Instability

by Steelfeathers

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

12. The Tolling of the Bells

Sam opened his eyes to find himself in his room. His room, but somehow not his room.

Warm California sunshine streamed in through the window, but that was all, as if everything beyond the pane of glass had been washed away by light.

He sat at his desk, studying the walls. Huh. They were different now. He always forgot what they looked like later-- always forgot seeing them at all-- but when he returned to the room that was HIS and yet somehow not his room, the memory of them always came back as if it had never left. Except now. Now, something was different.

Sam worried about that for a moment, then shrugged. If the walls wanted to change, that was their decision. It was a free country after all--

--home no longer, a boat set adrift--

--so the walls certainly had the right to adjust themselves if they wished. And anyway, that was the least of his problems. He had tried to ignore it for a while, but now there was no denying that his chair had begun to morph from wood to metal and sprout dozens of little plugs and wires and tubes that probed at his shirt, seeking skin, itching to jack into his spine. Sam knew that if they did that the metal would spread to him as well, which he didn't want to happen. It tickled, too, all those little plugs feeling their way across his back.

His desk, in firm agreement with his chair, had decided to become a metal console-- its screen lit up, playing a black and white movie of nothing but vanishing cars. The sight of those vanishing cars-- disappear, reappear, disappear, reappear-- choked him with a sudden thrill of terror he couldn't explain. Sam needed to get away from them, get out of his room and escape the metal dentist's chair and those vanishing cars, or something truly awful would happen.

The walls were still changing as well. Suddenly all those little adjustments, unseen yet felt, were no longer a small annoyance. Somewhere, new data was flowing into the program that governed the walls. Somewhere, a constant was no longer constant. He wanted to stop it, force the program to go back to normal--

--ERROR. ATTEMPT FAILED. ATTEM--

--but he couldn't even seem to focus his eyes on the walls for long enough to figure out what was wrong, what was changing. So he bolted from his chair, tearing himself from the grip of the metal tendrils that had begun to loop around his arms and legs, and raced for the door. Nothing prevented him from exiting the room and thundering down the stairs, but he noticed with some disquiet that the program running through the walls of his room didn't stop at his door, but continued all throughout the house. Whenever he tried to look at them, whatever covered the walls slipped away from his line of sight, always fleeing at the edges of his vision. Sam felt certain that if he could only pin them (....them?...) in place for a single instant he would realize what they were and what they meant.

A nameless force pulled him towards the living room, but he hesitated at the bottom of the stairs. Someone had pulled up the carpet and planted grass instead, turning the whole downstairs into a graveyard full of jutting headstones. None of them had names; too many robots had died for all their names to be carved in their headstones. At the opposite end of the living room, sheetrock and grass gave way to dark metal. Apparently, Optimus and his cohorts had absconded with the living room and transformed it into a mini alien outpost, covering the walls with writhing metal snakes. The ceiling arched up to lofty, unfathomable heights-- higher than the clouds, than space, and higher still-- but he couldn't see anything of the outside world beyond that whispering curtain of snakes. Even here the program had changed, warped, accelerated, gained a new purpose and design, imprinted into the backs of those metal snakes and carried along in their undulating mass. But he still couldn't read it, couldn't understand it. Though he sensed that soon he would.

--COMPLETION IMMINENT--

Optimus and Bumblebee had taken up residence in the metal corner of the living room, looking down with sad optics at the broken form of a man-sized robot. Jolt stood sobbing quietly in one corner.

"Is there anything that can be done?" Bumblebee whispered, voice trembling. He seemed....excited, yet terrified at the same time.

"Not unless we remove his brain," Optimus sighed in return, "But Orion might object."

No longer standing in a corner, Jolt appeared just behind Sam's shoulder, leaning down to whisper in his ear.

"The walls. Look at the walls."

But Sam couldn't. "Bumblebee will hate me," he lamented.

A tiny bubble of sound-- 'What is the nature of the soul?'

Still Sam couldn't look at the walls. He feared the changes in the program.

--NECESSARY MODIFICATIONS TO STRUCTURE AND DESIGN--

Suddenly, no longer did he stand at one end of the living room gazing toward his friend and the broken little robot, he was the broken, deactivated little robot, lying there with his arm snapped in two pieces and wishing he had a yellow blanket to use for a cast so it wouldn't hurt so much. His heart lay outside of his chest, smooth and slippery and dark red, but strangely enough it continued to beat even though he was dead, slithering arteries connecting it to the dark cave under his ribs. There was no pain and no blood, but it was still rather gross.

Lying on his back, Sam could see the metal ceiling beyond his friends, though he shied away from looking too closely, fearful of the program and what it would tell him if focused on it for too long. The answers were there, so obvious, yet just beyond reach and comprehension. Unthinkable.

--'Unprecedented'-- The voice from before whispered.

Bumblebee crouched low over his broken form, weeping as Jolt had.

"It has to be done," he cried, pulling Sam's unresisting body into his arms, "I cannot risk continuing to be in his presence." And Bumblebee shocked him with blue lightning. Nothing happened. He was still dead dead dead.

Bumblebee dropped him again, no longer weeping, optics cold and hard and cruel, insectile mask stripping away his friend and leaving the only a skeleton, leaving only the Hornet. When he spoke, it was not his own voice that emerged, but that of Optimus.

::Bumblebee is afraid::

And suddenly the walls loomed into view, their changes no longer a mystery. Alien symbols scrawled left and right, up and down, swirling over every surface, shifting, rearranging, reforming according to the demands of the program. The symbols had always been there, he remembered then, though now he could see the changes wrought in them. He couldn't define the difference, couldn't speak it aloud or in the hollows of his own mind, but abruptly he understood, and the understanding filled him with black terror, the jaws of horror yawning open into a bottomless chasm beneath his feet--

*Tap-tap-tap*

With a start and a violent twitch, Sam jerked himself awake.

Eyes flashing open, he gasped in a harsh rattle of breath-- then another, and another. When at last the creeping realization that the vision had been no more than a dream trembled through him, his heart beat slowed from its panicked gallop into a more restrained sprint, air exploding past his lips in a woosh of relief.

The room surrounding him was dark and cool, the fistfuls of blanket strangled in his hands blissfully solid, yet for a moment in lay in disorientation, not quite sure where he was. He didn't remember checking into a hotel-- and the smell of tortilla chips was conspiciously absent, so it couldn't be his dorm room-- but neither did the feel of it remind him of his cramped home in Tranquility. Blinking up at the pale rectangle of the ceiling, it took a moment or two for the knowledge of his situation to rush back to his concious mind. Duh, he was at NEST. Not a hotel, not a dorm room, not the only home he knew several continents away. Just a barren, white walled prison cell that could have been stamped from a cookie cutter.

*Tap-tap-tap*

Sam flinched again at the unexpected sound, levering himself up on his elbows to stare at the door. Was someone knocking on the other side?

*Tap-tap-tap*

"Sam, it's Dave! Are you in there?"

Yep, apparently so. Sam fumbled for his watch, realized he must had taken it off (--gentle, unfamiliar hands slipping open the clasp on the band--), and rolled to the side to look at the alarm clock perched on the bedside table. 7:23. Ugh! Why did adults always try to get him up so early?! (Why did he feel like there was somewhere he needed to be?).

"Yeah," he croaked, though the word came out more as a question than a statement. He couldn't remember having gone to bed. For that matter, he couldn't remember what he'd done yesterday at all besides create zillions of bitch-slapping Decepticon doodles. He looked towards his desk and found that someone had removed the tray of congealing food.

"Um...." He flailed around for a bit, then finally remembered how to work his limbs and disentangled himself from the covers, tumbling awkwardly from the bed. "Come on in!"

The door opened, and a pressed and polished Agent Dave (snicker) strode into the room. Sam smoothed a hand over his head to try to flatten his sleep-mussed hair, feeling alarmingly young and insecure standing there in front of a gun-toting agent in pajamas. He couldn't remember changing out of his clothes, but he guessed he must have at some point the night before (--strong arms around him, setting his limp form on the bed-- fingers unlacing his shoes, pulling them from his feet--).

"Good morning," Dave said cheerfully (must be an evil mutant, no human should be so bright and sunny at 7am), "Did you sleep well?"

"I guess," Sam answered slowly, looking around for his clothes. He must have dumped them somewhere in a groggy haze. But seeing his jeans and hoody carefully folded on top of the dresser, his palms grew slick. No self-respecting teenager ever folded their clothes, much less Sam, much less while too disoriented to even remember what he had been doing before collapsing into bed. "This is going to sound really psychotic and strange, but did you come in here and undress me last night?"

He knew at once from the alarmed look on Dave's face that that had been the wrong thing to say.

"Wait, not like that! Not like perverted pedophile undressing, the other kind of undressing-- you know, the kind parents sometimes do for sleepy little kids? ...That still sounds awkward. Just forget it." While he spoke, he crossed to the dresser and shook out the folded clothes, looking for some kind of clue. Maybe there would be a mysterious hair lingering on the fabric that he could use for DNA matching or something.

"No, I didn't." Dave looked at him strangely. "Why do you ask?"

Sam waved away the question, realizing he didn't actually want to know. God, if Lennox or someone had come in and helped him change out of his clothes he would never live it down--

"Lennox!" He gasped suddenly, tripping over the memory stirred by the internal utterance of the name. That was what he was supposed to do, the reason why he felt he needed to be somewhere soon. He had to meet the Captain at 8, and it was already close to 7:30.

Dave chuckled lightly, though he still gazed at him with a critically appraising eye. "So you do remember, after all. Optimus warned me that you might not, so he sent me down here to wake you up and take you to the cafeteria for breakfast before your lesson."

"Optimus?" Sam stopped halfway to the bathroom. He was determined to set a world record for how fast he could shower off-- the last thing he wanted was to make a bad impression on Lennox by being smelly, not when he needed to get down on his knees and beg the man to let his girlfriend come stay with him. Not that he'd managed to come up with an irrefutable argument to use in any case, but it was too late to concoct one-- he'd have to wing it.

Dave smiled patiently. "You know-- thirty-foot-tall robot, red and blue, makes speeches?"

Thinking better of going into the bathroom with nothing on hand to change into, Sam backtracked to the dresser and dug out another pair of jeans and a t-shirt. "No, I know who Optimus is. But what does he have to do with anything?"

"The way I hear it, you were with him until almost 4am last night."

As he spoke, the dam on Sam's memories broke and the entire debacle came flooding back to him-- including the fact that no one had heard from Bumblebee in many hours (--Bee, no!--). He kept his head above the waters of panic by clinging to the fact that Optimus would have told him if anything had gone horribly wrong, though that didn't rule out the possibility that something had gone wrong without the Autobots' knowledge. Grudgingly he was forced to admit that there was nothing he could do but hope for the best, though he still wondered how, besides logic, Optimus knew that Bee was okay (--'two very good reasons'--two--two--'cannot yet tell you'--).

"Oh. Right." Choking down the bitter bile of fear, he gathered his courage and a change of clothes and sprinted for the bathroom door. "I stink like corn chips right now, so I'm gonna take a quick shower. Could you wait for me outside? I don't know where I'm supposed to meet Lennox."

"Or where the cafeteria is," Dave reminded him, voice edging on stern, reminding Sam that, as someone in cohorts with Optimus, the agent probably knew about the uneaten food that had sat overnight on his desk.

"That too."

Sam had no inclination to make himself late for his meeting with Lennox by wasting time on something as trival as eating, but he saw no need to inform the agent of that. He'd probably squeal on him to Optimus-- no, to Rachet, and the uber creepy alien doctor would probably try to do something like shove a tube down his throat when he found out. No, thank you.

Sam nearly tripped over the misplaced trashcan when he threw open the bathroom door. His heart leapt into his throat at the sight of the present ratting around in the bottom, bow slightly mashed out of shape on one side. The gift reminded him of Bee's anger, causing the sickening self-disgust from the day before to come rushing back. The feeling had all but evaporated after his talk with Orion/Optimus, but it returned as ripe and foul as ever at the sight of the unopened willing to waste a single moment wallowing in self-pity, he moved the transcan under the sink, shucked off his pj's, peeled the sling from his cast (don't look don't look), and jumped in the shower. It was rather difficult to get clean when working around both a cast and a stitched arm (he ended up taking off Rachet's bandage, deciding that he would simply have to put up with the robot's bitching) but somehow he managed it without falling and breaking another bone. In a record span of time worthy of the Guiness book of world records, he bolted from the shower, dried off, put on his clothes and the sling, and rushed out of the bathroom.

As he had promised, Dave awaited him in the hallway, leaning against one wall and gazing at his watch. He smiled as Sam emerged, the door sliding closed behind him.

"Four minutes. Not bad."

Sam smiled wanely at the praise, already moving off down the hallway at a fast clip. "Thanks. Let's hurry up and get this eating thing over with. I have to meet Lennox in about--"

He stopped, looking at his bare wrist, and realized he still wasn't wearing his watch and had no clue as to its whereabouts.

"Thirty minutes," the agent supplied, "Plenty of time for a short detour to pick up your watch along the way." At Sam's fish-out-of-water impression, he elaborated, "When Optimus called me to come pick you up this morning, he said that your watch had stopped and that he'd dropped it off with Wheeljack to have it fixed. --Either that, or to have the mad engineer make you another one. Pray it doesn't explode," Dave chuckled at what must have been an inside joke, though Sam had never heard of any 'wheeljack' and hadn't the faintest idea what might have been funny about things blowing up.

But any speculations on mad engineers and mushroom clouds dissipated with mention of his watch and the mental cold shower that followed. More specifically, at the mention that Optimus had noticed something wrong with it and the implication that the alien had taken it from his wrist.

After all, if the alien could create a hologram able to hug someone, what was to say he couldn't also create a hologram able to carry a traquilized human back to his room and tuck him in for the night?

NNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNN

As it turned out, Dave was terrible at estimation. Sam made a mental note to himself to remember that when the agent said 'short detour' he really meant 'five mile hike in the opposite direction from where we need to go'.

So on their five-mile hike to Wheeljack's lab, Sam fretted about the possibility that an alien, albiet a benevolent alien, might have carted his limp and helpless form back to his room, stripped him down to his underwear, and dressed him in pj's. Not that he was worried that he'd been molested in his sleep-- Optimus was a robot, he didn't have reproductive parts or hormonal urges-- but the very idea made his stomach fold up into uncomforable knots. He couldn't really pin point why, but it did.

Sam consoled himself with the logical hitch in the hologram scenario-- electrical charges may have been able to fool nerves into sensing heat and pressure, but a cloud of tiny nanomachines would not have been able to lift a human, not even with fully charged batteries capable of powering New York city. Because a nanomachine cloud was just that-- a cloud, not solid matter capable of transporting other matter.

Yet somehow, the chain of reasoning did little to alleviate the awful twisting feeling in his gut.

As they walked, Dave filled him in about the new Cybertronian.

"Wheeljack arrived about three months ago," he began, "Apparently, he was an engineer back on Cybertron-- a very talented one as we've discovered-- if slightly eccentric. He's been helping us improve our defense systems and expand the base. Nice robot, very friendly. Keep your distance."

Sam yanked himself from his musings at the off-hand warning.

"Why? Trigger happy?"

Dave snorted, the tolerant smile a parent would wear when observing a trouble-making child twitching up the corners of his lips. "No. According to his file, Wheeljack only has one main weapon (unless you count his IQ as a weapon, in which case he may very well be the most deadly of the Autobots) but it's designed more for self-defense than target practice. The thing you need to worry about is his insatiable curiosity."

A shiver of dread worked its way down Sam's spine. "Would he try to dissect me?" he tried to joke, not completely able to hide the tremor in his voice.

To his relief, Dave replied, "From what I've seen, Wheeljack wouldn't harm a fly." But then the agent went on, "Though if given the chance he might study you for hours, and if you volunteered he would happily do exploratory surgery."

"....Isn't that what they do to dead frogs?"

To his amazement (and fear) the agent only laughed.

"Sam, with Wheeljack you'd be more in danger of him putting something back in that's not supposed to be there as an 'upgrade' than being left cut open to die. He may be a mad scientist, but he's a conscientious mad scientist."

"Great," Sam rasped, "now I feel totally reassured."

