NNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNN
NEST Files: Alien Encounters
Disc Two: "Substitute Guardian"
Approximate Terran Date: July 2, 2009 - July 5, 2009
NEST Financial log update-- Recorder: Samuel James Witwicky, Autobot Ambassador
Um....yeah. Lennox yelled at me to do this report, so here it is. I can't blame the guy, really-- heck, I'd be pretty steamed if half a million dollars vanished from MY wallet! (Okay, technically that $500,000 came from the funds for NEST, but since Lennox kinda runs the place the wallet thing still applies). At first he wanted Bumblebee to refund the money, but when the....uh...situation came to light, he wanted ME to come up with half a million bucks! Well, either that or write this report. So I guess I'll have to try to sound professional about this whole thing, even though the story behind it will probably make me sound like a crack pot.
Anyway, here it goes.....
NNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNN
When Bumblebee first requested to be able to stay with him after Mission city, it didn't require any thought at all for Sam to say 'yes'.
After all, how cool was it that a super advanced alien robot he had sorta become friends with wanted to stay with him? Him, Mr. Ultra-nerd extraordinaire! For once in his mundane existence, he had the chance to be involved with something billions of people all over the world could only dream about. So when the benevolent yellow alien turned to his leader and said, 'I wish to stay with the boy," Sam could have done backflips, even while sporting three cracked ribs courtesy of Megatron.
As it turned out, he had no idea what he was getting himself into.
In the weeks that followed, Sam discovered that wanting to 'stay' with him translated into becoming his guardian full time, even when there didn't seem to be anything more threatening to guard against than Trent or the neighborhood rottweiler. Although Bee came up with a few very creative solutions to neutralize even those low-level annoyances. Only a few days after the alien took up residence in his garage, the rottweiler developed an inexplicable fear of the color yellow, though no evidence could be found that the dog had been hurt in any way. And after the incident with Trent involving underwear, silly string, and duct tape (about which Sam still chose to plead the fifth), the jock no longer attempted to harass him in the parking lot. Or from across the room. Or even glare at him, really.
At first, having an alien guardian seemed like a dream come true. Having an alien guardian that imitated a Camaro so hot it sizzled in the rain was a scoop of ice cream on top of the dream-come-true. The fact that someone so powerful, so awesomely wicked liked him enough to volunteer to live in his garage sent him over the moon. He went out of his way to be considerate of Bumblebee's feelings-- he stopped eating in the car, he didn't sprawl across the seats (since he was, in essence, inside the alien's body), he didn't drive up over the curb or park next to cars likely to open their doors into the gleaming yellow paint. Whenever the slightest coating of dust or dirt appeared, he immediately broke out the hose and sponge and cleaned every crack he could reach, even going so far as to polish the hubcaps and towel him dry by hand. Sam probably wouldn't have devoted so much attention to a real car, but Bumblebee wasn't just a car-- the alien was his friend. And he wanted to do everything possible to keep him around.
He never considered just how seriously Bee took his job as a guardian; he never considered just how much Bee wanted to stay around-- or to what lengths he was willing to go to remain at his side.
The incident that finally brought home the depth of Bee's devotion to him did not begin on a dark and stormy night, or even on a fine spring day. Rather, it started at 2am on a partly overcast day in July. School had been out for about a month, and come August Sam would be leaving for college. Any other teenager on the planet would have been ecstatic at the prospect of two months of freedom followed by four years of booze and freedom.
For Sam, however, school had become a mental refuge; when he devoted his evenings to writing papers and studying for an endless stream of tests and quizes, his mind didn't have time to brood over the dark memories lingering just beneath the surface. Learning became a way not to crawl under his desk and huddle in fear at the resurgent image of Megatron leering down at him, Megatron tearing up through the building beneath him as he raced towards the roof. A carefree summer for others translated into two months of sleepless nights for Sam. To keep himself from the jaws of the nightmares, he would often lie in his bed with the light off until his parents went to sleep, then get up and put his clothes back on, sitting at his desk to read or listen to music or fill a notebook full of doodles.
But some nights, like that particular overcast evening in July, he succumed to the need for rest and drifted off despite his best efforts. The nightmares, sensing a moment of weakness, immediately crowded in. Long after dark, in those wee hours of the early morning when the world seemed suspended in amber, he jerked awake to the feel of mechanical claws crushing his chest. After a few disjointed moments of fumbling, he realized that the claws he felt were nothing more than tangled sheets stretched tightly across his arms. Great. Another few hours of precious rest squandered by the boogie man.
