Midnight.
The witching hour-- a time when spirits and demons were thought to rise from the jungles around Lagos and prowl the outskirts of the city.
And sometimes, just sometimes, they really did.
A traffic patrol officer for nearly five years, Azi thought he had seen just about everything there was to see on the normally congested roads. Cars going in the wrong direction, day workers clinging to the sides of buses like barnacles, even one instance of someone attempting to drive a back-hoe through the middle of town. And while the dark curtain of night tended to chase most of the superstitious indoors and off the roads, every once in a while some loony would ignore the supernatural danger of night and try to make a sixty-year-old pick-up do 100mph down the pitted street.
Though by no means boastful, Azi was fairly confident that nothing would surprise him on that particular starry night. Leaning back in the seat of the dusty patrol car, he lazily surveyed the stretch of road visible through the windshield, nursing a luke-warm cup of coffee. Seated beside him in the driver's seat, his partner, Kayin, occupied himself with a crossword puzzle braced against his knee. Azi tended to disapprove of such things while they were supposed to be working, but even he-- stickler for the rules that he was-- had to admit that it didn't take two people to monitor the dark and decidedly empty road. The radar scanner propped up on the dashboard continued to read zero.
For a moment Azi hesitated, thoughts reaching for the book stashed in the bag at his feet, listening to its inaudible pleas to be read. Just five minutes-- just five little minutes to read to the end of the chapter, then he would turn his full attention back to the road. He had already waited all day to find out what would happen to the ink and paper hero-- surely nothing would happen in the short span of time it would take to satisfy his curiosity.
Had he simply reached down to pick up the book, he would have missed seeing the bizarre and miraculous event that occurred beyond the window in the very next moment. But he hesitated just a moment too long, glancing up through the window.
The sight that came and went beyond the glass in the blink of an eye caused him to choke around a sip of coffee, slopping the brown liquid all down his front.
Kayin, obviously having caught sight of the phenomenon as well, dropped his crossword puzzle to the floor and sat forward in his seat, spine ram-rod straight, jaw somewhere between his knees.
"Did you see that?" Kayin breathed in awe.
Azi didn't answer. Couldn't answer. All thoughts evaporated from his mind as his eyes drifted to the radar scanner and the new number it held.
"Whatever it was," he croaked at last, "It could not have been a car. I do not think cars can drive at 400mph."
Kayin spasmed slightly, jerking his head around to stare at the staggering reading embossed on the screen of the radar scanner. 439mph.
He swallowed thickly, reclaiming his slack jaw. "Do you think it could have been a low-flying jet?"
Azi shook his head, staring numbly out into the night from which the apparition had come roaring along the highway. He should have started the car; he should have engaged the sirens and given pursuit. But somehow he doubted that the rusty patrol car could have caught something going that fast.
439mph.
The speed of thought. The flash of a benign spirit rushing to work a miracle.
The blur of demon chasing it prey.
439mph. No earthly vehicle could move so fast.
"Somehow I doubt that they would paint a jet bright yellow."
Kayin stared at him with hooded eyes, and Azi knew that the same thought echoed through both of their minds.
'No one is going to believe this...'
Time.
The fourth dimension. An objective, measurable phenomena calculated by the gradual breakdown of carbon atoms. And, to 99.99% of all Cybertronians, as innocuously neutral as the measurement markings on a human ruler-- simple numbers that possessed neither the ability nor will to change in relation to subjective stimuli.
6.59.43
Yet for Bumblebee, time had suddenly become an enemy as tangible as Megatron, a sentient force intent on fleeing from him faster than he could race to catch it, accelerating up his chronometer at a speed that had been unthinkable before encountering the Stealth-type.
7.01.22
It should not have seemed so. Repeated internal scans reported that no glitches had appeared in his logic relays that would force his secondary processors to attribute an independent will to something that so clearly could not, did not, posses one.
7.02.36
But like so many other things that had occurred since his arrival on the small, watery planet, those problems, situations, circumstances that could not, should not come to pass in an ordered, logical universe somehow....did.
7.02.57
The Allspark had been destroyed. The Matrix had been recovered after having been lost for so long to the enshrouding mists of legend. The Fallen had returned.
7.03.00
A human named Sam had smoothed his soft, organic hands across his hood.
7.03.04
That which was never meant to be had occurred.
::My friend, my brother, my bon-- no!::
Terminating program loop. Rebalancing protocols
7.03.06
And now, it seemed, time had adopted a malevolent life all its own.
7.03.07
Too long. Far too long.
A twist of hidden servos, a shift of metalloid cells, and Bumblebee squeezed another jolt of acceleration into his Cybertronian engine.
7.03.16
If only he could have risked dropping his terran disguise, the trip from the warehouse would have taken seconds, not minutes. Keeping to a paved road would not have been a problem. Gravity would not have been a problem.
7.03.37
But if he were spotted-- if a traffic camera or helicopter or errant human with a recording device happened to catch a non-terran form on some sort of electronic media-- then he could be followed. And reducing his time in transit was not worth the risk of leading further danger right to the one he was trying to protect.
7.03.50
A proximity alert flashed across his HUD, and Bumblebee took a hard right, skidding down the hidden drive that would lead to the military airfield outside of Lagos. Core processors running at maximum capacity, data screens continually feeding information to logic relays and situational analyzers and millions of scurrying background programs-- wind resistance, friction, load capacity, fluid dynamics-- he forced his terran disguise to its limits, eyeing his chronometer with something approaching panic.
7.03.56
His sensors stretched out before him, combing the human base, cataloguing defenses, searching out terran heat signatures, assessing threat levels. Various battle programs reported that the effort involved in entering the base would be minimal at best, sighting the two humans stationed in the guard house 72.88 meters away as the only significant obstacle. A swiftly packaged data burst easily disabled their communications.
7.03.57
The entrance to the airfield appeared on his visual sensors at the same moment the heartbeats of the two guards spiked erratically. They had spotted him.
7.04.00
And exactly 7.04.01 minutes since the stealth-type had delivered its cryptic warning, Bumblebee smashed through the barbed-wire gate barring the entrance to the hidden base, steel crumpling around his frame without leaving so much as a scratch.
7.04.01 minutes lost. 7.04.01 minutes wasted on transforming back into vehicle mode and driving the 53.2 miles to the Nigerian airfield; 7.04.01 minutes that had been spent somewhere other than at his charge's side.
Unacceptable.
Time gave a cruel laugh.
If the V8 engine his Camaro frame normally housed had still existed beneath his hood, 7.04.01 minutes would have been an impressive time indeed to traverse the required distance. But given that every component beneath his terran shell had been transformed into a Cybertronian propulsion system of the highest caliber, 7.04.01 minutes was far from adequate. Sam was in danger-- any length of time measuring more than a few milliseconds was inadequate.
Even when his situational analyzers assessed the threat level of a given circumstance to be minimal, Bumblebee preferred to remain no more than .66 seconds away from his human charge. Normally, even a 3.5 second distance between them was unacceptable-- an infinite host of lethal possibilities could occur during the interval when he could not place himself between the human and an oncoming threat. And even factoring in mitigating circumstances-- such as the presence of other Autobots-- anything more than a minute was out of the question.