Their detour took them to a part of the base Sam had not yet explored in his random wanderings. The halls all looked the same, but the black numbers on the metal doors changed, shrinking back from 330 towards 1. There was also a sudden increase in noise to deliniate the deserted living quarters from the operational parts of the base, though the sounds didn't resemble human voices, ringing telephones, and clacking computer keys so much as a general hubbub of ceaseless activity. As they drew nearer, another sound made itself heard above the ruckus-- Cybertronian. Dave hadn't been kidding when he said it was an alien experimental lab.

Rounding a corner, Sam caught sight of an open hanger door in the right wall. But his attention was immediately diverted from the door itself to the black scorch marks lapping at the floor, ceiling and walls of the surrounding hallway. He'd almost thought the agent had been exaggerating when he said 'explosions'. Obviously not. 'Explosion' almost seemed like an understatement, given that the wall opposite the open door sported a very large, crater-like dent where something like a tweny foot hanger door had erupted outward, burst from its hinges, and smashed against the metal and concrete hard enough to bow it outwards.

Sam gulped, wondering if he should start running or accept his fate like a man. Dave settled the matter for him by clamping a hand on his shoulder and steering him inside.

Given his experience with Rachet's infirmary, he'd expected to find himself in another unfathomably alien room. Instead, beyond the hanger doors he discovered something that looked....very much like an airplane hanger. Only bigger. And stuffed with machinery and discarded pieces of scrap.

....were those post-it notes littering the floor?

The room itself could have served double duty as a warehouse, and it appeared that Wheeljack was halfway towards fulfilling that purpose by stuffing floor to ceiling metal shelves with discarded equipment and broken devices that would not have looked out of place at a junk yard. Workbenches-- human-sized workbenches-- formed a loose horseshoe around the center of the space, crammed with every concievable piece of advanced technology a cyber geek could dream up. Though no living being stood by to attend to them, several vats of liquid bubbled quietly on the tables, contents traveling through glass tubes and flasks (and sometimes, seemingly, through thin air), while holographic data displays set up adjacent to them took virtual notes. Many other experiments hummed quietly along their merry way throughout the room, monitored only by advanced computers.

While Sam would have expected a robotic scientist to be meticulously neat, Wheeljack seemed to be anything but. Miscellaneous things crowded on top of each other on every horizontal surface, stacked three feet deep in some places. Machinery parts littered the floor, as though the alien had been in the process of deconstructing them and had simply never returned to finish or clean up. There were yellow post-in notes stuck to everything, some so old they had turned almost white. Though most were scrawled with detailed notes in red sharpie, some held only a question mark, and still others had been left blank, as though the scatter-brained genius had forgotten what he wanted to write in the middle of writing it.

The fact that such a creature-- one with ADD and pack rat tendancies-- inhabited a powerful robotic body and was reportedly very curious about humans unnerved him to no end.

They stopped just inside the door. After a moment of taking in the room's non-living contents, it dawned on him that he had yet to see anyone, cybertronian or human, lurking within. Again he eyed the small workbenches, thinking of the high table in the infirmary, and wondered at the fact that he had heard only alien voices rather than human ones.

"Where is he?" Sam whispered to Dave, almost afraid to break the silence. As soon as he spoke, a loud clang echoed from somewhere within, followed by a litany of aliens screeches and whirls that sounded like foul cursing.

"Hey, Wheeljack!" the agent called out, "I've got a friend for you to meet! Come say hi!"

"My apologies, Dave," a familiar mellow voice replied, though no robot appeared to accompany it. Instantly, Sam realized why everything in the room was sized to fit a human-- Wheeljack was none other than the spindy white robot he had seen in the command center the night before. From what he remembered, the engineer couldn't have been more than six feet tall. "But I'm afraid I'm very busy working on a project for Prime right now. If his predictions are correct, our new human companion will have need of it very shortly, and I am loathe to pause now that I have started. Come back later."

Sam blinked in confusion. If 'new human companion' was meant to refer to him, why was Wheeljack so worried about repairing his watch?

But Dave only grinned, not appearing to find the comment at all strange. "I'll give you three guesses who I have with me right now, and the first two don't count unless you turn your external sensors back on."

Finally, a robotic torso leaned into view around a column of accumulated stuff to regard them with its blue optics-- all three of them.

Of all the Autobots he had yet encountered, Sam was convinced that Wheeljack won the award for most alien appearance, hands down. His head and face in no way resembled a human's-- he had no mouth or nose, only an tiered face plate framed by a clicking pair of mandibles. There were two blue optics centered about where a human's eyes would be, but one was much larger than the other and jutted from his face like a telescoping lense. His third optic did not appear to be an optic so much as a brass spyglass mounted directly below his left (and smaller) standard blue optic, restlessly zooming in and out to focus on the pair (or on their intestines or bones, for all he knew the alien probably had x-ray vision).

Swept back from either side of Wheeljacks's head were illuminated panels that fluttered gently forward and back like the wings of a cubist butterfly, like the fins of an exotic fish drifting in a pond. Every color imaginable swirled across their mirror-smooth surfaces-- deep indigo faded into robin's egg blue, blue churned into lime green, green burst into sunshine yellow.

Sam could only stare in astonishment and awe, wondering if the panels worked like mood rings-- and if so, what exactly cavorting green and yellow signified.

"Oh! Sam!" Wheeljack exclaimed, voice bubbling with excitement in a way he would have never expected from such an alien being. "I was wondering when I would get to meet you properly. I tried to talk to you yesterday in the command center after the meeting, but you were unresponsive for a long time."

"Um...I was?" He asked inanely as the gleaming white robot glided towards them in three long-legged strides. His legs were far different from those of the other Autobots' (and from those of any human) in that they were jointed like a velociraptor's-- the robot walked on his 'toes' with the ankle joint almost parallel to the knee. Sam could see why Wheeljack was a scientist rather than a warrior-- he was stick thin and unarmored, lanky and jointed in odd places like an oragami sculpture. But his initial estimate had been incorrect; the robot stood closer to eight feet than six. It must have been the presence of the other, taller Autobots and his high vantage point from the cat walk that had made him seem shorter.

"Yes. I believe your mental retreat scared Prime a great deal, though he will never admit to it. Jolt insisted that he could bring you out of it, and obviously he must have considering the fact that you are now standing here rather than sitting where you were," the alien leaned in close, examining his face with his three whirling optics. Then, as if sensing the simmering anxiety his proximity caused, he pulled away again before Sam could take a step back. "Oh, please excuse me. I tend to forget myself when I am excited. As this is the first time we have officially met, I believe introductions are in order."

To Sam's amazement, the alien held out one many-fingered hand in a familiar-- and very human-- greeting. "Good morning. Buenos dias. My terran designation is Wheeljack, though my friends call me Jack." And he shuttered one optic in a wink.

Grinning hesitantly, Sam held out his own hand to the alien. "Hi. I'm Sam. Nice to meet you."

Spidery fingers wrapped around the offered appendage and continued over his wrist and forearm, shaking up and down with enthusiasm despite the awkward hold. "It is nice to meet you as well, Sam. I look forward to bonding with you," at Sam's strange look, he corrected, "Excuse me. I meant getting to know you. Some things do not translate well, I have found."

After almost a good thirty seconds of shaking, Wheeljack pulled Sam's hand closer to examine the line of stitches in his arm, bringing up his other hand to wrap around the human limb.

"You are injured?"

"Rachet took care of it," Sam hastened to assure him, though Dave claimed Wheeljack was an engineer rather than a medic.

The white robot gently spread the fingers of his captured hand, tracing the bones through the skin.

"The design of the human body has never ceased to fascinate me," he admitted, gingerly prodding his wrist and forearm, "Particularly given the inherent illogic behind the endoskeletal structure. It provides no protection whatsoever, and yet humans can be remarkably hardy despite the potential for injury."

"Wheeljack?" Sam asked hesitantly when the alien showed no inclination to let go, "What are you doing?"

"Taking preliminary observations and measurements. Detailed scans suffice to a degree, but I have found that I work better when I have the opprotunity to 'get my hands dirty', as it were."

He blinked at the simultaneously straightforward and confounding answer, looking to Dave for intervention. The agent only shrugged in a 'humor him' kind of way, stuffing his hands in his pockets.

"And you need to get your hands dirty because...." Sam prompted when the engineer didn't explain further.

"Because it would be rather difficult to complete my current project without a detailed study of its intended subject."

Wheeljack released his arm, only to duck in and begin to feel along both sides of his rib cage with his hands. Sam stiffened into a block of wood, veins flooding with an icy chill at the close contact (--'exploratory surgery'--). The face hovering inches from his own, mechanical eyes gazing through him rather than at him, did not look like Megatron's. Fear, however, erased any dividing line between the two-- the glint of scientific eagerness to the three whirling optics iced over, became nothing more than the detached gaze of a mindless machine that felt neither pain nor sympathy and would plunge its needle-like fingers into his chest to stop his heart without a second thought while headfins flashed with cold light and mandibles clicked with the restless, insectile hiss of alien language--

"W-why do you need to study me for a watch?" He protested weakly, voice wavering.

But the robot, the alien, either couldn't hear him or felt it beneath him to answer (--nothing but an insect--'maggot!'--) and said nothing. His third optic, a beady camera lense as black and smooth as a drop of oil, telescoped in and out, rotating slowly, utterly devoid of life and emotion. The hands roved upwards, pulling away from his rib cage, but before Sam could breathe a sigh of relief they settled again on either side of his neck--several fingers probed his vertebrae and the back of his skull, sifting through his hair, while others hooked gently under his chin and slowly twisted his head from side to side. His insides turned to water at the thought of how easily the Autobot could break his neck (--a single flick and the man went flying, bones snapping like twigs--).

"That's enough, Wheeljack," Dave interjected firmly, striding forward to his rescue, "You're frightening him. Give the kid a little breathing room."

At the sound of a human voice, the spell of terror was broken, and the world snapped back into focus. Sam blinked, and suddenly the grasping claws on his shoulders reverted back into harmless fingers, their ministrations once more utterly gentle rather than lethal. Though strange and unearthly, the three whirling optics no longer appeared devoid of life and emotion-- their faint blue glow warmed and thawed, glinting with purpose and intent of a benign rather than malignant nature.

As though the reprimand had broken him from a trace of his own, Wheeljack flinched slightly and pulled his head away, studying Sam from a distance with a baffled air. Startled by whatever he found, he immediately retracted his spindly fingers and pulled his hands in close to his body. Optics still fixed intently on Sam, he slid back first one step, then a second, putting almost ten feet of space between them, head fins darkening to a forest green as he went. The color seemed somehow depressed.

"Forgive me," he murmured softly after a moment, "It was not my intention to alarm you. I suppose I did not consider the severity of a stress response triggered by physical contact-- though I should have, given the negative experiences you have had with my kind in the past."

Sam concentrated on breathing in slowly through his nose, trying to bring the rapid thundering of his heart under control. When at last the roaring in his ears quieted and his arms and legs stopped trembling, he looked up at wheeljack (when had he looked away?) and tried to smile.

"I'm good. I'm fine," he brushed it off, applauding himself for how level and sane his voice sounded. "You just startled me-- wait, how do you know about....all that?"

He twiddled the fingers of his good hand in the air to indicate all the things he couldn't seem to bring himself to say. Being chased and shot at by Decepticons. Being chased by Megatron (--'I smell you, boy!'--). Falling off a building after being shot at by said butt-ugly robot. Being molested by a medusa-haired tongue robot masquerading as a hot blonde. Being captured by Megatron and his cronies, pinned to a slab of concrete, and having a robotic worm squirm around inside his skull. Then getting chased/ shot at AGAIN while running through an Egyptian desert, getting blasted (again!) by Megatron, dying, and coming back to life. So yeah, he could work the 'negative experience causing stress reactions' angle. But Dave had said that Wheeljack had only been on Earth for three months-- how did he know about stuff that happened almost two years ago?

His question seemed to revive the engineer a little-- he straightened from his submissive crouch, adding a splash of hopeful yellow to the muted sea of dark green.

"Prime informed us of all you had gone through to aid us in our quest for the Allspark, and more recently of your efforts to reactivate him from involuntary stasis lock and forestall the destruction of your sun by the Fallen," Wheeljack explained, shuffling a few steps closer. His fingers clicked restlessly together the way a human would wring their hands, appearing to hesitate between keeping his distance and touching him again, maybe to offer some kind of comfort. Tilting his head like a curious dog, he continued, "We have all been very anxious to meet you, though I believe I may have, ah, 'jumped the gun' in my observations, as a tactile bond has yet to be formed between us."

Sam latched onto the word 'observation', remembering the engineer's disjointed explanation about studying him for some project. He still couldn't make the connection between fixing a watch and needing to feel up his head, though. Maybe the watch thing was just a weird alien pretext.

Deciding to make the first move towards relaxing the tension between them, Sam stepped towards the engineer (--don't cringe!--) and asked,"'Tactile bond'?"

Seeing his willing approach, the colors swirling across Wheeljack's headfins brightened even further, once more becoming a bubbly yellow-green.

"Humans are intrinsically tactile creatures," he bobbed his head as though listening to music only he could hear, "The strongest of the interpersonal bonds you form with others are founded on an instinctual reaction to their touch-- being comforted when a sibling puts their hand on your shoulder, for instance, or relaxing into a hug with one's mate. You, Sam, are comfortable when in physical contact with another human. But as I have been told (and now have observed for myself), the negative connotations your mind associates with my kind cause you to flinch and recoil when Jolt or even Bumblebee-- both of whom mean you no harm-- tries to touch you."

It was very eery and WAY awkward to have the tangled inner workings of his mind sorted under neat little headings and displayed for his intimate viewing pleasure in such a clinical and detached manner. And embarassing, though Wheeljack hadn't said something like 'he still wears Barney underwear' (which he didn't). Maybe it was just having all his hang ups put out there for everyone to see that caused him to blush faintly.

Not wanting to consider the implications of that, he scuffed his feet moodily along the concrete. "So?"

"So it is in the interest of both your comfort and safety that we attempt to form positive associations with touch in your mind."

Sam understood that. Intellectually. But it still made him feel disturbingly like a shivering rescue dog being rehabilitated.

"Why safety?" he snapped, tone sharper than he had intended. But, damnit, he was a living, breathing, thinking person-- not a pet.

Wheeljack drew back slightly as if from a poisonous snake, glancing towards Dave before focusing all three of his optics on Sam.

"Think about it," he urged, "What would happen if, during a battle, an unfamiliar Autobot attempted to pull you out of the way of a rampaging Decepticon, and you jerked back out of instinctual fear and ended up getting killed?"

Sam grimaced. "Well, when you put it that way...." he trailed off, looking up at Wheeljack's timidly hopeful posture and catching a glint of mewling worry to his alien optics. And suddenly it dawned on him that the engineer seemed almost fearful of his reaction. Immediately he wanted to kick himself, feeling like an absolute heel. For all his psycho-babble jargon, the robot seemed to genuinely care about him, though he had no idea why. And here he was acting like a snotty little brat to the eccentric, friendly alien. Way to go, Sam.

"Maybe we can do this half way," he offered, forcing up a smile for the white robot, "Like, get to be friends first before going in for any world-championship snuggle sessions. Humans are definitely touchy-feely, but even we don't go around hugging complete strangers-- well, those of us who aren't escapists from mental asylums, anyway."

Wheeljack visibly brightened, moving to a bench along one wall and digging through a pile of stuff. To Sam's bewilderment, he withdrew a pad of yellow post-it notes and a red sharpie, pulling off the cap with a small pop and scrawling a word across the top sheet. He had never seen a Cybertronian of any description write by hand, and some part of him had assumed that they couldn't. But watching the engineer handle the marker, holding it vertically in his claw-like grip, he realized it was silly to think that just because he had never seen alien penmanship in action.

Highlighting whatever he had written with a final loop of the sharpie, Wheeljack pulled back, replaced the cap on the marker, and peeled of the top post-it. Holding the crinkled piece of paper between his fingers like a talisman, he shuffled back towards Sam.

Sam held himself stock still as the robot approached (--don't cringe--), determined not to freak out like he had the first time. But despite his fevered imaginings, the engineer only stuck the yellow square of paper on the front of his shirt, smoothing it down. Then he stepped back, watching him hesitantly, waiting for his reaction.

Sam looked down at the post-it note he had been labeled with, trying to decipher the single word upside down. When he finally recognized what Wheeljack had written (and outlined with a lopsided circle) he laughed, grinning fiercely with the sudden flood of emotion rising in his chest.

