Sam was late. He knew it. And he knew how bad his boss would kick his ass if he didn't get that mail delivered on time. He hurriedly got dressed. Carly just stepped out of the bathroom, finished with her make-up.

"Hurry sweetie," She winked at him. Sam didn't find the situation amusing at all.

"I'm gonna lose my job…" Sam groaned, and tried to button his shirt right.

When he finally finished dressing himself he kissed Carly goodbye and drove off. It wasn't a long drive, which was lucky, because there was only so much Sam's piece of shit car could handle. Sam missed Bumblebee. And why did it sound like there was something hard rolling around in the trunk?

Sam didn't have time to check up on it. He figured it was just the crappy car falling apart once again. He parked and got inside the massive building. He was about ten minutes late. Not too bad. Maybe no one would notice.

He gathered the mail and hurriedly started his round. He walked fast through the corridors, handing out letters and papers. Suddenly the pile of letters in front of him started to move.

"What the-?"

He removed some of the letters and suddenly Wheelie's ugly face became clear among the papers.

"Well hello!" Wheelie grinned, and Brains jumped up as well. Sam stopped, feeling the veins pulsating from his temple area. He quickly spun his mail cart around, with the two bots still on it, and turned into the copying room, which currently was unoccupied.

"What the hell are you two doing here, are you trying to get me fired? Because I like this job!"

"Really? This job?" Wheelie eyed the pile of sorted letters next to him.

"YES! Now get out and into my car, and stay there! And don't let anyone see you!" he said to Wheelie, but as soon as he finished his sentence he noticed that Brains was gone. He looked around.

Brains had opened the copying machine, and was currently sitting on it.

"Hey Sam! You can hand out copies of my metal ass, that'll cheer this place up a bit!"

"No no!" Sam shoved Brains down on the floor, hitting every button on the copying machine, but it was too late. It spat out hundreds of papers. Sam felt drops of sweat trickle down his forehead. Suddenly the door behind him screeched. Sam spun around, and faced a long, woman with dark hair.

"Oh, come to papa!" Wheelie exclaimed, taking a step closer to the woman, who started screaming.

Sam covered his ears, intensely wishing that all this was just some kind of nightmare.

Several other employees came to see what the fuss was all about. The chaos and screaming made Wheelie transform into a toy car, and seconds later he was out in the hallway.

"NO, COME BACK!" Sam threw himself after the autobot, knocking over a man on the way. There were papers flying everywhere and people screaming. Chaos.

About twenty minutes later Sam was standing by his crappy car, holding a box with his belongings. Wheelie and Brains were jumping around his feet.

"Sorry about your job," Brains suddenly said, looking up at the human.

"Uh-huh…" Sam managed to say, with a blank expression upon his face.

"We'll make it up to you!" Wheelie said. "Come with us to the meeting!"

Sam blinked, "What meeting?"

"Yeah, the meeting! A secret gathering of all the autobots currently living on Earth! Ooh, it's gonna get big!" Brains jumped up and down.

"Bumblebee will be there," Wheelie said.

Sam felt torn. He did want to see Bumblebee. Now when Sam had a regular job, and Bumblebee was out on his secret missions they hardly ever saw each other. And of course he wanted to see Optimus as well. But at the same time he just wanted to be normal. Carly would not be happy about the fact that he no longer could pay his part of the rent. And she would be furious if he said that he was going on an autobot meeting. Carly liked Bumblebee, but him aside she really didn't care much for autobots. They were too dangerous. She already had a brother in the army that she never saw, she didn't need a boyfriend who was never home, and that she didn't know from day to day if he was ever coming home again.

Sam understood Carly's fears, but… it was starting to be very clear for him that having a normal life was pretty much out of the question. The question was just if Carly would understand.

"When is this meeting?" Sam asked, pushing his thoughts of Carly aside. He just lost his job. Carly worked a lot from home some days, so he couldn't just go home. He might as well go to the meeting.

"Well, we were on our way there. We thought we could ride with you. And then we thought that you could come with us!" Brains told him.

Sam and the two small cybertronians sat down in his crappy car once more, and Sam threw his box of belongings in the back seat.

They drove to an abandoned car tunnel, next to the old junkyard in the outskirts of town. The place was almost completely abandoned, with the exception of two homeless persons in the tunnel. They kept their distance from Sam, staring at him. Sam felt very uncomfortable. None of the autobots had showed up.

"Are you sure this is the right place?" Sam wondered, feeling the homeless couple's eyes burning holes in him.

