of his hands. But rather than lower Sam on the floor, he set the human on his feet back on the workbench. Okay, so maybe Optimus didn't entirely trust him not to run off and do something spur-of-the-moment.

"You might choose to wait until after you have been given some instruction in their use before making off with a gun. I'm certain Rachet wouldn't appreciate having to patch you up if you 'shot your foot off'."

"I could always save him the trouble by going to a human doctor," Sam muttered petulantly. (--Bee, please be safe....).

"No," Rachet responded with surprising vehmence. "Whether or not you are amenable to the fact is irrelevant. You are our ward, and thus you are under my care. I will not hand you over to those meat butchers."

Sam grimaced at the slurr against the medical profession, and sniped back, "They would have done they same thing you did, you know-- sewn me up and put a bandage on."

"If I had access to half of the materials I currently need, I could have healed your laceration without the need to resort to something as primitive as 'sewing you up' in the first place!"

"I think this is a debate best left for another time," Optimus interjected, "Sam needs to sleep before his lesson tomorrow at 8am."

"8am?" Sam gasped in horror, glancing at his watch, "That's like....in four hours!"

"It would not have been a problem if you had not decided to roam the halls while you should have been sleeping," Rachet informed in, tone matter-of-fact rather than snotty, as it could have been.

"I couldn't sleep," Sam defended himself, "So I decided that I might as well try to check up on Mikaela and Bumblebee. But then my phone wouldn't work down here..."

Rachet leaned in to his personal space, scrutinizing his profile. "Why could you not sleep?"

"The usual things. Stress. Nightmares," he sighed, passing a hand over his head and rubbing the back of his neck. His fear for Bumblebee threatened to bubble to the surface once more, but he beat it back down with the knowledge that he did, despite everything, trust Optimus. And Optimus said that Bumblebee wasn't in danger-- for the moment, at least. The monster that had taken up residence in his chest sat on its haunches, but it did not lie back down again. "I don't know if you guys dream or not, but from a human prospective it's pretty hard to sleep while watching a horror movie where everyone you love dies-- repeatedly-- playing on the insides of your eyelids. Though..." he paused, dragging up a misty remnant of a memory, "There were some things in there that weren't nightmares, but they were still pretty strange. Strange, as in not strange, not dream-like."

Optimus' gaze seemed to sharpen, and even Rachet stiffened in his peripheral vision. "What do you mean?" Optimus probed.

Sam could only shrug, not seeing a reason for their sudden tension. And he was too exhausted from his emotional rollercoaster to really care anyway. As long as Bee wasn't in trouble, they could be nervous about anything they wanted and he wouldn't give a hoot.

"Well....every one of them focused on Bumblebee, though he didn't really seem to be doing much besides driving. But no one was ever with him, not even me, and the places he was driving through weren't familiar-- one of them was a jungle, another was the city of filthy tin-roof slums, and I think one had a bunch of donkeys in it....."

Rachet stared at him for a long moment, then turned slowly to Optimus and warbled something in dial tone. A question.

"It is not our place to interfere," Optimus answered softly in english.

Sam could only look between them in confusion, not having the faintest idea of what was going on. Then he decided he was really too tired to care; his legs ached from standing for so long, so he sat down. Bowing his head, he massaged his temples to try to ease away some of the sparking pain beginning to gather between them. God, he just wanted to sleep.

"Could someone please put me down on the floor," he interruped their silent, internal argument, "I don't have much time left before eight, and I might not be able to fall asleep, but I would really like to go back to my room and at least try to sleep."

Head in his hands, he never saw Rachet move until he felt a prick in his neck and heard the ominous snap-hiss of hypo being emptied.

"Shit!" He jerked away, pulling his head in like a turtle to protect his neck, "What is it with you and stabbing people?!"

Already he had begun to feel woozy-- exhaustion sped up the effects of the drug, making his head feel like it was floating up off his shoulders.

"You claimed that you were experiencing difficulty falling asleep. It follows that the use of a tranquilizer would be perfectly acceptable to remedy the situation."

"Tranquilize....yo mamma...."

