Author Notes:All righty then, the fic starts in true form here. This will essentially be a parallel story to the canon of Transformers: Animated becoming an AU later down the line that will follow Amalia my OC, one of Brown's OC's, Stance; and another OC I plan on introducing next chapter. PM me for any questions and please R&R!
Chapter 1
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3 YEARS LATER
It's 7 o' clock.
Amalia always hated the number seven; she wasn't sure why. The way she saw it, the number seven was jinxed. One time - she must've been twelve or thirteen - she was locked in the janitor's closet at school until precisely seven at night. Then she stumbled home to find that her mom hadn't even noticed her absence. So, since then, Amalia had been sure to avoid the number seven whenever possible, no matter how irrational it sounded to other people. But it was seven o'clock in the morning, and sadly she knew exactly what that meant. The humanity. Yes, if she could get out of it, she would. But she couldn't. So she was stuck facing the number seven.
It was also a matter of her "internal alarm clock." Before she went to bed each night, Amalia told herself what time she had to get up at. This really was her own fault. Regardless of how much sleep she'd gotten, she had to face today's trials and errors. Amalia slowly rose out of her stiff bed. She sat upright, quickly waking her brain up and convincing her legs that it was time to get up and move around.
The young woman - dressed in oversized pajama pants and a shirt that said "kiss me" - trudged across her extremely sloppy dorm room floor. She took care not to trip over the clothes, textbooks, and the occasional scrap of food that belonged to both her and her roommate.
Why couldn't I have gotten one of those anal-retentive neat roommates?
Unfortunately for her, and for the whole dorm (as the smell was overpowering), not only was Chelsea a worse slob than her, the University of Michigan didn't allow automatons of anykind since some assholesused theirs to cheat on finals. So no help would come from that direction either. Unless there really was some higher power that could just snap their fingers and clean up this mess.
Because Amalia knew that it really would take a god to clean this up.
She moaned as she made her way down the hall, and shut the door behind her as she entered the dorm bathroom. Why did I have to think about finals? The damn things are in only two months now, and I'm barely hanging on as it is.
The 20 year old looked up at a mirror, spying a young woman on the other side worthy of being Medea's daughter. A young woman with frizzled and knotted blond hair, dark circles under her brown eyes, and stress acne dotting her greasy forehead.
I hate college.
She sighed as she began her morning routine with brushing her teeth thoroughly.
Okay then, what's today's schedule? Classes today are eight to twelve, then I gotta hop on the express and go watch Sari until six, and then I have to get back here in time for my last class at seven.
30 minutes later she emerged from the bathroom, clean as a...well it was a shared bathroom of a college dorm so one couldn't exactly call her clean, but she was cleanerthan before. A little. At least she no longer reeked of the socks Chelsea had forgotten to wash that were currently molding underneath her bed. (What were they doing under her bed? The least Chelsea could do was keep her mess on her side of the room.)
Amalia stretched out her stiff limbs as she made her way back to her room to grab her assorted text and notebooks needed for her classes.
Okay, let's see. I got my Trig. stuff, Intro to Mech. stuff, and my lab stuff. She quickly stuffed all her books into her bag before making her way downstairs for a quick breakfast at the cafeteria. You can do this. Mondays suck but they're simple and organized. Nothing unexpected.
In retrospect, Amalia realized that she had reallyjinxed herself.
By the time Amalia managed to get to the Sumdac facilities, she smelled trouble. Heck, she was in trouble. Her professors had decided to pile a whole load of homework on her, right when she didn't need it. As if exams weren't keeping her awake at night. As if she didn't have a social life. Amalia had even considered quitting her babysitting gig, though that would prove to slow her down as time went on. She needed the money. She liked Sari...Well enough, that is. All in all, babysitting brought more positives than negatives.
However, Sari had already run away from Tutorbot. Interrogating Tutorbot didn't do anything. (It rarely did.) Apparently Sari had run away somewhere, but the closest thing Amalia had come to finding Sari was a group of kids currently touring the facility. The hall seemed to swell in their presence. Amalia supposed she should be relieved that there didn't appear to be anything dangerous nearby. Then she heard the voice of Professor Sumdac rising above their excited screams.
"Everybody - everybody, please settle down, and we'll start the tour," Professor Sumdac urged. The children weren't paying attention to him.
Amalia took this opportunity to sneak up on him from behind. "Hi, Professor."
Professor Sumdac jumped a good five feet in the air and swung around. "Oh...Oh, hello, Amalia, I would like to - please do not touch that! I would like to talk, however I have a tour to - would you please put that down, young man?"
"Where's Sari?" asked Amalia.