"Absolutely," Wheelie said.

There had been other homeless people there it seemed. There were boxes and blankets spread out in the tunnel, and there seemed to have been fires lit here and there. Water dropped here and there from the ceiling, and the smell was… interesting.

Sam sighed, but suddenly he heard the sound of engines, coming closer and closer. He listened. Suddenly the tunnel lit up. Car lights. Several cars of different models drove inside in a row. Soon a few motorcycles arrived, and two vans, a monster truck, and, of course, a Peterbilt with flames. Optimus.

One by one the vehicles transformed into massive autobots. The homeless couple ran for it, disappearing further into the massive, abandoned tunnel. Sam looked around, and he couldn't help but smile. The autobots were like… family. Working with them meant a lot to him, but… at the same time he just wanted to be normal. Sam felt torn once more, but tried not to think about it. He tried to locate Bumblebee, but it seemed that he hadn't arrived yet. He wondered where he was, and why he hadn't told him about this meeting… true, Bumblebee wasn't quite the big talker, but still…

Optimus approached his small human friend. Sam looked up at him.

"Sam, I am very pleased to see you here,"

"It's good to see you too. So, what is this meeting about, anyways. I.. haven't really got any of the information," Sam glared down at Wheelie and Brains, who went to hide behind Ratchet's leg.

"I will explain when everyone has arrived," Optimus said in his usual deep tone.

"Yeah, where's Bumblebee?" Sam asked.

"I expect him to arrive at any second together with Buzz,"

"Buzz?"

Suddenly the familiar yellow Camaro entered the tunnel and drove up next to Sam, and transformed.

"Bee. I've missed you the last couple of days, where have you been?"

"Out.. of… town," the autobot replied with a robotic voice, reaching down his giant hand for his human friend to touch. "I've… repaired… my… voice,"

"Yes, I can hear that!"

Then the massive yellow robot started to squirm. "Don't.. be… angry,"

Sam frowned, "Why would I be angry?"

Then a new vehicle entered the tunnel. An orange vehicle, that Sam had watched drive away from him a year ago. And the same person was driving it…

"No…" Sam looked up at Bumblebee. "You knew about this?" Bumblebee nodded, looking as ashamed as a non-human robot can. The motorcycle came closer.

"OK Bee, I am angry,"

The KTM parked next to Bumblebee, and Mikaela got off, removing her helmet, her long dark hair falling perfectly down on her shoulders. When she was off, the motorcycle transformed into a human-sized autobot, with conjoined legs, driving on one wheel.

"Hi," Sam managed to say, breaking the awkward silence.

"Hi Sam," Mikaela replied. "I didn't know you'd be here,"

"I didn't know that you would be here!"

Sam turned back to Bumblebee, "Are you behind this?"

Bumblebee found that a working voice was suddenly not so desirable anymore. Only a weird mechanic noise managed to escape his mouth. Sam didn't know what to make of that.

"Well, you've got your voice back, now's the time to talk, Bee!"

"You will have to take this matter after the meeting. Since we are now all here, it is time to begin," Optimus then said, and Bumblebee, saved by the bell, breathed out, but Sam raised a finger, pointing at him, "This isn't over, Bee!"

"Welcome all autobots!" Optimus greeted. "I am glad to see that everyone got my message. I know that there are more autobots around the globe who couldn't be here today, but I am pleased to see that so many of us could make it. I have gathered us all here because I feel that there are some important notes that we need to discuss. The humans have generously agreed to share their home planet with us. We have now lived side by side with them for a while, and we have some new things to take into account. New social rules that apply to both humans and autobots."

Optimus continued to talk about social protocols, but Sam found it very hard to focus on anything other than Mikaela.

"…luckily we have with us today two humans," Optimus suddenly said, and all eyes turned to Sam an Mikaela.

"I know and trust these humans. They are our friends. Sam and Mikaela, we, the autobots, would very much appreciate it if you would act as our spokespersons, and speak for our rights. We need humans that are on our side,"

Sam snapped out of his thoughts of him and Mikaela. Suddenly he had other things to think about.

"What? But why us? You have the whole NEST on your side!" Sam said.

"True, we fight side by side with those at NEST, but we need civilians on our side to act as our intermediaries,"

"But, what difference can we make!" Mikaela wondered. "We're just two… people,"

"You can make great difference. More than you know," Optimus reliped.

Sam turned to look at Mikaela. She glanced back. Would this mean that they would see more of each other?

Sam's thoughts returned to Carly and he sighed. This could only end badly…