Hey people's, back again!

I may just use this opportunity to say that soon I will be out of the country for a few weeks, so there may not be an update for a little while. :( But there will be one soon after I get back (that is the plan anyway).

Keep being awesome peeps!

Chapter six: Director Charlotte Mearing

The second I saw the strange woman and her rather impressive entourage of people, I dropped my grin, replacing it instead with what I hoped was sober and mature expression. Just from the way she carried herself I could tell this woman was important. The evidently expensive pant suit and shoes, as well as the not-so-subtle bodyguard standing right behind her were also tell tale signs.

I looked to Lennox, Who is she?

By now Lennox had gotten used to my habit of beaming questions into his head, instead of just asking them out loud like a normal human. I waited as he arranged the response, organising a clear section of this thoughts so I could read the answer easily.

Director Charlotte Mearing, the new security advisor to the President.

Gee, this woman was important. Hopefully she was better at her job than Galloway had been. Plastering a polite smile on my face I stepped forward, offering my hand.

'Director Mearing, I'm Ally,' Lennox nudged me in the side, 'I mean, I'm Allison Shorecoat.'

Curtly, she shook my hand, all the while looking me up and down as if assessing me. She had the sort of scrutinising gaze which made me suspect that she had X-ray vision, allowing her to peer into my soul and assess my worth. But that was probably me over dramatising. In reality she was probably only frowning at me because I was wearing an old shirt with some squidgy green creature saying "hug me" and had a set of bright pink sunglasses perched on my head.

When she spoke, it was with measured words, 'You're this supposedly all powerful alien weapon? I had pictured you, older.'

Despite myself, I frowned, not liking what she was implying, 'I'm nearly twenty. The All Spark just keeps me looking young.'

That was true, even though I was drawing close to twenty, I could still pass for younger. Ratchet had explained to me that I would undoubtably look young for a very long time. He didn't quite say forever, but it was very much implied. Still standing in front of me, Mearing didn't look very impressed.

'Nearly twenty? Miss Shorecoat, that hardly fills me with confidence. You don't have the tactical experience, or indeed the life experience to be leading advanced teams such as this.'

'Then it's a good thing I'm not in charge,' I said, doing my best to keep the bite out of my voice.

In response, Mearing arched one perfectly formed eyebrow at me and her lips pursed even more, if that was possible. She seemed to be thinking, what about I wasn't sure, but I could almost hear the cogs in her brain turning. Eventually she spoke again, in her clipped and measured way.

'Then perhaps Miss Shorecoat, you could inform me who is in charge? I would like to speak to the Autobot leader.'

Gratefully, I stepped aside and gestured to Optimus who, until this point, had been standing back with Abbie and Hamish. He stepped forward and offered a hand to Mearing, shaking her hand firmly. Where he had learnt how to perform the typical human handshake I had no idea, because I most certainly had never taught him. Once again, Mearing gazed him up and down, taking in his height, his luminous blue eyes, his youthful face and of course, his flame design jacket. Behind her glasses her eyes narrowed as if she was trying to decide whether or not this was a joke.

'And you are?'

'Optimus Prime, the leader of the Autobots, Director,' he said respectfully.

For the first time since she had arrived, Mearing looked surprised, 'Optimus Prime? From what I heard from Galloway, you were a thirty foot tall robot.'

His smile could probably be desired as slightly amused, 'I used to be when I last met Director Galloway. We all used to be robots.'

'But?' Mearing looked skeptical, and I really couldn't blame her.

What followed was the typical explanation, a lot more formal than the one I had given Abbie, but no less vague. The Autobots were human, how and why we didn't know, we didn't know about the Decepticons and we didn't know when they would revert back to their normal selves. By the end, she still looked slightly disbelieving but nodded in acceptance none the less and seemed resigned to believe our very confusing tale.

When we had finished the explanations, she smiled thinly, 'take me to see the rest of your team then.'

Optimus nodded respectfully and began to lead her out of the conference room, when she paused and turned to Abbie and Hamish. They had been mercifully quiet since we had arrived, and they both greeted her with polite enough smiles.

'And you two must be Abigail Lincoln and Hamish Drawson,' it was't a question.

They both nodded, only to cringe when she glared at them harshly. I went to step in before she could say anything to either of them, but she waved me away with a sharp flick of her wrist. She turned to Hamish.'

'You would be the one who pushed Director Galloway out of the plane on the way to Egypt,' again, it was a statement, not a question.

