A/N Second chapter! Woo! Thank you KimTheKat, Elita One, The Pumpkin Guardian, Flower K. Owl, Celestial-Prime-15, Deception is Decepticon, and TheBigMystery for reviewing! And a big thanks to everyone else that has read this story, favorited, and added it to story alert so far!

Also, there's a poll up on my profile. Go vote on it, k thnx.

Respond time, WOO!

KimTheKat- Yeah, being a freshie has been quite an adventure. Although, I'm rather enjoying it. It's easier to guilt trip the seniors when you're 'a cute, little, baby freshman'.

Flower K. Owl- Danger? Now why would there be danger in a story about alien robots at war? Perish the thought.

Deception is Decepticon- This story is eye catching? Really? Yay!

Chapter 2

Blackness was all my eyes could see. There was a loud buzzing noise in my ears. Was I dreaming? When the sound continued, my mind became clearer.

Man, that noise was annoying.

Control of my limbs came next. My arm came up from under the sheets and went to the empty space next to me. The hand attached was feeling around the bed. What was I looking for again?

Oh yeah, my phone.

The cold material came in contact with my skin. I fumbled with it momentarily before I managed to flip it open. It was then promptly shut and dropped back onto the bed, silencing the vibrating noise.

I heaved a sigh, and let out a long groan into my pillow. There was no way I'd be able to get back to sleep now. I then propped myself up onto my elbows. My eyes were just barely cracked open enough for me to see. I hate mornings.

Remembering the reason I was awake, I picked up my phone. Upon opening it, I saw the cause of the noise.

I had received a text message from Sideswipe.

Smiling, I opened it and read it's contents:

We won't be able to leave the base until further notice.

Sides

My smile faltered. I reread the message again. What the hell was going on? Since when were the twins confined to the base?

They must've pulled one hell of a prank during that meeting last night.

I sent back a simple response of 'k', being too lazy to write much more. With a sigh, I rolled out of my warm bed. I trudged around my bed to the door that lead out of my room and into the hallway.

I didn't go far before I turned to my right and opened the door that went to my bathroom. After switching on the lights, I blinked a few times before my eyes were used to the artificial light.

Looking in the mirror, I grimaced at the sight I saw. My hair was sticking out at odd angles all over. I opened one of my drawers and withdrew a hair-tie to use.

Once my hair was looking halfway decent, I resumed my trek down the hallway. Nearing the end of it, noise from the TV drifted towards me. The people talking sounded overly happy… it annoyed me to no end. I then heard a little clicking noise that only came from one thing: my dog, Lassie. She rounded the corner with her ears back and tail wagging. She barked happily at me and let her tongue hang out.

Being in the hallway, however, her high-pitched bark echoed all around me, flaring up a dormant headache. I moaned in response and brought my hands to my temples. "Lassie… shut up."

Luckily for me, her ears perked up, having picked up a new noise, and she scampered back the way she had come. I followed at a much slower pace.

Finally in the kitchen, I went to the pantry to grab cereal for breakfast.

"Morning." I didn't have to look to know who had greeted me. There was only one other being that was capable of speech in the house.

"Ugh."

"You're up early," my mom noted. Even though it was already 9:30, it was still considered early for me.

Having picked out a box of cereal that sounded mildly appealing, I slammed the pantry door closed. "Sideswipe," was my only response.

"Oh," my mom sounded a bit surprised. I guess she remembered how I yelled at the twins for waking me up early one weekend. "And how's he?"

By this time, my bowl was now filled with milk and cereal. I was grabbing a spoon from the drawer when I answered, "Dunno." I dropped my spoon into the bowl. "Don't care." Thankfully, my mom didn't pry anymore.

I brought my breakfast with me as I sat down at the island. As I ate, I watched the talk show that was on TV.

After a few minutes, my empty bowl was rinsed out and placed in the sink. I quickly retreated back to my room.

Now that I was more awake, I decided to ask Sideswipe why he and Sunstreaker couldn't leave the base.

I entered the message into my phone, and sent it on its way.

Several minutes later, and I had no reply. What, they can't even talk to me, now?

I resent the message, to Sunstreaker this time, but got the same result.

Frowning to myself, I decided to call the one 'bot I had never dared contact before: Prowl. He had strictly told me to call him and the other higher ups in case of an emergency only. But hey, this was an emergency, I reasoned with myself. The twins hadn't contacted me at all about their current condition, and I was afraid everyone was dead… yeah, that's it.