Slowly losing control over his muscles, he sagged sideways-- and into Optimus' hand, conveniently placed to intercept him. Everything rapidly darkened to a twilight gray, then to black as his eyes slid closed. Vaguely he was aware of being lifted up and of two voices speaking above his head in Cybertronian.

Yet floating somewhere between awake and asleep, the noises he heard strangely began to make sense. They still sounded like bleeps and whirls, clicks and warbles, but somehow those robotic sounds were as familiar to him as his own skin, no longer a mystery. He couldn't follow the conversation, not really, but he could certainly listen. So listen he did.

::So. It is as you feared, then::

::Yes. These things can be very difficult to judge, and I had hoped that the anomoly I detected was simply a random blip of data, but now there can be no doubt:::

::Does Bumblebee know?::

::Yes. I informed him of the possibility as soon as possible after the incident. He did not take it well::

::Bumblebee is afraid::

::And so is the human, though he does not yet conciously understand what has happened. What is continuing to happen::

::A progression? Is that even possible?::

::At this stage he should sense little to nothing, and yet-- as we have both heard-- that is not the case::

::Emotional amplification?::

::Without a doubt::

::What would you suggest?::

::There is nothing that can be done. An attempt in either direction could be disasterous::

::Waiting is not an option either::

::....You fear what the human will do if he discovers what has happened?::

::No. I fear what Bumblebee might do. You know his feelings as well as I::

::Regardless, he would be reluctant to attempt anything that might harm the human::

::...If he becomes desperate enough, he just might...::

....................

......Darkness..........

NNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNN

Agent Johnathan Grieves loved his job. Only 25, and already he had made it to the big time-- NEST wasn't quite Area 51, but it still had aliens. Lots of aliens. And surprisingly enough, they were neither little green men nor had designs to conquer the world.

Well, the good aliens didn't, at least.

Most of the time he only interacted with those good aliens, so about sixty of the seventy hours he put in a week seemed more like a dream come true than veritable slavery. The other ten hours weren't so much fun, because then he had to deal with the bad aliens.

The Decepticons.

Funny how things like intergalactic translations worked. Deception: something that deceives or is intended to deceive; fraud; artifice. Deceiver: someone who misleads or falsely presuades others; trickster; also see: Satan. At first glance, the name 'Decepticon' seemed almost laughable, childish. But considering that the creatures they were fighting might as well have been the Devil incarnate, its use made a lot of sense. More than he wanted it to.

Which was why, at the moment, he almost wished he could be anywhere else than standing guard at the rear exit of an Indian hotel, a rather upscale one at that. The plush carpet beneath his feet could have been genuine Persian, the walls were freshly painted a muted gold, and the air didn't reek of garbage and car exhaust as many other places in the crowded city did. But all the luxuries in the world couldn't put him at ease, not with a cutting-edge headset nestled into his ear, a loaded Magnum beneath his jacket, and a discreet radiation scanner in his hand. Because at the moment, Johnathan Grieves was doing the one thing that terrified the shit out of him about his job-- he was on the lookout for Decepticons. Three floors above him, the girl he had been charged with protecting was still asleep in her room, guarded by three agents actually within the room, two outside the door, one at each end of the hall on every floor, and twelve rotating around the perimeter of the building. A married couple were also housed above him in the room beside the girl's, protected by their own platoon of armed agents.

There would not have been a need for so many agents if the three civilians weren't important. Really important. And wherever there was something very important to the Autobots, the Decepticons were never far away.

He strode slowly down the hallway, sweeping the scanner in a wide arc from left to right as he went. When he reached the elevator he stopped and turned, making his way back down the hall towards the rear exit. So far not one of the agents had registered anything, not even a blip. It made him uneasy.

::Agent 9, come in. Report your status::

"Agent 9 checking in, all quiet on the western front."

The lead agent didn't appreciate his subtle attempt at humor, ignoring him in favor of moving on down the list of agents and assesing their status in turn. Every agent went through the entire proceedure about once every seven minutes, and after a while-- when nothing started blowing up and their scanners didn't start going haywire-- it grew boring and repetitive. Like watching windshield wipers on a rainy day.