'Yes, ma'am,' Hamish looked and sounded so unsure.

'He was not pleased with that treatment.'

'I understand that.'

'Do you understand how lucky you are that no charges were pressed? In all technicalities he has the right to bring you before a court for your reckless behaviour.'

'But…' Hamish now looked terrified.

'But, given the sensitivity of the events in Egypt concerning the attacks on the Pyramid and the destruction of major landmarks, the government has waved his complaints aside,' Hamish looked relieved, 'however Mister Drawson, you must be fully aware that another incident such as that will not be tolerated.'

He nodded vigorously, 'I understand ma'am.'

While she didn't reply, she did appear content to leave it at that. Well, to leave that subject at least. It seemed that she was far from done with Abbie and Hamish.

'The two of you are civilians, are you not?' they both nodded, 'and yet both of you have been heavily involved in two high risk military operations. To my knowledge, Miss Lincoln, you have been involved in both Mission City and the most recent attacks in Egypt. Mister Drawson, you were simply involved in the Egypt affair. Although Miss Lincoln, I am aware that your involvement in the Mission City affair was accidental to start with.'

Abbie nodded in agreement. It was the truth, in Mission City she had only been there because Megatron had kidnapped her a few days before and brought her to attempt a trade. Me for her, he had thought that I would give up the All Spark for my friend. He had of course been correct and I had quite willingly gone to him and even offered to stay so she would be freed. That was, until he had shot Starscream out of the sky and attempted to kill him for betraying him. I had promptly lost it and had called off the "deal" meaning all hell had broken out. During all this, Abbie probably was supposed to have run and hid. Instead she had armed herself with the choice weapons of a crowbar and a chainsaw stolen from a hardware store and had joined the fray in a typical Abbie style.

Egypt had been a different matter entirely. Both Abbie and Hamish, the latter with a little more hesitation, had offered to join me on my mission to bring Optimus back from the dead. When I had tried to remove them both from danger by teleporting them back up to a plane, they had taken it upon themselves to parachute straight back down into the battle. They had arrived just in time to watch me die and promptly come back to life, saved by the All Sparks power. After that I was pretty sure they had stayed out of the fight, but I wasn't sure as I had been with Optimus fighting The Fallen and Megatron.

It was Mearing's voice which snapped me back to full reality, 'from now on, the two of you are no longer permitted to be involved with these affairs.'

The looks of protest of their faces were priceless, but Mearing continued, heedless of what they had to say, 'I would try to prevent you from visiting this base at all, considering the confidentiality of it all, but I am afraid you are in too deep now for that. While you may continue to visit the base and interact with the Autobots for now, should the two of you become too involved in any of the missions or field work, I will see to it that you will be removed from the base permanently. Am I clear?'

Abbie's look of disgust and annoyance said it all, 'crystal.'

Once she was sure that her instructions were clear, Mearing was gone, sweeping past all of us until she was beside Optimus and instructing him to take her to the Autobots. The rest of us followed behind her silently, unwilling to speak for fear of invoking the wrath of Mearing. She was tough, tougher than Galloway had been but, even though her new rules and her manner were a little brusque, she had an air about her which commanded respect, and none of what she had said had been too unreasonable.

The first person on her list of people to see was Sekhmet. She wasn't hard to find, seeing as she only frequented a few places on the base, primarily the research labs, the rec room or the outside gangways overlooking the ocean. At that moment in time she was in the rec room, pouring through a book on the advances of phones throughout the ages. To most people that would have been the dullest book short of an encyclopaedia, but Sekhmet wasn't most people. Much like I was the All Spark in human form, Sekhmet was the Matrix of leadership, a source of power and key which had belonged to the seven Primes tens of thousands of years ago. Her power had originally been used to activate a machine known as the sun harvester, which the Primes had used to harvest suns to collect energon, the life blood of the Transformer race. Since we had destroyed the Machine in Egypt, following the attempts of The Fallen to blow up Earth's sun, she was now using her power for different things.

Unlike me though, Sekhmet had been selected by the Primes and had willingly absorbed the Matrix's power. She had also willingly allowed herself to be sealed away in what had essentially been a tomb, constructed from the bodies of the Primes for several thousand years in order to keep her power away from The Fallen. So, while she was infinitely more experienced than I was when it came to using her power, she was very naive when it came to the modern world, since it had been the time of the pyramids when she had been sealed away. Despite this, she still had a decent understanding of the English language, plus decent Arabic and rudimentary French and German, although she had been unable to read. I had offered to teach her and she had picked it up quickly.