Yet now the scout found himself coming to terms with the fact that Sam, despite all his efforts, still remained many hours away. In an effort to save as much time as possible, Bumblebee had forgone sending out a rendezvous request to the pilot operating the cargo plane scheduled to fly in and retrieve him as soon as he sent the word. The time it would take for the human craft to reach him and then ferry him back to India would be almost double the time it would take to fly to India himself.
So at the urgings of his newly reconstructed logic relays and the powerful sleeper program, Bumblebee decided to do the only thing he reasonably could do in order to save Sam.
He decided to hijack a plane.
Casting a localized scan out behind him to ensure that the two human guards-- after discovering that their radios and phones didn't work-- had begun to give chase, Bumblebee locked his breaks and spun across the black-top, tires squealing, engine roaring, and turned his car form towards the startled guards.
Without giving them the chance to raise their weapons-- or even to skid to a stop as he suddenly reversed direction-- the scout leapt forward and fishtailed towards the taller of the two. Fine-tuned programs blinked to life, calculating the exact amount of force it would take to render the human unconscious without doing the delicate creature undue harm.
The guard uttered a short cry of alarm, throwing up a hand to shield himself, as Bumblebee spun sideways into his unprotected form, knocking him from his feet. Swiftly made adjustments to his trajectory and frame ensured that none of Bumblebee's tires grazed the human as he slipped beneath the car body, skull impacting the asphalt with precisely the right amount of force to induce a state of unconsciousness. For a moment his morality programs raised a feeble protest, but the all-consuming need to protect Sam swiftly overrode them.
Every millisecond counted. If one nameless human needed to be given a concussion to grant him a few more, then so be it.
The second guard jerked in fear as Bumblebee spun to face him, eyes darting fearfully to his still companion. He staggered back from the snarling machine facing him head on, leveling his projectile weapon at the scout's windshield, aiming for the non-existent driver whose absence he could not discern through the opacified glass.
"You are trespassing on government property!" The human shouted, standing his ground, "Stop where you are, or I'll kill you!"
The words would have sounded more menacing if they weren't pronounced in broken english. And if the guard's arms weren't trembling slightly, causing the gun barrel to waver.
Bumblebee revved his engine, deepening the pitch to produce a low, dangerous sound analogous to a guttural snarl, and switched on his radio.
'I will survive!'
With a flicker of code, Bumblebee shot forward. The human cried out, a surge of adrenaline much higher than the safely acceptable level flooding his veins, and tried to flee. Faster by several orders of magnitude than his quarry, the scout easily overtook the human, darting past him and letting an open door catch him in the back and send him tumbling to the asphalt.
Turning again, Bumblebee jerked to a stop, front bumper level with the frightened creature's face as he flipped onto his back, struggling to push himself to his feet.
The guard froze, breath feathering across yellow paint in a strangled gust, eyes wide with terror. Flicking a brief medical scan over the human, Bumblebee momentarily hesitated, wondering if perhaps it would be better to leave the human unmolested rather than risk causing permanent damage to render him unconscious. The time it would take for the tiny creature to race towards the other humans stationed in the myriad hangers and observation towers (all of whom remained unaware that anything amiss was occurring on the airfield thanks to a viral program carefully inserted into the base's outdated mainframe) would give Bumblebee ample opportunity to remotely access the computer of one of the cargo planes, start the engine, and load himself into the back. The human need not be harmed more than he was.
But then the guard scrambled back away from Bumblebee, bringing up his gun to aim for the driver's side windshield once more despite the danger-- greater at such close range-- of being hit with a reflected bullet. And Bumblebee realized that leaving the human to his own devices would not be an option, not when the trembling creature appeared determined to fight rather than flee. Though his battle simulators assured him that the threat posed by the lone human and his primitive projectile weapon was all but negligible, his probability relays warned that leaving the guard to chase after him would most likely cause the scout to lose precious time protecting the human from himself.
So with a slight, internal wince of shame (one that was all but cancelled out by the alarms flashing across his HUD that wailed with glaring red digits that he was almost out of time), the scout snatched at his transformation controls, activating the familiar reversion program.
The guard's mouth fell open, gun sagging towards the ground in his suddenly lax grip, as the scout shifted back into his Cybertronian form. Gross mobility circuits briefly left his control as his body unfolded itself from its condensed form. Automatic triggers activated at every miniscule joint in rapid succession, each sliding piece forcing those next to it to change their shape and arrangement the way a falling domino would start a chain reaction. Legs shifted into existence and took the place of wheels, thunking down onto the blacktop and pushing him upright. Armor clicked along its ratcheted grooves and locked into place; surface struts melded together to protect vulnerable inner circuitry.
When at last his battle mask retracted and the final piece rotated into place, Bumblebee lowered himself into a crouch, hovering above the prone figure of the guard, and carefully stretched out a finger towards his chest. A small burst of electricity would suffice to induce an unconscious state, leaving the human with virtually no pain upon awakening, unlike his companion. Though he loathed the necessity of harming such a vulnerable creature, it was a necessary evil to protect Sam. Bumblebee could not afford to be detained by a group of humans.
At the urgings of the sleeper program (whose functions seemed to encompass shifting his actions to appear more human) and his morality programs, the scout clicked on his radio as his metal digit brushed the front of the guard's uniform and warbled softly, "It will all be over soon..."
In retrospect, probably not the best line to use.
As when dealing with Sam and Mikaela, his actions were designed to induce a release of oxytocin in the human brain, a chemical that promoted the formation of trust. But unlike Sam and Mikaela, the guard had never seen a Cybertronian before and thus was inclined to interpret his actions-- as all humans seemed predisposed to do-- as indicating that the scout intended to offline him, especially since his partner had just been run over (and, to all appearances, killed) by the selfsame robotic organism now reaching for him.
Another surge of adrenaline flushed through his system, and the guard redoubled his grip on the gun, bringing up his other hand to steady the weapon as he snapped it towards Bumblebee. Rather than stammer out another ineffectual warning, the human coiled the muscles in his upper body and squeezed off three rapid shots.
Reaction relays momentarily unbalanced by the decisive, unexpected action, Bumblebee did not shift away in time to avoid the projectile rounds. For all his biologically apparent terror, the human possessed remarkably good aim-- though the first shot went wild and sailed off into the night, the second bounced from his right shoulder plate. The third hit him squarely in the head, nicking him between the optics, and deflected with a sharp crack into the asphalt at the human's feet.
Though the scout's self repair functions reported that only minimal surface damage had been incurred from the projectile, a powerful background program momentarily overrode the functions of his central processor in response to the sudden attack. Scrolling alerts and steadily humming long-range sensors abruptly shut down, windows blanking from his HUD, as a secondary processor that had lain dormant for almost two years came online with a violent whirl and a searing flood of red light. Like the sleeper program, the secondary processor was self-made, cobbled together from copied lines of code and unused circuitry pathways. But unlike the sleeper program, whose influence was subtle, its purpose unknown, the frankenstein processor that suddenly seized control of his every movement, every thought program, was far from mysterious, and not at all ambiguous about its function.