He sat up and rubbed his face, digging his fingers into his scalp. There was no point in trying to drift off to sleep again-- the nightmare would only resume right where it had left off. But though he dreaded the thought of spending the countless hours until dawn lying in his sweat-soaked sheets, neither did he have the energy to try to read or work on homework or something. He wanted to sleep, but if he tried to the monsters would come for him again, and there was no one to protect him--
Hesitating, biting his lip, he looked out the window. Bumblebee, quietly disguised as a yellow Camaro, sat in the driveway. As he watched, the alien discreetly switched on his head lights and flashed them once, then doused them again. At night, the alien should have been in the garage. He knew Sam was watching. Whether because of his sensors or alien intuition, he always seemed to know when his human charge could not sleep.
Sam didn't want to be needy and clingy, not knowing if he would accidentally scare Bee away. But only his robotic friend had that power to soothe his troubled sleep, chase away the demons.
So he did the only thing he could think to do at 2am, something that during normal daylight hours he would dismiss out of hand as being too childish, too cowardly, too human-- he slipped out of bed and padded for the door. His feet carried him down the stairs and through the familiar rooms of his house without the need for a light. He eased the front door open, praying to the god of hinges that it wouldn't let out a wall-rattling creak and wake his parents (who would surely send him back to his room or to a psychiatrist for going to see his car in the middle of the night), and eased himself out into the humid July night.
Bumblebee was there, waiting for him. Without starting his engine, he rolled forward on tires that could not be pierced or torn by nail or knife, slipping through shadows and patches of light that glided over his metal body as if over the surface of a still lake. A slight, almost apologetic click, and the driver's side door eased open, showing him a glimpse of the dark, warm interior. An invitation.
Shivering slightly, though the air was far from cool, Sam approached the disguised alien. But instead of immediately climbing in, he hesitated, hand on the door. All four of Bumblee's wheels turned 90 degrees, and the car body moved sideways towards him, bumping gently against his shins. Chuckling with awe, Sam rolled his eyes and slid into the offered seat, muttering, "Show off."
The door closed itself behind him.
Once sealed inside the car, the outside world reduced to vague shapes beyond the darkened windows, Sam relaxed minutely. Though he frequently told himself when behind the wheel that he was sitting in an alien's guts, he couldn't help but feel at ease when his skin touched the cool leather. Maybe it was due to Bee's skill at mimicry-- he didn't just look like a car, he felt like one too. Or maybe it was that there was nothing to be afraid of when sitting inside of him, since there was no object his subconcious could point to and go 'ah! monster!'.
But when the radio clicked on and soft music began to drift through the speakers-- when the seat beneath him warmed and molded to fit every contour of his body, slowly lowering back as he sank into its embrace-- he wondered if perhaps it was something else entirely, something that came over him whenever he put his hands on the wheel and Bee surrendered control, something that he had felt the very first time the tips of his fingers drifted over the dusty hood of a piece of crap Camaro sitting in a used car lot. He couldn't define what it was. Sometimes, when the revelation came over him that he was speaking to an alien, relaxing into the calculated hold of an alien, being watched over every second of very day by an alien with the power to level a city if he so desired, it scared the piss out of him. And he asked himself, what the hell am I getting myself into?
But then moments like that sleepless July night came around, and Sam found himself surrendering to it, giving into the subtle feeling of otherness and not alone that settled into the hollows of his bones as snuggly as interlocking cogs, and he wondered how he could have ever lived without it.
"Have I ever told you that you are one seriously awesome car?" he murmured to the air.
::'Bout time!:: an actor's voice chirruped softly from the radio.
"Hey, I know I've said it at least once."
::Say it again! Say it again!::
"I'm going to have to ween you off all this praise, Bee. You're getting arrogant."
Though he expected some sort of retaliation to the friendly jab, the radio abruptly shut off.
"Bee?"
With a voice the alien had begun to use with greater frequency in the year since the Allspark repaired his vocalizer, Bumblebee said, "We need to talk, Sam."
Alarm bells began to jangle fearfully in his mind. Whatever was significant enough to have prompted such a serious tone from the bouncy alien couldn't have been good news.
"What's going on?" Sam asked, shaking his head to clear the cobwebs from his mind. If it was anything to do with the Decepticons, he would need to have his wits about him. The sneaky bastards were smart enough to avoid all the traps and tricks that worked in classic alien-hunting movies. He couldn't resort to smashing them between two logs or setting them on fire. (Though when combined with a rocket laucher, the setting on fire thing presented some interesting possibilities).
