Just as Duke was tightening his grip on the trigger a car's horn blew. At the end of the alley was the small yellow VW Bug. His bight's flashed and he honked his horn violently.

"What's that jackasses shit?" Duke took the gun off of me and pointed it towards the Bug and fired three shots. I saw them spark on the VW's hood, but didn't seem to do anything. It honked its horn and speeded down the alley right for us. His Brights flaring and his horn blaring, the small, yet intimidating looking, VW Bug raced towards us. Duke's Bodyguards let me drop and bolted the other way. Duke emptied his ammo at the car uselessly. Finally he too ran off. I sat the on the ground watching all this. Just as I was thinking the Bug was going to hit me it swerved around me and the passenger door swung open, revealing an entirely empty front seat.

'It's one of them!' I thought to myself.

"Get in!" I heard a voice say. I jumped in and the door closed behind me of its own accord. As I sat up in the seat the seat belt wrapped around me and buckled itself.

If my life wasn't at risk I might have thought that cool. I saw Duke and his bodyguards near the alley's exit, reloading their guns.

"Hold on!" The car told me. I ducked and held my eyes close as I hear bullets ricocheting off the car's body and windshield. One went through the back window and hit what I thought was the radio. I heard the car cry out in pain as the bullet's entrance point in the front smoke and hiss sparks. We sped off down the road, leaving the three others behind with nothing to shoot at but dust.

It was a few minutes later when I got my composure back. Well kind of. I kind of broke down.

"Fuck! Eric! You're such an idiot!" I told myself.

"Eric? I thought your name was Spike." The car said. "Sunstreaker probably heard wrong."

I looked suspiciously at the radio controls. I'd noticed when the car talked; there was a screen that lit up with every syllable it said.

"What are you? An alien? A robot? What?" I asked him as I wiped blood off my lips. "And why'd you help me?"

I heard a sigh from his inner workings.

"Would you have rather had me not save you?" He asked as we came up to a red light.

I didn't reply. What was going on? I felt like I had fell into an alternate dimension and everything was upside down.

"I take that as a no." The car sighed. "Humans are hard to understand..."

I looked through the passenger window for a while. I felt scared to get out, for fear of Duke and his buddies after me. No doubt my head had a price on it now. And my head was well known in the gang. What was I going to do?

I turned to look at the radio to say something to the car and jumped with surprise when I saw that there was a man sitting in the driver's seat.

"Who the hell are you!" I asked him.

The car laughed.

"He's no one. Just a hologram Hound whipped up to keep us from attracting unwanted attention." He told me with a chuckle.

"Yeah, it'd look weird to see a car driving itself." I said in a salty expression.

"Ok, now your just being mean." The car told me.

I smiled.

"So," I asked, "what next?"

The car didn't answer right away.

"Well, is there anyplace I can take you?" He asked sounding surprisingly calm.

I shook my head.

"No, not really. I'm sure those guys have everyone looking for me." I admitted with defeat in my voice. "I don't know where I can go. I planned on leaving and starting over, completely legit."

"And you can't do that now because...?" The car asked me as if my reply would fill in the rest of his sentence.

"Why the hell am I even talking to you?" I half asked myself and the car. "You're a car!"

The car snorted reproachfully.

"What's that got to deal with anything?" he asked.

"Well you see," I stated sarcastically, "humans have this set mentality that…CARS CAN'T TALK!"

I shouted the last bit at him and then sunk into the seat, utterly angry with worry. The utter confusion of what I was to do next was like a shooting star and to continue on with my life I had to catch it.

"Well, first off," The car stated, "I'm not a car, I'm a Cybertronian soldier. An Autobot."

I was silent.

"So you are an alien." I said flatly. I wasn't sure, but I'd never heard of an 'Autobot' or heard a word like 'Cybertronian' and they sounded pretty alien to me. "So what are you doing here? And what's your name?"

The car, Autobot, Cybertronian-or whatever he liked to be called, signed nervously to himself.

"I shouldn't be telling you any of this." He said worriedly. "I'm already going to get in trouble for what I've done already!"

I sat straight in my chair and listened to him.

"And that would be?" I asked.

The car waited a few second before responding.

"Deserting comrades…deserting your post…deserting an active mission…going off on your own…failure to report your position and state into HQ every 10 breems…revealing yourself to a human…" He stopped there. "Prime's going to have my bumper for a head ornament…"

I laughed in spite of myself.