"She's with Tutorbot."
"No, she isn't."
"She isn't?"
"If she was with Tutorbot, I wouldn't be standing here asking where she is."
"Well, uh..." It was clear that Professor Sumdac didn't know what to say or do at this point, his attention torn between the school children and his own, missing child. "Well, uh, she is probably wandering around the facility. I'm sure she'll show -"
"SPARKPLUG!"
Bingo, thought Amalia.
Cutting through the mass of school children, Sari Sumdac streaked through the hall, and around the corner before Amalia had time to call her name.
She made eye contact with Professor Sumdac. "I'll get her. SARI!"
Amalia walked about two blocks, keeping a sharp eye out for Sari. But - as usual - she'd disappeared into thin air without so much as leaving a trace behind her. She could hear Professor Sumdac's voice echo through the corridors. He was dictating something to the students. How Amalia hated tours. They were like a thousand Saris running around causing chaos. If this kept up, by noon their screams would be echoing throughout the facility and further distract Sari from what she was supposed to be doing. Like her homework.
On cue, screams.
Is it noon already? Amalia checked her watch.
Then she roughly realized that those weren't excited screams. They were kind of...terrified screams. The scientists also meandering through the corridors paused to take in the noise, not fully registering the severity of their situation.
"EVERYBODY RUN!" someone shouted.
Under normal circumstances, Amalia would have probably said something along the lines of 'No, really? Never would have figured that out by myself.'
Right now though, she was a bit too busy trying not to be crushed by debris coming from the collapsing ceiling to be snarky towards Captain Obvious.
Amalia went for the old "duck and cover" method, diving out of the way just as a massive part of the ceiling crashed down where she'd been seconds before. Through the new hole, she spotted something towering above them, something she would have once applied to a monster from a horror movie. Or maybe a corny kid's television show. But whatever it was - whatever it was doing - thoughts of unwavering terror settled down on her.
Sari.
"SARI!" She exclaimed over the panicked screams and shouts as the scientists fled from the crumbling, smoking structure.
As she looked about in panic she caught sight of a familiar and unique yellow-orange dress through the smoke and throngs of workers before it disappeared around a corner.
"SARI, WAIT!"
Amalia sprinted down the hall, not really thinking about how idiotic it probably was to be running deeper into a building that just received major structural damage from some giant bug monster thing. (What was that thing anyway? It reminded her of her Aunt Bertha from Kentucky.)
She swung around the corner to find that the hall branched in several directions, all of which were lined with doors that Sari could have fled into.
Oh, come on!
After about ten minutes of searching, it soon became obvious to Amalia that the building wasn't in immediate danger of collapsing. Although there were piles of rubble nearly everywhere; and the occasional wisp of smoke could be seen fluttering along the ceiling the rubble was mainly from poorly bolted down machines and some piping from the ceiling, while the smoke was so thin it could easily be mistaken for regular steam. The walls showed no cracks and neither did any support columns she came across.
In other words, she was now less worried about Sari running off into the depths of the factory, and more royally pissed.
I swear I should put a damn leash on the girl!
She shook her head to clear her thoughts. There would be time to berate Sari for her carelessness after she found the girl.
"Sari! Sari! Answer if you can hear me!"
Instead of Sari, Amalia was answered by a faint noise that the young woman could barely make out. Amalia cupped her hand around her ear as she strained to listen. Is that… barking?
Sure enough, the robotic menace Sari had dubbed 'Sparkplug' came sliding around the corner, running at full pelt with what Amalia recognized as Sari's key dangling from it's metallic mouth. Amalia had hated Sparkplug from the moment they'd first met, a sort of subconscious hatred of one another. And if not hatred, then Sparkplug had been programmed with a personal vendetta against Amalia. He was prone to tearing up her homework, jumping on her from above, and chewing at her pant leg until she was pretty much wearing a pair of tattered shorts. In fact, the only reason Amalia felt relieved to see Sparkplug in the middle of all this chaos was because a certain little girl was never too far behind him.
"Sparkplug, get back here!"
Amalia sighed as the red head also slid around the corner, albeit slower than the robotic canine. And cue Sari.
Honestly, this situation was so played out that Amalia had seen every variation of it, and she was able to perfectly time her grab for the seven year olds dress as she tried to run past her.
"Ack!" Sari exclaimed as she was quickly jerked back by the collar of her dress. When the young girl looked up to see who was holding her, a sheepish grin appeared on her face. "Oh um, hey, Amalia."