It wasn't hard to spot the unspoken apology embodied in the yellow badge. Especially when it read: 'FRIEND'.

Okay, he definitely liked Wheeljack.

"Thanks," he said, still smiling, and meant it.

A sudden reel of electronic (though not Cybertronian) beeps startled Sam into a full-body twitch. He jerked around towards the source, stunned to find Dave standing a few feet behind him. He had almost forgotten that there was someone else in the room. The agent pulled open one side of his jacket, extracting-- of all low tech things-- a pager. Although given that cellphones had squat in the way of reception in the underground base, he supposed using a pager made sense.

Whatever message the little device displayed upset the agent to no end. His brow furrowed low over flinty eyes, and he swore softly under his breath.

"I hate to interrupt," he said, replacing the pager, "But Sam needs to eat before his meeting with Captain Lennox at 8. If we could have his watch, perhaps the two of you could finish this another time....?"

"Oh yes! I have that ready for you, Sam." Wheeljack loped back to the same workbench that had held the pad of post-it notes and eased open the lid of a red Coleman tool box. Despite its designed purpose, the metal container was filled with assorted nicknaks rather than tools.

"What was that?" Sam asked of Dave as Wheeljack rifled through his collection of junk, "What did you get paged for?"

The agent shook his head. "Just a meeting I need to attend. Don't worry about it. Although--" he glanced at his own watch, "--I may end up skipping it. This took longer than I expected; it's almost 8 now, and someone has to show you the way to the shooting range."

"Shooting range?" Sam eeped, then rolled his eyes at his own idiocy. "Oh. Duh. Shooting guns requires a shooting range, I guess."

"I would be perfectly capable of escorting him," Wheeljack offered, turning back to them with a black banded watch dangling from his fingers, "Ironhide has been pinging my comm receptors for the last few minutes inquiring as to my whereabouts. --I have been helping the soldiers test a new species of weapon," he added to Sam, tossing the watch in his direction.

Wanting to look slick and cool, he tried to catch it with one hand, failed spectacularly, and ended up fumbling with it for a few seconds before pinning it to his chest. Smooth, Sam. Real smooth. But as he strapped it to his wrist, a niggling suspicion arose in his mind. If Wheeljack had already finished with his watch, what had the engineer been working on when they arrived? For that matter, what did he need 'measurements' for?

Oblivious to Sam's swirling internal thoughts, Dave shook his head in response to Wheeljack's offer. "That's my job. Besides, knowing Ironhide he wants you there now, and I can't in good conscience ask you to face his wrath by waiting until after Sam has eaten something to go lend a hand." He spoke the last part with a pointed glare in Sam's direction. Sam glared back, trying to directly trasmit the words 'I don't need a babysitter' into the agent's mind. Or failing that, tattoo them to his forehead.

"Look, it really won't make a good impression on Lennox if I'm late, and I can always go to breakfast after learning how to put holes in things," he reasoned. It would also give him the chance to weasel more information about Optimus' 'project' from the engineer, though he didn't add that out loud.

Wheeljack, for his part, seemed ready to bounce with delight at the fact that Sam wanted to go with him. "Certainly! I can handle it from here, Dave. We wouldn't want you to get in trouble by being later for your meeting, after all."

The bleeting whine of the agent's pager cut off any rebuttal poised on his tongue. With a defeated sigh, he pulled it out and switched it off with only a cursory glance at the message it displayed.

"Alright. I guess I'm out numbered. Behave, both of you."

(All hail the mighty Agent Dave, for he has spoken!)

Raising a questioning eyebrow at Sam when he started to burst at the seams from surpressed giggles, the man turned and left the alien laboratory.

Finally alone with his intended prey, Sam twisted towards Wheeljack.

"So. What have you been working on recently?" He leaned to the side, trying to peer around the mounds of stuff at whatever may have been hidden deep within the lab. Catching on to what he was trying to do, Wheeljack lightly set a hand on his shoulder and steered him towards the door. Sam tried not to jump out of his skin at the touch.

"Many things. Automated defense systems, a communication device that would rest inside the aural cavity itself rather than outside of it where the chances of losing it are much higher, special anti-Decepticon firearms for human use--"

"Anything to do with me?" Sam interjected into the enthusiastic stream of words as they passed into the hallway, trying to divert his eyes from the telltale scorch marks (what could make an explosion like that?).

"Well, I did do some work on your watch."

"What was wrong with it?"

Wheeljack glanced at him curiously.

"Nothing was wr-- ah, I see."

Alarm bells started ringing in his head at the unfinished sentence.

"See what?"

But Wheeljack only turned away from him, uneasiness radiating from every inch of his metal skin.

"Nothing. If Prime has not told you, then I will assume he has a reason for you not to know. --But come on! I'm sure you will find a demonstration of the new Thermite projectiles quite intriguing."

Sam doubted he would find anything intriguing that was meant to distract him, but he sensed that any attempt to question the engineer further would be met with more rambling dialogue, producing as little in the way of results as questioning a doorknob. A dark scream of frustration began to build in his chest. Just when it seemed that Optimus was going to be open with him, the robot turned around and began hoarding secrets again, spinning a web of plans and counterplans behind his back.

Comparing the images of Orion and Optimus in his mind-- one open and fatherly, the other cold, aloof, and full of inexplicable sorrow-- Sam realized that Bumblebee wasn't the only Autobot who wore a mask. And he wondered just what the alien leader's was meant to hide.

NNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNN

The shooting range, as it turned out, was not as far away as he had feared. Made sense, really-- if a bunch of roudy marines/roudy Autobots were going to be blasting off all kinds of explosive weapons, you would want to contain the fallout as far from sleeping humans and delicate equipment as possible. Upon entering, he could immediately see (or rather hear) why-- the sound of dozens of firearms being discharged in rapid succession assulted his ears with slightly less force than a sonic boom.

The shooting range itself bore some resemblance to a bowling alley-- lanes walled with bullet-proof plexiglass spanned the length of the room, separating the shooters (and their bullets) from one another. Arranged at the far end of each lane like impressionist bowling pins were tiered rows of moving targets, some bearing the traditional red-and-white bullseye pattern, others stapled with carboard cutouts of various Decepticons. In one lane a sneering Starscream had his leg shot off by a burly marine; in another, Megatron acquired a small round hole through his forehead.

At the far end of the room, clear plexiglass had been tempered with the same brown coating they used on celebrity limos to block out glare. Sam couldn't see anything of what was happening in those lanes, though a continual stream of people-- some wearing camouflage, others labcoats-- milled about in the area. All, to his surprise, wore tinted goggles.

Suddenly, though he couldn't see any shots being fired, a brilliant flash lit up the far end of one of the lanes, its light so intense that it cut easily through the dark glaze.

"Thermite!" Wheeljack yelled by his ear to be heard over the continual roar. "A mixture of aluminum powder and iron-three-oxide that is ignited by a magnesium fuse on contact, creating a flare of 4500 degree heat that is hot enough to melt through Decepticon armor. Standard cartridge projectiles cannot penetrate our armor, and the Sabot rounds your military prefers to combat our enemies are far too unweildly to be used by anything but a tank or aircraft. Thus the use of Thermite-- we've been working on a mixture that can be employed in normal infantry weapons to give your soldiers the same firepower as a Sabot round in a package that they can easily carry with them."

A hulking black shadow in the corner moved. Sam jumped, realizing that Ironhide was crouched before one of the darkened lanes. The weapons specialist scoffed at the marine who had fired the previous shot.

"Pathetic," he grumbled, "Watch this."

He lowered one of his cannons to ground level, popping open the revolving magazine. A scientist in a labcoat approached, carting a round the size of a mail tube in his arms. He slid the test round into Ironhide's cannon, then stepped back as the heavily armored Autobot lifted his arm, snapped the magazine closed with a turn of the wrist, and fired down the lane.

A thunderous roar bellowed through the room, followed by another dazzling flash of light. Suddenly Sam understood the need for the goggles.

"Not bad," the marine conceded, ignoring the mechanical snort of disbelief from the Autobot and reloading his own weapon.

A heavy human hand landed on Sam's shoulder, jolting him from the suspended awe that had fallen over him watching Ironhide and the marine compare firepower.

"Don't worry 'bout Ironhide, kid. He just likes to show off," a hearty voice instructed him.

Sam twisted around, looking up into a familiar brown face. He almost didn't recognize Epps at first-- it seemed impossible that the man could be anything but covered with dirt and dripping with sweat, sporting a I'm-gonna-bust-your-ass scowl on his face. Instead, the Sergeant was smiling. And clean.

"Here, this should help." A pair of padded headphones settled themselves around his ears, muting the razor edge of the booming cracks echoing around the room.

"Thanks!" Sam yelled in return, hoping Epps could hear him. Apparently he could, if the predatory smile was anything to go by. A hand snagged his collar and dragged him away from Wheeljack, towing him towards a man that turned and grinned at their approach. Nervous anticipation fluttered through him, clenching like a fist around his stomach. Lennox.

"Will's thinking about kicking your ass to Mars and back for being fifteen minutes late." Epps informed him.

Lennox laughed as the hand around Sam's collar deposited him in front of the Captain.

"Don't listen to him, Sam," he advised, replacing Epps' hand with his own and propelling him towards an unoccupied shooting booth, "I plan to kick your ass to Mars and back, then put you through Marine boot camp. --I got him, Jack! Thanks!" He added over his shoulder to Wheeljack, popping off a small wave. Sam turned a pleading expression to the engineer, but the alien merely waved in return and mooseyed off towards Ironhide. So much for expecting help from the eccentric robot.

Now that he actually had Lennox to himself, he was terrified. The army Captain was a Decepicreep-bashing machine, and more than a little intimdating (--'You're a soldier now!--). And Sam, in a fit of delirium, had put himself at his mercy. With GUNS.

But then his thoughts drifted to Mikaela, and he straightened his spine. Even if he got his ass trampled on for shooting his foot off in a controlled (and therefore, supposedly, Sam-proof) situation, he had to try to use his time with Lennox to convince the head of security to make an exception for his girlfriend. If he couldn't have someone who loved him around, he would probably go bat-shit crazy within a few months.

And, if he could, he needed to learn how to handle a gun so he could protect Bumblebee. Even if the scout hated him. He would rather have his friend still be around to hate him than the alternative. There was no way, no way, that he was going to see his friend laid out in that concrete graveyard. Not if he had anything to say about it.

"So...you want to learn how to use a gun, huh? Thinking about joining up with the rest of us alien-hunting grunts?" Lennox asked, pulling him into the booth. Though there wasn't a door to seal off the space, even the presence of three walls helped to deaden the cacophony of noise significantly. Two sets of three different kinds of hand guns were lined up on a shallow counter in front of the firing lane. A two-foot-tall Bonecrusher leered at him from the opposite wall.

The thought of hefting the solid, deadly weight of one of those guns in his hand and pointing it at a Decepticon (even one made of paper) caused goosebumps to break out over his arms. He fought back a shiver.

"No way! --Not to be insulting, or anything, cause that's your job, that's what you do-- and you guys are great at it, by the way-- but I don't think I'm cut out for that sort of...thing."

Lennox sighed theatrically, reaching for one of the guns. "Maybe not right now, but I'll get you on my team sooner or later. Just you wait."

And to their mutual shock, a mellow voice called back across the room, "Dibbs."

The Captain cringed, then stuck his head outside the booth, looking back towards Wheeljack. The alien didn't seem to be paying them any attention, engrossed in working on some whatsit on a table in the experimental area. Lennox grimaced.

"Damn alien hearing," he muttered, pulling himself back inside the booth with Sam. He glanced at Sam's chest, then stared. A hand shot out and snagged the yellow post-it stuck to his shirt, crumpled it into a ball, and tossed it over one shoulder. The loss of the little 'friend' badge hurt more than he thought it would. Though it was silly to be so attached to a piece of paper, he couldn't help but shoot an icy glare in the Captain's direction. Luckily Lennox missed the expression.

"Alright. Welcome to firearms 101," he began, picking up one of the guns lined up on the shelf. "Rule number one: I am the King. The head Honcho. God. You listen to me and you listen good, got it?"

Sam nodded mutely, not trusting himself to speak as Lennox pointed the muzzle towards the ceiling and cocked the gun. Then, without warning, he whirled and aimed the gun down the firing lane, letting off a single shot. The thunderclap the bullet made as it was loosed from the barrel rang in the space between his ears, stunning in its intensity. Lennox turned back to him, holding up the gun.

"This is a weapon, not a toy. Hopefully you already knew that, otherwise we've got a lot of work to do. One mistake could kill someone-- if that happens, you don't just get to say 'oops'. So if I say fire, you fire. If I say freeze, you freeze. If I tell you to do a hundred push ups, you better do them, because you've probably done something stupid and need to have it ground into your brain. Are we clear?"

Sam almost swallowed his tongue, though he was determined not to shrink away. He could do this. He needed to do this. He looked Lennox in the eye and replied, "Yessir. You are God."

Apparently, despite his fears of being slapped for sarcasm, that was the right thing to say. The Captain nodded his approval. "Good." He set down the long barreled gun and selected another. "Rule number two: even if you are 110% sure your gun isn't loaded, don't point it at anything you aren't prepared to kill. No matter how sure you are, there's always a chance you're wrong. So keep the barrel aimed at the floor or ceiling at all times, though unless there are people on the second floor you should point it at the ceiling. Not much fun to shoot yourself in the foot. Trust me."

Unable to help himself, Sam cracked a grin, "Speaking from experience?"

Lennox slid a glare in his direction. "Watch it, kid. I'm God, remember?" he growled, though not unkindly.

"Yessir."

"This--" Lennox drew his attention to the new gun he held, "Is the model you're going to learn your way around today. .22 caliber rounds, low recoil, easy for newbies to handle. Right now its unloaded," he popped the magazine open to show him, "and it's going to stay that way until I'm certain you're ready to handle shooting it. But before you pull the trigger, you need to learn how to actually use this baby-- how to hurt the creeps you need to hurt, and how to keep from killing everyone else."

Despite his misgivings of having a weapon shoved into his hand and being told to fire, there were a lot of things to go over before even coming close to trying to shoot. What the different parts were, how they worked, how to engage the safety, how to pop open the cartridge, how to load rounds, the right way to stand, the right way to position his arms (difficult to do with one arm in a sling), the right way to hold the gun itself, how to judge distance, how to aim, how to lead a target, when not to shoot, and on and on.

And despite his intentions to lead the conversation around towards his intended goal of talking about Mikaela, Sam found himself utterly absorbed in the lesson. Lennox was more than a good commander; he was a good teacher, as well. But as the minutes rolled by like leaves swept downstream, he found himself glancing with increasing frequency at his watch-- 8:24, 8:36, 8:40, 8:43, 8:45. Time was slipping away from him; his window of opprotunity was closing.

Other soldiers, finished with their firearms practice for the day, had started to mill around behind them, watching the lesson as it progressed. Most looked at him questioningly, as though they had not been informed that a teenager would be living with them and were unsure whether to welcome him, haze him, ignore him, or beat him to a pulp. After thirty minutes or so, Epps returned to lean against one wall of the booth, acting as a bouncer. Or as a co-conspirator waiting to snicker at him as the other marines hoisted the waistband of his underwear over his head. Either one.

Sam tried to simply ignore them. While he wasn't shooting at anything, it was relatively easy to pretend that they weren't there, or at least to entertain himself with amusing little daydreams of Optimus squishing anyone who harassed him. But when at last the theory section of the lesson drew to a close, icy fingers of sweat began to trickle down between his shoulder blades. Now everyone would get to see him make a fool of himself trying to shoot straight. Fun times.

At last Lennox took the 22 away from him, clapping a hand against his shoulder blade.

"Good! I think you've got the basics down. If only the rest of the rock heads I have to work with could learn half as fast as you."

At the 'rock head' comment, several boos and catcalls arose from behind them. Without turning his head, Lennox yelled back to them, "Yeah, you know it's true. Keep your thoughts to yourselves-- I'm trying to help a kid here."

"You'll do fine," Epps encouraged, and Sam gave him a wane smile until he added, "Unless you screw up, in which case you won't do fine."

Lennox rolled his eyes at the Sergeant, popping three shells into the 22 he had taken from Sam. "Really not helping, Epps."

"Sorry."

