Yay! Another chpater! Wheeeeeeeeeeeeeeee!
Chapter 12!
Dr. Henderson walked down the hospital corridor with a blue filling folder in his hands. As he ambled down the hall he flipped vaguely though the various colored pages at the patient information. As he neared the room of one Eric Witwicky, room 304, he passed two police officers as they left the same room.
"Are you the doctor in charge of Mr. Witwicky?" The tallest of the pair asked. The man had sandy blonde hair and hazel eyes.
"Yes, I am Dr. Henderson," The doctor and the two policemen shook hands and said their pleasantries.
"Mr. Witwicky will be under surveillance until his departure. Officer Samoff here will guard his room."
"May I ask why?" The doctor asked.
"Eric has run away charges against him and is under investigation for several gang related incidents." The officer said flatly. "His father has been notified and is on his way here."
The doctor nodded.
"I'll be going to speak with him now." The doctor said and walked passed the two policemen, waving his goodbyes.
As Henderson pushed the door open he saw the young boy, dressed in the hospital's white and blue poke-a-dot dressing, staring absently out the window at the night lit city of Portland. His head was bandaged and his right arm was in a sling. Not so much for his arm, but for his shoulder. He also had a bandage on his other forearm.
"Eric?" Henderson asked as he closed the door behind him.
The boy turned at the sound of his name.
"I'm Dr. Henderson and I'll be doing a few examinations." The doctor put his folder onto the bedside table and opened up the drawer beside it. He pulled on some purple colored gloves and several instruments. "How's your noggin' doing?"
"Fine." Eric replied. "There's some dull pain but not as bad as before, though."
"How many stitches did we give you again?"
Spike thought for a moment.
"Three."
"Three?" The doctor confirmed. "You got lucky. When Igot into a car crash when I was 15 I ended up with 6 and a concussion."
"I wasn't in a car crash." Eric replied sourly.
"You weren't?" The doctor asked, an eyebrow raised expectantly. "Then how?"
Eric remained silent.
"I've been a practicing physician for 20 year now, Eric," The Doctor said. "I know those kinds of injuries. And you were a very lucky boy."
"It wasn't a crash." Eric replied. "It was an accident."
The doctor sighed.
"Ok. Fair enough, then." He replied as he checked Spike's various reflexes and such.
Back at the Ark, Optimus Prime, too, was lying on a doctor's examination table. The Autobot Commander lay motionless as Ratchet fidgeted among Prime's internal circuitry. Among the damage was the Commander's central motor plug which was, thank Primus, the only severe damage that needed immediate repair. Ratchet was meticulously reconnecting each wire back to its mother wire. Besides the internal damage, there was some major work to be done to his armor and quite frankly they didn't have the resources to pull it off. There was some old metal, but over the years they had laid dormant in the Ark after crashing on Earth, it had become corrode and useless.
Ratchet sat down on a chair near the computer and sighed.
"What is It Ratchet?" Prime's weak voice asked from the table.
"This isn't good Prime." The doctor replied. "We don't have the recourses we need here. I don't have anything to patch you up with. We need some materials. We're barley keeping everyone on their feet with our limited Energon stores. If things keep on as they have been progressing 'bots will be falling into stasis lock in large numbers."
"Yes, Ratchet." Optimus admitted with a sigh of resignation. "I know. But what can we do? The Decepticons are ruthless enough to steal energy from the humans, but I refuse to steal from their race."
"They get away with it because they leave no witnesses to tell what happened." Ratchet reminded the leader of the grim reality. "They must be another way for us to gather the necessary resources we need without attracting unwanted attention from the Humans."
"Let me know if you think of anything." Prime chuckled.
Ratchet laughed weakly. It was hard to laugh at such an impending problem. Sooner or later they were going to become desperate and Ratchet just prayed that somehow they found a way to overcome it.
As Ratchet went over to Teletran I to check up on Prowl and Cliffjumper's progress with getting the some repairs on the back of the ship finished, a message came in to the super computer from…Ironhide!