Danger alerts started to wail throughout his systems as a buried memory file spontaneously opened and began to play, reviewing for his intimate horror the night a swarm of humans had overtaken him and dragged him away. Bumblebee knew, from long, leisurely talks with Sam, that a running memory file was nothing like a human nightmare. He felt none of the pain that had settled into his joints with the terrible cold, sensed no imperative to protect Sam and the all-important glasses he carried. His legs did not seize with phantom attempts to flee; his damaged vocalizer did not screech out an attempt at pleading with his captors. Yet it was a potent reminder of the danger humans posed-- a reminder that his flaring processors jabbed repeatedly into his logical relays, his situational analyzers, screaming that the organic creatures were cruel and simple-minded and would not hesitate to tear him down into pieces of scrap if given the chance.
Logic protested feebly that it was only a single human before him, that his primitive weapon would not be able to damage the scout in any meaningful way.
But the rotting, festering, dark place inside him where logic could not reach-- the place which had spawned the secondary processor in order to survive torture at the hands of the Decepticons-- boiled over with fury....and fear.
Level five threat detected. Engaging battle protocols.
His battle mask extended; his left arm shifted into an ion cannon and began to charge.
Deactivate.
Deactivate.
Deactivate.
A short, trembling, strangled sound broke through the stillness, cutting off the memory file. Bumblebee started, and at once the paused memory file folded up and sealed itself back away in his data banks, clearing his HUD as swiftly as a human blink would sweep away a mirage. The pulsating secondary processor suddenly froze, withdrawing its influence, and his core processor reasserted itself and locked away the errant program deep within his hardrive. The red tint to his HUD faded; threat alerts ceased to bombard his primary processors.
And Bumblebee was left staring down at a cowering human, ion cannon primed to blow out its chest cavity and cause instant death.
The dark-skinned guard was not Sam-- his bio-rhythms, brain waves, and DNA did not match--
No spark signature detected. Only one bond currently active: Human, designation: S--
::No!::
Program loop terminated.
((Reaction illogical))
--but the human cry of terror stirred another memory, one that brought shame instead of fear, aching sorrow rather than anger, and shut down every impulse to destroy as efficiently as instantaneous stasis lock.
He had almost murdered the innocent creature.
.....just as he had almost murdered Sam.
::Forgive me::
Slowly, so as not to frighten the guard further, Bumblebee pulled back and retracted his cannon. And, after a slight hesitation, he flipped up his battle mask.
Not wanting to give the human another chance to fire his weapon, the scout extended his newly reformed palm towards the guard, activating the electro-magnetic field around the appendage and polarizing it. The human flinched back, jerking his weapon up to fire another shot. But before his tiny finger could depress the trigger, the attractive force put out by Bumblebee's hand ripped the gun from his grasp, transferring to the robotic palm.
Feeling no remorse whatsoever for the primitive weapon, the scout contracted his fingers around the gun, effortlessly crumpling it, and tossed it over his shoulder without once taking his optics from the stunned guard.
The human cringed away, holding up one hand as if the flesh and bone shield could provide any protection from the scout.
"W-what are you?" he whispered.
7.04.51
Unchangeable.
Unavoidable.
Unacceptable.
'Your worst nightmare.'
The guard emptied the contents of his bladder.
"Please don't kill me."
Humans could, at times, be confoundingly illogical. The fact that he had not yet become a warm, greasy smear on the blacktop should have been proof enough that the scout desired something other than his death. Though the persistence of gratuitous torture on the part of the Decepticons was a strong argument in favor of cautiousness in the face of an unknown individual who may or may not have wanted to carve out your optics for sadistic pleasure.
Unwilling to waste the 2.3 seconds needed to respond, Bumblebee straightened from his crouch and lashed out at the guard's head with one foot. Though hardly as gentle as a concentrated electromagnetic burst would have been, the blow did not connect with enough power to crack his skull or even to draw blood. The human went limp the instant cybertronian alloy touched his temple, eyes rolling up in their sockets.
Conducting a brief medical scan as he stepped away, Bumblebee assured himself that no permanent injury had been done, calculating that the human would awaken in approximately 13 to 15 terran minutes. If all went well, more than enough time.
7.05.12
Briefly accessing the map of the base stored in his hard drive and locking onto the coordinates of the nearest cargo plane, Bumblebee transformed back into his terran form, tires bouncing slightly from the speed with which he threw himself towards the ground. 1.17 seconds to shift from bipedal mode to vehicle mode. A record time.
Not fast enough.
7.06.29
Now that the human sentries had been dealt with, there was nothing to prevent him from racing across the patched airfield towards his target. Smoke rose from his tires as he accelerated away from the fallen human, secondary processors broadcasting his own unique pirate signal that would enable him to hack into any sufficiently complex terran device. But as he came within thirty yards of the row of planes-- the beginning of the range at which his own systems could seize control of their onboard computers-- a startling revelation dawned, one which caused his logic relays to suddenly stall and his emotional cores to pulsate ominously.
During the scout's harried scan of the base only 3.47 minutes earlier, he had programmed his receptors to indentify and locate any aircraft large enough to contain his bulk. Upon discovering three such vehicles that matched his criteria, Bumblebee had turned his receptors-- and concentration-- to the monitoring and communications equipment of the humans guarding the base.
Now the scout realized that he had made a critical-- and, for Sam, potentially fatal-- error in not initiating a more in-depth scan of the base's air craft.
His vehicle form slowed to a crawl, rolling into the shadow of the nearest dilapidated aircraft. After a long, aching moment, he shut down his pirate signal.
It was hardly of any use to him when none of the planes waiting on the airfield had been used since 1945 and the conclusion of World War II-- their computers could not be hacked for the simple fact that they did not possess computers to begin with. And without some sort of cybernetic guidance system that Bumblebee could use to remotely start the engines and pilot them back to India, they were as useless as the inert hunks of metal they appeared to be.
7.08.34
Wildly, desperately, Bumblebee opened a powerful scanning program and cast his receptors around the entirety of the base, sacrificing several megabytes of processing power that normally went towards threat detection in order to thoroughly comb his surroundings. Save for a pair of F-22's collecting dust in the northern hanger, an H3 hummer parked inside several rows of barbed wire at the base of the observation tower, a Nintendo DS in the pocket of one guard sleeping in front of an instrument panel, and a few dozen cell phones scattered around the base, there were no devices available for Bumblebee to hijack, much less any that possessed a pair of wings and the load-bearing capacity to lift several tons of cargo.
Every probability simulator, every logic relay, every minor processor momentarily paused in its workings as the enormity of the situation flooded his processor: there was no way-- no avenue he could take, no advantage he could exploit, no machinery of any description that he could use-- to get back to India. There was no way for Bumblebee to fly to Sam.
::No.::
7.08.36
When the glitch that had caused his systems to freeze for .002 milliseconds had passed, the scout immediately began to reassess his options. Remaining in Nigeria-- remaining away from Sam-- was a situational possibility that never once factored into his 3,451,009,722 action/inaction scenarios. But the only two courses of action open to the scout were almost as unappealing; call the NEST pilot circling over Africa for transport....or search out another airfield. The later-- if possible-- would undoubtedly be the most expedient. But if a C-17 or its equivalent could not be found within 100 miles of Bumblebee's current position, he would have no choice but to radio for assistance, an action that would cost him several hours.
