Disclaimer: Hasbro own the highly coveted rights to Transformers, not me sadly.
A Captured Beast Within a Human Skin
By Uniasus
Chapter 2 – Morse Code
He did not own an alarm clock and instead relied on his cell phone. He purposely had selected the alarm tone to be the most annoying and loud one out of his options and kept it plugged in on his dresser across the room. At least once a week he regretted it, wanting nothing more that to hit a snooze button and roll over. But if he did Bee would most likely get him out of bed with a loud car alarm and not shut up until he hopped in the shower. Same result as cell phone Barbie, but Bee came with the added complication of upset neighbors.
Sam groaned and rolled over, starting when his feet left the bed. At some point in the night he had shifted to sleep on the bed's diagonal and rolling had removed the support from his shins. With a sigh, he got himself fully out of bed and shuffled to the bathroom to shower, Barbie trilling her last notes of the ditty as he closed the door behind him.
The shower was hot, almost scalding and with a yelp he quickly turned the knob only to turn it too much and be rewarded by cold water that burned just as much. He crowed the wall of the shower and fiddled with the faucet until the temperature was just as he liked. Well, at least he was up now.
He used to sing in the shower, but listening to a recording of that Bee had made one morning cured him of that habit. He still hummed though, choosing "Walking on Sunshine" for no particular reason this morning.
Whipping the steam from the mirror to enable to him to shave, he paused. You would think after six years he would have gotten used to it, but it still startled him from time to time. The face in the mirror, it was not him.
At least, not who he was supposed to be.
The surgeons had managed to decrease the size of his forehead, his eyebrows were also higher on his new brow then they had been on the old one. His check bones were more defined and chiseled, even more so than originally because his face had aged a little since the surgery. They were higher too. Thinner lips, a smaller chin, and his nose was smaller too. On a whole, he looked more feminine.
Mikaela had certainly found him cuter; she had told him so herself in the few hours before he had been taken way. Witness protection did not allow them to be together. They had kept in touch for a while, through the Autobots, but as time went on their communications had become less and less frequent. He had not heard from her in almost a year now.
He was 18 when the witness protection program took over his life. Bee was allowed to stay with him, with Megatron and Starscream still around who knew what could happen? It was really more of a protective measure against the rest of the human race than against the Deceptions. After having his face on news in every country, and what happened in Egypt being a larger cover up than Mission City, there was a really good chance the general public would corner him and hand him over to the first person who demanded him.
No, it was much safer for Sam Witwicky to disappear. To have him die in Egypt. The way back to the States had been filled with the angry shouts of his parents, which quickly gave into them just wanting to be with him. Sometimes they had just sat and stared at him, trying to memorize him. There had been a lot of kissing with Mikaela in closets too.
But ultimately, he had to leave them. Get a new face, a new name, Sam Enig, and move. He was eighteen, old enough to live on his own and that's what he did. Granted, he had a much better life than other eighteen year olds living on their own; the government gave him a monthly allowance and paid for his schooling.
Schooling which did not last as long as it should have. Apparently the All Spark knowledge was a permanent addition to his brain. It made him a certified science genius. With summer school he had gotten a BS in physics in two years. Another two and he had completed a PHD in mechanical engineering. Another year and he would have earned his masters in physics too, but the Air Force offered him a job and he took them up on the offer. He finished that physics master the following anyway through an on-line university.
His mind had just kept giving him more and more information, in amounts that had terrified him sometimes. Writing them down helped a lot, and Bee helped him translate the things he could not make sense of. Like the Cybertronian poetry that occupied his mind for two months during his first year working on the satellite. Ratchet had been rather surprised, not realizing that the All Spark had knowledge of the arts. Most of the poems ended up being religious though; Sam did not know if that meant the All Spark had been full of itself or if that was the only type of poems it had been exposed to. Lately, his discovery of new All Spark knowledge was slow and minute. It instead seemed to be occupied with his work. Which at times was a blessing or a curse. Engineering breakthroughs, no sleep; his inner scale came up balanced.
Sam looked down at his hand and noticed the watch next to it. Shit. His thinking had put him behind; should he forgo the shave or breakfast? A quick brush of his hand over his chin informed him that his stubble was not too bad, and the sound his stomach made demanded that he choose breakfast.
He slipped on the boxers sitting folded on the toilet seat cover and buckled the watch around his wrist again. After hanging the towel up, he remerged into his bedroom and headed straight for his closet. Shirt, pants, jacket; he just made sure they matched before putting them one and making his way downstairs after palming Barbie.