"Ratchet? This is Ironhide." The veteran Autobot said. "I'm on my way back from dropping the kid off. Some woman, a neighbor I think, took him to the human medical facility."
"He should be fine now. The human doctors will be able to take care of him better than I'd have been able to." Ratchet replied. "At least Grimlock had the sense to do something good."
"Don't get me started with that blow heart! He's too reckless to be in charge for long." Ironhide snapped virulently. "Get Prime fixed up quick Doc. I don't know how long I'll be able to stand taking orders from that Dino-brain."
Ratchet chuckled.
"Roger that Ironhide." With that said Ratchet severed the connection and went back to Optimus and begin repairs again. The next few days were going to be very trying and more than stressful for everyone.
Bumblebee starred blankly out at the Oregon desert. The sun had gone down some time ago and from his perch he could see the dazzling lights of Portland below. It was beautiful; like a small piece of Cybertron, home. How strange you begin to feel when you gaze out on a strange new world and thoughts of a home you never thought you would miss come drifting by like a stray memory.
"How's it going, Bumblebee?" Hound asked as he came to sit next to the minibot. "Enjoying the scenery?"
"Yeah." Bumblebee replied absently.
"Its amazing isn't it?" Hound asked. "Their race's only a couple million years old, but looks how fast they developed into all this!"
Hound indicated to the city with an enthusiastic gesture.
"It took Cybertronians twice as long to accomplish less than this." Hound breathed.
Bumblebee looked at the green jeep.
"What do you mean?" He asked.
"Well it depends on which theory you prefer." Hound explained. "I prefer the more realistic one."
Bumblebee nodded. He knew what Hound meant now.
"You mean that the Quintessons made us?" The VW replied. "You don't believe in Primus and the 13?"
Hound shook his head.
"I'm not religious Bumblebee. I'm surprised anyone is anymore with the war." He replied. "What I was saying before was that if the Quintessons made us, then that would put the creation of the first Cybertronian city, Iacon, at somewhere around the 12th vorn of Nova Prime. Huamns took a fraction of the time and made all this!"
Smiling, Bumblebee shook his head at his friend.
"Jazz was right." He said. "You really are a geek."
Hound looked reproachful at Bumblebee's comment.
"There isn't anything 'geek' like about studying an alien race." Hound snapped. "Aren't you curious about their society?"
"Sure I'm curious," He replied as he sat back and looked up at the stars. "But I'm not obsessed."
"Suit yourself 'Bugs." Hound said, shaking Bumblebee's comments off, and laid back to gaze at the stars.
Bumblebee looked around at the sparklng lights in the sky. They were so alien to him. He'd spent much of his life studying the stars and being able to judge almost any and everything by them, but these stars told him nothing.
"The stars here are so…"Hound began.
"Alien?" Bumblebee asked.
"Intriguing." Hound finished. "The humans have named for all the constellations too. See that group? That group's called Orion and the three in the middle's Orion's belt. Over there is Gemini, and up there, that bright one, is the North Star. Humans all over the Earth use that star to guide them. Throughout their history, Humans have looked to the stars for answers to life."
"What were they expecting to find?" Bumblebee chuckled.
Hound snickered. "It sounds absurd to us, but just think about it for a moment; Humans were never given the answers from a higher being like Primus or even the Quintessons. They simply looked up and made their own answers. They made up an answer for the questions they didn't have. They even thought the earth was flat up until about 500 years ago."
"Flat?" Bumblebee laughed. "What gave them that stupid idea?"
Hound laughed too.
"If you look out everything looks flat right?"
"Yeah, but it's not." He replied.
"The Humans didn't have any proof that the earth was round, at the time. They looked out, saw flat, assumed the earth was flat, and thought if you sailed far enough you'd fall off the edge of the world."
Bumblebee laughed hard. Humans were so funny. Sure they made some pretty smart things, but that didn't mask their ancestor's pure stupidity.