Down to the end of the hallway, stop for a visual check through the glass door, turn and march back towards the elevators. The geiger count hugged zero. Still nothing. That should have relieved him, but it only served to crank up his anxiety another notch. Though there was no basis for the feeling, he couldn't shrug the conviction that he was being watched-- that a pair of red eyes lingered in the shadows, targeting his heart through the gray material covering his back. He had seen what happened to the other agents caught unawares by a Decepticon; it was never a pretty sight.

Stop at the elevator, wave the scanner back and forth (still nothing), twist around and start back towards the door again.

::Agent 9, Status check::

"Agent 9, checking in. All clear on first level."

The sense that he was being secretly observed increased with every step, causing his heart to hammer wildly beneath the solid weight of the Magnum. By the time he reached the glass paneled door again, he was convinced that if he leaned forward and glanced around into the parking lot, he would find something too hideous, too terrible to describe waiting for him just around the corner.

But he was a NEST agent. It was his job to fight Decepticons, damnit. No matter how much he wanted to run as fast as possible in the other direction, he had to look, he had to protect the girl he had been assigned to protect.

So he stepped forward and peered through the glass at the parking lot. Nothing.

But suddenly his scanner blipped in his hand. Still caught in the grips of the icy conviction that there was something out there, he gazed in fear at the instrument in his hands. The needle twitched up the scale, coming near the base line mark for the smallest of transformers, and settled again. He stared at it intently, convinced that if he looked away it would swell into the red zone. Nothing. The needle clung to the bottom edge, seemingly made of lead.

Feeling the hairs prickling on the back of his neck again, he looked once more out the window. His gaze focused on the spaces between the cars, the dark slots beneath the cars, the row of wilted hedges framing the parking lot, even the alleys between the buildings across the street. Unless there was a Decepticon the size of a fly out there, nothing was looking through the window at him.

And yet he knew with every ounce of gut-clenching, spine-tingling instinct that something, somehow, was watching him. Gathering the frail dregs of his courage about him, he sucked in a deep breath and leaned on the bar to open the door.

A gust of surprisingly cool wind buffeted his face. The scent of ozone hung in the air, and the dawn twilight was far darker than it should have been at almost 7am in the morning. The rainy season should still have been about a month away, and yet unless he was in the grips of a hallucination it looked as though it would start flooding at any minute.

Sticking his head out into the charged air, he glanced around both corners of the building, one hand reaching beneath his jacket for the Magnum. He still felt observed, though his eyes and his scanner told him that he was only imagining things. Slowly easing his hand away from his weapon, he threw once last glance around the misty parking lot and angled his eyes towards the sky. The billowing gray mass of clouds overhead had not yet enveloped the whole of the sky, but it loomed large and threatening above the buildings, looking for all the world like the leading wave of a tsunami moving in slow motion. No Decepticons up in the sky, either. Not that he had been expecting Starscream to pop in for a visit, especially since the last report had stated that the malevolent jet still needed to reattach his arm, but it didn't hurt to be cautious.

He pulled his head back inside and locked the door with a special key he had been given by management. The feeling of being stared at by something with evil intentions slowly faded, but he couldn't put this issue from his mind as no more than mild panic attack, especially considering the momentary spike that had registered on the scanner.

Johnathan suspected that he should inform the lead agent of the storm and suggest moving the three civilians to an ealier flight so they wouldn't end up stuck in India when the monsoon finally hit. He knew he should, but something he could not name held him back.

::Agent 9, Status Check::

He hesitated. His gut instincts as an agent warned him that if something had been watching-- if something were still watching, waiting for them to give it an opening to attack-- it would be disasterous to announce his plans to get the three packages out sooner over the radio where a Decepticon with sophisticated eavesdropping equipment could easily pick it up. Secrecy would be the key to preventing the Decepticons from getting the upper edge.

::Agent 9, Status Check. Do you copy::

"Copy that, Agent 0. It's still quiet down here."

Johnathan knew he might get himself fired for lying to a superior officer, especially when engaged in a high priority mission. But if doing so would save the three people in his care, he was willing to risk it. Casually pulling out a pen and a small notebook from his jacket pocket, he scribbled out a note in code that would inform Agent 0 not only of what he had seen and felt, but also of his hunch that an earlier departure time would not be a bad idea.

When the next agent came to take his place two hours later, he silently pressed the note into Agent 0's hand as he passed the man on the way up the stairs to the third floor.

