Collision XXII

Duck, Duck, Goose

By: The Feesh

Michael James Romano, to be quite frank, wasn't sure exactly how the fuck Barricade managed to do more than half of the things he did. There was, in fact, a white Dodge Caliber sitting on the side of the empty highway, unlocked, with the keys inside just as the snarly Saleen had promised. It had a full tank of gas, and was the R/T trim Dodge put out that year – Mike discovered just how awesome heated seats were and that the little two-point-four liter four cylinder engine had some pep for what was supposed to be a granny mobile hatchback. It also handled ice and snow very well so long as the New York native didn't do anything imbecilic.

Inside that car, tucked away in the glove box, was a fully charged prepaid cellphone. The described carbonmonkey found this when it started ringing as he neared Santa Fe, causing a comical near wreck because the volume on the phone was up all the way, and it had the most obnoxious ringtone Barricade could find. The conversation that followed between Mike and his bizarre pseudo-friend had been nothing short of riotous; for the first four minutes as the black and white saw fit to give him direction on where and when he'd be coming into Santa Fe, Romano could only comment on how atrocious Barricade's voice was over the phone. The exceedingly loud snarled ranting that followed was so jarring and awful to listen to that Mike had held the phone away from his ear as far across the car as he could and he could still hear every single godforsaken word that was being roared at him. Eventually, he actually paid attention and retained the information Barricade was trying to chew into his head.

The surly creature would head into Santa Fe, New Mexico by way of the Dale Ball Trails and touch asphalt on the ending cul-de-sac of Pso De Don Carlos, where there appeared to be a realty business and a few houses. Barricade had less than twenty-five miles to walk, but it was over terrain he disliked and he was wounded on top of it, so he gave himself two days, as he explained; he would walk at night and lay low when the sun was up. He would give the cell phone a call when he was within a few hours distance, and until then, there was a credit card in the Caliber's center console he instructed Romano to use so that the mechanic did not use his own and risk being caught. The Decepticon knew his Autobot pursuers would be nose out for any sign of that smelly cigarette smoking fleshwad.

Romano sighed and found a decent hotel, wholly uncomfortable with using some random credit card but he knew he risked disembowelment if he went against what the churlish mechanoid had told him. Fortunately upon closer inspection it wasn't actually a credit hard – it was a Visa gift card loaded with somewhere around two thousand dollars. Where Barricade had gotten the money, Mike didn't even really want to speculate. He had two days to hang out in Santa Fe, New Mexico before he had to meet up with Barricade and presumably try to fix him as he had done before, but the thought occurred to him: he had no tools. This was unacceptable. A Wal-Mart run was made for essentials: a couple pairs of pants, some long-sleeved shirts to wear under his coat (which was almost too heavy for the thirty- and forty-degree Fahrenheit weather Santa Fe was experiencing), and other such essentials that included some freaking shampoo and undergarments. Then on to other life fundamentals for one who was a mechanic, and several hundred dollars later Romano loaded up the Caliber with his basic hygiene needs, some food, a hefty toolbox full of things he thought he might need, and about ten rolls of duct tape. Duct tape fixes fuckin' everything.

After that, it was a waiting game. He had, opportunely, already called the boys at the shop when Barricade had first taken him, explaining to Danny that there had been a sudden family emergency and he'd had to take off unexpectedly. Fowler had the keys to his apartment, and would get the shop keys and run the garage until Mike got back. If I ever get back, god damn. The New Yorker eyed the no smoking sign on the wall and considered taking the battery out of the smoke alarm, but it was too much effort to be wasted on just being belligerent. Not the mention hotels tended to charge a hefty fee for broken rules and he was staying in a pretty nice one, at least in his opinion. It was the freaking Hotel St. Francis, the nicest place he'd ever stayed in and boy, did he ever feel outclassed here. After all, for the basic guest room he'd gotten it was over a hundred bucks a night – most of the time Mike stayed in places that were, like, a hundred bucks for a week. The scruffy New Yorker who needed a shower and a shave had instantly felt like a homeless person the second he stepped into that lobby, but it was one of the first places he found. He was entirely too tired to give two shits what anybody else thought.