The seat had reclined too far back to conduct a impromtu strategising session comfortably; he tried to sit up. Delicate little appendages he couldn't see shifted into existence behind him, plucking at his shirt, pulling him gently but irrestisibly back down. His heart shuddered in his chest at the unexpected touch (--alien--), but calmed again when he realized that whatever Bumblebee needed to discuss with him probably wasn't of world-ending-- or even immediate-- importance. He relaxed once more against the seat, noting that whatever manipulative arms the scout had created had shifted out of sight again.
"Nothing for you to worry about, Sam," he answered calmly, "But you should be aware that I will have to leave you for the next three days."
"Why?"
As soon as the question left his mouth, he wanted to kick himself. Way to be utterly selfish, Sam. The last thing he wanted was to cause his friend to leave in disgust by acting like a whinny, demanding little flesh bag (--'maggot!'--).
But rather than eject him into the grass, Bumblebee simply replied, "Optimus has called for a meeting with your government that requires the presence of every Autobot."
"Is it about that treaty thing you were talking about?"
"Yes," a thoughtful click, "Though personally I doubt anything will be accomplished. There are far too many things both sides refuse to compromise on."
Sam heaved out a sigh. "Well, darn it. I told Rachet they wouldn't like him sucking out people's brains!"
A laugh track blared briefly from the speakers.
"I don't know if we will be able to convince him to stop. He enjoys collecting them in mason jars that he hides under his desk."
Sam laughed. "He has a desk?" But then he choked, paling. It seemed like a joke, but Bumblebee sounded so serious. "....Really?"
"Of course not," the alien scolded him gently, sounding apalled, "Irondhide and Optimus would object to the mess."
Well, okay, he was 99.9% sure Bee was joking, though he noticed the scout didn't say that Rachet didn't want to.
"So...you'll be gone for three days?" Sam clarified, trying to bring the conversation back to more stable ground.
The soft, almost impreceptable edge of humor to Bee's voice dropped away. "Yes. I will need to depart in approximately seven hours."
"Oh." His heart sank. Even though he really didn't want the alien to leave, he had no reason to try to stop him from going. And three days wasn't really all that long of a time. But some part of him knew that every minute the garage remained empty would be a minute that dragged on at the lightning pace of growing grass or drying paint. "Well, try not to let the politicians drag you down too much." Then, thinking of the plans he had to see a movie with Miles the next day, he supressed a groan. No car = no ride to the theatre. "I guess I'm going to have to try to bum a ride off Mikaela...." he said, thinking out loud.
"You will not need to."
He tried to raise an elegant eyebrow at the dash but managed only to look surprised. It was far too late (or too early, depending on how you looked at it) to attempt facial movements more complex than yawning. "But I thought you said you would be leaving in seven hours?"
"And I will. Another vehicle for you to use while I am away should be delivered tomorrow morning around 10am."
Sam blinked. "Someone's letting me use their car for three days?"
::--Why lease when you can buy wholesale?::
"Wait. Are you saying.....you bought me a car?!"
::Give the man a prize!::
He sat forward to gape at the steering wheel, and this time no robotic appendages stopped him.
"What kind of car? How much did you spend?" he questioned suspiciously.
::--Best deal in town!--::
"Seriously, Bee, cut it out with the radio. Where did you get the money to buy a car?"
The radio clicked off with a grumpy little whine. "NEST has a slush fund set aside for the use of Autobots not stationed on base."
"Are there any besides you?"
"No, not at the moment. Though hopefully there will be."
Though the modulated voice filling the car didn't change, Sam could sense the underlying wistfullness to the words. He leaned forward and patted the dash.
"Don't worry, Bee. I'm sure some of your friends will show up soon."
He tried to offer the alien a crooked smile, but it ended up stuck somewhere between a grimace and a frown. He wanted Bumblebee to be happy, he really did. But he couldn't help the little damp thing inside of him that mewled pathetically at the thought that maybe the scout wouldn't want to play guardian anymore when the other Autobots arrived.
The scout didn't answer, and the damp thing shriveled even further. Regardless of the warm air wafting from the vents and the tempered heat rising from the seat beneath him, he shivered, feeling very cold.
"Well, uh, I guess I'll leave you alone to get ready then, so you can do whatever...things you need to do to get ready."
As he reached for the handle, the locks engaged on the doors.
::Come stay with me awhile::
"Bee?"