"Thanks for the support buddy." The car told me, his voice dripping with sarcasm.

I got a hold of myself.

"No, it's just that that's exactly what my Dad would do to me. If he knew what I've been doing for the past months…" I burst into laughter that some how fell to a sad and forced giggle.

'My Dad…' I hadn't really thought of him for a while. The thought of him made me sick with anger.

'I'll never go back…'

Suddenly I heard sirens in back of us, and my heart leaped into my throat.

"Shit!" I said.

"Slag it!" the car at the same time without missing a beat.

"Damn! I don't have a license and you're not my car! They'll think I stole you and take me to jail!" I wailed in despair, "Or worse! Back to Dad!"

The car laughed.

"Stay clam. You've got nothing to worry about…" He said. "It's me who should be scared. That's Prowl."

"Prowl?" I asked.

"Yeah, he's…well...an Autobot." He admitted. "He's got to be here to take me back to HQ."

I was relived to learn I wasn't going to jail, but the thought of this 'Prowl' finding out about me made me shake with nervousness and fear. I knew he wouldn't hurt me, I was pretty sure, but what would he say when he found out the car that saved me had broken all those rules?

"Bumblebee!" Prowl said over the sirens. "Pull over! That's what you're supposed to do when human police put out the sirens!"

He sounded stuck up to me.

"Bumblebee?" I snickered. "That's your name?"

I laughed out load.

"Don't laugh!" Bumblebee told me.

"Who are you talking to?" Prowl asked as he pulled up beside us. I quickly ducked down below the window.

"Prowl," Bumblebee told him, " I think we need to find a more discreet location than this street to talk."

Prowl pulled up in front of Bumblebee and blared his sirens.

"Agreed, lets head out of town."

I stayed down even though I was sure Prowl couldn't see me. On Bumblebee's radio screen his words were projected like a rolling text so we could still talk.

Stay calm…Prowl is only doing his job… not matter how annoying it can be…once we stop and I explain…He'll probably just let you off and we'll go back to HQ…

I was slightly reassured, but it's hard to know exactly what you're feeling when in the past few moments you felt almost every emotion simultaneously. Nervousness, fear, and anxiety all seemed to be the same chest tightening sickness to me.

"OK." I replied. "Where are we going?"

Out of town…near the dessert…

I hadn't realized how long we'd been driving to be so close to the dessert. But sure enough, about five minutes later we exited city limits and headed down a highway. Prowl pulled off at an old abandoned dirt road and for another few minutes we just drove off till we were far from the highway's visual range.

Prowl stopped and, as I had seen the Lamborghini do the night before, transformed into an equally tall robot. His body was mainly silver and white, but the distinct features of a police cruiser were plain to see. His face was entirely silver and had a human like appearance. He had two eyes, a nose, and a mouth. His face was framed with a helmet like head with two red fins that split in either direction above his forehead.

"What's the matter Bumblebee?" Prowl asked. "Transform already."

"It's got to do with why I left you guys earlier."

"Yeah?" Prowl said, his arms cross, almost daring Bumblebee to show him anything that would alter his opinion of the situation.

Bumblebee groaned.

His passenger door opened.

"Come on out Spike." Bumblebee sighed.

The coldness came over me as I stepped out of him and into the blaring sun.

Prowl's mouth was wide open with shock When he saw me. I couldn't even gather up the courage to look at him, I was so scared.

Beside me Bumblebee transformed. If I had any humor for the situation I'd have laughed. He was so small compared to Prowl! He was probably 10 feet tall, Prowl was a good 15 feet.

"Bumblebee…I…You…Why…AUGH!" Prowl put his hands to his face as he tried to grasp the situation. "You…Human…NOT GOOD!"

Bumblebee stepped in front of me as if to shield me.

"Don't blame the human. I was the one who-"

"I wasn't going to blame the human!" Prowl scowled. "You broke one of our most important rules! You've jeopardized us all!"

Bumblebee scowled.

"How's Spike a danger?" He asked. I was surprised he could stand up to Prowl so easily. I almost felt grateful to him for standing up for me. No one had ever done that for me since Mom died…

"He could tell his people!" Prowl snapped. "If the Human populous was to find out, it would start a global panic!"

I had to admit he was right. People were defiantly going to panic if or when they found out alien robot cars were hiding among them.

"Who ever said I was going to tell?" I asked.