Unacceptable.
((Unchangeable))
7.08.55
Throwing himself into reverse, Bumblebee began to power up his sensors to their utmost extent in order to scan for any private airfields that might not have been listed on the official military database. Filling away the internal shudder of fear rippling from his emotional cores, the scout stolidly resigned himself to a minimum ten minute delay, once more lamenting his ready acceptance of the mission to Lagos. If only he had not allowed fear to dictate his actions he would not have inadvertently placed himself several thousands of miles away from the one he was meant to guard over and protect with his very existence.
If only he had realized sooner that he could no more abandon Sam than he could turn back the racing hands of time.
Every second-priority background system momentarily paused as Bumblebee sent a level four scan wave pulsing outwards, receptors straining out on a 360 degree plane parallel to the ground to search for any working aircraft in the area that would suit his needs. Reems of data poured in as the scan reached its maximum range and his receivers reset to their original configurations. But as byte after byte of useless sensory data flooded across his HUD-- as inch by inch across the 1.1 thousand square miles combed he remained without a means of transport-- the readings from his probability simulators began to shrink. And when at last the final blip of data from his scan had filtered through his processors and every probability simulator hugged 0, Bumblebee found himself without a means to fly to his charge.
7.09.47
Stymied once more, the scout locked his wheels to arrest his tentative backward progress, lunging for the slot in his communications array that would link him to a secondary mainframe of the NEST PSAI. There was no other option. He would have to wait for transport to come to him.
Sending out a transport request signal to the C-17 pilot, Bumblebee sank down on his shocks and prepared to wait, forcefully clamping down on the erratic whirling of his processors that threatened to spiral into a data storm of fragmented code and overheated cores. But unable to contain the frantic urging of his systems entirely, Bumblebee blindly threw out a scan and discovered that the cargo plane assigned to him had flown beyond his range. A side program informed him that that meant it would take, at minimum, 1.34 hours for the C-17 to even arrive. If Sam were not in immediate danger-- if the Stealth-type's enigmatic warning did not reach fruition for some hours yet-- then such a delay was aggravating but not overtly destructive. If, on the other hand, the danger approaching Sam were imminent, 1.34 hours would toll his death, never mind the time it would take simply to fly across the Indian Ocean.
And if his human were already fighting for his life, 1.34 hours would make no difference at all.
Emotional core fluctuation-- initiating shunt.
Terminating program loop--
Error. Termination incomplete.
Termin--
((Alive. Safe. Listen, feel))
And feel he did.
Disconcerting waves of cerebral patterns-- distinctly human and disturbingly familiar patterns-- flittered briefly through his processor before Bumblebee was able to force the sleeper program back into his secondary systems. And even after his HUD had cleared of the momentary influx of alien data input, the sense of otherness remained at the edges of his core processor, whispering to him with words he could neither hear nor break down into their elemental code. Like the sleeper program itself, the sensation seemed to simply not exist. A rapid systems check revealed that there were no errant programs that could have caused the phenomenon. The scout could not decide whether to be comforted or frightened by that fact.
Yet though he shrank away from the conclusions brought on by his certainty that Sam still lived (much to the consternation of his logic relays and the disapproval of the sleeper program) the awareness of another presence-- close not in physical space but in some other manner he could neither classify nor adequately explain-- served to calm a portion of the panicked alarms wailing across his HUD.
Dark, unnamable things lurking in that festering place deep within his spark stirred in response to his contentment. Bumblebee hurriedly locked them away before the thoughts that had caused him to flee from India--
((From Sam))
--overwhelmed him again.
7.09.52
The issue of what might have resulted from his attempt aboard the aircraft carrier, however preemptive, to heal Sam using the energy that normally repaired his own body could wait to be examined until after his charge was safe. Then, and only then, would the scout concern himself with the possibility of a pre-spark bond....and how to break it.
7.09.56
Time was once more his enemy as each moment stretched and lengthened as Bumblebee waited for the pilot to respond. It left him vulnerable to discovery by the other humans on the base when, eventually, they came to investigate the reason for their fellows' refusal to answer pre-arranged radio check-in's. It also allowed dozens of cognition programs to bombard him with questions, doubts, regrets.... fears.
::No:: Bumblebee shuddered away from action/inaction scenario 3,448,001. ::I am his guardian. If nothing else, I am his guardian::
The dark things flexed their claws and grinned.
7.10.01
Unwilling to linger on the idea he had considered for .000001 milliseconds after the Stealth-type's warning, the scout's processor returned again to the possibility of contacting the other Autobots. But after only a moment's hesitation he again discarded the thought as futile and potentially counter-productive. Radioing NEST with the impromptu announcement that Sam was in mortal danger would necessarily result in an inquiry into where, exactly, he had obtained such information. And as the Stealth-type had so keenly observed, no one would believe his story about the cryptic warnings of a Decepticon. Not even Optimus. Especially Optimus, who knew only too well the irrational hysteria that could overcome a spark-bonded Cybertronian. Though Bumblebee still clung fervently to the belief that he had not, in fact, initiated a spark bond with Sam, Ratchet believed it to be a strong possibility. And Optimus trusted Ratchet's opinion implicitly.
No, radioing the Autobots for help would only be a wasted effort at best and a distraction of their attention from Sam at worst. The scout was on his own.
7.10.18
A proximity alert suddenly began to warble, refocusing Bumblebee's attention on the flashlight beam that had begun to pan back and forth across the asphalt 102.3 yards off to his left, accompanied by the rapid jabber of a human voice and the pained squawking of a disabled radio. Without starting his engine, Bumblebee inched forward until he was completely concealed from the revealing moonlight beneath the outdated aircraft's shadow. He was almost out of time. Even taking human response time into consideration, there was a noticeable lag between his broadcasted signal and the as-of-yet undelivered reply.
7.10.24
Warning. Estimated destruction imminent.
A continuously scrolling countdown in the corner of his HUD suddenly began to flash, warning him that his predictions of how quickly he would need to reach Sam were swiftly approaching fulfillment.
There had been no way for him to know, of course, precisely what danger his human charge was in. Or even if that danger were immediate. The Stealth-type's warnings had been vague at best, and there existed the possibility-- slim though it was-- that the Decepticon had deceived him for its own ends. Ceaselessly cycling probability scenarios had presented him with every possible threat imaginable, calculating the mean time for those threats to reach completion and steal the life from Sam's body. When each of the various routes to death-- 7,801,923 in all (and that was only the ones with more than a .01% chance of actually occurring)-- had been complied together, their average resulted in several different time spans which had each been placed into a separate countdown tucked into a corner of his HUD. The first several countdowns had expired long ago-- spontaneous combustion, earthquake, drowning-- and now thirteen more were spiraling rapidly through their last numbers on their way to 0. Thirteen more ways in which Sam could possibly die were about to reach their conclusion.
((Energy waves in equilibrium. Bond stable))
7.10.43
Several more flashlights lit up in the darkness, closing in now from three sides.