Before I had time to regret and rethink my decision, I clicked Prowl's name and put the phone to my ear.

But just as the night before, the call never went through.

Ok… I think now is the appropriate time to panic.

Maybe something really did happen the night before. But Sides would have mentioned that. My eyes widened.

What if that wasn't Sideswipe?

But it came through his number, I argued with myself.

So? I bet they could hack into each other's systems. They were robots, after all. And it didn't seem too farfetched for a Decepticon to do.

I looked down at my phone. There was no one I could contact that could tell me what was going on… or maybe there was.

One name popped into my mind surprisingly fast.

But I wasn't sure.

I mean I didn't know him too well. I already didn't like calling people I was friends with, so calling a stranger? Not too appealing.

What choice did I have though? It was either spend my days worrying and wondering, hoping someone would tell me what was going on, or man up and make a stupid phone call.

I winced a bit at the last thought. Man, I sounded like a wimp.

With a sigh, I left my room once more and went into the nearby office. Looking around my mom's desk, I found what I needed.

I picked up a pink book with a floral design on it. Opening it up, I flipped through the pages until I came to the 'W' section. Apparently, my mom didn't know too many people with 'W' last names, because the number I needed was second on the list.

After locating the number, I typed it into my cell phone. I looked down at my phone, my thumb hovering over the 'Call' button.

This was it. This would either work, or just make things worse. Taking a breath, I clicked the button and put the phone to my ear.

To my surprise, the phone only rang once before being picked up.

"Witwicky residence!" a female voice said cheerily from the other line. Ok, not who I was looking for.

"Hi Mrs. Witwicky," I said with a forced smile. "This is Paris. You know, from the-"

"Oh, Paris! Hello Dear! How are you doing?"

"Um, I'm doing well. How are-"

"And your mother?" she interrupted me again. I had a feeling this would be a constant during our conversation. So much for ending this quickly.

I decided it was best to just go along with her. "She's good too. How's everyone there?"

"Aren't you sweet? I'm doing great."

"That's good. I was wondering if-"

"You know, Sam was actually able to get into a good college over there in California. To tell you the truth, I'm surprised. Oh, but don't tell him that!"

An awkward chuckle came from my end. "Heh, yeah, speaking of Sam-"

"And Sam is taking Bumblebee with him. Don't get me wrong, he's very sweet, but I just can't live with an alien in my garage."

"Yeah, that must be hard," I replied, pausing for a moment after, expecting her to start talking again. When she didn't, I took my chance to actually say something, "Listen, I was wondering if I could talk to Sam real quick? Just… chat?"

"I would gladly get him for you, but he and Bumblebee left about an hour ago," she said, the cheery tone still in her voice.

My face fell, "Oh… well, when will they back?"

"Oh, no. Sam's moving. To California? He wants to get used to the area," she clarified.

"Could I have his number then? Or Bee's?"

"Sure, Dear! I have his number around here somewhere…" I heard rustling noises on the other end as Judy searched for the number. "Ron?" she yelled. "Do you have Sam's number?" There was some grumbling in response; I assumed it came from Mr. Witwicky.

I was silent for a few minutes as the two adults argued with each other. They finally came upon Sam's number (it was posted on the fridge the whole time) and promptly gave it to me. We then said our goodbyes, and hung up.

Letting out a breath of air, I slumped back in the office chair. Well, that was an unnecessarily long phone call. At least I got what I wanted. I glanced at the number that I written onto the palm of my hand, being unable to find a scrap piece of paper.

With another sigh, I put the new number into the phone and waited for an answer.

It took a few rings, but the line was eventually picked up.

"Mom, I'm fine. You don't need to call me every five minutes to see if I'm driving safely, ok? I'm not even driving! Bee is!"

I was silent for a moment, trying to register what just happened.

"Hello?" the voice from the other line asked.

"Um… this isn't your mom. I'm Paris?"

Now it was Sam's turn to be silent.

"The one that got dragged from California to Nevada by the twins?"

"Oh! Yeah, sorry," Sam responded, remembering who I was. "So… what's up?"

"Can you put me on speaker? I want to talk to you and Bee."

"Sure, yeah, hold on a sec." There was a short pause before he spoke again. "Can you hear me alright?" Sam asked, his voice sounding distant.

