You wouldn't believe how many times I've been tempted to strip this story back to just the first great chapter and abandon it as a one-shot. But, I've come too far to back out now! The updates might be slow, but I WILL finish this.
Arcee had tensed to jump away, but Ryan's hold on her didn't loosen in the slightest when the pitcher shattered over his head. In fact, he didn't flinch at all.
And somehow, after he was sopping wet and beginning to leak from a cut over his eyebrow, Arcee immediately recognized the bewildered, whipped puppy expression in the instant it took everyone in the place to go silent.
"Oh frag …" she swore under her breath, meeting his eyes apologetically. Unfortunately, now she had to come up with some sane reason for trying to bash his face in.
The only option she could come up with fast enough was to launch into her role that she and Cliff had fine tuned with their holoforms for distracting crowds of people.
"You think I wouldn't find out?!" she hissed, stepping toward him with all the menace her five foot frame could radiate. "You two-timing piece of shit! SHE told me where you were! She bragged to me about it!"
Tears sprang to her eyes.
"Liar! Cheat!"
He winced more when she slapped him than he had with the pitcher. Oh Primus, surely he knew it was an act.
"How could you?! I trusted you!" she sobbed.
The act had drummed up a lot more sympathy for her when it had been Cliffjumper's holoform on the receiving end. One time, she'd almost had gotten 'poor old Clifton' arrested. But here, she could sense a dozen drama-hungry, adolescent females waiting for her to pause for breath so they could swoop in and save this much younger, much more attractive man.
Instead of cowering out the door however, where she could talk to him and get this whole mess sorted out, Ryan suddenly straightened and regained the ground she'd taken in one stride, a hurt scowl on his face.
"But, you trusted her more, huh?" he accused levelly. "For your information, I was in Vegas all weekend – looking at jewelry stores," he emphasized dramatically. "That's why I wasn't answering your calls! I wasn't lying; I just might not have wanted you to know about it!"
Uh oh. This wasn't in the script. Fortunately, 'shocked' was the appropriate expression for her character to have at his backlash.
"I meant what I said. Why are you so afraid of that?" he said more gently. "Why do you keep looking for any excuse to push me away?"
He stepped closer still and caught her shoulders, making her face him, and brought his hands up to frame her face and meet her eyes.
"I love you, Sammy. Tell me how I can make you believe it, and I'll do it – anything! Anything at all."
Arcee blinked. It felt like the entire room was holding its breath waiting for her reply. Holy slag, what was she supposed to do? She felt her expression switch back and forth between mute surprise and serious consideration a few times, then finally she wrapped her arms around him.
"I'm sorry," she mumbled into his sticky, wet shirt.
She felt his fingers in her hair. "Meh, you know I'm tougher than I look," he smiled, tipping her face up to kiss her lips softly.
Somewhere, Miko cheered and started clapping. Others followed suit.
Heat rushed to her face, and Arcee took his arm and towed him away from the people and the loud music to a relatively private corner of the room.
"Smokescreen?!" she whispered.
"Well, yeah! Who'd you think I was?" he almost laughed.
"I thought you were one of M.E.C.H.'s men stalking Jack!"
"What?! That's …" He paused a moment. "Well, maybe not THAT crazy – but come on!"
"What are you doing here anyway?" she demanded.
"I told you. Jack needed a ride. You were in medbay. He told me yesterday you'd be busy anyway."
"Why that little … I wasn't busy! I told him I wasn't going to take him and Sierra because he treated Miko like slag. But, so much for that punishment! Who needs a motorcycle when you can pick up girls in a race car?"
"I didn't know; no one tells me anything!" he defended. "And, would it have killed you to CALL Jack first?"
"I was their target. I didn't want to alert them that I was coming."
Smokescreen appeared to consider this for half a moment before throwing his hands up in flustered surrender.
"Well, I had to come anyway. Ratchet said someone needed to keep an optic on Jack since you were recovering. I thought you'd be happy."
"Happy?! Are you … wait …" She arched a brow at him dubiously. "Ratchet told you?"
The man shrugged. "He suggested it. Optimus was technically who the order came from."
Arcee sighed. Ratchet. Of course.
"But, he knows I barely have any training with holoforms! How was I supposed to figure out it was you before I inevitably did something like …" She held up the handle she was still carrying. "… you know. To me, you just looked like some random creep picking up high school girls."