Countdown complete. Subject destroyed.
Thirteen chances for life winked out.
Bumblebee sent out another transportation request, wishing-- illogically-- that the simple blip of data could convey his desperation.
((Is not the very existence of the soul illogical?))
7.11.05
Worried shouts rang out as the first approaching human stumbled across one of the fallen guards. The scout knew he would have to move, and soon. But if he moved, the pilot might not be able to lock onto his signal.
Yet if he stayed, he would be in real danger. The guard's hand gun might not have been able to cause much damage, but the ballistic missiles mounted atop the human's vehicles would.
7.11.26
A thin beam of artificial light stabbed beneath the hulking metal plane and alighted on the scout's gleaming yellow finish, eliciting a cry of triumph from the human.
::SAM!::
7.11.33
At long last, a message pinged from Bumblebee's reciever. But to the scout's dread, it was an automated message from the NEST mainframe rather than from the C-17 pilot.
Pre-recorded response logged.
Arranged transport temporarily unavailable-- all NEST aircraft and ground vehicles in use.
Reason: NEST deployment in (26) areas.
Autobot status: Unavailable.
NEST personnel status: Unavailable.
Estimated return time: Unknown.
Have a nice day.
::Primus, no.::
7.11.41
The asphalt beneath his tires rumbled as half a dozen armored vehicles burst out from behind their gates and began to race towards him, accompanied by a cacophony of alarms wailing, voices shouting, safeties clicking off, booted feet running, rocket launchers powering up.
Bumblebee's battle simulators screeched that if he stayed in his current position he risked a 94.2% probability of serious injury or deactivation. Several possible scenarios for escape presented themselves, but all that involved any real chance of escape also included the death of at least one human. The frankenstein processor whirred and raged and tore at his core systems, pulsing with a heavy darkness, demanding to be given free reign regardless of the toll on innocent lives, regardless of the mates, the children who would feel the mortal stab of agony upon finding their beloved dead. And despite Bumblebee's loyalties—despite his deeply held beliefs and convictions—he knew that Sam mattered to him more than any of them, more than all of them. They were as a single drop of water compared to dark, unknowable depths of the ocean that was his devotion to Sam.
But the knowledge that the scout's friends, allies, brother-in-arms were all in very real danger--- that Sam would most likely die if Bumblebee could not reach him-- shut down the impulse to kill more effectively than stasis lock. There was no point in fighting for his freedom if freedom could not help Sam. The 26 simultaneous Decepticon attacks meant not only that he could not use NEST transportation, it also meant that any and all C-17's in Africa would be in use fighting off the incursion. Even if he traveled from coast to coast he would not find one available to be commandeered, and attempting to drive across the sea floor would take almost a week, if he made it at all against the 97.001% probability of failure.
The darkness inside of him grew and spread, crushing Bumblebee beneath its weight like a tangible thing. There was a human word for it: despair. And for a moment he considered simply allowing himself to be offlined and dismantled. That way, if by some chance Sam survived, the human would at least be free of the spark bond. Free of the darkness. Free of the festering taint.
Free of the monster.
((What is the nature of the soul?))
7.12.38
The armada rumbled closer.
"Don't move! Don't move!"
"You are trespassing on government property!"
"Step out of the car with your hands on your head or we will shoot!"
"Get out of the car! Now!"
7.13.09
::I love you::
7.13.12
((His faith will be your faith))
7.13.33
"Out of the car!"
((Belief will inspire. Determination create))
7.14.45
((The ability rests within you. You simply have yet to discover it))
"This is your last chance!"
7.15.56
((Cybertronian and human together as one. Look. See))
7.16.00
The sleeper program flared to life, and for the first time Bumblebee did not attempt to stop it. Swirling, chaotic code drifted through his processor with the disorganized brilliance of stars, of glowing sea anemones-- on the surface no more than random disorder, but created from a pattern so complex that its entirety could not be seen or understood. Cognition programs opened and began to whirl through reams of seemingly unconnected bits of data, selecting and discarding portions of unformed ideas seemingly at random, fitting them together and rearranging them according to some unknown blueprint that he both understood and failed to fathom-- an image whose final shape he would not know until he had assembled it. A background processor nudged him quietly, whispering that he was experiencing the human phenomenon of free association, the same mental process often linked with the incredible leaps of intuition found in dreams. A mental process that no Cybertronian, except perhaps Optimus or Wheeljack, possessed.
Bumblebee's sensors ranged out, seemingly beyond his control, fleetingly touching humans, weapons, vehicles, aircraft, adding encrypted data to his processor-- more pieces to the puzzle. Then, all at once, they alighted on the Zero, a Japanese fighter jet from WWII, sitting on a patch of grass behind the group of humans as some sort of memorial. His primary and secondary processors refocused on the outdated human aircraft, and suddenly Bumblebee knew what to do. There was a way out after all.
7.17.08
"Open fire!!"
Just as the first human finger tightened around a trigger, Bumblebee sprang into action.
A level five scan directed at the Zero momentarily blinded the humans with its brilliant flash, giving the scout the milliseconds needed to erupt into his bipedal form-- already leaping up and towards the humans while still in the process of shifting-- as familiar transformation protocols opened and began to assimilate data, calculating adjustments. A flurry of deep, pulsing signals shivered along his frame, reaching for each metalloid cell and instructing it to release the bonds it held with its neighbors in order that new ones be formed.
A hailstorm of bullets tore through the air in his wake, most thunking into the outmoded aircraft that had served as his shelter or sailing harmlessly off into the night. A few, however, managed to zing along his armor, leaving shallow dents and furrows, and one managed to nick a coolant line in his knee, though the damage was minor enough that his internal repair systems had almost finished sealing the break by the time the scout touched down on the other side of the line of humans.
While still rolling forward with the impact, Bumblebee activated the freshly constructed transformation program, sending off a brief prayer to Primus or God or Sam that he not meet his demise attempting the impossible, that the long-held belief that only Seekers could fly was more propaganda than truth, that he would be fast enough not to be blown away by a human with good aim and a rocket launcher.
Following the single glyph command, the scout felt his reversion stabilizers engage, felt his parts begin to shift, rotate, rearrange as his armor faded from bright yellow to burnished silver, and with what remained of his legs he leapt up from his rolling crouch and launched himself as high as he could into the air. There was a moment of terrifying freefall as his engine started up and his propeller began to spin, but then his newly formed wings caught and held the dark mass of the air, flinging him upward in a roaring haze of bullets and mini flak clouds and plumes of fire that bit at his tail even as the snarling engine nestled deep within his newly transformed body ripped him from the reaching fingers of death and flung him up into the black sky.
Directing his sensors behind him to the group of humans swiftly falling away with the rest of the planet, Bumblebee examined his battle scenarios and came to the conclusion that it was highly unlikely that they would attempt to give chase, especially not with his fight path directing him towards the border. He was free, and not a single human had had to die. If it ever came down to a choice between killing a human-- even killing many humans-- or losing Sam, the scout would willingly become a murderer. But so long as such a choice was not a necessity, Bumblebee would cling to his duty as an Autobot and a follower of Optimus Prime and attempt to preserve human life whenever and wherever he could.