"There is nothing I need to do to prepare." A long, heavy pause. Bee's voice dropped, growing very soft. "And I know you were disturbed by a nightmare."
Sam winced, realizing he was inadvertantly being selfish again. He was eighteen, not eight, he didn't need to go crying to his friend whenever he had a bad dream.
"It's fine, really. Look, I'm sorry if I woke you up or something-- I'll just go back to bed--"
But the door remained firmly locked.
"Stay, Sam. Please."
He couldn't deny Bumblebee anything-- he probably would have handed him the world on a silver plater if he asked, though he might stop short of sucking out people's brains and sticking them in mason jars.
Secretly rejoicing, he leaned back again, shifting onto his side and curling up a little.
"I guess I could stick around for a little while," he whispered, burrowing down against the seat and inhaling the exotic, spicey scent that Bee sometimes gave off. It didn't smell like leather, because no matter how much the alien's interior looked and felt like leather it was only an imitation, not the real thing.
As he slowly drifted off to sleep, lulled by the intangible thumming he could feel welling up from deep inside the alien, he knew that there was no where else on earth he would rather be.
Safe in Bumblebee's embrace, he slept soundly through the rest of the night. Never once did a nightmare sneak past his guardian's watchful eye.
NNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNN
As promised, a flatbed trailer pulled up in front of the house at 10 on the dot, carrying on its back a shiny new car.
But as Sam went to sign the delivery and registration papers (all made out in his name-- yay for being eighteen), he realized that the sleek black vehicle he had seen from the kitchen window was not just any car-- it was a Mercedes Benz S-class. Sweet baby Jesus.
The driver seemed understandably baffled as he gaped at the luxury car, completely unable to tear his eyes away, and scrawled a lopsided name on the dotted line that may or may not have been his own. Though Sam was no expert on cars, the Mercedes must have cost at least thirty grand. No matter how many times he ran it through his brain, he still couldn't wrap his head around the fact that Bumblebee had blown $30,000 on a top-of-the-line German car for him to use for three days.
As soon as the Mercedes had been unloaded in the driveway (watched by his gobsmacked parents from the front stoop), Sam began to go over it with a fine-toothed comb inside and out, not caring if he drooled a little in the process. And if his parents hadn't been there, he might have been tempted to lick it to see if it tasted as good as it looked. Deep leather seats, genuine wood veneer around the instrument panel, a speedometer that reached 200mph on the far right. The entire thing was absolutely and indisputably gorgeous. It even made up for Bumblebee being gone-- but only a little.
In an apocalyptic fit of unbridled glee, he rushed for a phone and called Miles, telling the other boy to meet him an hour early in the movie theatre parking lot. If anyone would appreciate the beautiful machine sitting in his driveway, Miles would. In addition to being a suicidally absent-minded geek, he sometimes moonlighted as a car buff. Though Sam wouldn't say why, exactly, he wanted an earlier rendezvous, he assured Miles that he was in for the surprise of a lifetime.
All the rest of the morning, Sam couldn't sit still. Every nine minutes or so, he would rush back outside to oogle his car, once coming dangerous close to the proposed licking before a neighbor passed by walking his dog. If he was going to give in to his primal impulses, he didn't want to have witnesses around to embarass him with stories about it later.
When it finally came time to drive to the movie theatre, he cackled and rubbed his hands maniacally as he slid behind the wheel of the black beast. It handled like a dream, far better even than he could have imagined.
The drive ended up being far too short for his liking, and he all but pouted as he pulled into the deserted end of the parking lot. As he opened the door and stepped out, he saw Miles sprinting towards him as if he had spotted the salvation of the world rather than a black Mercedez. Or maybe he saw an ice cream sundae-- with Miles it was hard to tell.
"Dude!" the sandy-haired boy cried, pulling to a halt and ghosting his hands over the front bumper, not quite touching the glossy paint, "Where did you get this?!"
Trying to look the epitome of cool, Sam only shrugged and leaned casually against the side of the car.
"It was a gift. No big deal."
"No. Big. DEAL?!" Miles did a full lap around the car, even ducking his head to look beneath it. But still he seemed reluctant to actually run his finger down the slick finish, as if even the thought of touching it would be tantamount to blasphemy and cause him to burst into flames. "Do you even know what this is?!"
"A car."
"This," he breathed, not appearing to register his purposefully obtuse response, "Is not just ANY Mercedez S-class. It's an S-600 Guard."
"Which means....?"
Straightening up, Miles spun around and grabbed the front of his shirt, shaking him a little, face ready to crack in half from the enraptured grin spreading from ear to ear.