It was out of his hands now. He could only hope to God that it would work. It would really ruin his day to be dismembered by a Decepticon pissed at being thwarted by a human. Not to mention, it would prove his friends right when they said he was suicidal for wanting a job working with aliens. He liked working with aliens, possibility of a gruesome death and all.

NNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNN

Deep beneath the Indian bedrock, spiraling out under the ocean floor, the NEST mainframe PSAI, or Partially Sentient Artificial Intelligence, ceaselessly processed trillions of gigabytes of data per minute, cycling through every electronic medium it could access for any hint of Decepticon activity.

The PSAI mainframe, despite its clumsy acronym, had no conciousness to speak of. It could see, hear, and communicate intelligently, but it possesed no self, either to be content with its work or to be driven insane by it, or even to feel depressed about its life as a faceless machine hardwired into the very walls.

But it could, to some extent, be afraid.

When its signal lights would begin to flash and its alarms begin to wail to indicate an ongoing Decepticon attack, it presented a picture far more alive that its usual facade of mechanical indifference. Of course it never truly felt fear when ringing its alarms and winking its red lights on and off, but all watching humans would have sworn up and down that it looked like it was flying into a panic.

Yet even machines could, at times, be overwhelmed by facts and numbers spinning through their program drives and logic engines. And at approximately 9:23:58am on a friday morning in September, the NEST mainframe monitored and logged a momentary data overflow that in a human would have translated into a panic attack. But of course the PSAI could not be afraid, could not panic.

When the first indication of a live Decepticon attack trickled through its wires, it merely sent out a blip of electronic one's and zero's to cause a red light to blink on the holographic map of Earth displayed in the Command room. Moscow, Russia. 9:19:43am

A second blip of data came in, informing it of a second Decepticon attack. PSAI put up another blinking red light on the map. Austin, Texas. 9:19:59am.

And a third, immediately on the tail of the second. Once more PSAI dotted the revolving holographic globe with a red light. London, Britain. 9:20:03am.

Any creature with the ability to be stunned, to feel anxiety, would have stared in shock at the three simulateous attacks. But the NEST mainframe did not have the ability to either feel or stare in shock, given its lack of eyes, so it merely continued sorting through the sudden reems of incoming data, throwing up red dots all over the map.

Another blip of data, another logged Decepticon attack. A blinking red light.

Beijing, the People's Republic of China. 9:20:18am.

And another attack, another red light.

Syndney, Austrailia. 9:20:24am.

Again its systems alerted PSAI of a Decepticon presence. Again the already bleeding map was wounded with a spot of red.

Baghdad, Iraq. 9:20:37am.

Signals continued to stream in through the NEST mainframe, and the mainfram continued to wail its alarms and throw up a blinking red light for every single one.

Again.

And again.

...And again....

NNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNN

Author's Note: ...I think I'm going to have to rely on my loyal fans to protect me from the rabid Sunstreaker and Sideswipe fan girls howling for my blood right now. Unless, of course, my loyal fans are themselves original!Twin fans, in which case I'm doomed.

Yes, I did take liberties with some of the characters we didn't see much of in the movie, and no, I'm not going to bring anyone back from the dead/ change this story into a parody of about a zillion other twin fics I've seen. And if Sideswipe was, indeed, in Egypt, I didn't see it and I'm going to continue under the assumption that he wasn't. Sorry. (Keep in mind that I've never seen G1 people, and I'm trying to go with the personalities I was able to observe in the movies...kind of hard, considering some of them only had one line, if that). I'm also going to assume that Arcee was one being that could transform into three separate units.

I'm sure some of you smart people have picked up on the clues I've peppered throughout this chapter and now have a pretty good idea of what's happening on the Autobot side of the coin. Please, I beg you, if you DO know, keep it under your hat. I want it to be a surprise for everyone else.

And no matter what it may look like, this is NOT turning into a Sam/Bee romance. I already promised you guys it wouldn't, and I'm planning to stick to that.

That said, enjoy! I've now officially written a full-length book (even though I'm not done with this story yet). *Does a happy little dance* Yay!

Note: For those of you who didn't know, in the paper publishing world 100,000 words = a 200 page paper back novel.