"I'm … sorry?" he tried, unsure.
She waved it off. "No … no … That's not what I meant," she insisted, rubbing her face in frustration. "I'm sorry. It's just … the past couple days have me worn down to the indicators is all."
Arcee leaned back against the wall with a thud. Smokescreen still looked like he wanted to be sorry. Soaked with soda and bleeding, he looked so pitiful she had to crack a smile. Cautiously, he returned it.
"Frag it. How's your head?"
"Oh …" He prodded at his temple again. "Fine. Feels about healed up."
Arcee chuckled, stepping close again.
"Let me see it."
Smokescreen took a seat so Arcee could clean as much as she could off with a few napkins out of a dispenser on the table. She watched as his nanites finished knitting up the cut, and reddish hair grew back, leaving his eyebrow completely unblemished. Their holoforms' bones were denser than steel, so she would've had to hit him with a twenty-pound sledge to leave a mark on his skull. Ratchet must have assumed the truth would come out long before they could manage to do any serious damage to each other.
"I left my auto-repair turned up in case I ran into M.E.C.H., but I hadn't planned on having to improv a convincing bar fight."
"And it was a stellar performance, by the way." Arcee smiled at him and ran a thumb over the new skin carefully. "How'd you get so good at this so fast?"
He grinned as she pulled a few more napkins out and pressed them to his head to cover his lack of a bleeding wound.
"Vegas mostly," he shrugged. "Plenty of weirdos to blend in with, and someone's got to fund Ratchet's parts bin."
"Well, good thing you spooked me into hitting you. I was about to interrogate you by fragging you senseless," she said tucking the nanite-soaked napkins into the pocket of his jeans for him to reabsorb later.
"Awww …" His face fell.
She snickered, letting him take the "bandage" so he could stand up again.
"Hang on! I might still know something important."
"Maybe you should go reload your clothes instead," she suggested, pulling his sticky, wet shirt away from his skin and letting it splat back against him unpleasantly.
"Or, I could just take it off," he grinned, summoning all the charm his holoform could muster which might have been a near-lethal dose if it had been directed at anyone else.
"We're here to watch Jack and Miko – without drawing attention to ourselves. At least not any MORE attention. Remember?" she smiled, trying to ignore the genuine hope in his teasing.
"Last time I looked, they were watching each other pretty close," he pointed out.
"And, every female in here is already watching you – and now your psycho girlfriend too."
He glanced around. "Yeah, good point," he sobered. "Be right back."
"Oh … uh, Ryan!" she called after him. He turned to read her lips more than hear her. "Better call your doctor while you're out there. He'll want to know what's happened … with … everything," she added, touching her own eyebrow for the benefit of everyone watching their exchange.
He smiled, giving her a thumbs up with his free hand before pushing the door open and disappearing.
Arcee fell into a seat with a heavy sigh. Holoforms were NEVER anything but a huge slagging mess.
"Are you gonna bang him?"
If she'd been a femme, she would've screamed, but the reflex and delay of having to intake air before she could make the desired sound through a larynx resulted in a sort of muffled snort-cough as she willed herself to not disperse her nanites in self defense when Miko seemingly appeared beside her, grinning like a lunatic and squirming with so much pent up excitement and self-satisfaction. How in the Pit had she lost track of her so fast?! No wonder Bulkhead was so bad at it.
"He's not with M.E.C.H."
"Yeah, duh! Jack clued me in before your audition for 'Days of Our Lives.' That doesn't answer my question."
"What?! Me?! No!" she insisted. "Smokescreen is my teammate AND my subordinate. That would be reckless … and stupid … and totally unprofessional …"
"Don't forget totally hot!"
"Miko, you can't even know what qualifies as 'totally hot' for Cybertronians."
"Well, if his holoform is based on 'thousands of variables' according to Ratchet, then maybe being a big sexy distraction is part of his function," she reasoned with unnerving logic. "Am I right or am I right?"
"Because we go up against hordes of distractable femmebots ALL the time …"
"You're still not answering me," Miko goaded slyly.
Arcee tried to hide her unease behind a convincing scowl.
"Fine! No, I'm not going to 'bang' Smokescreen!"