The darkness retreated beneath the glimmering light of steely determination taking root in place of despair. He would save Sam, or he would destroy himself trying.
A flicker of code, and the cartoon decal of a hornet appeared from the rippling armor of his tail amid the scout's wash of animalistic-- humanistic-- triumph.
And as he set course for India, Bumblebee's core processor was momentarily filled with a sense of ironic amusement as he realized that Sam's first assessment of his nature had finally come to pass-- now, at least, his charge could truly say that his alien guardian was 'Japanese'.
Riding a motorcycle, Sam decided, could have been pretty fun.
If only said motorcycle wasn't an alien.
And if only said alien didn't seem determined to make him die of a heart attack before he turned twenty.
En route to the hospital Mikaela had been brought to (--'yes, Sam, she is still alive, they're unloading her now'--), traveling at a ridiculously insane speed with nothing between him the other cars-- and certain death-- but air, Wheeljack decided to pull another Live Free Or Die Hard on him.
"Will you cut that out!" he screamed, to no apparent effect, as the motorcycle did a complete one-eighty at 120mph in the middle of rush hour traffic. Another brain-melting, bowel-loosening game of chicken with several dozen cars later, Wheeljack crossed back over the median into the stream of vehicles traveling in the right direction. Or rather the wrong direction, as Sam was completely positive that the hospital and Mikaela were falling away behind them as they raced back the way they had come.
"What are you doing?! Turn around! --But find a place to make a u-turn, first."
"I'm sorry, Sam," Wheeljack whispered to him through the helmet, "But I can't do that."
Sam wondered if the alien knew how much he sounded like the homicidal A.I. Hal when he made that comment.
"Sure you can! Look, there's an off-ramp coming up right there--"
"Being able to change direction is not the issue," Wheeljack cut him off, voice thrumming with something that sounded almost like tightly controlled terror.
Sam latched onto the emotion behind the words, heart stuttering in response. It felt swollen, too full of blood, every pulse a stab of pain (--Mikaela!--)
"They've come back for her, haven't they," he breathed.
"Sam--"
"Oh God, I was right. The Decepticons caused the accident and now they've come back to finish the job!"
Sound abruptly assaulted his ears, piped from the hidden speakers inside the helmet—voices talking, laughing, arguing in exotic tongues that sounded like complete nonsense to Sam. The familiar, breathy overtones of someone putting their mouth too close to a microphone that colored each blip told him that he was listening to Indian radio once again.
"Sam," Wheeljack soothed, "If they had already found her, it would have been obvious by now."
Listening to the boisterous, disconcerting, but altogether normal sounds of human voices-- voices belonging to people who clearly were relaxed and not shitting their pants over a Decepticon attack on a hospital-- Sam reluctantly had to agree. But the way the engineer had inserted an 'already' into his sentence sent alarms jangling fearfully through his head. Not 'already', but maybe 'soon'. (--no no no!--)
Blind terror surged through him, causing him to shudder against the bike.
"We have to go back! We have to get her out of there before they can find her!"
He wrenched at the handlebars, trying to manually turn the bike around, but the front wheel refused to budge so much as an inch. Like with Optimus, he might as well have been trying to yank a piece of granite apart.
"We cannot go back."
And the thin, dry stick of his patience snapped.
"What the fuck is that supposed to mean?! Goddamn you, turn around!!"
"No."
The single word was so curt, so final, and so utterly infuriating that he felt tears of helpless rage gathering at the corners of his eyes. But he knew continuing to shout at the alien would get him about as far as pushing against a stone wall-- he had to use logic and reason. Appeal to Wheeljack's robotic sensibilities.
"I guess I'll just have to walk, then."
Well, okay, so maybe logic had nothing to do with proposing to dismount a motorcycle while it traveled at a speed to outpace a rocket, especially since any attempt to lunge for one of the other cars would most likely leave him a grisly little pool of road pizza. But it was hard to think logically when your partner in crime suddenly got cold feet and proposed to leave your new wife (dude, I'm married!) at the mercy of sadistic, demented psychopaths whose whole bodies could be used as instruments of death and torture.
Floating on a hysterical cloud of reckless abandon, he tried to swing one leg over the seat in preparation for a grand dismount and heroic lunge for the car in the next lane. But Wheeljack intercepted him before he could get very far-- the metal under his legs shifted, dozens of delicate mechanical arms detaching from the smooth planes and twining around his calves, hooking into his jeans, holding him fast to the motorcycle.
With a snarl, Sam tried to kick out of his bonds. The grip of the tiny appendages was unbreakable-- he could neither shift his legs from side to side nor pull them straight up. Gently, inexorably, Wheeljack held him in place, risking being discovered to keep him from fleeing.
"That's it! We are so not friends anymore!"
".....I am so very sorry, Sam," the engineer murmured, "But we must return to base at once."
"Why, because you're too much of a coward to risk running into a few measly Decepticons?" he snarled, some small part of him whimpering in shame as he said the words. But unlike when he had mercilessly laid into Optimus, the greater part of him did not simply stand on its top-priority pedestal--it bashed the whimpering part over the head with it. Mikaela was in danger. Politeness could go merrily tripping down the path to Hell.
If a motorcycle could cringe, Wheeljack would have been a mewling pile of robotic despair.
"Because Mikaela is not the one the Decepticons are after.....they want you, Sam."
Feeling a little in the dark about the cause of the engineer's sepulchraltone-- every word sounding as though he had to dredge it up from the bottom of the ocean-- Sam could only blink stupidly at the instrument panel. He had always known the Decepticons were after him-- it was a constant state of existence for him, as all-encompassing as being a guy, that had persisted without interruption ever since a certain yellow Camaro had appeared in his life. Sure, maybe it had become a little more urgent since Egypt (--can't go home, never go home--), but it was nothing for Wheeljack to suddenly freak out abo---
No. Please no.
"Y-you mean it was all a set up? This whole thing was staged just to get to me? B-but the accident--"
"Was not truly an accident," the alien confirmed softly, "It was only a ploy to lure you into the open, away from our protection....and it seems that it has worked."
Dizzy, breathless, he leaned heavily against the handle bars.
"N-not really. If it had worked, they'd have already chopped us up and stuffed us into chunky tuna cans." He tried to chuckle, but the attempt fell flatter than a pancake, as non-funny as a visit from the IRS, as, as.....the very really possibility of actually being killed and chopped into bite-sized pieces, not necessarily in that order. "....How many?"
Wheeljack did not need to ask what he was referring to. "Two."
"Little ones?" he guessed hopefully, thinking of Frenzy.
"Big ones."
"....how big is big?"
"Megatron big."
"Oh."
The speedometer inched past 150.
"But luckily they do not seem to know exactly where we are."
A cold sweat broke out all over his body-- icy fingers of moisture ran down his spine.
"That's good."
160.
At least they were after him and not Mikaela. At least she was still alive and safe at the hospital. The Decepticons didn't want her. Even if they killed him, she was nothing to them. They had no use for her---
Use for her.
But they did have a use for her. A very important one.
"They'll use her to get to me," he whispered breathlessly, "They've probably been watching her this whole time, waiting for me to show up."