Vaguely aware that he had begun to tremble again and valiantly trying to look tough and unconcerned despite that fact (cut it out, damnit!), Sam took the loaded gun back from Lennox.

"Alright," the Captain said, turning his back on the other soldiers, "Now you're going to practice actually shooting. Set yourself up like a showed you, but wait until I say so to pull the trigger."

Staring at the gun in his hand as he cautiously went through the pre-fire checks he had just been taught, Sam was convinced that in definance of his wishes it would spontaneously go off and put a hole through his foot. The fact that it didn't hardly made him feel better; the way his luck seemed to go, it would probably unleash a bullet in his direction at the exact moment he was winding up his argument to allow Mikaela to come live with him.

"So...I had a question I wanted to ask you," Sam opened casually, finishing off the checks and shifting his feet into the proper positions.

Seeming to ignore him, Lennox instructed, "Lower your arm about two inches and shift your shoulder back some more-- you need to compensate for only having one arm to work with. One of these days," he added, "You're going to have to tell me the story of how you broke that arm. Optimus was rather vague in his report."

"Yeah, well, answer my question and I'll answer yours," Sam retorted, not quite brave enough to look over at Lennox while he spoke.

"You haven't even asked a question yet, you only said you had one. --Sight down the end of the barrel at that first target, the one that looks like a mutant tank. Yeah, like that. Good."

Adjusting his aim, Sam moved his finger to hover over the trigger.

"Fine. I'll ask it. But you have to promise not to just blow me off first."

Lennox rolled his eyes, making another minute adjustment to his wavering hand.

"First you need to calm down-- you're shaking so much that your aim's going to be shot to hell. And once you're no longer holding a loaded weapon you can ask me any question you want."

"Even if something uber important comes up?"

"Yes, already! We're going to have to work on this not-trusting-people thing of yours. It's really annoying."

"Good." And he pulled the trigger.

His hopes of dramatically punctuating the single word by hitting the bullseye the first time were dashed as the shot went wide and lodged itself into the foam material covering the back wall. Not only did he not hit the bullseye, he missed the target altogether. By almost four feet. Lame.

Groans of disappointment rose up behind him (accompanied by a few jeers that Lennox swiftly put down), causing him to redouble his grip on the 22.

"That was okay, that was okay!" Lennox assured him, adjusting his arm again, "With only one arm to brace against the recoil, I'm surprised you didn't hit the ceiling on your first shot. Try it again, but remember to tighten your fist just before you pull the trigger to steady the barrel."

Rolling his shoulders and settling back into his stance, Sam squeezed off a second shot. That time he did hit a target, but not the one he was aiming for. It was almost as bad as just hitting the wall. Even Lennox winced, but trying to bolster his confidence against the murmurs behind him, he said, "That was better. You, uh, took out Blackout's toe. A very disabling injury."

"...yeah." It wasn't an agreement.

"Try again. The only way to get better is practice-- and the next person that groans is going to find themselves short a testicle!"

But the third shot ended up no better than the two before it. Sam started to wonder if he might accidentally kill Bee himself rather than help him by trying to shoot at an attacking Decepticon. His aim seemed to be just that level of crapptastic that he would probably do better pointing the gun at whoever he didn't want to hit-- that way, he could be certain they wouldn't be hurt by an errant bullet.

Not wanting to be the loser who gave up after a few tries, Sam accepted the five additional rounds from Lennox and loaded them into the gun with shaking hands. Why was this so hard? He'd watched eight-year-old little kids shoot better than him, and he had much better reasons than they did for needing to be able to hit what he wanted to hit. Namely, his best friend was fighting a war and he himself was the target of psychotic space robots with dental hygiene problems that wanted to tear him limb from limb (and cut out his brain, let's not forget that). Oh, and if his girlfriend ever got to come live with him he would need to be able to protect her as well, a goal which seemed unlikely given that the only talents he seemed to posses involved running for his life and finding ancient alien artifacts. Neither of which would help much with the protecting thing.

Yet after firing no less than fifteen rounds and only once nicking the target, it was fairly obvious that he was pants at the whole shooting thing. At least he wasn't the one to give up first; Lennox was the one who finally called it quits around 9:15. By that time, most of the gathered crowd had dispersed, no longer interested in watching epic fail after epic fail. Epps still hung around, but probably only to offer moral support for Lennox.

"Alright, I think that's enough for now," the Captain sighed at last. Clenching his jaw, Sam slammed the empty gun back onto the counter and turned to leave, furiously ignoring the tightness around his eyes.

"Thanks for trying to help me," he muttered, curling in on himself a little. He gave a weak little laugh, trying to pretend that the fact that he couldn't even do something as simple as hit a stationary target didn't make him feel as useless as tofu at a sausage convention. "Probably don't want me for your team now, huh?"

Lennox grabbed him by the shoulder and spun him around, dark gaze brimming with fury. Sam recoiled slightly, wondering what he had done to piss the man off.

"You," he annunciated clearly, "Are. A. Beginner. You can and will learn even if we have to come down here six hours a day to make it happen."

Suddenly, Sam felt himself growing angry in return. "Why? Because Optimus told you to?" he sneered.

Lennox pushed him up against the wall-- not hard, but forcefully enough to shake up the black cloud brooding over his head. He brought their faces close together, speaking softly but inexorable. "No, dimwit. Because those robots are kidding themselves if they think they can keep you safe forever, and if they try to imprison you down here, you'll end up as lifeless-- maybe more lifeless-- than if a Decepticon pumped you full of lead. Because you and I both know there are things out there evil enough to scare the piss out of any hardass, things that want to grind mankind itself into dust under their heels. Because if Prime loses you, we'll lose Prime, and we can't afford for that to happen."

With one hand, Lennox gabbed his jaw and tilted his head up, forcing Sam to look into his eyes. They gleamed with the steel of a keen-edged sword, with an iron will that had taken down scores of Decepticons and brought Starscream himself to his knees. They were the eyes of a man who would be damned if he lost a battle or left a soldier behind, eyes that spoke of a soul both unfathomably powerful and terribly fragile, afraid of its own strength and afraid to lose all that it cared for. "Because," he continued, voice impossibly soft, "there are some things that I cannot teach, things that you have when others don't. Because you're part of my team whether you like it or not, even if you don't have the badge yet."

He pulled back slightly, tapping Sam gently on the cheek bone with two fingers. "So think about that before you go getting all moody and whiny on me."

And without another word Lennox released him, turning towards Epps who had looked away as though nothing interesting were occuring. As though his Captain hadn't just claimed another recruit.

Shaking with a dose of adrenaline not born from fear, Sam peeled himself from the wall. He looked from Lennox to the row of guns and back again, not quite certain where his whirling thoughts were taking him but knowing he wouldn't like where he found himself when they got there.

Since the lesson was obviously over, it made sense to jump Lennox with his housing request for Mikaela, especially since the busy Captain might up and disappear at any time. He needed to strike while the iron was hot and while the man was still vulnerable (....vulnerable?).

Yet he knew that he might never get another chance to fire a gun, regardless of Lennox's claim. Things might have been quiet at the moment, but a disquieting ripple of premonition warned him that the Decepticons wouldn't remain in hibernation for long. They would be back, and with a vengeance. When they did, the Captain wouldn't have six hours a day to spend talking him through another round of laughably bad marksmanship practice. He needed to find the trick, the key, to work out this problem the way he'd found the trick to driving a car or destroying Allsparks or tripping over a Matrix or two. Everything depended on it, not to mention his future as something other than a mascot.

So staring at the row of guns and knowing he was about to do something irrevocably stupid and punishment-worthy, he concentrated on all the reasons he needed to be able to use them with deadly efficiency.

Bumblebee-- his friend, his ally (and guardian angel)-- constantly risked his life not only to save Sam, but to save humans in general, the same humans that had hurt him so (--clawing, screaming-- hoses pouring out ice, drowning him in ice-- hands chained behind a concrete slab, knives cutting into yellow armor-- BEE!!--). The alien had done everything for him, risked everything for him, come running whenever he called (--a yellow blur exploding from the garage, and then Bee was there, Bee was shooting the tiny robots chasing after them-- chains smashing down into the sand, striking out at them, and then Bee was there, Bee was crushing the monster's head and tearing the metal panther in half, pulling out its spine while Sam lay at his feet, Sam lay staring up at his avenging angel, optics the blue of defiance, a shining shield against the whole universe--).

And now Bee might have been in danger. Bee went out there every day to fight Decepticons, and all Sam could do was sit on his hands and hope that he was okay. He couldn't fight-- he couldn't rip out a big ass gun and blow up the reaching, clawing hands trying to tear his angel apart-- he couldn't do anything to help him.....not even keep him company (--'I don't want you to come with me'--).

Optimus wanted him to stay where it was safe. His parents wanted him to stay where it was safe. Mikaela wanted him to stay where it was safe. Bee was in danger, and everyone wanted him to stay where it was safe.

He stared at the gun.

Well fuck that!

Before Lennox had the chance to yell for him to stop, Sam darted forward and snatched up one of the guns he knew to still be loaded (--Bee fighting, dying, no one to help him--). He turned his back to the shooting lane, pointing the barrel towards the ceiling and cocking the gun (I want to do this, I need to do this, I'M GOING TO DO THIS!). Take a deep breath, eyes narrowing, muscles clenching like stone (--Bee, no!--).

Someone might have shouted his name, but he couldn't hear them. There was a roaring, rushing sound in his ears, in his chest--

INITIALIZING CONNECTION PROGRAM

--and with a sharp, inarticulate cry, he flung himself around, brought up the gun, and took aim.

Six targets, six rounds.

Time didn't slow, but suddenly he could cram hours worth of thought into every fraction of a second--

CONNECTION ESTABILISH. DOWNLOADING TARGETING PROTOCOLS.

--he found himself drifting, hand moving to thought alone instead of needing specific commands. And suddenly he knew exactly where to aim the gun, how many pounds per square inch of pressure were needed to depress the trigger, what degree angle he needed to counter air drag and the slight downward curve caused by gravity (less than a fraction of a millimeter).

Six targets, six rounds loaded into the gun.

In less than three seconds he squeezed off six shots. No hesitation, no doubt that he would miss. Just aim, shoot, aim and shoot again.

The instant the last round left the barrel, Sam tumbled back into his own body like a snapped rubber band. The fog cleared-- time resumed its normal flow. He stumbled, every limb suddenly weighing a thousand pounds, every sense suddenly awakened to the starkness of preception-- the light burned too brightly, the scent of gunpowder seared in his nostrils, the grumbling echo of his own shots clanged in his ears, the bitter taste of bile made him want to gag, the floor was too hard, the gun too heavy, his clothes too scratchy.

He stumbled back another step, shaking his head (...what just happened?), and nearly dropped the gun. Calloused fingers snagged his wrist as his trembling forearm muscles relaxed their grip, tearing the gun from his hand. A voice shouted in his ear-- Lennox, he realized. Made sense, really, given that the face leaning in towards him was Lennox's.

"--What they hell are you doing?!" The man roared, slamming the emptied gun back onto the counter, "I thought I told you to never discharge a weapon unsupervised unless I say you can!"

Epps shouldered in between them, looking not towards Sam or even the enraged Captain, but out at the six targets.

"Will," he interrupted, voice full of awe and disbelief, pulling Lennox around by the back of his t-shirt to face down the shooting lane, "I think you should see this."

"See what?"

But then he stopped, staring as Epps did, mouth dropping open into a bemused crescent.

"Holy shit," he whispered emphatically.

Attracted by the sound of rapid-fire shots and shouting voices, other soldiers gathered around behind them in the booth, gazing down the firing lane to the six targets. Those who had earlier witnessed Sam's disasterous attempts to wield the 22 could only gaze, stunned, at the evidence of his hypnotic rampage.

Shaking his head again and stumbling back into the wall, Sam cradled his broken arm in its blue sling to his chest, wondering just how much destruction he had caused. And how much it would cost to fix it. He just hoped he hadn't hurt someone while caught helplessly in the trance that had come over him (--not normal, not human--no way I could have known those things--).

He didn't want to look. Dreaded doing so, even. But against his will he found his eyes drawn down the shooting lane, gaze sliding over the concrete-- two yards, three, four-- until the six targets arranged at the end came into view.

At first his brow furrowed in puzzlement. Where were the exploded chunks of concrete? Where were the fallen targets and bleeding limbs of innocent bystanders?

But then, examining the targets themselves in detail, he noticed the small black holes in each. Six targets, six holes-- each one cutting through the dead center of the bullseye.

All the air vanished from his lungs.

"Damn," someone breathed in awe. Sam heartily concurred.

Lennox turned slowly to face him. "Sam, what--"

Suddenly, a piercing wail blared through the room, its oscillating screech drowning out even the boom of Ironhide's cannons. Lennox, Epps, and the rest of the NEST soldiers froze; the continual firing of guns abruptly ceased as though switched off. For a moment, everyone stood in a stunned silence, listening to the mechanical howl that filled every crevasse and seemed to emanate from the ceiling itself. But then a crystal clear voice began to speak over an intercomm of sorts, the words perfectly audible yet making as much sense to Sam as strings of gibberish, and the soldiers leapt into action.

As burly marines began to scramble in every direction-- their faces ashen and lined with tension-- it dawned on Sam that the wailing noise was an alarm of some sorts.

His heart drummed against his ribs, chugging as fast as when he had run from Megatron. He watched with wide eyes as Epps yelled something to Lennox, clapped a hand to his arm, and sprinted away.

"What is it? Are we under attack?" he croaked.

Shouldering past him, Lennox snatched up one of the guns, checked its magazine, and tucked it into the waistband of his pants. Though Sam didn't think he could hear his frightened whisper over the din, the Captain replied, "No. Nothing's wrong here. Everywhere else is a different story. Stay on base-- whatever you do, don't try to leave."

"Wait!" he cried as Lennox turned away, lunging after him and latching on to his sleeve (--no time, do it now--). "You promised to answer my question!"

The Captain swore, jerking away. "Not now! The Decepticons are attacking all over the world, and unless we do something a lot of people are going to die!"

Mikeala.

Sam darted in front of him, blocking his exit, and drew himself up as proud and strong as an eighteen-year-old in a cast could be. Mikeala was out there somewhere, maybe in the path of a rampaging Decepticon. Mikeala was in danger. Mikaela, Mikaela, Mikaela--

"Can Mikaela come live here with me?"

Lennox stopped in the middle of brushing past him, thrown off balance by the unexpected question.

"What?" he asked in disbelief and irritation.

Furiously pressing his case, determined not to be rebuffed, he began speaking rapidly in a clipped, utterly serious voice. "If everyone else in the world but NEST is in danger, my girlfriend is in danger. She helped destroy Megatron and bring Optimus back to life. Heck, she helped bring me back to life. You wanna keep me from becoming lifeless? Well if she dies because security procedures were too important to keep her from coming here, you won't have to worry about Decepticons or imprisonment making me lifeless. So I'm asking you--" he swallowed, "--no, I'm begging you: give my girlfriend the clearance to come live here with me. Please. Please."

Lennox stared at him hard for a long moment while the alarm continued to screech, dark eyes unreadable. At last he said, "You think I should drop everything to try to save one person? You think her life is worth more than thousands of others?"

Sam kept his eyes wide, resisting the temptation to squeeze them shut. His hands tried to shake-- he wouldn't let them. Just like with Bumblebee, he was an awful, evil monster, even more so than the Decepticons. But he couldn't deny the truth, not even to himself.

"Yes."

Glancing swiftly around, Lennox fisted one hand in the front of his shirt and dragged him back into the shooting booth. Sam expected the Captain to reem him out, curse him from on high from being so vile and selfish.

Instead he asked in an urgent whisper, "Do you love her?"

Sam could only stare at him. Why wasn't he yelling and screaming?

"Yeah, of course I do--"

"How much do you love her?"

"I-I," he choked, fumbling around for an answer. He didn't think 'alot' would be a good one. But how could he define something that defined him? "She's-- well, she's Mikaela. She's my girlfriend."

"But do you love her?"

"Yes, I told you that!"

"Then say it!"

Sam could only stare at him, and Lennox shook him by the front of his shirt. "Do. You. Love. Her?"

"Yes! Yes, I love her!" He cried, "I don't know how I'm supposed to live without her! I'd rather all those people burn than have her die! I love her, I love her, I LOVE HER! How many times do you want me to say it?!"

"Until you mean it!"