The fridge door chirruped when he opened it. Sam paused and stared at the door in his hand with suspicion. The noise came again and Sam leaned his body to look out the window. The Camaro that stared at him blinked his lights in greeting and Sam smiled back.
"Morning Bee."
"Good Mornin', good mornin' to you!"
Sam retreated to the refrigerator and grabbed a container of yogurt before making his way over to Eve, his god sent coffee maker. From the cabinet above he grabbed the mix and put in enough for a single cup. He held the bowl under the faucet, and then poured the water into the machine. A flick of switch and Eve started making gurgling noises that were the most musical sound he ever heard before he left for work.
He made his way through the strawberry yogurt before Eve finished, and got out his thermos for the good stuff. While the coffee finished up, Sam gathered what he needed for work. His bag was by the door, untouched from when he dropped in on the floor. Sam rifled through it to see if there was any leftovers from lunch the day before he could use again but was disappointed. There were a couple of granola bars that were useable; he added a quickly thrown together sandwich, an apple, and a water bottle.
Eve beeped, signaling she was done and Sam transferred the now freshly brewed coffee to his thermos. Slinging his bag over his shoulder, Sam grabbed his coffee and made his way outside to talk with Bee before Kantz and Stacy showed up.
"Next time Bee," he stifled a yawn as he locked the front door, "we need to get back sooner."
They always went for a long drive after dinner. Bee had found a new look out point over the Pacific Ocean and they had spent more time then Sam would have liked watching a storm crawl in. They had both been so enthralled with the sight that it was not until Sam started shivering from the cold wind that Bumblebee returned to his alt form and they drove home. The sidewalk was still a dark gray color and his mailbox was now a puddle island.
Bumblebee emitted a noise that Sam had come to understand meant the same as a human chuckle. He sent a playful swat in the direction of the yellow scout's hood. A familiar engine caught Sam's attention and he looked up just in time to see his ride arrive.
"I'll send you a text if I end up spending the night Bee," Sam called as he gently threw his bag inside the waiting car. Bee did not do anything that might blow his cover, but some how Sam got a feeling of contentment from the Camaro before settling himself into his seat. He wondered if Stacy and Kantz ever wondered about his strange habit of talking to his car. It was not exactly the most common thing to do, nor was it unheard of. They probably made allowances for him because he was an anti-social engineer. Sam grinned to himself.
Stacy drove the short route; meaning Sam had the entire elevator ride to himself when he arrived at the office. When the fourth floor lit up, Sam made a mental note to himself to not forgo lunch that day. If his messed up brain was not going to let him rest he would at least make sure he got to eat.
Sam slid his access card and entered the lab while flicking the lights on. Tom should arrive soon; he did not know how they managed it with car schedules and what not, but they never arrived at work more then fifteen minutes apart.
Grabbing netbook June, Sam made his way to Ed. His mind was already spinning off ideas and suggestions, and after he managed to translate the Cybertronian language his brain was thinking in he opened up June to find a starting point.
"All right Ed, let's start with this," Sam looked up from the computer and paused. Something was off about Ed's table, but he could not place it. Oh wait, what was he doing so close to the edge? Sam liked to keep the satellite parts in the center of the table to limit the possibility of them falling off. He must have pushed him aside while cleaning the table last night. Sam walked around the table and pushed Ed back to the center where he belonged.
"You're living dangerously there Ed," Sam shook a finger at the mechanical hand. "Don't do that, I don't want you to hurt yourself."
"Talking to them again Sam?" Tom asked as he walked through the door.
Sam shot the other man a grin. "Of course! You knew know, they might answer back one day."
"I'm sure," Tom played along. "Watch, Ed'll be using Morse code by the end of the day."
Sam laughed. "I'm sure he will," he said while grabbing a tool from the end of the table.
He heard Tom settle in at his computer station and set to work himself. Yesterday he had determined that it was not the magnets that were the issue, but rather the coils that kept them charged. Sam had worked out a system where the magnets were constantly charged by a polarized field, but something was preventing most of the charge from keeping the magnet magnetized.
He fiddled here and there, working mostly by trial and error, which was his preferred method. The All Spark liked to work in a stream of consciousness way. It had confused him at first, thinking that being Cybertronian in origin it would logically calculate relays and mechanics that would work after much thinking to itself. Even after seeing that the new Autobot, Wheeljack, who had arrived just last year work in a similar method, Sam had not figured out if it was the All Sparks normal approach to things or if it had just adapted to the process Sam had used for years.