Wheeljack sighed, seeming to brace himself. "Sam--"
"But when I don't show up, they'll go 'Hey! Let's break a few more bones and see if he'll come when we broadcast her screams over every radio channel in the area!'"
A shiver ran through the bike frame-- the restraints around his legs twitched as if in pain.
"I know this is hard--"
"They won't just leave her alone, oh no. Because for a bunch of evil alien fruit loops they're fairly smart-- she's an asset, a useful tool, and why would they throw away a tool when they can use it?"
"Remaining in the open would be tantamount to suicide--"
"And in this case, a tool they can use to get to me. --Don't you get it?!" he suddenly shouted, the well inside of him overflowing, "Those creeps will tear down the hospital to get to her, squishing nurses and sick people right and left along the way. And then they'll hurt her--"
"Trying to face off against two Decepticons unaided is just not feasible--"
"--They'll cut her open with their knives and dig creepy alien meat hooks into her body," his voice cracked dangerously, "They'll stick needles into her eyes and leave them there, then shatter her bones and joints--"
"...Please, Sam--"
"Then, just when she's all tenderized like a human smoothie, they'll start to skin her alive, starting with her fingers and toes. --Or maybe they'll leave the needle-in-the-eye thing for last so that they can make her watch them pull her apart. They'll do everything possible to make her scream and squeal and cry and beg--" though his eyes remained narrow and flinty, a traitorous tear of imagined pain crept down the side of his nose, "--and they'll make sure I'm listening to every minute of it, telling me that I can save her if only I come back to them."
Wheeljack's voice went stiff. "I have been ordered to bring you back by whatever means necessary."
Sam nodded. "And the Decepticons will use whatever means necessary to make me come, in this case by hurting Mikaela. They think that I'll try to save her."
"I will not allow you to go."
But Sam wasn't listening. As he spoke, he slipped his right hand into his jacket, curling his fingers around the grip of the gun hanging against his side. Luckily it was his left arm in a cast-- he would never have been able to pull off the stunt forming in his mind had his dominant hand been compromised.
(...hold on Mikaela, hold on just a little bit longer....)
"They think that I'll try to save her," he repeated lightly, swallowing the knocking lump of apprehension in his throat. He needed his hand to be steady. "And you know what?"
In a single motion Sam tore the gun from its hostler, for once not suffering from terminal klutziness and dropping it altogether. He pointed the muzzle towards Wheeljack's front tire.
"They're right."
He pulled the trigger.
Thankfully the weapon contained only ordinary, human-stopping bullets-- the single round, even fired at point-blank range, was not powerful enough to pop the tire or do any serious damage. But it did, however, accomplish his purpose.
Taken completely by surprise at the sudden attack, Wheeljack startled on his shocks and forgot to lock the front wheel in place when Sam grabbed the handlebars and yanked them hard to the left with every scrap of strength he possessed. The alien had not been prepared for the unexpected turn-- rather that whip around in a terrifying yet perfectly controlled circle, the bike turned too far and threatened to fall to the side. When he tried to turn it back the other way to compensate, it started to wobble dangerously, weaving drunkenly back and forth against the traffic.
His guardian angel returned from his smoke break just in time to help him dodge through the lines of cars blowing past, darting to the side of the road. And still moving at close to 80mph, the bike smashed sideways into the concrete curtain that suddenly appeared from the grassy shoulder as the highway transitioned smoothly into an overpass bridge. Sparks flew from the side of the bike as it scraped along the short wall, metal squealing in protest. Pain erupted in his calf as flesh met concrete with only denim in between, tearing a short scream from his throat (--oh god, oh god, it hurts!--)
His cry must have shocked Wheeljack back into his sensibilities (or else the wall hurt the engineer's spindly appendages as much at it hurt Sam) because a shiver suddenly went through the bike frame beneath him-- a tangible wrenching of control-- and jerked sharply away from the concrete curtain.
But Sam, anticipating such a moment and determined to escape the alien, dove in the opposite direction.
The strain of the two opposing forces broke the grip of the restraints, causing his legs to pull free. He went sailing through the air, clipped his shins on the low wall (--#%$*&!!!--) and tumbled over the edge of the overpass.
In hindsight, probably not the smartest thing he had ever done. Flailing his arms, croaking/shouting/squealing something unintelligible and (to his embarrassment) probably high-pitched and girly, Sam could only watch the ground rushing up at him with the detached realization that it was going to hurt like hell when gravity finally gave him a rude introduction to the asphalt below. If he didn't splat like a bug on someone's windshield first.
All-too-familiar terror welled up in his chest, clogging this throat, strangling him as his body dropped like an oddly shaped rock through the air. Suddenly, Sam knew that he was going to die. He could even see how it would happen in his mind-- landing on his head, neck bending beneath his weight at a sickening angle until his spine snapped, and finally being crumpled around the front bumper of a Honda or Mitsubishi, flipping up over the hood and smashing into the windshield, leaving a Sam-shaped impression in the shatter-proof glass.
(--God, please don't let me die! I have to save Mikaela!--)
Ten feet, seven feet, five feet, so close he could see the individual rocks pressed into the asphalt, so close, too close, closer, I can't die I have to save her I have to save her--
::Bumblebeeeee!!!!::
Accessing emergency survival protocols.....
Uplink achieved.
Downloading....
And time stopped.
....or so it seemed at first.
The ground was still rising towards him, still close enough to touch, and though Sam knew that if he counted out the seconds one-one-thousand two-one-thousand they would come out to be the same length as always, he suddenly had an infinite amount of time to think between one second and the next. Like during his super-soldier moment at the firing range, the processing power of his mind had suddenly increased a thousand-fold.
Except this time, he wasn't the one in control.
Alien symbols began to scroll up, down, and sideways before his eyes, twisting and recombining, strangely organized and not at all similar to the chaos of his Allspark induced seizures. With bone-deep certainty he realized that they were not just inert fragments of a map, but rather complex programs-- programs that surged down his spine, into his limbs, and took control of his body as effortlessly as a puppeteer pulling the strings of a marionette. If he concentrated, he could almost feel them wriggling beneath his flesh like so many tiny worms (--wires--), clamped around his joints and vertebrae like enormous hands that brought numbness instead of pain, gripping his mind, his body, with limitless strength that simply slipped in and pushed him aside.
Sam felt the programs flip his body in midair-- a demonstration of acrobatics and flexibility that would have been impressive if not for the fact that he was riding sidecar in his own skin-- in order to reorient his legs beneath him. His legs bent, body sinking into a lithe crouch, just as the ground slammed into the undersides of his feet. The shock of impact rippled through him, from the bones in his feet to the tip of his hair, luckily failing to break or dislodge anything other than the programs. As a bucket of ice water to the face could wake a drunk from his stupor, so too did falling fifty feet help break the grip of whatever new alien freakishness had wormed its way into his mind. The programs were still there, still pulsing through his muscles (--through his spine, his heart, his brain--), but for an instant Sam was able to fight against them.
And fight against them he did, interrupting the smooth roll the alien glyphs tried to direct his body into. Too much weight landed on his shoulder-- Sam cried out as he felt something give a disgusting pop and shift out of alignment. But still he struggled, more terrified than he could ever remember being, the acrid bile of animal fear rising in his throat.
