[Location: Autobot Base]
The one bot that introduced himself as Optimus Prime seemed genuine. Nice even. So too were the others in the strange room, though the little J-pop teenie she wanted to backhand through a wall. She just wouldn't shut up with all the questions about where she came from, what it was like, asking if she could fight. When they were finished introducing themselves and Optiums explaining a good chunk of their situation she was allowed to explain herself.
"My name is not Elita-One, it's Ellan Greer."
"But how is that possible?" Ratchet asked with a scoff of disbelief. "M.E.C.H. couldn't possibly have in their possession the technology needed to do a full transfer of a mind from one body to another."
"Unless you were able make an A.I. program copied off of your own brain?" Rafael asked as he stepped closer to the bot.
Ellan was looking down at her hands, slowly flexing them. "No, there was no A.I. program. I did a bunch of false coding that had enough of a strand of true coding in it to not raise suspicion." Her hands clenched into tight fists, the sound of metal grinding on metal coming from them. "This is a nightmare. I hate this thing."
"So how did you end up like you are now?" June asked gingerly.
Ellan's left hand moved to the abdomen of the body she was in, her optics easing in thought as she tried her best to recall it all. "The earthquake shook things up pretty bad. I was starting to put on the outer covering plates to the machine when the lights went out and everything began shaking. With no real love for the project I hid under the table and prayed that it would be destroyed. When things quieted down I tried to get the power up and running again, since I needed air to breathe while I waited for Silas to send his lackeys for their monthly delivery of food and supplies.
"I got the back-ups running, but the whole structure was badly damaged. I began my report, my final one either way you look at it, when an aftershock hit. I was trying to get back under the table when I got pinned. One of the supports for the lights above the work table gave and well…" She gave an emotional sigh, more out of habit now with her brain processes than needing to actually intake air. "I woke up like this after being electrocuted. I died and this is hell."
Bumblebee, ever supportive, 'spoke' to her gently to reassure her. They were all rather shocked that she turned her head to him and practically yelled at the scout.
"Really? And how about we shove your mind into a human body and see how you handle it." She closed her optics and sighed, "I'm sorry. Forgive me Bumblebee. I know you meant well. It's just… I can't handle this. Not very well at least. I just had my life cut short and removed from me all because of some stupid program I had written because I was sweet talked into it."
"What do you mean?" Optimus asked.
Ellan looked back up at the commander with a tilt of her head. "I had worked on the programming for a satellite tracking system that Silas had been put in charge of, all because I fiddled with robotics as a hobby."
"Project: Damocles," Agent Fowler said calmly. "As I recall, you were one of the loudest voices calling for it to be shut down."
She nodded weakly. "I didn't want my programming being used to harm innocents, as I had found out one time when Silas was gloating. When he refused, and the military was taking too long to go through their paperwork on their end, I infected the programming with a virus for just that project to force it to be mothballed. I know he never forgave me for that."
"Which is why he kidnapped you and locked you away," Arcee stated calmly. Ellan only nodded her answer. "Do you have any clue as to where they were getting the energon from?"
"The what?"
"The blue crystals that you were being given." Ratchet explained, "They are our power source and life-blood that we need to survive."
Ellan frowned a bit, her robotic face not very articulate but it conveyed enough of her thoughts. "I have no idea, but that transit system runs for miles. For all I know they could have it running through wherever they're getting it from and bringing it straight to me."
"Why was the project named Adaptation?" Agent Fowler asked, practically leaning over the railing.
She focused up on the human male. "Because he was wanting a robot with a thinking, adapting mind." She then looked at Optimus. "I'm guessing something like you all. But it's not possible. The programming for it is way too extensive for a human mind to come up with. But if Silas ever figures out that I got my mind trapped in this body then that can bypass any A.I. program he was wanting."
Optimus nodded, "A very dangerous outcome to say the least."
"The odd thing," she said quietly, "is that I haven't heard from him in a while." Everyone else shared looks with one another, piquing her curiosity. "What is it?"
"There was a confrontation directly with Silas a month or so back." Optimus told her, explaining what had happened.
"No. I don't think he's dead." Ellan shook her head, "He's too stubborn to die. And I don't think his subordinates would let him."
[Location: Elsewhere in the Autobot base]
Ellan sat in the room that her human body was resting in, looking down at it as it rested in the black body bag, all the while mulling over in her head the recent events in her life. She found herself trapped in the thing she had grown to hate over the months of her entrapment. She wanted to weep, but this body didn't have that function.
It was so unfair! She was the only one taking care of her mother, having joined the army to help pay for college so she could do better in that. When Silas began to make threats to her she resigned and took menial jobs here and there. That was until the night she was ran off the road.
Now she was faced with an impossible choice. Well, it was really no choice at all. The body she use to occupy was beyond saving, probably even before she woke up. Even if it was salvageable she had no idea how to get her mind back into it. She worked with hard coding, not the aspect of electrical impulse transference.
Slowly she commanded the body she was in to stand and exit the room, stopping short before she had kicked Agent Fowler. The man had jerked back, his arms raised in preparation of running into the solid form that was now her foot. Carefully she knelt down in front of him to be as close to eye level as she could.