When we entered the room, she quickly cast her book aside and sprang to her feet. Standing a few feet away, Mearing assessed her quietly. No doubt she was taking in the dead straight black hair, the small figure and the olive skin. What was probably more shocking to her were the shining golden eyes and the small lines of metal which were fused into her skin, forming an intricate mask and running down her neck and arms.

'Please, may I help you?' Sekhmet asked, nervously shaking her arms, causing the golden bangles to jingle. Even though Abbie and I had succeeded in getting her to wear normal human clothes, all be it long skirts and dresses, she still insisted on wearing the golden bangles and necklace that we had found her with.

Instead of Mearing, it was me who made the introductions, 'Sekhmet, this is Director Charlotte Mearing. She's the new security advisor here.'

'She is important?'

'Very.'

In her usual manner, Sekhmet bowed her head respectfully. Turning to me, Mearing asked, 'this is the girl whom you found in Egypt?'

'She is,' I nodded, 'we found her in the tomb of the Primes. She's the Matrix.'

'In the same way that you are the All Spark?'

'Pretty much.'

The permanent frown on Mearing's face softened as she looked Sekhmet up and down, 'tell me, Sekhmet, how are you finding life on the base?'

'I am enjoying it very much,' Sekhmet smiled, 'the Autobots are most kind and the human soldiers are very friendly to me.'

'Good. And have you been off the base?'

'Yes. Ally has taken me to many places. I have ventured to the mall of shopping many times and have tasted many strange foods, including the maccers, and the iced cream. It was most fascinating.'

For the first time since she had arrived on base, Mearing smiled, appearing to like the quiet and polite Sekhmet, 'what do you think of the Autobots now they're human?' she asked.

'I find them, strange. But they were always strange, so not much has really changed,' Sekhmet shrugged, tapping idly on one of the metal streaks in the skin of her forearm, 'perhaps I may now return to my readings? I fear there is still much for me to learn of this new time before I can properly "fit in" as the soldiers say.'

Mearing waved a hand, showing that she was happy for Sekhmet to leave. Quickly Sekhmet glided back to the couch in her typical graceful manner and picked up her book again, golden eyes narrowing as she went to work deciphering what the words were saying. Once it appeared that she was suitably distracted, Mearing turned back to Optimus and me.

'How much more does she have to learn?'

'About what?' I asked, unsure of what she meant, 'because power wise she's had a few thousand years locked in a tomb to practice, so she's in control there. When it comes to modern day technology, people and language, we're getting there. She struggles with the slang and we haven't started attempting to use technology yet. Last time we tried turning the TV on with her around she tried to reach in and touch the people because she thought it was a live performance.'

I neglected to mention that she had also broken the TV. That piece of information would probably not have amused the uptight Mearing.

She was quick to request to be taken to see the rest of the Autobots. Unfortunately, there was no way we could rely on them to be as well behaved as Sekhmet in front of the Director. Instead, it was more likely that they would aim to make as bad a first impression as they could.

…

Several hours later I was perched on the outer wall of the base, gazing out at the grey, rather turbulent ocean. A series of winter storms had passed over recently, and now the high sea walls which rimmed the entire outer ring of the base, save for the helipads and runways were stained with salt. Behind me the warm yellow lights of the living quarters and the mess hall illuminated the choppy sections of water between the spokes and the damp walk ways.

'What do you think of the new Director?' I didn't jump as Abbie clambered up the wall behind me.

I turned to look at her, 'tough but probably fair. She seems like someone we'll get along with.'

Abbie smirked, 'the Autobots put on a good show for her.'

Raising an eyebrow I shook my head, 'oh yes. If you count alien swearing and not so subtle death threats to each other while the twins attempted to catapult themselves over the rafters a good show.'

'Point.'

'What do you think of her?' I had to ask.

'Miffed that she won't let me join in,' Abbie said, zipping her jacket up under her chin to protect against the biting wind.

'She does have a point though.'

'Doesn't mean I can't be annoyed. Think what will happen to you if I'm not there to watch your back,' as if to prove her point she slapped me roughly between the shoulder blades.

'I'll probably continue with my kick ass ways,' I shoved her back.

She laughed, 'sure you will.'

'I can handle myself.'

'Yes, in combat situations. How are you going to handle the high school reunion on Friday?'

I froze, and looked up at her slowly, the blood in my body running cold, 'the what?