"You already told me that! I want you to admit you think he's HOT."
The girl paused to smile sweetly up at someone behind Arcee, making her stomach clench.
"Sooo …" Jack drawled awkwardly. "I was gonna ask if either of you wanted something to drink …?"
"Sure," Miko chirped. "Can I get a cream soda? Sam, you want another, or are you going to wait and lick the rest of that Coke off Ryan when he gets back?"
"You know what? I'll get drinks," she volunteered, getting up.
M.E.C.H. be damned. She was feeling incredibly inclined to let Miko walk home.
There were a few hangers-on that were deterring the high school crowd from drifting into what looked to be a typical, dark, smelly bar on any other night of the week. She would have killed for a real drink now more than ever – the cheaper and more painful, the better.
Her spark clenched for a klik at the sight of a man sitting with his date on the stools wearing a cowboy hat. The woman beside him was picking at some bad bar food, but they were determined to make the most of their date – without alcohol, thanks to Student Night. She laughed at whatever he said in her ear, and he wrapped an arm around her and hugged her close with a hearty laugh of his own.
He glanced up when she crossed his peripheral to step up to the counter and fish a ten out of her skirt pocket and tipped his hat courteously with a polite smile and nod before returning his full attention to teasing his friend and leaving Arcee to study the scratched and gouged surface of the bar between them.
Something was familiar about him, but she couldn't quite put her finger on it.
"What'll you have, Miss?" the man behind the counter asked, but she didn't hear him. "Miss?"
She blinked, meeting the server's eyes. "I'm … sorry. Been a long day," she smiled. "Can I get a cream soda and a Dr Pepper?"
"You want ice?" he asked turning back to the fridge.
"Nah."
"She'd probably take some Everclear," the man beside her chuckled. "Right, Miss Sadie?"
Hot blood rushed to the capillaries beneath her skin. When she looked back at him, his smile broadened, and the woman under his arm smirked.
"I'm sorry? You … must have me confused with someone else."
"Hmmm … must have," he shrugged. "Sadie never went anywhere without that loudmouth cradle robber shadowing her."
Frag.
"Definitely not me then," she tried to laugh. "No offense, but older guys – not my thing."
She took the drinks and beat as inconspicuous of a hasty retreat as she could, but when she looked around the bar, Jack and Miko were nowhere.
"Oh for Pit's sake …"
Arcee looked around for them, trying not to let it show how panicked she was becoming. Over and over again, she kept reflexively trying to run a perimeter scan for Jack's biosignature, but it was like her processor was sending commands to a severed limb. These fragging worthless holoforms!
"Lose your friends, Miss?" another man sitting at one of the tables facing a TV asked.
"I …"
"Couple kids went out the back way a little while ago."
She glanced to the back exit, but there was no sign of Jack or Miko. The man smiled at her when she looked back at him.
No, no, no … this wasn't happening. It wasn't anything – just another false alarm. She was hidden. That guy just happened to recognize her from her and Cliff's bar-crawling days.
Someone caught her shoulder, and she almost spun and hit Ryan a second time.
"Sammy? You look like you've seen a ghost."
"Where's Jack?" she hissed urgently.
The man looked around from his much higher vantage point, not letting her go.
"Uhh … there! Him and Miko are over by the DJ."
She breathed a sigh of relief, letting him take the drinks from her and set them on a table.
The man watching TV glanced at them again, but looked away when Ryan locked eyes with him.
"Come on," he said gently, nudging her toward the throng of teenagers again. "Dance with me."
Arcee smiled for their audience, but netted her fingers in his like a vice. She leaned into him, rubbing her cheek against Ryan's arm and allowing herself to take some measure of comfort from the softness of his reloaded tshirt and the warmth of his skin under it.
"What happened?" he asked, barely above the music as she turned to face him.
Arcee kept quiet now that he could see to read her lips. "The man at the bar … he recognized me and mentioned Cliff. The other guy tried to get me to look out back."
"Frag," he swore but didn't look around. "Ratchet told me Optimus and the others just came under fire at a possible base location for M.E.C.H."
"So I'm not just frizting out over nothing again. These guys are just waiting for us to leave."
"Maybe," he reasoned. "Where'd you park?"
"With the bikes. I borrowed Bee's old paint."