"Yup."

"Can you hear me cry out to you?" (1)

I blinked in surprise. Was that the radio?

"That's Bee," Sam answered my unasked question. "His voice processor was damaged again. He wants to know if you can hear him."

"Yeah, I can hear you fine, Bee," I responded. Well, this conversation was going to a bit difficult now.

"What do ya need?" Sam asked.

I quickly thought of what I should say. I didn't want to worry them and make the situation worse, "I was wondering if Bee could contact one of the Autobots over here. They're ignoring me, and I think it has something to do with me helping the twins pull a prank off." Sure, it wasn't exactly the truth. But it might have something to do with it. Although, I seriously doubted that.

Sam laughed a bit, "I'm sure Bee could do that."

"You can count on me- hold on a second-," was the radio's reply. It was weird. Bee flipped through the stations quickly and was able to piece together sentences. How does he know what's on?

As Bumblebee was busy trying to contact someone, Sam and I were left in an awkward silence. I fidgeted in my seat a bit, racking my brain for a subject. "So…" I trailed off, still not exactly sure what to talk about. Then the word 'college' popped into my mind. "Which college are you going to down here?"

"Northridge."

"Oh, cool… hope there aren't any bad earthquakes there." I laughed a bit at my own comment, but Sam didn't join in. Of course, why would he? He lived in Nevada; he probably didn't even remember the Northridge Earthquake. It wasn't even a funny joke. My laughter stopped and I went back to just staring at the wall across from me and tapping my foot on the floor.

I so knew this would happen. This is what always happened when I had to talk to a stranger. Small talk lasts for a few seconds, and then we fall into an uncomfortable silence. I began to wonder why this didn't happen when I was with the Autobots. It probably had to do with the fact that they actually had jobs to do. You couldn't find any of them in an unintended silence. They had better things to do then create small talk that would inevitably be shot down; like blow shit up in the training room.

To my relief, Bumblebee came back. The radio sounded, switching randomly through the stations to let us know he was back.

"What's up, Bee?" Sam asked.

"Can't say- I promise-," was the reply.

I frowned in response, "So, did you actually talk to anyone?"

"Si."

"And why can't you say anything about it?" Sam inquired this time.

Bee expertly flipped through the stations to respond, "They want- to say it- in- person." (2)

A scowl was on my face, "And how am I supposed to get to the base? My mom and I can't get in there without an Autobot, and they can't even leave the base." As soon as the words left my mouth, I slapped a hand over my mouth. Stupid! Stupid! Why did I say that? Well that pretty much just made the situation worse.

"Wait, what?" Sam said in an alarmed voice. "They can't leave the base?"

"Well… the twins can't; they told me. But I didn't want to go all the way down there just to be turned down, and it's not like I could ask anyone to come out because they're all ignoring me, and I really just don't know what to do right now, and I'm trying not to freak out right now, but I'm pretty much failing at that as you can see…" my voice broke off, and my outburst ceased. I took a few deep breaths to help calm my frantically beating heart.

This only seemed to make Sam even more flustered, "Um, well, uh…"

"Next week's forecast-," came the radio.

"Huh?"

"Who's gonna drive you- I can-"

I didn't have a clue as to what Bee was saying, but Sam obviously figured it out. "We can take you to the base next week," Sam explained. "I need to move into my apartment, so I'll be busy the next few days. But once I'm done, Bee and I can take you with us to the base and see what's going on."

I brightened up at the plan, "Really?"

"Sure."

Breathing a sigh of relief, I thanked Sam and Bee. Sam was going to call within the next week to tell me how things on his end were going. Then once he was ready, we'd go to Point Mugu, the military base the Autobots were staying at.

(1) Do you know how hard it is to write Bumblebee's speech like this? I was stuck on the first line for like, twenty minutes… at least. The things I do for you guys…

(2) I've noticed that people tend to only use songs for Bee. And only full phrases from those songs. I think if he can flip through the radio and know what's on, he can create actual sentences with words from songs and talk shows.

… I really like this chapter. It makes me happy for some reason. Not complainin', just can't figure out why… maybe it's because it's the second chapter? Who knows? I sure as hell don't.

Y'know, if you leave a review, you'll be acknowledged at the beginning of every chapter. I might even respond to yours.

E-cookies might make the next chapter come faster. No guarantees, but it can't hurt.

-Panic Switch