"Have you decided yet?" he asked her gently.
She nodded, "I have. Cremate it, give it to my mother. Tell her that I had sustained mortal injuries in the car accident. Since M.E.C.H. pushed my car off a cliff it would make sense that I wouldn't have survived and very little would have been left of my body from that. Make sure that she gets my necklace."
"Are you sure you don't want to keep it? Ya know, as a memento?"
"That's not what I am anymore. And I have no way of keeping it, nor looking at it."
He gently patted her forearm, "Things will be alright. The bots will take good care of you, Ellan."
"Yeah…" She didn't sound enthused at the idea, but she left the man to take care of her old body. By this time of night the kids and the woman had returned to their homes with their escorts, leaving her alone with Ratchet and Optimus, both of which were looking over data on the large screens in the main room. Both of them looked over at her and nodded, which she returned the gesture before calmly sitting on a stack of boxes. While they worked, she observed the room and everything in it.
Agent Fowler was wheeling the medical bed through a few moments later, Optimus pausing in his task to lift it onto the platform so Fowler could put it in the elevator. He soon departed their company and the base fell into relative quiet.
So caught up in her thought about what she needed to do to complete her new form, she didn't notice Ratchet standing before her, offering her some sort of odd device that was filled with a glowing blue liquid. She must have looked as puzzled as she felt as she looked up at him, because he was chuckling softly.
"It's energon. I wasn't sure if you needed it or not."
She looked back at the container and shook her head, "Until this happened, this thing didn't have any real power going to it. I had no idea what to do with the crystals they were giving me."
The medic bot gently took her left arm in his hand and pressed the device to it, the liquid rushing out of it and into her arm. It made her whole body tingle and her head throb as it began to absorb the liquid into its systems.
"It bothers me how much information M.E.C.H. was able to get off of those of us they had captured, but you did a good job overall with the structure of your form. Especially with the quality of parts you had available to use."
"I guess that it's a good thing that I had gotten as much done as I did." She was rubbing the entry point on her arm.
"The bare minimum for survival, I'm afraid." The medic gave her a rather friendly smile, "But we'll work on getting you in top form as soon as we can."
She only looked back up at him, "What if I just want you to shut me down?"
"That's not in our nature." Optimus had stepped up beside his old friend, letting her focus on him as well.
"You have no idea if I'm trustworthy, Optimus. Really. I could really be a plant from Silas, sent in to gain your trust and betray you to him."
The Prime only nodded. "You could very well be, but Agent Fowler, Ratchet, and I reviewed the last few logs you had made in addition to what Agent Fowler has told us about you and your service in the military. You stated your intent clearly from the first log to the last and we saw what had happened. We are truly sorry."
Ellan only shrugged. "It's happened. Can't really be changed." She looked down at her hands, clasped together in her lap with her legs crossed at the knees. A completely human position. "With everything that's happened, how drastically it happened and only now can I finally take into account what I've lost.
"I don't mean to sound selfish, I really don't, but right now all I can think about is all I've just lost. I won't be there to take care of my mother. After my father passed away it was just us. But I also knew that it wouldn't be the two of us forever.
"I guess it's the little things that I'll miss the most. Like a cup of hot chocolate with whipped cream after playing for hours in the snow. Or the feel of the hot sand between my toes at the beach on a blistering summer's day. But I think the thing I'll miss the most is having children." She looked remorseful, "I always wanted to have kids."
The two male Autobots shared a look, feeling as remorseful as the female before them. Ratchet was the first to speak to her. "Why don't you go get some rest?"
Ellan nodded as she got up and bid them both a good night before heading back down the hall.
[Location: Current M.E.C.H. headquarters]
Silas' second in command frowned behind his mask as the soldiers he had sent to check on the supposedly most important and critical project that Silas had going, at least according to the M.E.C.H. leader. "What do you mean she and the project were missing?"
The head of the team that was in charge of handling the supplies and the woman stood at attention still. "The whole laboratory was damaged. There was a hole that went all the way up to the surface, so I can see how she got out but not with the mecha. But with as much blood that we had found she wouldn't have gotten very far, especially since the nearest town is fifty miles away. The whole site has been sanitized, per loss procedures."
"Do you think that she would have really taken the time to take the hard drive out of the computer if she was injured?"
"We all know how much she hated the project, so to keep it from us I can see her doing it and taking it with her to her grave."
Silas' second sat back in his chair, his hands clasped before his invisible mouth. "It doesn't matter if she took the drives with her, the system automatically backed up here daily so we have everything up to the earthquake. This doesn't explain the missing project though. Once the desert team returns with their findings, I want that report."
The soldier saluted, then turned to leave. The second in command was bothered by the findings, which the whole project practically vanished on them. It would not bode well for them at all if the other powers in play had found their little project.
[Author's Note]
I DO NOT OWN TRANSFORMERS PRIME NOR ANY CHARACTER IN THE SHOW. I'm just a fan that wanted to have a bit of fun with adding an OC into the TF Prime world.
Thank you for taking your time to read this and I hope to have more posted soon.