"But I do--"

"Until you mean it. Until you're enough of an adult and a man to prove it to her."

(--Mikaela dead dead dead, lying in a pool of blood--). "How?" he whispered, voice breaking.

Lennox tapped his cheek again, the gesture seeming somehow conspirital. Though his face bore an ashen hue and his mouth drew itself into a tight line, there was a spark of warm affection and something like amusement deep in the pools of his eyes. His voice dropped, becoming low and furtive, insistent.

"Army Command Policy for general personnel, section 4, subsection 18, paragraph A-- The spouse of a soldier cannot be barred from living at the place of the soldier's deployment."

"Soldier? But I'm not--"

Lennox shook him again, continuing without pause, "Geneva Convention II Accords, article 5, section 13, paragraph C-- the spouse of an ambassador to a foreign nation or government posseses the right to accompany the ambassador to his or her place of residence in any foreign nation and will be granted the same diplomatic immunity awarded to the ambassador."

Time stopped, and the world inverted on its axis. He may not have been a solider in the US army, but according to Optimus he was an ambassador of sorts. He was an ambassador-- an ambassador--

Somewhere far above his head, Decepticons were wreaking havoc on mankind, their presence heralded by the continual wail of the base-wide alarm. But Sam could only stare up at Lennox, staring at him but not really seeing him, numb with shock and swept away by the power of revelation that had come over him.

Scarcely three weeks ago, he had been bound and determined never to say 'I love you' to Mikaela until and unless she said it first. She was hot; she had options. He had to do something to keep her interested, keep her coming back for more. But that was three weeks ago, and now Sam was three weeks older and centuries wiser.

He thought of all those soldiers running out to try to stop the Decepticons, about how many of them had families and little children that might never see them again. He thought about Bee, about how the scout might die before they could patch things up, before he had the chance to tell him how much he loved-- yes, loved-- him.

And he thought about Jolt-- thought about the blue Autobot alone in the twisted metal graveyard, trying and failing and trying again to bring the dead back to life (--a wail of unearthly anguish--), thought about the bond he had been too scared to complete and had forever lost the chance to know when death came knocking at the door. And he realized-- piercingly, suddenly-- that life was too short, too fleeting, too brutal, not to tell someone you loved them if you did. Especially since you might never again have the chance.

Flooded and electrified with a burning sense of purpose (--standing on the ceiling, the bottom of the world, seeing the universe upsidedown--), he pulled away from Lennox and looked down at the sling around his arm. Only an hour before, he had been terrified to lose his one last connection to Mikaela. Now, set on a path from which there was no turning back, he was terrified of needing to never look at it.

His whole body pulsing in time with his heart beat, every nerve lit up like a live wire, he slipped the blue strap over his head and ripped the sling away from his cast, letting it flutter to the floor. Twisting his arm to bring the curling words inked across the plaster into the light, he soaked up the message his girlfriend had somehow known he would not be ready to see until that exact moment.

When you finally have the guts to say it first, my answer is 'yes'.

Love always and forever more,

Mikeala.

(Please ask before I turn sixty. I want to look good on my wedding night)

Sam slowly glanced up at Lennox, catching the slight smile on the army Captain's face and wondering dizzily what his own expression looked like.

"I'm going to ask my girlfriend to marry me," he said, the statement emerging as a bemused question. But even as he spoke the words, he realized that it wasn't a question at all.

Reaching forward and quickly tousling his hair, Lennox shoved him roughly from the booth and towards the door.

"'Bout time you figured it out! Go, hurry!"

Sam never looked back as he sprinted through the exit in the opposite wall of the shooting range, running as fast as he had ever run before, faster even than when he had tried to keep the Allspark from Megatron.

This time, he had an even greater monster to outrun. And death was known for being very quick indeed.

I'm going to marry Mikaela!

NNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNN

Buzzing with the frenzied crush of activity seen only in newsrooms and secret military installations when the end of the world loomed imminent, the command center was hardly the ideal place to seek out an open telephone. But it was the closest place he could be certain of finding one, so he threw himself head first into the mayhem.

Soliders, techies, agents and even a few robotic drones dashed back and forth, all shouting and planning and carrying messages and examining data feeds. The roar of sound created by several dozen people all experiencing varying degrees of panic could have competed with Ironhide's cannons for highest decibal level. Phones rang. Keys clacked. Voices shouted. Alarm screamed. Computers whirred.

At any other time, Sam might have felt more concerned at the possibility of a Decepticon-led armageddon. But at the moment, he couldn't think of anything beyond the possibility that Mikaela might die before he could tell her that he wanted her to be his wife. Wife. A concept that should have been utterly alien to any teenager. Then again, Sam had been living with things that were 'alien' every day for nearly two years, so he supposed the thought of getting married wasn't all that out there.

He had a plan. It was brilliant, if a little sparse.

Step one-- Find a phone. Easier said than done.

Step two-- Call Mikaela, ask her hand in marriage. Possibly harder than step one.

Step three-- Marry Mikaela and bring her back to NEST where she would be safe from the descending hordes of Decepticons. And if NEST wasn't safe, then at least they would die married.

Simple. Straightforward. And completely useless if he couldn't secure a land line for more than three minutes. But if need be, he was fully willing to mud wrestle for one.

Every person that he spotted with a phone to their ear he approached, tapped on the shoulder, and shouted over the din to ask if he could borrow it. Most people ignored him, and those that did turn speared him with incredulous glares and then went back to whatever they had been doing in the first place.

Just when he started to wonder if he would actually need to wrestle a phone away from someone, Dave showed up and yanked him away from the techie he was in the process of hassling (and looming over, though all his attempts at intimdation had so far failed).

"What are you doing in here?" the agent shouted above the noise, dragging him out into the hallway where there were slightly less people crowding around them on all sides. "Seventeen simultaneous Decepticon attacks are currently underway, and two more pop up every minute! You need to stay out of their way, Sam."

Sam tried to brush him off, straining back towards the command center. "Need a phone," he panted in explanation.

Dave shook his head, sighing explosively, and grasped his upper arm to drag him further down the hallway.

"Bumblebee is fine," he soothed, voice haggard, "But right now, Optimus needs for you to let everyone do their job--"

"Screw Optimus!" Sam tore himself away from the agent and turned to face him, only just realizing how tensely wound he was. "My girlfriend is out there where those seventeen-plus Decepticon attacks are taking place--"

"There is nothing you can do to help her, Sam. Attempting to get to her is foolhardy and suicidal--"

"I'm not trying to 'get to her'! I'm trying to bring her down here, to NEST!"

"Sam, no matter our own personal feelings we have to obey regulations--"

"Stuff your regulations! I have a regulation for you-- how does the Geneva Convention II accords sound? Article 5, subsection C, something like that, says that the spouse of an ambassador has the right to live wherever the ambassador lives! Okay, well according to Optimus I AM an ambassador, and if I can get a phone for five minutes, she's going to be my wife!"

The pressure on his arm disappeared as Dave's hand fell away. The agent turned to regard him with open shock, hopefully taking in all the many things implied by the murderously serious game-face Sam wore. Apparently he did, because his face paled to alabaster white, skin as ashen as the soldiers' before running out to dance the deadly dance.

"...You want to propose?" He asked when he finally rediscovered his voice.

"Um, yeah. That's kinda what 'going to be my wife' implies. So if you'll excuse me..."

Sam turned back towards the command center again. When a hand once more hooked itself under his elbow to halt his stride, he seriously considered whirling around and socking the agent as hard as he could in the jaw. But somehow he resisted. Hooray for self-restaint under fire!

"Sam...." the agent trailed off, searching his face. What he hoped to find Sam couldn't guess. "....you love her?"

Sam exhaled explosively, the sound caught somewhere between a sigh of exasperation and a giggle of boiling fury brought about by the inherent irony of the universe. "God, this again?! Yes. I love her. Okay?....What?" he asked suspiciously when an expression strangely like pain flashed across Dave's face. "What?"

The agent swore under his breath, releasing Sam's arm to run his fingers through his hair. If he hadn't seen other authority figures break down in a similar manner, seeing Dave's reaction might have caused his universe to come unglued.

Seeming to come to a decision, he closed his eyes and pinched the bridge of his nose.

"I'm going to get fired for this," he muttered. Then, eyes snapping open, he herded Sam back towards the command room, possesed of a dire new purpose. "Scratch that-- fired and blackballed."

"Optimus wouldn't do that," Sam denied, heart racing at the dangerous undercurrent to the agent's words. But not with fear-- with excitement. Whenever by-the-book adults prepared to do something they thought either a) immoral, b) illegal, or c) likely to get them fired, it usually was a step in the right direction for the greater good. In this case, a step towards putting him in contact with Mikaela.

"Don't be so sure," Dave answered darkly. Then, pulling Sam against a wall out of the way, he scanned the room while speaking in an urgent voice. "If you really want to do this, we only have about twenty minutes to get a call through before her plane leaves for America."

Sam went rigid with shock.

"But I thought her flight wasn't until later! I thought I had more time!" he protested.

Dave nodded, gaze sharpening to a diamond hard glint as he spotted what he had been searching for. Tugging Sam farther into the command room, he spoke over his shoulder, "You did until about 6:30 this morning. An agent assigned to protect her made the recommendation that both she and your parents fly out earlier rather than later to avoid a massive storm system moving in from the Indian Ocean."

Sam wanted to stomp his feet and scream that it wasn't fair. He wanted to throw a temper-tantrum to put a two-year-old to shame (--only twenty minutes, oh God, only twenty minutes--), but he rejected the impulse as Dave came up behind a frazzled-looking techie jabbering rapidly into a phone in something that sounded like Russian.

Dave tapped him on the shoulder. "Excuse me."

The techie jerked and looked up, glasses askew on the bridge of his nose, and glared at the agent, seemingly oblivious to his feral grin. "Excuse you. In case you couldn't tell, I'm rather busy here-- hey!" he yelped in protest as Dave abruptly snatched the reciever from his hand and held it to his ear. Without the slightest hint of discomfort, the agent immediately began to speak in flawless Russian to whoever was listening on the other end of the line, smiling at times and even barking a laugh at one point. When he finished the conversation with a warm Russian farewell, he reached over top of the techie and dropped the reciever back into its cradle.

"The water table under the counties surrounding Moscow has remained at its usual level for the past five months and is highly unlikely to be contaminated by a Decepticon attack unless they dig a three hundred foot trench and dump toxic waste into the ground," he informed the techie cheerfully. "Now that that has been taken care of, would you be so kind as to allow us the use of your phone for the next few minutes?"

The poor gobsmacked techie could only gape at the agent looming over the back of his chair in a very impressive and intimidating manner. "B-but I have other calls to make!"

"Let me rephrase that-- take a coffee break."

Not daring to pretend to misunderstand a man who carried a loaded gun, could speak unaccented Russian, and looked impeccable in a suit, the techie scrambled from his desk and hurried away.

Sam dropped into the vacated chair, reaching for the phone. A hand stilled his, and with an apologetic glance Dave reached with his other arm to pick up the reciever.

"Let me make the call, Sam. If they're following procedure, the agents with Mikaela will have taken her phone to screen any incoming calls. You're likely to alienate them in your current state, which would go a long way towards ensuring that we never get ahold of her."

Reluctantly surrendering the phone, Sam leaned back in the chair and folded his arms across his chest. The fingers of his good hand dug themselves into the meat of his bicep. He watched as Dave dialed in a number, holding his breath as the cellphone on the other end began to ring.

NNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNN

An airport in India, Mikaela discovered, was very much like an airport in America. Except possibly even more crowded.

Seated in a plastic chair before a gate sectioned off for private aircraft, she gazed around at the milling throngs, wondering how they could breathe packed in so close together. The powerful odor of frying food wafted thickly through the air, mouth-watering at first but later sickening when it settled onto her skin, her hair, in a greasy layer that was almost tangible.

But the nausea itself might have been easier to bear if a certain rambling, stupidly heroic, utterly adorable boy were sitting beside her clasping her hand. As cheesy as it sounded, Sam had no idea just how much Mikaela relied on him for her own strength. Pretty pathetic, right? A girl-power, butt-kicking, stiletto-wearing warrior goddess shouldn't swoon when a man smiled at her or brought her flowers. But over the past two years she had fallen and fallen hard. Sure, Sam could be dorky at times, but what people didn't know was that he was also brave, sensitive, selfless, and ridiculously loving. God, she had almost broken down blubbering all over him when he arrived on her doorstep one day while she was sick with the flu-- his knees covered with grass stains, hair mussed, face pulled up in a crooked smile-- holding out a fragile bouquet of wild daisies he'd picked for her to make her feel better, since all the flower stores had closed.

She'd dated countless hot guys with big trucks, big arms and big egos, but somehow none of them could compare to Sam. Because, among other reasons, not a single one of them had ever gone and picked flowers for her. Sure, some of them had bought her two dozen perfect roses for her birthday or Valentine's day, but it was easy to have a florist deliver roses when you had a fat wallet. Not one of them would have been brave enough to run from Megatron and destroy the Allspark. Not one of them could have journeyed through the desert to bring Optimus back to life. Not one of them would spend the time to get down on their knees and pluck a few scraggly wild flowers when there were no roses to be found. Sam was like those daises, in a way-- maybe not a girl's first pick, but infinitely more valuable because of the heart and love behind them.

And above all, not one of the other guys she had met-- or knew she would ever meet-- could hold her leathery heart in his hand and melt it like butter.

She wished with every fiber of her being that he could be sitting beside her in those icky plastic seats, more than ready to jump on a plane back to America and forever leave the terror of the past week behind. But if he did come back with her, he would surely be killed. As screwed up as it was, the only choice he had was to remain with the Autobots. Forever.

Yet as the flat screen TV's mouted to the ceiling began to light up with newsflash reports from around the world, she realized that even staying with the Autobots might not provide a safe haven for Sam. Most of the news reporters spoke in languages besides English, but after a few minutes of frantic searching (and several shouts from the agents guarding her to stay put), she finally found a channel playing CNN.

"--over nineteen major cities around the world are under attack by the same metal creatures seen a little over ten days ago before the destruction of one of the pyramids of Giza. No threats or messages have been issued by the invaders, but most assume that these new attacks are directly related to the ongoing search for Samuel James Witwicky, last seen--"

"Miss Banes," a suited agent grabbed her arm and pulled her away from the TV, back towards the partitioned area where the other guards and Sam's parents were waiting, "For your safety, we need you to stay close. We will be boarding the plane in just a few minutes."

Mikaela jumped as the agent's pocket began to ring.

"R. E. S. P. E. C. T! Tell ya what it means to me--"

Her phone!

Propelling her back towards the plastic chair, the agent pulled the buzzing device from an inner pocket of his jacket, flipping it open and scowling at the caller ID.

"Who is it?" She asked, heart leaping beneath her ribs.

"Headquarters. Probably calling to tell us what we already know--"

As he pressed the talk button and moved to bring the speaker to his ear, Mikaela leapt forward and snatched it from his hands. Only one person would be calling her phone from NEST: Sam.

"What is it? Are you okay? Have you heard about what's going on?" She rushed out before the phone was even in position against her face, holding out a hand to forestall the agent trying to snatch it back from her.

"Is this Mikaela?"

Her heart plummeted-- the voice on the other end definitely wasn't Sam's. Too old, too confident, baffled at hearing her voice instead of an agent's.

"Y-yes....?"

"Hold on. Let me put Sam on."

There was a rustling noise in the background, a crackle of fabric as the handset was transfered, and then the sweetest sound in the whole world tickled her ear through the speaker.

"Mikeala?"

She swallowed, smiling in confused elation.

"Yeah. Yeah, I'm here. Are you okay Sam? Is everything alright there?"

"Everything's fine, Mikaela, don't worry. Your strong man is as safe, sound and burly as ever."

"Talking about Lennox?" she asked with a weak little laugh.

"Ha ha. Very funny."

::Attention all passengers of flight 234, service to JFK international airport. We will now begin boarding all loading zones. Please make your way to the gate and have your ticket ready::

"Mikeala?" the tiny voice coming through the phone called to her when she didn't answer. Throat closing in alarm, she spun around to see the other the suited agents begin to marshall Sam's parents towards the door out onto the runway. The countdown had reached zero; they were out of time.

"Mikeala?" Sam called again, fearful.

The agent beside her reached for the phone. "Miss Banes, we need to leave. Now, before the airports shut down."

