And Eyes That I Might See
Part Two
By Dreaming of Everything
Disclaimer: I do not own Transformers in any of its numerous incarnations. The only thing I'm claiming is Amanda (and any other OCs who may occur) and the plot itself.
Author's Notes: Did you know that nail files are the best tool there is for getting pine needles (well, fir needles, really) out of your keyboard? Because I didn't, until today. (I discovered it with the power of SCIENCE!!)
You know, this was supposed to be a oneshot. As it turns out, it isn't. Who knew? I didn't. I have at least one more bit planned out, possibly two, and that's not even covering introductions…
I'd like to blame Epona Harper, Cavaranka, the anonymice Caz, who I think might be cazcatharsis on LJ (if so, hi!), zoaerven, darknessdivine, sosurrealrawr, jimghote, and probably the entirety of tf2007fun over on Livejournal for good measure, for making me continue this. Thanks!
This bit in particular was directly inspired by devilishkurumi, with important input by tainry.. Thank you, you two!
Special thanks for Riana1, who likes my OCs. :D
Edited 12-10-07 for hideous errors. (Well, one of them, at least.) Thank you, CavaranKa and lucidscreamer!
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"Can I help you?" Sam asked.
"I can walk a straight line just fine on my own!" Amanda snapped back. "I'm sorry, actually," she said after a few minutes of quiet. "I'm just—not in a good mood today."
"It's okay. My own experience meeting the Transformers… Yeah. Do you usually have a seeing-eye dog to help you with this?"
"Nope. I can't. Allergies. I've never liked dogs very much anyways."
"I've got a dog—a Chihuahua. His name's Mojo."
"I can't say I've ever been a fan of Chihuahuas. They fall under my little-yappy-dogs category. Can you tell me where we are?"
"Like I said, we're trapped in a valley. There's a pretty good number of Autobots here, and maybe 10 humans, maximum. That's good—there's some food, but not too much. Hopefully, this won't take more than a few days. Ratchet—I already told you he's the medic, right?—has his patients stuck in a cave behind us—we just came out of the mouth of it, actually. The humans are sleeping in a smaller cave on the other side of the canyon. You'd been put in the big cave so he could keep an eye on you."
"What can you tell me about the—the Autobots, right?"
"Yeah, that's right. Well… There's 12 Autobots here on earth right now, and—and I did tell you that they can transform, right?"
"No. No, you didn't. Transform ? Into what "
"Cars, mostly. There's jets, trucks, cell phones, helicopters… Mechanical things. There was an evil Mountain Dew machine running around for a while."
"They must come in a variety of sizes then, not just really, really big. Unless they're, like, really giant cell phones?"
"Nope, you got it right the first time."
"That's—so weird. And creepy. You mean you could be in one of them and never even notice it? Or using one of them…"
"Yeah. That's what happened with me and Bee—Bumblebee, he's my guardian. I mean, there were some things that were off—he kept on messing around with the radio, and still does, matter of fact, and he set me up with my girlfriend, and he pulled some funny stuff at the car dealership—but I didn't suspect a thing until I actually saw him in his transformed state, and when he started chasing me down the street, in car-form. But without a driver."
"… gah. You said there were twelve of them? That—doesn't sound like very many. Of course, at the same time it sounds like a hell of a lot…"
"We have been scattered across the universe during our fights with the Decepticons," rumbled a voice slightly behind her and to her left.
Amanda shrieked and spun in the direction of the voice, caught totally off-guard. It was clearly one of the robots—the voice was too high up to be anything else, and with those weird harmonics. Not that turning in its direction was going to help, she thought vaguely. It wasn't like she was going to be able to see it either way. See… him, she supposed. It certainly seemed to be a male voice. Did giant alien robots have genders?
The fast, half-panicked movement unbalanced her, and the soft dirt and slight slope of the canyon floor where they were only made the problem worse. She teetered for a few seconds, trying to regain her balance, before she felt arms—human arms, presumably Sam's—reach out to steady her.
"Thank you," she squeaked, possibly running on automatic.
"Okay. Amanda, this is Mirage. Mirage, this is Amanda—"
"I'm sorry for startling you," said the voice—Mirage. Weird sort of name. Not that all of this didn't feel like one huge hallucination, possibly brought on by extreme brain damage. There was a slight pause and, briefly, the sensation of heat—which was odd. It was the wrong direction and intensity for sunlight, and there wasn't anything else it would make sense for it to be—unless the robot (the Autobot, she reminded herself) had just kind of heated up at random. "I hadn't thought. I forget that a disembodied voice would be startling."
Oh. "Word must get around here fast," said Amanda.
"What?" said Mirage, sounding slightly confused.
"Amanda, Mirage can turn invisible. Mirage, Amanda can't see you no matter what you do—she's blind."
"Ohhhh," said Amanda. That explained something. "Wait. Invisible? How does that work? Is the heat that I just felt part of it?"
"The heat is a side effect of releasing the invisibility field. This form is designed to match the outside temperature, so that it doesn't show up on any scans, but the field has an increased temperature. The excess heat is stored, and then released in a short burst when I end the program."
"Actually, on reflection, it's probably for the best if I don't ask how that works. It sounds—complicated."
There was a brief pause.
"Um, Mirage? She really can't see you. Body language doesn't help," Sam said.
"Again, I apologize. If you ever change your mind, I would be willing to explain it. You really can't see anything? Don't you have ways to correct the problem?"
"Thank you for the offer. To answer your question—well, some forms of vision issues can be corrected. Mine can't—it's just the way I am. I've learned to deal with it." Amanda's voice trailed off a little. "This is all a little intimidating, though" she said, almost as if to herself.
"We should probably keep on going," said Sam after a few more minutes of silence. "Now that we know who you are, we can get information out that you're okay."
"It was nice to meet you," said Mirage.
"—yeah, you too? That is, I mean, it was a pleasure."
"Follow me," Sam said, his voice moving away from her.
"Where are you?" said Amanda with a sigh. "I can get a general idea, but nothing more than that…"
"Oh—oh my God. I'm so sorry. I totally didn't mean to— Would you mind if I led you, maybe? If it would make things easier for you…"
"Okay, fine." Amanda sighed. "I hate being led. And people ask why I don't get out much…"
"If you don't like it that much…"
"No, it's probably a good idea. I'm just too stubborn for my own good. Could you walk a little bit slower? I'm a city girl born and bred, and all this loose, crumbly dirt is making me miss honest concrete."
"Sure—of course! I'm sorry."
--end part 2--