"Well, I couldn't pick you out. Maybe they haven't yet."
"We can't just stay here and wait though!"
"Why not? It's a public place full of witnesses."
"Because I don't think ANYONE could miss your alt mode," she pointed out.
"Yeah, but I didn't park in the lot. I'm a couple blocks over, parked on the street. I figured it'd be better if we had to hit the ground running," he explained. "And, I dispersed in the alleyway."
Arcee shuddered, but didn't voice her disgust at the idea of nanites trickling over trash and grease stains.
"Regardless – this place is full of innocent bystanders too. M.E.C.H. doesn't really strike me as that squeamish."
"Well, something's kept them from making a move," he pointed out.
"They know I wouldn't be here by myself after last night. There were half a dozen Urbanas out there when we came in. Maybe they just don't know HOW alone I am."
"Miko behind you …" he warned before he bumped her into the girl's back.
"Hey! Oh … you guys done reconciling," she asked with a smirk, nudging Jack in the ribs.
"Something's up," Arcee said, happily ignoring the comment. "Stay alert and be ready to move."
"Like what exactly is up?" Jack asked. "Those guys from last night again?"
"Feels like it," Ryan said, wheeling Arcee away from the couple to hide their conversation. "We're going to watch from a safe distance in case they make a move on Arcee. Don't lose sight of us."
"Right," Miko said with a nod. She was long overdue for her adrenaline fix, and there was excitement in her eyes.
Arcee watched them move away and could only assume Ryan was keeping tabs on them.
"I hate this. No way to contact Ratchet, and trapped in these stupid holoforms."
"You can disperse if you want," he offered.
"No. They're probably watching the bikes. I don't want to give myself away if they haven't found me yet. And, you need me in here."
He bent to get close to her ear. Primus, he even managed to smell like a pleasant distraction, she marveled.
"Then relax. If you start acting twitchy, they might try something sooner."
"I am relaxed!"
Ryan grinned close to her face, then she was being ferried toward the DJ again.
"Smo … Ryan! What are you doing?"
"Got a request," he reasoned before offering the kid behind the table a folded bill. The DJ stuffed it in his pocket and mutely turned his laptop around for Ryan to quickly run a search. "Let's show these kids how you're supposed to dance to techno."
"We have to watch Jack and Miko!"
"We will," he explained, tugging her to the open center of the floor. "We'll be able to watch everyone this way. And, everyone will be watching you. Besides … someone told me you liked dancing but never get to."
"Not never. Bee does drag me out every once in a while." But, she'd admit that was more like giving dance lessons than dancing.
"Optimus told me Cliff was supposed to teach you how to use your holoform – and he never took you dancing?"
Arcee chuckled dryly at the memory.
"I've got a rule: never get turned down twice. I asked Cliff once, and all I got was excuses and a lecture about how how it was for soft-plated buffer bonnets. So, I never asked again."
"His loss."
He smiled when she met his eyes again and pulled her close for a convincing kiss as the last track faded out.
"You know any Praxian dances?"
She smiled against his lips. "Does a chronosmith know the time?"
He chuckled. "Let me know if you need to slow down."
"Do your worst!" she laughed aloud. "Remember, you don't have your sensory panels. If you're THAT good, and you can wear ME out …" Her voice dropped to a purr. "I might have to interrogate you after all."
She was sure if he had had his doorwings, they would've perked with excitement to match the smile on his face.
To add to the challenge, she didn't recognize the beginning of the song he'd chosen.
"Sixteen beat sets," he said turning so they were back to back.
"Rotations and quads?"
"You think I'm going to make it that easy for you?" she heard him chuckle before the first beat dropped.
The intro for most techno songs didn't tell you much in her experience, and this song was no exception. It only established the melody for the whole song, but like most Praxian dances, it built in complexity to just about the breaking point. All she could do was trust Ryan to know what was coming next and try not to miss a step.
His plan was a success; they had most of the room's attention as soon as they spun away from each others' backs, and Jack and Miko were right up front. It turned out her trust was well placed in his ability too.
Of course, he had to make due with not being able to lift her as easily as if they'd been in their real bodies, and Arcee had to adjust to dancing closer to his feet so she could reach his hands, but he was trying his damnedest to get her to signal to slow down. Arcee was defending her pride now though and having far too much fun even though she was sweating through her clothes and hair less than halfway through the song.