Romano stepped outside and leaned against the wall, cupping his hands over his mouth to light a cigarette against the slight wind that his lighter didn't tend to agree with. The greasemonkey had to wonder just what the hell he'd gone and gotten himself into. This situation was so far out of his damn league. He belonged back home, in New York City, fixing cars and fighting with his ex over what weekends he got to have Nick. Nick. He hadn't gotten to call little Nicky yet. Mike had left a voicemail with his mother explaining a similar lie he'd told his best buddy Danny with some modifications, as she knew he didn't have any family out west. He just told her he had a good buddy from school about to kick the bucket from cancer and he'd wanted to go say goodbye. Nobody would call him on that at risk of sounding like an asshole for giving a guy flack for going to see someone dying of leukemia.

But he wasn't in Sacramento seeing an old pal. He was in Santa Fe, New Mexico on his own free will trying to help a creature that, as Barricade himself had described, outmatched him in strength, speed, size, and intelligence. So why did he need to stick around? Because d' asshole was blowin' smoke, he reasoned to himself. The alien was certainly bigger, stronger, faster, and meaner than almost any New Yorker Mike had ever met, but he kept dragging the human around. 'e needs me for somethin'. Something he ain't able t'do himself. It was Mike's own intuition that told him to get a box full of tools, if not to fix whatever was making Barricade walk face first into trees and rocks, at least to fix the damage he did to himself by said mishaps. Mike didn't know. It was the not-knowing that kept him here. That gnawing, biting curiosity to see what was going to happen next that made him take I-25 in that Dodge Caliber up to Santa Fe instead of turning tail and running home. The story wasn't done yet and he wanted to know what the ending would be. He'd stuck with Barricade this long; he might as well keep at it until they reached whatever conclusion was coming to them.

Romano flicked his cigarette butt away and watched a curiously colored car ooze by in the parking lot. It was a bright blue Michigan State Police Charger, what locals tended to call a "Goose" (the color was also described as Goose Blue and it was illegal to paint an unofficial vehicle that color under risk of being charged with impersonation). Long way from home. A little less so than me, eh? Michael thought to himself as he watched the Goose roll by and disappear around the corner. He was unaware Michigan allowed officers to take their Dodge Charger interceptors on vacations.

He was bored. Mike had showered, shaved, and fixed himself a little New York dinner (also known as burnt hotdogs) on the little kitchenette the room had and it wasn't sundown yet. He still had two days; he reasoned he might as well go see a little bit of Santa Fe while he was here. Romano grabbed his jacket, the keys to the white R/T Caliber in the parking lot and headed out after making sure he had the hotel room key and his wallet. It was forty-something degrees outside, t-shirt weather for New York Staters in winter, so he rolled his windows down and cruised along, chain smoking as he was prone to doing. He didn't give a shit, it wasn't his car, and he doubted he'd ever find out who it belonged to anyway. The desert wasn't really his thing, but he had to admit that it was kind of pretty. Many of the buildings were built to resemble adobe – the old mud and straw building material indigenous people of this region used to build with, or so he seemed to remember. Mike didn't pay that much attention in history class. Some people still had their holiday motifs up, but for the most part Christmas had already been forgotten in the town of Santa Fe, and in reality, the same went for everywhere. After December twenty-fifth, it was like the holidays never happened. It was somewhat depressing for all the buildup to that pivotal day, which started usually in fucking October, to just vanish on the twenty-sixth. Then it was New Years and drinking and festivities until the second of January and then nothing until Thanksgiving. No other holiday was given as much hooplah as the end of the year.

Romano drove around aimlessly, just seeing what there was to see and driving because he enjoyed the activity. The radio was talking about bad weather moving in later that night, and the greasemonkey winced. Barricade was going to love that, stuck out in the wild in it. Hopefully his being an alien robot would mean he couldn't die of exposure.

Flashing lights behind him got Romano's attention. You have got to be shitting me. Unfortunately for him, the cop behind him was, in fact, shitting him not and wanted him to pull over somewhere. The fuck did I do? I wasn't speedin', I made sure a' dat! Out of state cops are assholes. Oh fuck. Oh fuck. Is this car stolen? What if it's a fuckin' stolen car? Jesus Christ on a cracker I'll fuckin' kill him! I'll take a pipe wrench to his engine block so hard he'll be combustin' oil for a fuckin' week!

Mike wasn't even sure that made any sense, but it felt good to think it. He pulled off into a strip mall parking lot and threw the hatchback into park, grumbling to himself. He watched the cop climb out of the car in the rearview mirror – wait a damn minute. That ani't no Santa Fe cruiser.

The officer approached his window. "License and registration, please."

Mike sort of squeaked. In his defense, it was the biggest fucking black dude he'd ever seen. The guy had to be over six feet tall and three hundred pounds. But Mike cleared his throat and said, "Ya can't pull me over."

The burly trooper raised an eyebrow. "Oh yeah? Whyssat?"

"Yer way out of yer jurisdiction, Michigan."

Damnit. The cop turned to look at the bright blue Charger he was driving. He was hoping the moronic human wouldn't argue something like jurisdictions. Most wouldn't. "A'ight. Yeh caught me."

"Not only 'dat, state troopers can't do much inside city limits, dat's Santa Fe's job, not the state of New Mexico. I saw 'dat Goose driving around the parkin' lot of my hotel," responded the New Yorker as he got out of the Caliber. "Ya been followin' me. Why?"

This was evidently a pretty smart human. The trooper, who didn't have a nametag on, smiled. "We're tracking a missin' man who was last seen within thirty miles of here in a black and white police vehicle. Yeh match that man's description and accent."

"An' I bet lotsa N'Yorkers come to vacation in New Mexico." Bullshit. They were more likely to vacation in Florida. He now knew there was something fishy about this cop.

"Yeah, I get that. C'mon, man, you don't got to go along with whatever the flippin' fuck he's roped yeh into. I can smell 'im all over yeh."

Romano was officially creeped out. "Who?"

"Barricade. I smell 'im on yeh."

"…Th' fuck does that mean?" Oh so creepy.

The big man laughed and rubbed the back of his neck, where the short neck-length braids were tickling him a bit. Mike noticed he was very light-skinned for an African American man, almost like he had some Caucasian blood in him. He was also very neat, with clean cornrows decorating his head and a nicely pressed uniform.

"Ya think I'm just a Michigan stater followin' you all the way out here? Nah, man. This ain't me. That is me." The cop jerked a thick thumb back towards the goose blue Michigan State Police Charger sitting innocuously behind the Dodge Caliber. The Charger flickered its headlights and the driver's door, which had been hanging open, shut on its own.

"Jesus jump-up Christ, you got to be kiddin' me," the geasemonkey groaned, slapping a palm against his forehead. "Listen' man. Ya'll gotta leave 'im be, a'ight? Ain't doin' nobody any good chasin' him around, pissin' him off. Guy's gotta temper and he's fuckin' crazy as a shaved badger. He's just tryin' ta get the hell away from ya'll. A'ight?"

"Aright," responded the fake-cop. "I get it. All I'm offerin' yeh, man, is a ride home and an extra set of eyeballs. I'll take yeh home and stick around the city a while, make sure Barricade don't come after yeh. No harm, no foul, you get back to your life and without a human hostage, my superiors have agreed ta let 'im be unless he decides ta, I dunno, melt down a busload of nuns."

Mike went silent at that, considering. Could he trust this lunkhead to go through with his word? More importantly, could he trust the hologram and the Goose blue Dodge Charger with it to just take him back home?

Or was there something else going on here?

Authors note: You'd think I'd be able to puzzle out the secrets to roman numerals by now, but no. I still have to look them up. Ahurrhurr.

Also. The concept of Transformers belongs overall to Hasbro, however, the Collision story idea belongs to me, and the character concept of Speedtrap, 2006 Michigan State Police "Goose" Dodge Charger SRT8 belongs solely and only to Samma, my friend and roommate. Steal the name+personality combo, and I will hunt you, I will find you, and if you've seen the movie Taken, you know where I'm going with this.

Cheers.