Barbie's alarm went off from inside his pocket. Sam blinked, pushing Ed's third finger away from him and then turning his attention to his watch. The digital read out read twelve noon, time to eat.
"Alright Ed, let me finish curling this wire and then I've got to go have lunch." Sam pushed Ed's first finger away this time, he was pushing a lot of fingers out of his way today, and drew the second one closer to continue working.
"Let's try this," Sam fiddled with the charge field when he became aware of a clicking noise. It had been in the background for a while now, but now it was louder and caused him to actually pay attention to it. Tom must really be going at it for Sam to hear him clacking on the keyboard from practically across the room.
"Hey Tom, what's got you so excited?" Sam looked up from Ed and towards Tom's station, only to not see the other man was not there.
"Tom?" Sam turned around, searching the lab for his partner and not finding him. The clicking grew louder, more prominent, and now that Sam was actually paying attention to it he noticed there was rhythm to it. A beat of long and short taps, which Sam eventually recognized as Morse code.
The Autobots and NEST had made sure he learned it after what happened in 2007 when the Decepticons had taken out everything but long range communications, leaving the Secretary of Defense to give out orders with dots and dashes to the Air Force to give cover when they entered Mission City.
Long, short, short, long. X? Who in the world would just constantly key out a single letter? Something must be stuck in the window, tapping out rhythm in the wind. Sam made his way to the closest window to check it out, but the farther he got from his workstation the softer the noise became.
"But X? That's senseless, and I'm probably just reading into things " Sam said to himself, looking around the lab tables as he made his way back to Ed.
The clicking hiccupped and then continued, more drawn out. Long, short, short, long. The pauses in between some of the keying were larger, indicating separate letters as opposed to one. Long, pause, short, pause, short, long. T, E, and A.
Still thoroughly confused, Sam took another look around the lab, leaning back against the table Ed sat on. "Tea?"
There was a whirl and Sam jumped when something cold touched the inside of his wrist. Frantically, he turned around and came face to face with nothing, just Ed with all four fingers on the table as if the tips had been come too heavy to for him to keep them up. And then, Ed lifted his first finger and tapped it on the tabletop, on his own.
Sam could do nothing but stare at the satellite arm for a full minute, watching the finger rise and fall without being hooked up with to Tom's code and tapping out Morse code.
"Shit," he breathed, sinking down to his knees so his eyes were even with the counter and he could watch Ed move. It took him a moment to realize the pattern had changed again, with an extra long space between the T and E. He had decoded it wrong, mixing up the letters.
"Eat?" he questioned the robot in front of him. Ed pulsed the letters again, E, A, T, and then all fingers stilled and rested unmoving on the table. Frowning, Sam looked at his watch and noticed almost an hour had transpired since his lunch alarm had gone off. He switched his gaze from his watch to Ed, back to the watch, and then Ed again.
"Right, I'll go eat." Sam slowly walked backwards towards the door.
"Hey, watch where you're going there Sam," he jumped and noticed he almost had walked backwards into Tom, whom he guessed was just coming back from his own lunch break.
"Sorry," he said sheepishly. He bent down to rifle through his bag by the door and pulled out his pack lunch. "Just going to go eat lunch." Sam slipped past Tom and quickly walked to the elevator without looking back.
He was going insane, that had to be it. Ed's tapping was simply something his mind made up, All Spark induced or pure human, to make him eat lunch like he had promised himself earlier that day. Nothing else. There was no way Ed could have moved any way, he was hooked up to a battery for power and Sam had had the appliance switched off while he was working. There was nothing that could have powered Ed to move like that, and where would have the satellite learned about Morse code? No, it was just a mind trick to get him to eat.
Once on the fourth floor, Sam collapsed in to the sofa and took out his sandwich, tuning into to the credits of a random soap scrolling on the TV screen. He located the remote control on the cushion next to him and flipped the channels until he landed on a game show, something like Mastermind but with words.
He took his time eating, slowly making his way through the sandwich and actually cutting his apple into pieces to eat instead of just simply biting into it. He put on of the granola bars in his pocket, to eat as a snack later when he got hungry, but the other he picked apart into slow pieces to pop into his mouth piece by piece.
The Air Force was pretty lenient as a boss, as long as he and Tom made progress at a reasonable pace they could care less how they spent their time. Sam still tried to keep his lunch breaks to about thirty minutes, but today he stretched it out till a full hour.