Thankfully, the track even had a false slow down like so many Praxian songs to let her cooling fans catch up for a few sets. She wished she had fans to use before he quickly ramped it back up to the high level of complexity again.
Usually, at the apex of the dance, the mech leading would lengthen his steps to a more natural stride, and she'd have to double her steps to make up for it, but Ryan surprised her when he doubled his steps to make up for his difference in size. Or maybe he was just showing off. When he caught her perched on his arm and showcased a few more elaborate moves to try to make her fumble, Arcee suspected the later.
It felt like she was struggling to ventilate fast enough when the music ended to a room full of cheers and applause, but she couldn't stop smiling. Ryan didn't exactly have to steal another kiss from her. She couldn't recall a time before the war when she'd had this much excitement.
"You're looking pretty worn out," he grinned as she wrapped her arms around his neck.
"Are you kidding?" she panted. "That was barely a warmup."
Ryan welcomed a kiss from her for once before she let him go and let himself be pulled back to the table to watch Jack and Miko.
"Thank you." He met her eyes and smiled. "I didn't know you could dance."
"Doesn't really come up in conversation when you're being shot at," he dismissed. "I would've mentioned it sooner if I'd known you would appreciate it so much."
She chuckled. "It's just … nice … to do something normal after so long," she smiled. "And it helps keep all the girls at bay for you," she quickly added.
"Yeah, thanks," he said, glancing around cautiously. "These things are supposed to blend in, but it's ALWAYS like this for me! At least humans don't have breeding swarms, and no angry males have ran up and headbutted me yet," he added, rubbing his forehead sympathetically.
"I wouldn't turn your back on Vince yet," she giggled, scanning the edge of the crowd for the bully and catching Miko's eye instead.
The girl gave a slight wave and pointed toward the bathrooms. Arcee gave her a thumbs up to go ahead, but when she didn't immediately pick out either of the men from the bar or the woman, she decided it might be better if she didn't go alone.
"Keep an eye on Jack; I gotta escort Miko to the girl's room."
She got up to catch up to Miko before she lost sight of her. Ryan nodded and opened his mouth to say something but choked on the intake. It was a bad design putting one's ventilation intakes in one place that was in direct proximity to one's fuel intakes. He tried to clear his throat as his eyes began to water.
Arcee shook her head at him and was about to go after Miko, but the coughing didn't stop.
"Ryan? You okay?"
He got up, shaking his head. He couldn't catch his breath to reply.
"Ryan?!"
She came back to his side, but she had no idea what to do. The man met her eyes, panicked and showed her his hands he'd been covering his mouth with. In the dimly lit room, blood spatters were dark spots on both palms and at the corners of his mouth, but what stood out even more in the flashing lights was the mercury-like shimmer of dispersing nanites mixed with it.
"Jack!" she yelled over the music, but before he could get to her, she heard Miko scream.
Arcee bolted toward the back through the crowd of shocked or confused gawkers to the hallway. Two men were trying to get her out the fire exit, but the honorary Wrecker wasn't going down without more fight than they'd been prepared to handle, scratching, biting, and kicking.
Arcee grabbed a fire extinguisher off the wall and charged the first attacker, hitting him in the ear with it as hard as she could. Effectively stunned, he lost his grip on Miko, who turned on the other immediately. The first man recovered enough to take a swing at Arcee, but he was slower, clumsier, and considerably closer to her size compared to almost every opponent she'd been pinned against for millenia. It was almost anticlimactic catching his arm, redirecting his momentum to flip him onto his back, torquing his shoulder out of socket in the process.
"Hey!" Both Miko and her assailant paused. "Get your hands off her!"
The fraction of a second it must have taken they guy to both realize what had happened to his partner and to wonder if this tiny, angry woman was serious was enough time for Miko to get out of the line of fire.
One of the most important parameters in their analysis of human anatomy was which muscles were strongest in ascending order. Arcee didn't hold anything back when she caught the man's jaw with the snap of a kick then broke his clavicle like a pencil, bringing her heel back down with all the strength in her hamstring.
"Go! Get back to Smokescreen!"
The boys weren't faring so well. Jack was safe, much to her relief, but Ryan was sweating nanites now, and quickly filling up an ice bucket Jack had commandeered with even more nanites, blood, and bile.