Actions illogical.
Resistance to survival protocols hampering injury prevention.
--Don't be afraid--
As swiftly and easily as a rebooting a computer, the programs smoothly reasserted control, correcting the trajectory of his body and rolling him out of the path of an oncoming car and off the edge of the road. Still straining against the foreign hijacking of his body, Sam shocked himself into a full-body jerk when the programs abruptly relinquished control, retreating into his mind. Using the forward momentum of his body to flail himself into something approaching an upright position, Sam staggered away from the roaring stream of cars, gasping, choking.
"It's in my head," he croaked, "it's in my head. Get it out..."
Stumbling forward, half blinded by shifting symbols, flashing colors, Sam fumbled at his injured arm and clutched it close to his body.
Self-correct dislocated appendage?
"No!" he groaned, reeling, still feeling as though he were falling and knowing only that he had to get away from the bridge before Wheeljack came after him, "Get out!"
But the programs-- the thing, whatever it was-- didn't leave. As his thoughts shifted to the engineer he felt them grab at his mind, working through what little data his alien-enhanced senses could provide to calculate Wheeljack's probable arrival time and the best course of action to take should he wish to avoid such an encounter. But what creeped him out the most was that the information didn't appear before his eyes, like the glyphs (a phenomenon that he was smoothly informed was merely a glitch that would be resolved as the structures of his mind were further refined to be 'compatible'-- though to be compatible with what, he didn't know). Nor was it spoken in his mind like some sort of internal PA system. Rather, it was simply there, like a loud, intrusive thought that could not be ignored. But unlike his own loud, intrusive thoughts, the programs were altogether unfamiliar and distinctly alien, like cool metal brushing softly against his mind, grabbing at his consciousness, everywhere and nowhere all at once.
"SAM!"
Shit. Wheeljack.
The sound of his name instilled a new sense of purpose in Sam, sending him reeling forward into an awkward lope away from the bridge. If the engineer decided to risk exposure and transform there would be nothing he could do to get away. Long legs+alien stamina=Sam losing race. But maybe if he could hide---
The sound of a train whistle caused his head to snap up. Eyes blinked and strained, stoically resisting the urge to snap closed when his vision sudden telescoped and zoomed in on the graffiti-covered freight train approaching in the distance. The tracks weren't far away. If he could just get to the other side before Wheeljack came or the diesel engine turned him into a human pancake.....
Running probability scenario....
Complete. Chance of success 67% without assistance.
Chance of success 92% with assistance.
"Assistance? What the hell does that mean?" Sam murmured quietly, trying not to look like the lunatic who argued with himself despite the fact that there was no one close enough to overhear. He twisted his head to scan the overpass, twitching back with a hiss of apprehension as he saw an all-too-familiar white robot drop nimbly over the edge of the bridge into the bushes by the side of the road.
"SAM!"
"Ah, great."
A disconcerting internal nudge.
Assistance requested?
"Sure. Great. Whatever. I would just really like to be on the other side of those tracks right now. Preferably before Mr. Spastic Fantastic catches me or I get creamed by an Indian freight train!"
Still limping drunkenly forward, wobbling from the rumble beneath his feet caused by the barreling train, Sam was again startled into almost needing a new pair of underwear by the feeling of once more being a passenger in his own body. But this time, when the feeling of wires descended, it was more akin to being tangled in a cobweb than being bundled in a cocoon-- like having a guiding hand on his back rather than being picked up, flung over an invisible shoulder, and carted away fireman style. His sense of balance immediately returned, as did his coordination. He started forward in a jog that morphed seamlessly into a sprint, more focused, more graceful than he had ever been during track meets or running from Megatron.
But despite his sudden burst of speed, the train was moving far faster than even his alien-guided legs could manage. His heart started to knock loudly against his ribs as though trying to break out and escape the foreseen fate as a human pancake assigned to the rest of his body. There was no way he could make it.
"It's too close!"
Chance of success 97% The program insisted. Threat level acceptable.
The rumbling of the train grew louder, transcending noise and becoming a concussive force that beat relentlessly against the sides of his head, rattling his teeth in his skull.
"Yeah, well, I think this counts as the 3% range!!"
"SAM, STOP! PLEASE!"
The note of sobbing, agonized terror in Wheeljack's voice made him hesitate, causing him to slow minutely as his heart constricted for an entirely different reason. But sensing his moment of weakness, the program snatched control of his body once more, coiling the muscles in his legs, bringing his hands forward in preparation to jump.
"SAM!!"
And with the roaring freight train so close that he could feel himself being buffeted by the cushion of air pushed along before it, Sam felt the program plant his feet and launch him into the air with every scrap of strength in his body, lunging for the other side of the tracks.
Author's Note:
Ta-da! I'm back! Missed me?
This is probably going to be a very long author's note because there's a lot that needs to be said about this story.
First, chapter notes:
1) Still not slash. Don't go getting crazy over the 'L' word.
2) As some of you smart people probably noticed, the first scene with Bumblebee stepped back a little in time to BEFORE Optimus tried to contact him. At first I was going to write the inevitable freak-out scene, but I thought explaining how Bee became a plane would be way cooler than just using a flashback thingy.
3) This chapter was originally supposed to include more material, but I'm coming to find that my outlines magically expand during the writing process, making one whole chapter into three. And no, I won't tell you whether Sam makes it or not—where would be the fun in that? But seeing as how he IS the hero, he's going to end up surviving…one way or another…..
Now for personal notes (excuses). Feel free to skip if you want.
This chapter was a long time in coming first and foremost because I lost inspiration. The plotline was still there, but the fire I had first felt had retreated to mere embers. I WANTED to write, but couldn't seem to make myself, and the more I viewed it as a chore the less I wanted to write. College also played a hand—that semester was the equivalent of a brief internment in Hell.
For those of you who don't know, I feel it only right to inform my loyal readers that I am sick. Very sick. And I don't mean the cold/flu kind that's caused by germs. I have been in and out of the doctor's office for the past three months and even had to make one trip of the hospital. No one could figure out what was wrong with me—we still don't know. Rest assured that I don't have cancer or anything else most likely terminal. Right now it looks as though I'm going to keep right on living—it may be painful, it may be inglorious, but I'll still be alive. But this illness/malfunction/whatever has been the cause of some very dark moments these past three months, so dark that I don't know if I will ever be able to share them with anyone. I don't want to touch that kind of pain—both physical and spiritual—ever again.
I know some of you have probably learned to hate my guts for such a dry spell, but in my own defense I would like to humbly submit that it is almost impossible to concentrate on anything besides breathing when enduring weeks of that kind of mental and physical agony. I'm shocked that I even managed to do my homework, much less make a 4.0 while having to deal with that. So I'm sorry that Instability wasn't undated during that time, but frankly it just wasn't on my radar.
I love this story and don't want to let it go until I finish it, but be warned that another long dry spell may come if/when my illness resurges. If I don't get to see you guys again, just know that you're the best fans in the world and one of the only bright spots in my life.
God bless you all, and may He always light your way.
--Steelfeathers