She recoiled away from him, scrabbling around for some reason, any reason, to justify lingering for a minute longer. But for once luck seemed to be one their side-- a tourist couple approached the agent and began to speak in rapid french, holding out a thick wad of bills. Apparently, the agents themselves weren't the only ones desperate to get out before the world's airports shut down.

Seizing the opprotunity presented by the agent's momentary distraction, Mikaela ducked under his arm and dashed for the sheltering camouflage of the teeming crowd. Several voices shouted for her to stop, but she ignored them all, plunging into the raging tide of people.

"I'm here, Sam!" she yelled breathlessly into the mouth piece. "Whatever you want to say, you're going to have to say it fast-- the plane's leaving, like, now!"

Sam cursed on the other end of the line, the words muffled by distance. But then he must have brought the phone back to his ear, because when he began speaking tightly, urgently, his voice emerged crystal clear.

"I think I found a way for you to come stay with me at NEST. You still want to, right?"

"Yes! I hope you've figured that out by now!"

"I have. And that's the only thing that's giving me the guts to say this." He paused.

Mikaela slowed to a halt and glanced around through the streaming bodies, spying an alcove by a trashcan and slipping into it. It was awkward to hold the phone with her elbows tucked in tightly to her rib cage, but somehow she managed it.

"Say what? Sam, you're not making any sense."

More muffled cursing. "Yeah, I know. Give a guy a break, will you? I haven't had the chance to practice this a zillion times in front of a mirror."

Her breath caught in her chest. She couldn't speak. Sam.

"Mikaela," he paused, breath heavy yet measured on the other end. She heard him gulp. "You were right. I was being stupid. Totally, utterly, unforgivably stupid. B-but I've learned from my mistakes, and now I'm enough of a man to know that you're not just going to run off when I say it. So Mikaela? I love you."

She began to giggle happy, hysterical giggles, moisture gathering in her eyes. She pressed her knucles to her lips, holding back a rising tide of emotion.

"I love you so much I sometimes think I'm going to burst. I don't know what to do with myself when you're not around. Nothing seems to be as much fun when you're not there to do it with me. I-I can't sleep sometimes at night because your face is so bright in my mind like the sun, and then I wake up still thinking about you, wanting to call you at six in the morning and tell you that I thought about you all night."

Another pause. The crowds raged outside her little hideaway, some excited, some frightened, some harried and boiling with terrified fury. The scent of rotten garbage from the trashcan besider her made her want to gag. All around the world, buildings were falling and people were dying while evil alien monsters went on a bloody rampage. But despite all that, she couldn't remember ever feeling so happy, so full of light.

"You're probably the only person in the world that could put up with my weirdness and put up with being chased by robotic aliens and still love me the next day. Yeah, that's right. I said 'love'. I think I've finally gotten it through my thick skull that you do love me, and that's just....wow. Wow. You may think I'm being corny and completely unoriginal when I say this, but it's true for me so I'm going to say it anyway. Mikaela, if you're not an angel then I don't know what is. When I look at you....when I look at you, when I see your face in my mind, it's like looking at God." His voice broke, "So I'm going to do something totally uncool and stuffy and cliched and ask--" He took a deep breath, "Mikaela? Will you marry me?"

Tears streamed down her face. She bit down on one knuckle, crying and laughing all at the same time.

"Y-you dork, you shouldn't even have to ask-- YES! Yes, I'll marry you! God, I was thinking about proposing myself if you didn't get around to it. Yes, yes, yes!"

Sam laughed nervously on the other end. "Whew, that's a relief. Cause see, there's this loophole to go along with me being an ambassador of sorts to the Autobots-- my 'spouse' gets to come with me. So all we need to do is make you my spouse and you can come live with me!"

Suddenly nervous once more, she peered around the edge of the alcove, watching for the agents she knew would come striding into view at any moment looking for her.

"Great plan, except for one problem."

"...What?"

"We have to actually get married for me to be your spouse, and seeing as how the Decepticons are in the middle of trying to bring civilization to its knees and we're in two different places, I don't see how we're going to pull off a wedding before someone catches me and shoves me on a plane back to America!"

There was a long pause on the other end, interrupted only by cracking static and the distant sound of ringing phones, shouting voices, and rustling bodies. "Sam?"

"Can you find a way out of the airport without hanging up? We need to buy ourselves about ten minutes."

"Why? Sam, what are you planning?"

Seeing the first suited agent shoulder his way through the curtain of people, she slipped from her hiding place and melted back into the crowd, crouching low and darting as fast as she could away from the gates without drawing attention to herself.

Another crackle of static, followed by a weak laugh. "I think we're about to break some sort of record by becoming the first couple to be married over the phone by an alien."

NNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNN

For a long moment after he had popped the question, Sam could only gaze sightlessly at the crowded desk in front of him, completely unable to breathe. Mikaela had said yes. He asked her to marry him, and she said yes. It took too much effort to try to wrap his brain around the concept of being a husband and having a wife, so he didn't try to.

But then his ephemeral little bubble of stunned happiness had popped on the sharp point of reality. Though he hadn't thought quite so far ahead in his plan yet, Mikeala was right-- they had to acutally get married for his plan to work. And like she said, the odds were very much against that happening.

His whole plan-- his whole world-- hung suspended by a fragile little thread that continued to fray with every moment he wasted trying to think of a way to get them both to a church of some kind so they could get married. No matter which angle he examined the problem from, he couldn't find a solution that wouldn't leave either of them dead or wanted for murder.

Mikaela was in danger above ground.

To get her out of danger, he needed to bring her below ground to NEST.

To make it so on one could kick up a fuss about her coming to NEST, he needed her to be his wife.

And to make her his wife, they needed to get married. Which they couldn't. They had no time, and no way to get to someone who could marry them--

Suddenly he froze, memories of a long-forgotten conversation with his parents rising in his mind. Unlike most couples he could think of, his parents had been married in a courthouse by a judge rather than in a church by a preist. And if he wasn't deluding himself, he also remembered something about the captain of a ship also being able to preside over a wedding.

When the answer came to him, it was so stunning in its simplicity that he just knew the slightest thing would foul it up. But he had to try. There was no other way (--no time--).

Holding the phone to his shoulder, he stood up on his chair, cupped one hand to his mouth, and yelled as loud as he could into the deafening ruckus of the command room, "HEY! IS ANYONE HERE AN ORDAINED PREIST, A JUDGE, OR THE CAPTAIN OF A SHIP?!"

Over a dozen heads swiveled in his direction, fingers pausing over keyboards, soldiers halting in mid-stride, conversations grinding to a halt. Dave slapped a hand over his face and groaned, but didn't try to pull him back down.

"YEAH, I NEED SOMEONE TO MARRY ME AND MY GIRLFRIEND OVER THE PHONE. ANY TAKERS?"

"I might be able to help," someone called from the doorway. Sam whipped around to find Jolt peering around the corner, his optics-- both blue and green-- shining with an earnest light.

"Jolt?" Sam asked in confusion as the electric blue Autobot sidled through the doorway and picked his way over to them. "Are you....a preist or something?"

An alien whirl of laughter answered his hesitant guess as Jolt crouched low beside them. How could he seem so open and carefree when just the night before he had sobbed his metal heart out over the loss of his soulmate?

"No, thank Primus. But I am, technically, the captain of a ship."

"Sam?" Mikaela's tiny voice called from the speaker pressed against his shirt. His heart raced. He was so close, so close to a solution-- he couldn't spare a single moment to respond to the timid call, couldn't tear his eyes from Jolt (--a sound that embodied the agony of the soul--).

"Technically? How?"

Jolt clicked his fingers against his chin in a parody of the pensive human gesture. "Well, I was third in the chain of command on one of Prime's smaller warships-- not the Ark, I don't think I could handle being the de-facto captain of the Ark-- and now that the ship's original captain and first mate have both been deactivated, I suppose that makes me the Captain."

Yes!

"Jolt," he said, reeling in his enthusiasm, "I don't really have time to explain all the details right now, but would you be willing to marry me and Mikaela?"

The blue Autobot pulled back, shying away, clearly disturbed by the request.

"Sorry, Sam. I don't know how to do a human bonding ceremony. Maybe you could find someone else-"

"There is no one else!" Sam cut across him, "And we don't have time to go find someone. Please, Jolt. This is really important."

Blue and green gazed at him heavily, sifting down to his soul, for a sliver of an instant exposing the gaping maw of bottomless sorrow beneath the carefree facade.

"I want to-to form a spark bond with Mikaela," he explained quietly, noticing an infinitessimal twitch shiver through the powerful metal frame at his words, "Please. I may not get another chance." He captured the Autobot's gaze in his own, refusing to release him from his pleading, determined stare. "Help me save her."

The moment stretched and held-- an eternity of indecision, spiraling outward onto the edge of time, icy dread pooling in his stomach and flooding outwards, creeping farther into his soul with every second those optics gazed through him without answer.

"Sam?"

Whether hearing Mikaela's voice or reaching some sort of conclusion through the unknowable processes of his alien mind, Jolt suddenly shifted his stance, that wavering part of him hardening into stone. His optics flared with a brilliant light, and he brought his head close to Sam's, the guileless mask dropping away to reveal a side of the Autobot he had never seen or even imagined. Stronger than the metal of his body, the steel of his soul gleamed with a razor edge as the veil faded away, motionless and unthreatening yet whispering of a bottomless well of power that could be brought to bear against anything in its way.

"I will," he promised, and as with Optimus Sam knew that it was a vow that would not be broken, "What do you want me to do?"

Sam lifted the reciever from his shoulder, tying down the fear and excitement that writhed with equal measure just beneath his skin.

"Can you find a way out of the airport without hanging up?" he asked of Mikaela, "We need to buy ourselves about ten minutes."

"Why? Sam, what are you planning?"

Despite himself, a fierce grin stretched across his face as he looked up at the waiting Autobot. Jolt nodded slowly. He couldn't help it-- he laughed. What he was doing must have been illegal. But at the moment, he didn't give a shit.

"I think we're about to break some sort of record by becoming the first couple to be married over the phone by an alien."

He set the phone back on his shoulder and spoke to Jolt. "Alright, I'm not really sure how the speech is supposed to go, so we're going to have to wing it. Just come up with a vow or something for us to both say 'I do' to."

But Jolt shook his head. "I think you will need to devise the vows yourself, Sam. I really don't know much of anything about human marital practices."

"Okay, fine. We'll improvise."

Dave stopped him before he could speak into the phone, prying the reciever from his hands and setting it down on the table.

"Hey, what--"

"If you want this to be official and legally binding, you're going to need witnesses." He pressed a button to switch the call to speaker phone. "Mikaela, is there anyone on your end that could serve as a witness?"

"Um," she breathed heavily into the reciever. It sounded like she was running. "Oh, hold on. Let me get the taxi driver."

"Good." Dave nodded to himself, then lifted his head to scan the room. Several people near them had turned to watch what was going on, attracted by Sam's shouting and the panting voice blaring loudly through the speaker. A solider Sam had never seen before stepped forward, snapping off a crisp salute.

"Private Walker, reporting for duty, sir. I heard you needed some witnesses for a wedding."

"Wait, here!" A female techie called from her desk, leaning to the side to snatch up a blank piece of paper and a pen. "I'll write up the marriage contract. Give me the names of the bride and groom."

Dave gave the woman Sam and Mikaela's names, adding Private Walker and David Schwartz to the list as witnesses.

Sam leaned towards the phone. "Mikaela! How you doing on recruiting the taxi driver?"

A crackle of static, the sound of a door slamming, and a rapid conversation in broken english. "Okay, I got 'em! His name's Hassim Jasmeet!"

"Got it," the techie called, "Whenever you're ready, Jolt."

The blue Autobot slowly drew himself up to his full height, looking down at the humans gathered around his feet. Sam had the sudden urge to giggle and cry and scream and throw a party all at the same time.

This was it. He was getting married.

Ohshit.

NNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNN

Escaping the airport undetained turned out to be easier than Mikaela had originally thought. Dodging the few guards waiting at the extrance to catch her was a piece of cake compared to dodging Decepticons in Egypt. Slipping out through the glass doors she broke into a run, cellphone clutched tightly to the side of her head. She scanned the crawling lines of cars and buses and trucks waiting at the side walk, looking for a taxi. Though there were several sporting a green sign in some language she couldn't read (though green seemed to be universal for 'vacant'), only three of the four drivers she poked her head through the door to talk to could speak english reasonably well.

Climbing into the back seat of fourth taxi, she shoved few twenty dollar bills at the driver and told him to step on it. Then, when told to find a witness for the wedding (her wedding!) she threw another wad of cash at him and asked for his name. Hassim Jasmeet. Exactly the kind of name she wanted the man witnessing her cellular wedding to have.

"Okay, I got 'em!" she shouted breathlessly into the phone, "His name's Hassim Jasmeet!"

Hassim himself snorted at her terrible pronunciation. She graced the back of his seat with an ugly look.

"Ready Mikeala?"

She swallowed heavily. Oh God, she was going to be someone's wife. "Ready."

Another voice-- one she had never heard before-- came through the phone, and she realized Sam must have set the thing to speaker so they wouldn't have to pass it back and forth. "I've never done this sort of thing before, but I'll give it my best shot."

Oh joy. A newbie. But then she remembered Sam's cryptic message (--an Autobot--) and covered a gasp with her hand. Then, she giggled. How cool was it that she was going to be the first girl ever to be married via alien?

The robot had no need to clear its throat, of course, but the meaningful pause in its words conveyed the same shift in tone. It was game time.

"Friends, Romans, countrymen, lend me your ears--"

She couldn't help it-- she started snorting with helpless laughter. Luckily, the Autobot either didn't notice or didn't care. The taxi edged its way out of the drop-off lane into the continual stream of traffic, picking up speed.

"--the five of us-- six of us, pardon me, miss Carpenter-- are gathered here today to witness the union of these two sentient bipedal anthropods of opposite sexes in the bond of holy matrimony--"

"Are you sure dis is a wedding?" The incredulous taxi driver asked, catching on to the Autobot's last few words as she switched her own phone to speaker. He turned off onto the highway; the speedometer climbed from 35 to 45, then to 55. Mikaela ignored him.

"--At this point, I think it would be better to have you each speak your vows to the other, stating what you desire from your future mate. Ladies first-- Mikaela, you start."

Her hand clenched spasmodically around the phone; her whole body tensed like a wound spring. What did she want from a husband, from Sam?

"Sam," she warbled, and took a deep breath to steady her voice, "Sam. Do you promise to love me and no one else-- even if I get fat and have a face full of pimples-- hopefully until the day I die?"

"Not just hopefully, jeez. Definitely. Anything else?"

"I think you're supposed to say 'I do'."

"Well then, I do. Anything else on your wish list?"

She thought for a moment. "Do you promise to put the lid down on the toilet after you use the bathroom and do the dishes every other night?"

An awed laugh. "I do."

Jolt spoke again, "Alright Sam, your turn."

"Mikeala." He stopped. For several tense heart beats nothing but silence issued down the line, and a stab of fear shot through her at the thought that the base had been suddenly bombed from the face of the earth, cutting off the call. But then he spoke again, the previous teasing edge gone from his voice. And it occured to her that he was just as nervous as her.

The taxi continued to accelerate: 55, 57, 62, 68.....

"Do you promise to love me even when you want to hate my guts for taking you away from your old life, even when the weirdness reading is off the scale and the world is collapsing around our ears, even when I tie you to a chair so you can't run after me and get hurt?"

"I do, I do, and not a chance. We're in this together whether you like it or not, so you might as well get used to the idea of me saving your butt as many times as you save mine."

Pause. "Then do you promise to not leave your bras lying around and not bitch at me when I'm trying to watch football?"

A single tear dripped down her cheek and landed in her lap.

"Y-you don't even like football," she sniffed, fit to burst with the whirlwind of different emotions all fighting for dominance under her breastbone.

"It's the principle of the thing. Do you promise?"

A solemn whisper, "I do."

Jolt came back on. "Then by the power invested in me as Captain of the Intrepid, I now declare you man and wife. Play ball!"

As if on cue, both she and Sam broke down into peals of sobbing giggles (well, sobbing on her part, Sam sounded like he was ready to pass out).

Hassim could only shake his head. "Kids. Always up to some crazyness these days."

Wiping tears from her eyes, Mikaela looked towards him to offer some sort of come back. But her gaze, rather than focusing on the slicked head of hair, drifted instead to a darting shadow in the rearview mirror. There was a truck behind them in the lane to their left, and several dusty cars, but she couldn't see anything that could have caught her attention like that. At least, not at first.

As she studied the reflection of the traffic in the small, rectangular mirror, a sight she had hoped to never see again appeared between two of the cars. A robotic creature the size and shape of a jungle cat sprinted down the highway alongside the traffic, easily keeping pace with the other cars. Its single glaring eye focused on her in the rearview mirror, his mechanical maw dropping open onto a dark hole of curning, ripping, chain saw teeth.

Her arm went limp; the cellphone sagged from her ear to rest against her neck. She couldn't scream to the driver, couldn't draw a breath.

Snarling its death's head grin, the metal nightmare lunged sideways towards the truck and slashed the tires, ripping through connection cables hanging from the undercarriage. Then it slowed, falling back out of sight, its single eyes focused on her in triumphant glee.

It happened in seconds, far too quickly to feel afraid.

The truck screeched, swerving across the road, and hit the car behind them. The force of the impact caused the truck to jack-knife, but it continued to rocket towards the taxi at an unimaginable speed, tires spinnng, tipping forward, a looming monolith of steel, drawing closer until she could hear the protesting wail of its tires lifting from the pavement, of metal dragging along asphalt and throwing up sparks

"...Sam..." she whispered-- a desperate plea, a final prayer.

And still closer the truck came, so close now that it filled the rear-view mirror, its shadow casting the interior of the taxi in the pall of waiting death.

The phone dropped to the floor.

And she screamed.

NNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNN

Until that moment, Sam thought he had already heard the most terrible sound in the world.

Laughing with his new wife (--wife!--) at Jolt's disjointed speech, knees turning to jello and forcing him to collapse back into the chair, he would never have considered that any noise in the galaxy could be more soul-rending than the sound of his voiceless guardian angel shrieking in pain. Not even Jolt's agonized cries had compared.

But not seconds later, he realized he was wrong.

When Mikaela called his name, her voice no more than a faint brush of sound, he wasn't disturbed at first. He had whispered her name plenty of times, and no doubt his new wife was feeling as breathless as he was. Some part of him registered the note of wrongness to the single word, but he didn't have time to mull over it for long before his world shattered into a thousand jagged pieces.

It didn't take much to do the job. Not a wrecking ball, not a sledge hammer, not even a curled fist. Just a sound.

Mikaela screamed.

It wasn't a delicate stage scream or a protesting squeal of laughter. It was a sound of terror beyond imagining, a wordless denial from the human soul.

And not a fraction of a second later, it abruptly cut off with a tremendous crash of things being crushed that were never meant to be crushed, of tearing, twisting metal, shattering fiberglass, hissing static, and then--

Nothing. The line went dead.

The world folded in on itself, shrinking until nothing but the phone existed, all else swallowed up by the black creeping along the edges of his vision. Yet even the phone itself seemed so far away, as though he were looking at it through the wrong end of a pair of binoculars.

Some part of him remained aware of the sudden hush that had fallen over the little crowd around the phone, rendering them an island of silence in a raging sea of panic. But even the tumultuous noise of the command center itself faded away before the echo of Mikaela's scream resonating in his ears. He stared at the phone as hard as he could, willing her voice to suddenly issue from the speaker and tell him that the taxi had gone through a tunnel or under a bridge or up into outer space for a few moments-- anything to hear her voice as something other than a scream.

But the line didn't reconnect; Mikaela didn't laugh and tell him how silly he was being for getting so worked up.

After a while, the phone began to bleep with the monotonous tone that meant it was off the hook. A hand descened into view-- Dave-- and picked up the reciever, setting it quietly back in its cradle. The bleeping cut off.

Someone was speaking to him, but it could have been Optimus or God or satan for all he cared-- the only voice he wanted to hear was Mikaela's. But the phone was hung up, the phone was hung up and oh god please no something happened to her please don't be dead please please please--

A metal finger brushed lightly down his arm. A word, a name. His name. He didn't answer. He couldn't remember how to speak or even where his mouth was, nothing existed except the phone, not even him. Someone called his name again, a human hand fiercely gripping his shoulder. A different hand lightly touched his back-- a woman's, but not Mikaela's-- trying to urge him from the chair. Did he even have legs? He wasn't sure, but he knew he couldn't stand even if he tried, even if he wanted too, and suddenly the metal hand was on his back and a voice was telling him to breathe, Sam, breathe--

A sharp blow struck him between the shoulder blades. He gasped, sputtering, and the world flooded back in, forcing away the black. Sight returned, showing him the ceaseless activity beyond the phone, and his ears rang with the sudden reintroduction of sound, as though he had been living in a trashcan and someone just took off the lid.

Dave's voice spoke over his head. "I've got him, Jolt. Get going, you're already late."

"Be well, Sam," the blue Autobot murmured, the metal hand leaving his back. Without a ripple of sound the alien was gone, robotic feet carrying him from the room with a noiseless grace that no human could ever hope to imitate.

Sam hunched over and gripped the edge of the desk with all his strength, gasping in panicked little wheezes, trying to find his balance so he wouldn't slide from the chair. Everything was too bright, too loud, too painful, and he almost wished the tunneling numbness would return so he wouldn't have to think about Mikaela's screams and the way they had suddenly cut off with a world ending crash powerful enough to destroy her phone and disconnect the call. Because he knew now that it had been crushed-- no longer could he fool himself with bright little fantasies that his wife was simply cruising down the world's longest tunnel. The call had ended because her phone had been crushed. And if her phone had been crushed, that meant--

Without being aware of the motion, he shot upright from the chair.

He didn't want to do it. He kicked and screamed and fought himself every inch of the way, but a feral, animal strength he hadn't known he possesed drove him to drag the rest of the thought out into the light. If something had hit the taxi with enough force to instantly destroy her phone, Mikaela might have been very badly hurt. She might even be---

NO!

--dead.

The room whirled around him again like a carnival ride, and he braced himself once more on the desk even as a set of hands gripped the tops of his arms to keep him upright.

A voice spoke in his ear--

"Come on, Sam. There's nothing more we can do."

--but he furiously ignored it. There was something he could do. If Mikaela was still alive, there was a very real chance she might not stay that way for long, not if she were very badly injured. Whether from a car crash or a Decepticon attack or a random meteor shower, his wife was in very real danger at that exact moment. This time there was no hesitation and uncertainty like with Bumblebee-- her scream and the following crash were more than enough evidence that she was in trouble. Neither was she a continent away like Bumblebee; she might have been only fifteen miles away.

Although he had no idea what he would do to help her, there was no doubt in his mind that he was going to do whatever he could to bring her back safely.

"Yes, there is," he replied, in a voice not his own. It was too calm, too confident to belong to him. But now that he had a tangible goal in mind, he would willingly rip NEST apart rivet by rivet to achieve it. He was going to find Mikaela.

Straightening again, every atom vibrating like a tuning fork, he turned to address Jolt only to discover that the blue Autobot was no longer there.

"Where'd Jolt go?"

Dave's forehead creased with worry. "He left a few minutes ago, Sam, but I don't think you heard him."

"Whatever. I need to find an Autobot-- or Lennox, either one."

He took a step towards the door, but found himself halted by the tight grip the agent maintained around his arm.

"Let go."

Dave shook his head. "All the Autobots are gone, Sam. Lennox too."

Sam stiffened, then croaked, "They're gone? Where?"

"To investigate the Decepicon attacks. --Sam, I know you're upset, I can understand that, but you need to accept that right now there's nothing we can do--"

"No!" Sam tored himself away. Rather than waste a single moment of time (--every moment a drop of blood, a step towards death--), he wheeled around and sprinted out the door, heedless of the calls behind him.

The Autobots couldn't have left yet. He needed to be on one of those planes! He needed to get off the island!

Though he had only been there once before, his feet carried him unfailingly towards the room with the giant wall of screens. Surely Optimus and everyone else would still be congregated within, listening to a briefing or something. Then when he told them that Mikaela was in mortal danger, they would remember all she had done for them and rush out to find her-- Optimus would lead the way, tracking down the taxi, while Ironhide would follow up with his cannons and blast any attacking Decepticons away from her, and then Rachet would staunch the flow of blood and patch her up good as new. And even if Optimus and the others needed to go stop the Decepticons, Lennox would take pity on him and give him a parachute so he could jump out the back of the cargo plane just as they passed over the place where Mikaela was and he could drift down to her side and hold her in his arms.

But when the door to the cavernous room slid open, revealing the space beyond, his worst fears were realized. It was empty. No scurrying techies (they had all migrated away), no hustling soldiers, no Rachet, no Ironhide, no Optimus, no Lennox. Save for a few crumpled pieces of paper left on the floor and the steady hum of various programs running unsupervised on the computers, the room was as barren as the face of the moon. Panicky, icy dread radiated up into the soles of his feet through the floor, chilling him from the marrow of his bones outwards. No. There had to be a way to find Mikaela. This couldn't be happening!

He moved slowly into the room, searching along the ceiling as if to find an Autobot hiding in the rafters. Still nothing. Please no, please no....

"Sam!" Jogging footsteps pounded up behind him. Dave. He didn't turn around.

"I guess you were right," he said dully, "They're gone."

The agent sighed deeply. "I'm sorry, Sam, but right now we simply don't have enough information or man power to help Mikaela. She could be anywhere. And a know you hate to hear this, but it's very possible she's--"

"DON'T SAY IT!" He spun on his heel, hands curling into fists. "She's not! I don't care what your statistics say, she's still alive! And one way or another I'm going to find her!"

Sam tried to brush past the agent, but two strong hands reached out and seized his shoulders, forcing him back.

"And how do you plan to do that? Rub a crystal ball? And if you could find her, what would you do when you get there? You're not a medic."

"I would do something, not just sit here while she's out there bleeding on the sidewalk! Don't you get it, she's my wife!"

Dave opened his mouth to retort, but suddenly Sam wasn't interested in him anymore. His attention was drawn instead to what-- or rather who-- had appeared behind the agent. It seemed that not all the Autobots had left; a certain engineer with no real battle capabilities had remained behind. Wheeljack.

Rather than speak or otherwise alert the agent to his presence, the spindly alien silently transformed one of his hands into something resembling a pair of calipers, reaching forward and touching them to Dave's temples. Before the agent could even register the light contact, a spark of electricity jumped from one end of the caliper to the other, passing through his skull in the middle.

Jolting slightly, his whole body went immediately limp and he crumpled bonelessly to the ground.

Sam stared down at the agent in shock, then glanced open-mouthed at the timidly crouching engineer.

"Did you...? Is he...?"

The Autobot caught the direction of his thoughts and shook his head, taking a minute step towards Sam. "Goodness, no! He's not dead, merely unconcious. We have approximately three minutes before he begins to revive."

Looking down at the fallen man, Sam swallowed the knot in his throat as he saw his chest rise and fall. Wheeljack had taken him out with about as much effort and fuss as unplugging an appliance from the wall-- the agent was lucky he was only unconcious instead of dead. It could easy have been the other way around.

"We?"

"Yes," Wheeljack shuffled another step towards him. It required every ounce of willpower Sam possesed not to lean away. "Of course, that is assuming that you would wish to accompany me to rescue you mate."

Sam's head snapped up fast enough to give him whiplash. "But don't you need to stay here and, I don't know, guard the base or something?"

(Stop arguing, idiot!)

Optics spinning and clicking, fingers moving restlessly, Wheeljack lowered himself so that they faced each other on the same level, his voice emerging direly earnest. "I should, but this time I will not. For too long I have hung back in the safety of my labs in fear." A pregnant pause. "Though I am ashamed to admit it, there is no use in hiding the fact that I am a coward. I fear pain. I fear death. But now, Sam," he whispered urgently, "I have the chance to make a difference in something meaningful. You would not be able to succeed in rescuing your mate all on your own, and all of the Autobots programed for battle have left to combat the Decepticon incurrsion. I may be of little help if we encounter enemy resistance, but I would not wish for you to risk your life totally unaided."

Screwing his eyes tightly shut so he wouldn't have to look at Dave's placid body or Wheeljack's hopeful expression, Sam rammed his fingers through his hair and turned away.

"Yeah, well, we both have a major problem-- all the planes are gone, and we're stuck on an island!"

"That is not...entirely true."

"Humans can't swim across the ocean, Wheeljack."

"I was not refering to swimming in any case."

Sam's eyes flashed open at the whirling, clicking, grating sound of rapidly transforming metal-- he looked up in time to see the last few pieces of the alien rubik's cube sliding into place on a sleek, powerful japanese motorcyle where moments before the engineer had stood. A white blur shot high into the air, arcing towards him. Sam started to jump out of the way, but realizing what it was he lifted his arms instead and snagged it before it could hit the ground. A helmet.

Wheeljack revved his engine. His voice, when he spoke, emerged from inside the helmet rather than from the motorcycle itself.

"There is an old tunnel left over from before we chose this base for our purposes that connects the island to the mainland. I believe it still exists, though it may have been walled over."

Glancing towards Dave to make sure the agent wouldn't suddenly leap up and grab on to his ankle, Sam slid the helmet on his head, hoping nothing freaky and alien would attack his brain when he did. To his relief, it felt and acted like a normal helmet.

"Will that be a problem?"

The motorcycle's engine revved again-- though muted by a muffler, the sound was still the most dangerous noise he had ever heard an engine make. The hairs on the back of his neck stood on end.

"It shouldn't be," Wheeljack replied, voice whispering in Sam's ear.

"Good," he nodded to himself (--it's all happening so fast, too fast-- not fast enough-- Mikaela!--). "Excellent. --Um, though I should probably warn you I have no idea how to ride a motorcycle," he added, cautiously approaching the sleek white beast.

"That will not be a problem. An internal gyroscope allows me to remain upright, and my self-guidance programs negate the necessity of a human driver." The handlebars twitched invitingly.

Sam jumped as Dave let out a low groan from behind him. Apparently, their three minutes were up.

"Hold on a sec!" He called to Wheeljack, latching onto an idea. He backtracked to the still mostly unconcious agent, kneeling beside him and pulling open his jacket, revealing the gun nestled in its shoulder strap.

"I'm so going to jail for this," he muttered to himself, extracting the gleaming weapon and checking the magazine. It was full. Then, realizing he had no place to put the gun, he hefted the agent's torso from the floor, pulled off his jacket, and wiggled the shoulder harness from his arm. Fumbling with the leather straps, he finally discovered how it clipped together and slipped it on over his own shirt, tucking the stolen gun away it its holster. That done, he shrugged into the agent's crumpled gray jacket and buttoned it closed to conceal the weapon. A little too long in the arms, but it would have to do.

"Alright," he called, scrambling back to the motocycle that pulled around to meet him. "I'm ready."

He swung his leg over the seat, reaching forward to grip the handlebars. For a moment he hesitated, not wanting to lift his feet from the floor, fearful that the bike would tip over. But then Wheeljack settled the issue for him by rolling forward, and with a yelp he tucked in his legs to keep his feet from being pulled off at the ankles. The motorcycle remained as steady as ever.

The engine turned over and let out another frightening roar, and the visor on the helmet slammed down over his eyes of its own accord. Scrawling, indecipherable diagrams lit up across the curved surface, providing reems of alien data for whatever object his eyes focused on. Way cool.

"Are you ready, Sam?"

At the soft, many-layed question, images crowded into his mind-- Mikaela laughing, smiling, leaning back against him, her dark hair soft on his neck. He forced back the grisly flashes of blood and gore (dead dead dead), burying them beneath a shower of memories, a cascade of all the little smiles and touches and glances that were full of happiness and peace rather than pain and misery. He focused on them with a furious, single-minded intensity, refusing to even consider any other outcome. He held the images of the future he wanted in his mind-- Mikaela happy, healthy and alive. That's what he wanted to happen, so that's what he was going to make happen. Even if he had to move heaven and earth to do it.

The stolen jacket hung strangely from his shoulders; the gun was a heavy, fearful weight at his side.

'I'm coming, Mikaela.'

"Let's do this."

NNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNN

Bumblebee knew there was no such thing as a 'bad feeling'.