"Where did he park, Jack?!" she demanded, quickly pulling Ryan to his feet.
"A … a couple blocks away, but … he said not to leave."
"Well, I'm in charge, and we're leaving. He can't lose this many nanites! Give me a hand," she said, pulling one of his arms around her neck and shoulder. "Miko … try not to spill any."
Miko wrinkled her nose at barf bucket duty, but led the charge out the door into the parking lot.
"There!" Jack pointed down the street to the Lotus and pulled them across the lot and into the street.
"I'm running out of bucket," Miko announced as Ryan lifted his head with a groan.
"Keep it together, Smoke. Just a little … longer …" the reassurance evaporated from her voice at the sight of abandoned containers and hoses and siphon pumps stuck in the mech's carefully disguised vents.
As soon as she touched the car she felt agony in his energy field and warnings and failed system checks.
"Hurry! Get him in!" she said, yanking the door open then all but throwing her and Jack's burden across the console then tossing the bucket in after him before slamming it shut again.
Relief overwhelmed her for a moment as she watched all of Ryan melt into the car's upholstery, but it was short lived. More men were approaching. She lay her hands on the Lotus again and tried to focus past the pain and alerts to his commlink.
"Ratchet!"
"Arcee? Why are you on Smokescreen's frequency?"
"I need backup! Smokescreen's down, and M.E.C.H. is closing in."
"What?! What happened? Where's your body?"
"I can't get to it, or they'll have me, and I can't leave Jack and Miko. Smokescreen's … it's like they poisoned him somehow. He couldn't even hold his nanites together."
"Poison? What kind? What are his symptoms …?"
"Arcee!" Jack shouted, shaking her arm. The men were getting closer.
"No time! Just send help!"
"I … but …! Fine! I've got a lock on Smokescreen's signal. I'll get someone en route as soon as possible. Two blocks east, three north – there's a delivery dock there. I'll open a ground bridge for Jack and Miko in five minutes."
She broke the softline in time to avoid the headlights of an unmarked van and pulled the kids into an access alley before its occupants had time to get out.
"This way."
Frag. When they got out of this, she vowed she was downloading a firearm for Sadie no matter what Optimus said.
The alley came out on a one-way side street that would have taken them straight to the dock, but as soon as they emerged, a truck and another van started their engines, their headlights illuminating the three of them.
"Over there!" Miko said, running to the entrance of another alley, but they had to double back when they saw it only ended with a dumpster.
Arcee didn't like it, but they had to turn even further still from the main road. Optimus, Ultra Magnus, and Bulkhead would have a hard time maneuvering on these streets without losing their disguise if they were the backup Ratchet managed to get.
A helicopter spotlight dazzled her for an instant, and Jack pulled her and Miko onto another impromptu detour from their path, climbing over a chain link fence and crossing a couple private yards.
What would Ratchet do when Jack and Miko didn't come through the groundbridge? Come through himself? M.E.C.H. probably planned accordingly for just such an occurrence. Unless he had a dose of Synth-En sitting around, a medic without ranged weapons would be an easy target for those stasis grenades.
Maybe she should risk it. They might keep running after Jack and Miko blindly long enough for her to get her nanites back to her body. Or, even if they didn't, and that was what they'd been waiting for all along, it would give the kids the chance to get away.
Before she could weigh the consequences of her options more heavily, the helicopter chased them back onto the street they'd started, within sight of the club. Only now, it had been barricaded by enough blockades and trucks and getting enough public attention to keep any backup she might have had from coming out of their alt modes. And, all the men had weapons trained on them.
They were trapped.
"What do we do now?"
"Stay behind me," she said quietly. "Don't say anything."
There was a shuffling in the ranks, and one man stepped forward – the man from the bar in the gray hat. He tipped it again to rub it in and smiled.
"Arcee, right?" he asked, making her bristle. "Not the usual designation for your kind – sort of threw us off."
"What do you want?" she demanded flatly.
"Me personally? Or my clients?" he asked. "We want a lot of things. Different things – don't worry about your body guard."
She looked back at him from eying Smokescreen and tried to keep from glancing again.
"If he keeps still, he's got at least ten minutes before that acid gets to something important."
Hopefully, this guy couldn't talk for that long. The last thing they needed was another long-winded enemy that liked to spell out their evil plans in great detail.
"We had to wait for him to show us which car he was, but you were a little more complicated," he explained, gesturing toward bikes being loaded onto a flatbed trailer from the parking lot. Where were the police when you needed them?
Of course every bike, including the black and yellow one she was trying hard not to let her gaze linger on, had a stasis lock on it. They'd went all out for her.
"What I want, Arcee, is money. I'm not nearly as ambitious as my predecessor. I have no interest in power. Lucky for you, I'm also not as bat-shit crazy as he was either," he smiled. "What my clients want, on the other hand, is a variety of things from Mr. Bishop's notes. This special dimension bridge technology, for one. That alone, I'm sure I could get since the other female he worked with implied you were the only one besides her – and no one's seen her for a while."
"They won't negotiate," she stated bluntly.
"Oh, I'm sure of that, and that's just fine. See, you're they key to a few other items on the shopping list as well. Several 'private investors' would like to study a managable-sized bot to see what makes a machine sentient. But, before that, even more clients would like to get a better understanding of your reproduction methods."
His smile slid to a suggestive leer.
"And, according to Bishop's interviews with Airachnid and Starscream, you females are capable of refining that incredible alloy you're all made of from basic elements. But, enough about me," he shrugged. "Let's talk about your friends here, since I know you're thinking about trying something heroic. Jackson Darby? Miko Nakadai? Right? Sure be a shame if something happened to them, now wouldn't it?"
Arcee sighed tightly before raising her hands.
"What do you want me to do?" she surrendered.
"Go back to your body without a fight. Easy as that."
"I have your word?"
"Scout's honor," he promised making some sort of sign with his hand. Like that was supposed to mean anything to her.
But, she didn't have a choice.
Suddenly, there was the strained clattering roar of an engine and the squall of tires on pavement.
"What the …?"
Some of the men fired, some jumped out of the way of the Lotus, but all of them in Smokescreen's way phased through him harmlessly.
"Smokescreen! Don't!" she tried to shout over the ruckus.
Behind her, men grabbed Jack and Miko, and she acted reflexively before they could bring their weapons up to her charges' heads, breaking one's jaw and shattering another's wrist.
The mech shifted to his peds with a hellacious grinding sound, stumbled to get his footing, then grabbed the three of them up in one less-than-gentle swipe, clutching them to his chest like an armload of kittens as he stumbled to the truck and snatched up the only black and yellow bike.
"Smokescreen!"
"Ratchet …" he wheezed. "Ratchet. I need a … bridge NOW! Hundred meters … southeast of … my coordinates."
His knees gave out again under him, and Arcee winced subconciously as he used her body as a crutch instead of dropping her and losing the phase shifter's protection from the gun fire and men trying to swarm them.
"Get up! Get up!" Miko was screaming.
Arcee looked up at him. The mech's optics were dangerously dim.
"Smokescreen, no …!"
There was the familiar flash and hum of a groundbridge as it opened behind them and M.E.C.H.'s men who he'd lured away. He pushed himself up again with a titanic effort and turned.
"Sorry, Arcee …"
Before she could wonder what he meant, Smokescreen wound up and threw her body over the men's heads to where she landed on her side with a crash and shower of sparks as she slid the rest of the way across the pavement and through the portal.
M.E.C.H.'s men shifted to go after it, but Smokescreen used the diversion to drop to his wheels one more time, encasing all three of them. His interior stank of burning wires and energon. The pain in his energy field hit her like a landslide, and she had to brace her arms against the dash to keep from screaming. His once-powerful engine revved with a stuttering whine under his own weight, but a second later, the scene vanished and gave way to Ratchet's peds running to them from where he'd been bent over the bike he'd barely dodged.
She kicked the door open to get out of the energy field, but just as quickly turned back to try to help Ratchet, forgetting she was stuck in her tiny holoform.
"Smokescreen! Turn off your phase shifter!" Ratchet ordered.
The car didn't respond.
"Smokescreen!" He scanned him again with unfavorable results she judged by the expression on his face. After an agonizing moment, his servos finally found purchase and the car fell apart more than transformed. Before she could feel relieved, Arcee remembered the phase shifter automatically disengaged as soon as it lost its connection.