He did not know whether to be happy or pleased that Ed was, what? Alive? If he was not then it meant Sam was suffering from delusions of some sort, not the most healthly of things. But if Ed was able to move on his own, what did that mean? What type of programming was Tom coming up with? Or rather, was Ed now an autonomous robotic organism, an Earth-based Cybertronian? And how did that happen?
The brunette shuddered at a thought and then pushed it to the bottom of his mind. The All Spark gifted him with a crazy amount of knowledge, but that was it. Ratchet would have told him otherwise, he was sure. And nothing had happened for six years! Sam shook himself as he stood, tossing his trash as he exited the rec room and made his way back to the lab.
Sam paused in the doorway. Ed had not moved and Sam let out a breath he had not realized he was holding. Still, he avoided the arm and instead made his way to another part of the satellite he was working on, Daphne who would be in charge of communications. She did not have any parts that would move other than a variety of antennae; something Sam found very calming. There was a lot to keep his mind occupied as she was still in the early stages of construction.
"Hey Sam, wanna give it another whirl before we head home tonight?" Sam jerked his head up to look at Tom and them looked over at Ed. "Sure," he said after a moment. He hoped Tom did not pick up on his hesitancy. The other man pushed back his hair and met Sam over at Ed's table.
"Finish with him before lunch?" Tom asked while he plugged in cables.
"Huh?"
"You've been with Daphne since you left for lunch. Sorry I don't work as fast as you."
"No, I just needed a break from him and switched projects." Sam shrugged and Tom mimicked it.
"I understand, though I usually play a game of solitaire or something else when I need a break."
Sam sent him a smile, "Well, I don't sit in front of a computer all day with games on it."
"Keeps me from going crazy," Sam sent Tom a suspicious look, but he was looking at the schematics on his netbook and seemed unaware of Sam's response. He snagged the practice box from the end of the table and set it in front of Ed. Sam half expected the robot to move, but was pretty sure he was just imagining things as Ed's second finger brushed against his hand.
"Right," Tom rubbed his hands together, "Let's see if this works. Come on Ed!"
Ed's hand went through a series of motions to test mobility and then the second finger extended to unscrew the box. The tiny piece of metal came out, and then was sucked into the finger's hollow space.
"Yes!" Tom cheered and he shared a high five with Sam above the robot still working on the other screws. Sam was a little less enthusiastic.
"Sweet man, I thought I was going to have to stay late tonight to work on him," Sam gripped the edge of the table and leaned on his hands, looking at Ed. "Glad that's not going to happen."
"Yep, now if you'll excuse me Sam, I've got a date to get ready for."
"On a Tuesday, Tom?"
Tom shrugged, "It was the soonest she was free."
"Okay, buddy. Tell me all about her tomorrow."
"What, aren't you leaving too?"
"Nah, I wanna finish up something on Daphne first, so I'll be at least another thirty minutes. But you, get out here and take a shower. Lord knows you need one."
"Hey!" Tom called over his shoulder as he made his way over to the door.
Sam chuckled, "Have a good time Tom. See you tomorrow," his partner gave a wave and then was out the door. He kept his eyes on it for a moment, and then grabbed Tom's chair and pulled it in front of Ed.
The robot did not move. Sam sat there, arms crossed and staring. The All Spark of his mind was almost too calm about this who thing, but at least it was calm enough to let him get back home to Bee when he was ready to.
"So," Sam began after the staring contest had been going on for a good ten minutes. "What's going on here Ed?"
The machine gave a couple jerky movements and then all four fingers once again found the tabletop and the first one began tapping against it again. Long, short, long, short.
There was a hiss at the lab door opened and Sam spun around in his chair. "Forget something Tom?"
The words died on his tongue as he saw framed in the doorway not Tom, but rather two Air Force men flanking someone in a dark business suit.
"Mr. Enig? Or rather, Mr. Witwicky?" Sam jumped to his feet; no one should know that had once been his name and even those who did never used it.
The man not in uniform flashed a badge, "You're coming with me."
Songs: "Singin' in the Rain" from the movie of the same title
A/N: Oh my, is this a plot showing up?
Hopefully this answers some questions that popped up in the first chapter, such as Sam's nifty new last name. Bonus points for those who know why Sam's phone is called Barbie by the way.
I would totally freak if my work came alive. Not that I construct robots, I just write for a blog, but if my computer grew legs and starting telling to me eat I would most likely take my sword and smash it. Poor Edward. (two guesses as to where satellite Ed got his name from ^_~)
Sorry it took so long to get this up, but finally here is chapter two. Donations for chapter three are accepted, I take chocolate, roses, Border's gift cards, and reviews.