His five million micro processors firmly backed this conclusion, as did his logic relays and situational analysis programs. Humans used the term merely to refer to the outcome of complex subconcious algorithims that absorbed and processed sensory data below the recognition threshold. Trillions of terabytes of data-- less than .0001% of which went on to be transmitted into the higher cerebellum-- would flow in through a human's organic senses to be processed by those algorithims, at which time various signals of which they were unaware-- a pheromone scent related to agression, for instance-- would be translated into a subconcious impulse. Or, as they called it, a 'bad feeling'.

As a robotic organism, Bumblebee had no subconcious, and thus every byte of data flowing into his systems (greater by a magnitude of 253.889 than what a human could recieve, given the higher preception capabilities of his sensors) could be directly accessed by his 'concious mind'. There were no signs or signals that went unnoticed; therefore, logically, he should not experience a 'bad feeling'.

And yet as he pulled to a stop 1,342.761 yards from the entrance to an abandoned warehouse at the center of Lagos, he could not supress the various self-generating alerts that flashed through his central processing unit. They were infuriatingly non-specific, and sighted no sensory data. Technically, they should not have existed unless there was an errant string of code somewhere in his programs to create them. But there they were-- his 'bad feelings'. And by Primus, were there a lot of them.

Training a greater precentage of his external sensors that was strictly necessary on the warehouse, he watched for any sign that the alerts were warranted. His search for the stealth-type Cybertronian had been mostly fruitless until the night before when he had stumbled across a fresh trail. The mirage itself may have been adept at escaping whenever he approached, but even its talents were not sufficient to erase the infinitessimal heat signature left in its wake. Oh, its cooling dampeners were of the highest caliber, of that there was no doubt. Any other Autobot would not have been able to detect the .0006 degree difference that deliniated where another Cybertronian had passed, but Bumblebee was not any other Autobot. He was a scout. And, as the humans would say, a damn good one too.

So he had traced the stealth-type as far as the warehouse where, apparently, it had been retreating once every six hours. And that was probably why the ghost alerts had begun to flood his higher function processors, forcing him to estabilish a back-up relay simply to eliminate them. (Bumblebee would have preferred to hunt down the programming error that caused them in the first place, but doing so would be much more time consuming). His logical relays had been humming for hours searching for a reason that the mirage would need, or even want, to return repeatedly to the warehouse. As of yet it had shown superior processing ability when it came to avoiding detection and outpacing any pursuers, but leaving such an obvious trail seemed indicative of a being unafraid of being detected. Or, as his 'bad feeling' warned him, the action of a being that wanted to be found.

The mission should, in theory, have been a simple one. When on the battle field or when entering into unknown territory, Autobots and Decepticons alike continually relayed a passive data bloc that would alert all other Cybertronians as it their allegience when they approached within a certain range. There was no danger of accidentally broadcasting one's presence to one's enemies, as the data bloc could not be recieved beyond a range of a few meters, and even then only when the other Cybertronian focused a specific pair of receptors to intercept the bloc. If the mirage had been an Autobot in hiding, it would have recognized Bumblebee almost immediately and ceased its efforts to flee. If it had been a Decepticon, Bumblebee himself would have known.

The problem, however, was that the stealth-type did not broadcast a data bloc at all, even to declare itself neutral. Like its human name, the mirage existed almost as nothing more than an empty patch of air.

As much as Bumblebee loathed the idea of being forced into a physical confrontation, it seemed to be the only recourse available to him. An ally would have announced itself at once-- only an enemy would hide.

Engaging his internal sound dampeners and initializing his own stealth programs, Bumblebee carefully transformed back into his bipedal mode. An earlier sensor sweep had revealed that no humans or recording deceives had a direct line of sight to the area where he had positioned himself, so he was in no danger of being spotted by any Terran threat. There was, however, the very real possibility of being detected by a Cybertronian one.

Creeping forward, clinging to the shadows cast by the quarter moon, he redirected as much power as he dared to his forward sensors, amplifying them until he could monitor the exact geometric patterns the dust inside the warehouse made as it drifted through the air, could count the hairs on the legs of the spiders in the rafters, could follow the faint heat signature of the mirage through every thousanth of a millimeter shift. He could detect nothing else within the warehouse that might have posed a threat.

His logic relays spun; his scenario programs cycled through hundreds of thousands of possible options. Still he could not come up with a satisfactory reason for the stealth-type to linger within the crumbling human structure.

56 more 'bad feeling' alerts popped up on his HUD. With a jab of servos so vicious it was almost a snarl, he erased them from his primary memory banks.

Wait. 'Snarl'?

While his primary systems focused on the task at hand, a secondary processing core began to mull over his own internal use of the human description. There were no humans present-- there was no reason for his mimicry circuits to be functioning. A sectioned systems check revealed that they weren't, to his bafflement. Why employ the word inside his own core unit where it would not be heard by any humans even if they were present? For that matter, why did it come up at all while his mimicry circuits were not engaged?

He sent a background cognitive program off to put together a logical explanation. But instead of having it return with a possible reason, he recieved a notification that a system-wide program had been initiated. A questioning ping bounced off a firewall, rocking him to the core.

SECONDARY PROGRAMING INADEQUATE. AUDITING AND IMPLIMENTING NECESSARY CHANGES.

Immediately he began to comb his systems for the presence of a virus, finding none. What that implied was almost as disturbing as the presence of the firewall itself-- the sleeper program was of his own design.

Why was he changing his own programming, adding in seemingly useless lines of code that induced constant 'bad feeling' alerts and changed the very nature of his internal musings to incorporate human words?

For once, his logic relays could present him with only one explanation. So he shut them down. No. There had to be another reason. Rachet had only indicated that it might be a possibility. He tried to shut down the sleeper program too and was firmly rebuffed.

Well then.

Not willing to dwell any longer on possibilities that sent his emotion cores fluctuating wildly, he shut down the examination programs running through his secondary systems, concentrating all his processing power on the task occupying his primary systems: Subduing the stealth-type.

When the entrance to the warehouse came within visual sensor range, he flicked a command at the transformation unit in his right arm, retracting and changing and four digit appendage the humans called a hand into a pulse-blast ion cannon. Gathering a charge in the weapon, he aimed it towards the open door of the warehouse, clinging to the walls to present less of a target. His infrared tracing sensors informed him that the mirage had not moved.

16 more alerts pinged from his data hub, each one as unspecific as the other 453 that had so far been created, and he swiftly erased them as he had with all the others. Quasi-human 'bad feelings' were infuriatingly lacking in substantial information.

6.223 yards from the entrance to the warehouse, Bumblebee paused, a blip of erroneous data passing through his sensors. For .000219 seconds, the heat signature disappeared.

An astounding total of 7,566,337 alerts crowded into his primary systems. This time, despite the fact that his logic relays concluded that there was only a .000001% chance that the blip had been anything but a brief sensor malfunction (not completely out of the question, given that his internal repair systems were still fixing the last of the damage from the battle in Egypt), he decided to listen to those little alerts.

A program humans would have referred to as 'intution' engaged, informing him that if the miarge was aware of his presence and intended to attack him, the most logcial place to appear would be the opposite of where he sensors were currently fixated. Or, in other words, directly in front of him.

He brought his cannon to bear at the open space before the warehouse, but he was not swift enough to unleash its captured charge. The air before him rippled with invextion currents, and suddenly the stealth-type blinked into existence, lunging for him while still in the process of materializing.

Bumblebee dove to the side, targeting programs engaging and locking on the the mirage's heat signature. His cannon swung around, leading the Cybertronian as it sailed past him, and let off a controlled pulse blast. Even if the stealth-type possesed some sort of technology that enabled it to render itself invisible to most scans, its heat signature would still remain.

Yet just as the energy packet from his cannon should have impacted the stealth-type in a critical knee joint, his infrared scanners rippled once again-- and the mirage vanished from existence. The blue bolt of energy sailed harmlessly past and splashed into the dirt.

For a moment his logical relays seized. Specialized amophoric skin capable of reflecting all light in such a way as to cloak the subject from the visual spectrum was definitely within the realm of possibility, even if not yet realized in any Cybertronian he had encountered. But for even the faintest heat signature to vanish would require something even more astounding, something impossible to accept. The subject itself would need to exit the very dimension in which the observer remained.

As much as he loathed the necessity, Bumblebee was forced to come to grips with the fact that another of his kind could not only turn invisible, but travel through and even remain within a construct not unlike a space bridge. Space bridges had fallen out of use thousands of years ago due to the inherent danger associated with their use and the utter lack of stealth that accompanied the opening of a space bridge. Not only that, but a space bridge itself was merely a bridge, a means of transportation.

His sensors extending out in every direction on the spherical plane, Bumblebee eyed his chronometer. .02 seconds. .78 seconds. 1.4 seconds. 3.65 seconds.

And the mirage reappeared.

Unless the stealth-type possesed a much more discreet model of the space bridge and had teleported away from the area for 3.65 seconds before returning (highly unlikely), the only option left to consider was the unthinkable. Somehow, the mirage was able to remain suspended in subspace.

He fired off another shot before his adversary teleported away again. Though the confrontation would likely progress much more quickly if he physically engaged the other, Bumblebee dared no do so. The probability that he would be teleported away and left for all eternity in a pocket of subspace was far too high.

Running the stealth-type's pattern of teleportations through a battle simulator, Bumblebee was able to predict the most likely place that the other would reappear. He aimed his cannon back towards the warehouse.

But it seemed that the mirage had grown tired of playing games. Rather than appear at a distance of no less than five yards and no greater than twelve has it had before, the Stealth-type shimmered into existence less than .33 yards from his chest, far too close to be warded off with a shot from his cannon.

Invection currents rippled around its left forelimb, rendering it invisible on the visual spectrum (though its heat signature remained), and without warning the stealth-type plunged its intangible appendage into his chest. His tactile sensors registered nothing, but the critical circuit governing movement abruptly ceased to function.

Every gear, servo and muscle cable suddenly left his control, leaving him completely immobile. The charge in his cannon died, though the arm itelf remained extended, little warnings flashing across his HUD to inform him that undue strain was being place on the shoulder joint without his muscle cables to counteract the weight of his own limb. Not an immeditate problem, but it caused a sensation that in humans would not be unlike pain.

Leaving its appendage buried in his chest, the stealth-type initiated a level three scan, one of the deepest and most powerful scans that did not actually penetrate the central processing unit. If he could have, Bumblebee would have twitched as every metalloid cell in his body pulled and twisted under the force of the scan.

When the scan had run its course, the mirage began to speak.

Another surprise, one that his logic relays protested against strenuously. Not only did the stealth-type forgo using a brief burst of data to convey whatever message/threat it wished to pass on to the scout, it also spoke in english rather than Cybertronian.

"He calls you Bee."

There was no doubt in any of his primary, secondary, or tertiary systems which 'he' the mirage referred to. The unspoken familiarity with his human charge caused every one of Bumblebee's defense/protection protocols to come online.

"In your attempt to save him, you have caused more damage than you know."

His logical relays began to whirl, processing that, and he furiously shut them back down. The mirage was employing a well known (but still very effective) psychological warfare technique. He would not allow himself to be thrown off balance.

::What do you want?:: He transmitted back.

"The nameless one is coming."

Scanning his memory banks, Bumblebee came up blank for any connection between the Fallen and 'the nameless one'. But that did not rule out the possibility that the mirage had simply constructed a new designation for the ancien Cybertronian.

::We have already broken the power of the Fallen, Decepticon::

"True, I am a Decepticon. But I speak not of the Fallen."

::Who, then?::

"The dark god."

This time, Bumblebee did not need to scour his memory banks to recognize the name. But though he was very familiar with the legend of Unicron, that still did not explain the mirage's purpose for rendering him unable to escape only to try to intimidate him into submission. If the Decepticon wanted to eliminate him, it didn't need to try to unbalance his mental processes to do it.

::What do you want?:: He asked again.

"They will not believe you when you speak of me."

The mirage planned to let him go?

::What do you want?::

"But you must believe me, because I am the only one who can help you."

He could not speak, only transmit tiny pre-set data packets. If he had retained the ability to speak, he possibly could have tricked further information from the mirage. As it was, he could only ask the same question.

::What do you want?::

"Do you believe we all have a destiny? A purpose we are designed and created to fulfill?"

::What do you want?::

"Oh well. To each his own, I suppose."

::What do you want?::

"He is the key to it; he is the key to everything. But without you, it all comes unglued."

::What do you want?::

"He needs you and you need me, but I need you both in turn. A nice little circle, isn't it?"

::What do you want?::

"The dark god is coming."

Bumblebee suspected that the Decepticon had a severe malfuction somewhere in its processors. Its speech was erratic, skipping from topic to topic seemingly at random. But yet, how could something as simple as a malfunction cause it to know things about him that no one could possibily know?

"I will contact you again in the future. And since I need you to believe me, I'm going to tell you a secret. A good-will gift, as it were."

Bumblebee changed the message he sent out to a single glyph, the equivalent of a questioning grunt.

::?::

"Starscream is plotting behind Megatron's back. And Soundwave intends to betray us all. Though I cannot inform you of their plans, there is one thing I can tell you."

::?::

"Are you listening? It's very important."

Power flowed back into his central mobility circuit as the mirage withdrew its hand. Overblanced, Bumblebee stumbled backwards.

"Hurry, little scout," the stealth-type whispered, "Your bonded is in danger."

And with another ripple of air currents, the mirage vanished once more.

Bumblebee had wondered before precisely what the sleeper program was meant to do. But at the prophetic words that all the logical simulations in the universe could not make him doubt were true, it powered up and surged into his processing systems.

INITIALIZING PRIMARY DEFENSE PROTOCOLS.

Fear-- even terror-- was a very real phenomenon for any living creature, human or otherwise. Although Cybertronians were more apt to control it, analyze it, and package it away behind firewalls and logic program loops, they were as susceptible to it as the basest of terran life forms. At that moment, all the situational logs, logic relays and stabilizing programs in the galaxy could not stop unbridled terror from welling up in his emotional cores and streaming into the rest of his systems. Hundreds of wailing alarms alerted him to cascading processor overloads and logical failures that exceeded the set parameters meant to keep him from becoming a wild, uncontrollable machine that would stop at nothing to achieve the end lodged in its central processing unit. The sleeper program seemed willing-- almost eager-- to help him dismantle the programed and self-installed restraints around his reactionary systems.

RESTRUCTURING ACTION/INACTION PARAMETERS

The last firewall fell away, and suddenly the need to find/detain/destroy the mirage shrunk to a niggling speck in the very back of his processors. Unimportant.

Sensors powering up past the safely sustainable level, secondary systems logging on to the NEST computers and sending out a flurry of data requests to every database, satellite, website and camera he could reach, Bumblebee initiated his transformation sequence, tires spinning at 60, 80, 100 miles per hour before they even touched the ground.

Transformation complete, he rocketed off into the night, racing away from the warehouse, reconfiguring his internal structures as he went, pumping even greater speed into his engine-- 120, 130, 150, 170-- restructuring his shocks and tires and even the frame under his camaro shell to be able to go as fast as concievably possible, and faster still.

Nothing else mattered, nothing save for the single fact filling every program, every relay, every data log, every sensor sweep, every processing core, warbling through every system and flashing through thousands, millions, of wailing red alerts, each edged with a countdown scrolling steadily backwards towards zero. An estimation. A deadline.

And still the littany continued.

Sam is in danger.

Sam is in danger.

Sam is in danger!

NNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNN

Author's note: HAZAH! It is DONE! (Finally)

Before I get stoned to death for being so late with this chapter, allow me the chance present the three very good reasons for taking so long.

1) This chapter is a raging monster. Longer chapter = long writing time. 2) I had to do LOTS of research for the various elements mentioned herein. 3) I suffered from a severe case of writer's block for four days, but as you can see, I finally managed to bludgeon it into submission. Yay!

I also have a few technical notes to mention before anyone comes whinning that I did something wrong. First, I'm assuming that after the big mess with the Fallen the Autobots decided to relax their laws about not sharing weapons tech with humans (part of the treaty they signed).

Second, the Army regulation I had Lennox paraphrase is a REAL army regulation. That's right, folks, I did my homework. The Geneva Convention II Accords is my invention, however.

Just to let you guys know, I'm leaving to go on vacation Saturday and will not return until wednesday. Hopefully I'll have the opprotunity to work on something while I'm away, but I'm not going to bust my butt like I've been doing.

And for those of you who didn't know, I now have a series of one-shots related to this story up. If you guys are kind with your reviews, I may just whip up another chapter of that tomorrow.