"Dude! Wake up and smell the conspiracy, man! This thing is a virtual tank. V-12 engine, 517 horsepower, bullet proof windows, armor plating-- someone could put a grendade under the back tire and it wouldn't even scratch the paint!!"
Sam reeled, blinking at the black Mercedes. Sure, it was nice. Real nice. But it looked like a regular car, not a panic room on wheels. But thinking about how an alien could look like a regular car, a wisp of suspicion began to coil in his gut.
Miles shook him again with glee, then pushed him away and returned to admiring his new car. "What kind of paranoid freak gives someone a Mercedes Guardian as a gift?!"
Brushing aside the question, Sam asked, "How could they put all those things in there for thirty grand?"
Miles only gave a weak little laugh, dropping his upper body onto the hood and spreading his arms as if to give the car a hug. "Man, if one of these things only cost thirty grand, I would convince my dad to mortgage the house so we could get one. Even looking at one of these will cost ya close to 500 grand."
Sam nearly swallow his tongue. "A half a million dollars?" He rasped, "He bought me a half million dollar car to use for three days?"
Miles gave a sobbing little laugh, looking as though he would dearly like to lick the black paint. Not five minutes ago, Sam would have heartily joined him. But now, Sam could only stare at the car in vague horror.
A Mercedes armored vehicle.
A Mercedes Guardian.
Oh, Bee....
....please, no.....
NNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNN
Without a doubt, the three days that followed were the longest he had ever spent in his life. He avoided going out whenever possible just so he wouldn't have to drive (or even look at) the Mercedes. Miles pestered him constantly for rides, as did Mikaela (after Miles called her behind his back), and he ended up snapping at them to get them to leave him alone.
His father, upon discovering exactly what kind of car his son had been given, insisted that they park it in the garage. Sam had wanted to protest, wanted to scream that the garage was Bumblebee's spot. But the thought that perhaps the yellow alien didn't want to live in the mouldy space anymore kept him from saying a word.
Inside his mind where no one could hear him, he whimpered and pleaded, begging God and the stars and his chair and a bobble-head Jackie Chan doll for his suspicions to be wrong. He would almost sell his soul for the evil black car not to symbolize what he feared it did.
Bumblebee had bought him an armored car. And not just any jihadist-repelling car-- a car bearing the ironic name 'Guardian'.
Scratch that, he would sell his soul for Bumblebee-- his friend, his angel, his guardian-- not to be replaced by a cold, unfeeling machine, one whose wires and gears did not hum with life, whose leather seats were merely leather and nothing more, one that could not talk to him or annoy him with cheesy songs on the radio, one that would not lull him to sleep with a wordless lullaby and chase away the demons haunting the twisting corridors of his mind. But it seemed that now his alien guardian had decided to nudge him towards an alternative that would, theoretically, protect him from the hazards of day-to-day life and even the random drive-by shooting. It made sense, intellectually. Bumblebee was an ageless robotic warrior-- not a babysitter, not a tool to be stuffed away in the leaky garage and taken out when needed. He deserved the chance to go be with the other Autobots. Sure he had done the guardian thing for a while to protect him from the Decepticons, but now that things had returned to normal it was logical that he would want to be relieved of his duties.
All very logical. Perfectly logical. Perfectly cold. It made him need to throw up.
But by the time the phone rang the evening before Bumblebee was supposed to return (--not to stay, never to stay-- only to say goodbye--), Sam had realized he was being unforgivably selfish. At first he had planned to beg the Autobot not to go, latching onto his foot to be dragged along the pavement if need be. But then slowly, unwillingly, he came to terms with the fact that he had no right to ask him to stay, no right to weep and wail at his feet to try to guilt him into it. Bumblebee had been more of a friend than he could have ever asked for-- he wouldn't be a jerk and make him feel bad about something he both needed and was entitled to do.
It would probably kill him to do it, but when the time came he would let go without a fuss. He owed his friend that much.
But when Mercedes Benz called and asked if the car needed to be picked up again, he realized he wouldn't get as much time to prepare as he had originally thought. For a moment he could only stare mutely into space, feeling his world crumble away beneath him, vaguely aware that the attendant at the other end of the line was trying to get his attention.
"Hello? Mr. Witwicky?"
Finally, he managed to drag himself far enough from his haze to reply. "Yeah. Yeah, I'm here."
"I asked if you wanted to have the black Mercedes S-600 Guard picked up tomorrow morning as per your initial request."