Amalia looked down so that she was making eye contact with Sari. Her face wore a relatively calm expression, but one could absolutely feel the waves of anger that rolled off of her. She remained silent for a few seconds to let Sari stew in fear (and if she kept it up at this rate, pee) before she exploded in a storm of fury. "DO YOU HAVE ANY IDEA HOW BAD YOU WORRIED ME? THE BUILDINGS FALLING APART AND THERE YOU GO RUNNING OFF TO LEAVE ME HAVING A FREAKING ANEURYSUM!"
Sari cringed before opening her eyes and smiling sheepishly.
"Um, sorry?" she weakly offered as an apology. "Look, I'm sorry, okay? But Sparkplug ran off and I had to make sure he was okay!"
Amalia let go of Sari who plopped down onto the hard ground. The young woman squatted down in front of Sari, looking straight into her auburn eyes, before speaking in her best 'I only want what's best for you' voice.
"Sari, Sparkplug is a robot that can be easily repaired or replaced, unlike you. You can't go running off like that. You could have been really hurt, or worse." She placed her hands on Sari's shoulders, forcing the girl to look directly in her eyes. "Do you understand?"
Sari looked over at Sparkplug, who was sitting nearby, waiting to recommence the 'game'. "Yeah but-"
She was met with a hard stare from Amalia. She sighed and rubbed her arm in embarrassment.
"I understand, I'm sorry."
Amalia smiled and stood back up. "Alright then. Let's go find your dad, okay? He's probably worried out of his mind by now."
"Okay." She looked over at the robotic dog with a mischievous look. "But first help me corner Sparkplug."
"You want him to give you your key back? Here, I'll show you." The college student calmly walked over to Sparkplug before kneeling down and grabbing the key.
She looked back at a wowed Sari.
"See? It's that easy." Amalia tried to stand back up but found herself impeded. "What the?"
Sari snickered and pointed behind Amalia.
Amalia looked down and groaned when she saw that Sparkplug still had the string that was attached to the key firmly in his mouth, apparently still eager to play the 'game'.
Amalia let out an annoyed growl not unlike that of Sparkplug as she tugged at the string. "Sparkplug, let go."
Sparkplug responded by tugging back. Harder. Much harder than a non-robotic dog his size would be capable. Translation: Amalia was sent flying head over heals right above the robot, flipping once in the air before landing on her behind.
She moaned in pain as she slowly came to terms with what had just had occurred.
Did Sparkplug just…?
Well Sari was laughing uproariously, so that combined with her sore ass were indicators that, yes, that did just actually happen.
"Sparkplug!" Amalia shouted angrily at the dog as she turned around to face him.
Sparkplug was, of course, completely oblivious to the situation at hand. The robotic dog was still sitting there wagging his metallic tail happily while Sari's card still hung from his mouth as if to taunt Amalia with her defeat at the...paws, of an artificial dog.
Amalia slowly rose from the floor of the factory, a look of determination now on her face.
The babysitter turned to her charge. "We'll corner him."
"W - Wait you mean Sparkplug!" she exclaimed. "But I thought you said -!"
"I know what I said!" She shouted at the girl before staring back at the robot, "But no fake dog gets to make me look like an idiot and get away with it!"
Sari stood dumbfounded for a few seconds before smiling excitedly. The young girl quickly sprinted past her sitter in pursuit of the dog.
"Wait! Sari I said we would…" But the young girl had already run out of the room into the stairwell that led directly to the parking garage. "Oh, just forget it."
Amalia took off at a jogging pace.
She wound her way down the stairwell and into the parking garage, where she became aware of what sounded like police sirens and some screams. But no Sari. Again, she and Sparkplug had disappeared into the maze of cards. As Amalia resumed her search, she began to despise the winding and unintuitive layout of the structure. Really, after a hundred years no one has thought up of a better way to store cars? That's what I'm ought to do when I graduate. Screw skyscrapers, the world needs an alternative to parking garages.
After several more minutes, and two more floors of cars, she finally caught up with the duo near the exit.
She found them, of course, having a tug-of-war over the key.
"Sparkplug, let go!" Sari exclaimed as she yanked on the key, but Sparkplug wasn't done playing.
Amalia was about to lecture the young girl on how she had justtold her notto run away when a large truck of some sorts pulled up in front of the three and startled Sparkplug away.
What happened next, however, took Amalia of her course of thought rather violently.
"Hi little creatures! Did you two lose your ownerbot?" It spoke in a seemingly maternal tone.
It! As in THE TRUCK! As in a truck without any occupants just talkedto them. Amalia checked to see if the driver's chair was occupied by one of the school children. Only it really was empty. The truck had talked to them.
Faced with this, the two females did what would come naturally to anyone faced with this situation.
They screamed their heads off.