Sweet, wonderful Bee was letting him chose. The gentle alien wouldn't leave if he asked him not to. But now, knowing that he wanted to be free, he would never be able to live with himself if he denied him the chance.
Sam drew in a rattling breath. "N-no. Just leave it. I'm....I'm going to be using it for a while, I think."
If the attendant were bothered by his disjointed answers, he didn't show it.
"Of course, sir. I'll cancel the pick up order right now."
"Great. Thanks."
"....Done! You're all set. Have a wonderful evening, and enjoy your new Mercedes."
".....okay."
But the line had already gone dead. He slowly hung up the phone.
It was done.
I'm going to miss you, Bee....
NNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNN
Needless to say, Sam did not sleep well that night. He tossed and turned, trying every conceivable postion-- on his back, on his side, on his stomach, with his feet on the pillow and his head near the footboard, diagonally, under the bed, in a chair, sitting against the wall, on the bed again, under the covers, on top of the covers, with the covers around his head like a turban. He knew-- knew-- that he would never get to sleep. But around 5am, just as the sun was rising, he did exactly that.
If he had been awake, he would have heard the rumbling purr of a familiar engine pulling up out front, followed several minutes later by the crunch and shriek of folding metal and popping glass, the sounds muffled by the concrete walls of the garage.
But far away in dreamland, Sam heard nothing at all.
....At least until he was awoken a few hours later by a shrill cry of outrage and despair.
Blinking back sleep, feeling cold and miserable without knowing why, Sam meandered out of his room and down the stairs. His mom was still yelling, but she didn't sound as though anyone were bleeding or dead (or even as though she had spotted an incoming invasion of suited agents swarming up over the lawn), so he took his time.
His parents, both dressed in hastily donned robes, stood before the open front door, gazing out at the yard. His mother craned her neck this way and that, hissing and spitting angrily, while his father merely bore an expression of dismay so profound that his loyal dog might have just died. But given that his father didn't even really like Mojo that much, and given that Sam himself had seen the Chiwawa alive and well as he passed through the living room, he doubted that was the case.
"Hey. What's going on?" he grunted, still feeling the vague sense of melancholy, and joined them at the door.
"Sam, tell that robot of yours to get that hunk of scrap off my front lawn!" his mother screeched, curlers bobbing wildly in her hair.
His father could only shake his head, mouth hanging open. He looked close to tears. "A half million dollars. Just like that, and a half million dollars goes right down the toilet."
"What is it?"
Peering around the door, Sam answered his own question.
Sitting innocently in the middle of the front lawn, crushed into something roughly the shape of an enormous paper ball, was the black Mercedes S-600 Guardian. Or rather, what used to be a black Mercedes S-600. In its current configuration, Sam doubted even a scrap yard would find a use for it. No inch of black paint remained unscratched, no metal plate unbent. The windows had crumpled like the rest of the car, opaque with scrawling spider webs of cracks, though due to their specicalized design they had neither shattered or broken free of the doors.
And beside it in the driveway, smugness radiating from every spec of yellow paint, sat a gleaming yellow Camaro.
Bumblebee.
Sam leaned weakly against the doorframe, the reason for his inexplicable sadness flooding back to him. The dealership had called and he had told them what he thought Bumblebee had wanted to hear-- he had told them not to take away the armored car. Yet despite the freedom that Sam had willingly given him, the alien scout had returned. And if the state of the poor Mercedes was anything to go by, he had both listened in on his conversation with the Mercedes attendant and strongly disagreed.
Sam had been wrong the whole time. The armored car hadn't been a ploy to escape his role as Sam's guardian. Bumblebee was his his his, and it was going to stay that way.
But even the blissful flood of joy that knowledge caused could not dampen his awe as he carefully approached the ruins of the black Mercedes. Standing in the grass, Sam closely examined it, noting the dents that could only have been made by enormous fingers.
He turned dizzily to Bumblebee. His friend. His nightmare-chaser.
His Guardian.
Folding his hands together on top of his head, gaping at the ball of scrap, he was unable to resist the joyous, inane little impulse to state the obvious, even if his voice did come out a little breathless with wonder.
"You turned an indestructable car into lawn sculpture."
There was no audible response, but for just a moment it seemed that pavement beneath his feet rumbled with a challenging growl, a possesive hum.
Note to self: Any car encroaching upon Bumblebee's territory is unlikely to survive the encounter.
And he wondered just what his alien guardian would do when he discovered that college freshmen weren't allowed to bring cars.
NNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNN