A Captured Beast Within a Human Skin

By Uniasus

Chapter 6 – Big mech, little mech

It was not very hard to deduce; Sam had been taken by the US military. The men who drove Sam to and from work everyday were very capable of protecting Sam, and if something had happened Bumblebee was sure the military would have let them know. They would need help taking doing someone who could infiltrate them. But the silence was a good as a shouted statement. After all, since Sam worked for the Air Force it would be very easy to grab him.

Prime was furious; this act was essentially 'flipping the bird' as Sam would say, telling the Autobots that the treaty between the United States government and the Autobots was simply a piece of paper with the value of a broken gear collection. And if that was the case, it was quite possible that all the military support they had for going after Depecticons would be yanked out from under then and they would no longer even have access to the base.

Lieutenant Colonel Lennox was looking into the matter, but so far had not had any luck. Despite rising two ranks since Egypt, he was denied access to any files that might be useful. The only things he had been able to access were Sam's file with witness protection and work reports on his project at the Air Force lab he worked.

Sideswipe was the best hacker in the current Autobot force, but he had been unable to find anything in the defense networks files. The government was being careful not to leave any data lying around; everything was either paper or oral.

As frustrated as they all were about the information block, there was also confusion as to why the government would want Sam. The obvious answer would be the All Spark, but the only effect it had on Sam was making him a mechanical genius and bouts of insomnia. The Air Force had already been capitalizing on Sam's smarts, something they had all acknowledged but accepted and even approved of to some sort.

The only other use Sam could possibly have was as a negotiation piece. The government having him could not be to make the Autobot's do something, there had never been any major issues between the two fractions. More importantly, no demands had been made. And while other countries could make use of Sam's knowledge, there was no way the US was going to hand over a brilliant engineer to a foreign entity because it would diminished their own technology assets.

So that left the uncomfortable conclusion the Sam was a barging chip in dealings with the Decepticons.

There two things Prime would not budge on, giving the United States government schematics for their weaponry or diagrams of their anatomy that could expose weak points. It was possible that the Decepticons were willing to share that information in exchange for them Sam.

Just the thought of it caused a missed wave in Bumblebee's spark frequency. The Decepticons would by no means be gentle with Sam and the human could consider himself lucky if he just underwent torture before dying. If Soundwave was given permission to experiment on him… There were Autobot scientists who would most like love to dissect a human to learn more about the species. But an Autobot would only do that to someone who had already died and limit themselves to questions and noninvasive procedures done with permission. Soundwave would do the dissection while the human was still alive and without pain reducing medication. There had been many a good mech who had died under Soundwave's care; those who did survive were not the same. Many ended up going mad and killing themselves. The lucky ones became one of his cassettes with no knowledge of previous lives.

Optimus Prime had sent several of them out to look for Sam. Knowing he had to be kept on a military base somewhere, select Autobots had been assigned to regions of the United States and instructed to scout out the bases in their assigned zones for signs of the human. Bumblebee himself had been delegated the east coast. He had started in Florida and was now making his way up the coastline. So far, no one had heard anything.

Bumblebee was on highway 95, halfway between Baltimore and Philadelphia when he picked up a strange electronic signal. It had a different frequency than anything from Cyberton, and yet was much stronger than anything Earth technology put out. To add to the puzzle, it was moving. Very, very slowly to be sure, but still moving.

Thankfully he did not have to go out of his way to check up on it. It was coming from the direction of McGuire Air Force Base in the center of New Jersey, the next planned spot to spy for information about Sam.

The Camaro transferred from I-95 to I-295 and crossed the state border from Delaware into New Jersey. He had just hit some of the urban sprawl from Philadelphia when he felt the signal change directions; instead of heading east it was now traveling north but by the time he had hit Rancocas it had stopped. And not just anywhere, but according to the satellite positioning system he had constructed upon his arrival on Earth the signal origins was resting at a Redwing Airport. It was only two miles from the base's western most edge.

A half hour later, Bee was pulling into the airport's parking lot and feeling very out of place. He was shinny and bright yellow, quite the opposite of the status of the building complex. It was small, meant for public use, and thankfully that meant no one was there at eight in the morning. He had forty minutes, to be safe, to find this signal source and then he would go and explore the base. Engine clicking as it cooled down Bee just sat there for a while, quite confused because his scanners were telling him he was on top of the strange frequency.

He almost hopped on his wheels when he felt something tiny and metal poke his undercarriage. When the tiny instrument seemed to multiple and all five made their way to his grill it took most of Bee's self control not to shudder at the touch. It was alien, and felt really odd against his own EM field. Vaguely, he wondered if this was what Sam felt like when he touched something unknown and slimy.

What ever was giving off the energy climbed over his front fender so quickly his scanners could not get a good image of it; he only got a vague shape of something with a lot of legs. It moved from his fender to his hood, slowing down as it approached his windshield. Bee rolled back on his shocks in surprise, and the little thing emitted a high beep as its legs slipped out from underneath him.

His more advanced scanners were where his headlights were, but his windows were scanners that could see in a human's visual spectrum. The thing emitting the strange frequency was not what he expected.

For one, it was tiny.

Second, it was very obviously built by humans.

It reminded Bumblebee of a lopsided spider; a small oval head with five slender appendages attached to the head's back that served as legs. The small machine looked down at the Cybertonian's hood, tapped it with his left most leg, and then returned his gaze to Bee's windshield as if he knew the Camaro could see him.

BOT? appeared on the spider's head. Bumblebee did not respond, but the screen refreshed itself with a neon blue wash and a new message appeared. BEE?

When he did not respond after a full minute, the tiny mechaniod's head sunk and it turned around as if to slid off his hood. Not willing to let it go, and curious as if it was asking for him personally of just displaying random letter patterns, Bee turned on his radio.

"That's my name, that's my name, that's my name." ("That's My Name" by Akcent)

The other mech spun around so fast its legs slipped from underneath it on Bumblebee's polish. Not bothering to get back up, it flashed him two more texts.

HELP blue flash SAM another clearing of the screen and then an image was displayed, Sam tied to a chair with tape over his mouth.

Bumblebee's engines came to life with an aggressive roar and a whine blasted out from under his hood that quickly became too high for humans to hear. A quick scan revealed still no humans in the area so he shot off towards the nearest empty hanger, his passenger beeping in fear and only managing to stay on by wrapping his legs around a windshield wiper. Once inside, Bee hastily shed his Camaro alt form and ended up crouched in his bi-pedal one, the ceiling being to low for him to stand. Not worrying about being gentle he grabbed the strange robot between two fingers, deposited it in his waiting palm, and began shooting off questions.

"Is Sam okay?"

? WAS

"Is he here?"

NO

"Then where is he?"

?

Bumblebee really wanted to punch a wall right now, but he would most likely end up putting his entire fist though the wall. That would only lead to unwanted attention, especially so close to McGuire. So he settled for clenching his fists as tightly as possible.

A series of frantic beeps drew his attention to his left hand and he quickly unfolded it. Guilt flooded his emotional programming as he noticed one of the legs was bent halfway down and the little robot seemed unable to move the lower half of it. Bumblebee made to apologize but was interpreted by a video starting to play on the tiny mech's display screen.

There was a quick shot of Sam's face, tired and warn, dirty and scruffy, before it snapped to the side and the video panned over to see what had gotten his attention. There was a thin woman dressed in a gray suit entering the room, looking like she was trying to avoid detection. A spy.

Bumblebee lifted the spider bot closer to his optics so he could see the tiny screen better.

"You're Samuel Witwicky?" the female spy asked in a Germanic accent.

"Um, yes?" Sam's voice came from off screen.

"Good, you're coming with me," the woman grabbed Sam's upper arm and started dragging him towards the door.

The camera leapt towards the woman, was obscured by a hand, and then it quickly retreated. There was an unpleasant sound as the camera, the bot in his hand, connected with the wall. The next view was of a quickly approaching floor. There was a series of unsteady, askew shots as the bot tried to regain his footing and failed.

"Spidey!" Sam's voice called out. Bumblebee could see a man's shoes take a couple of steps forward, the camera unable to view anything higher than Sam's knees, and then there was a hiss of pain as Sam was forced to his knees. Bee could see blood spatters on the hem of Sam's shirt, but was unable to see higher up to tell if the injury it came from was serious.

"I'm fine," Sam sounded as if he had said it around a clenched jaw. He was forced back to his feet.

The video jumped ahead a couple of seconds; Bumblebee still could only see feet. Sam and the woman were farther away now, near the door with Sam in front. The engineer spoke again. "Try to find the Autobots, they'll help you and would love to know where I am."

There was a soft thud of flesh connecting with something hard, Sam's feet were right up against the wall. There was a beep of protest and then the woman spoke again.

"Quite!" The door opened. "If I have to drag your unconscious body, I will. So behave."

Sam and the women passed through the door and it closed behind them. The screen held the last shot of the video for a second before it once again gave a flash of blue and returned to it's normal black. The spider bot let out a couple of long, drawn out sad beeps.

The Autobot let out a sad whine of his own, falling backwards onto his aft with a dull clang and just sat there. Sam had been here, alive! But it did little to comfort him. Hours ago Sam was alive, but from the video he had just watched Bee was pretty certain the human was not in the best of shape. He assumed that the image of Sam tied to the chair had happened prior to the scene he had just seen play out. The Camaro had a sneaking suspicion that the woman had been a spy from another country.

And that brought up the whole question of what would a foreign country want with one more engineer? Bee did not think plans for a self-repairing satellite were that important.

A warning flashed on his HUD, if he wanted to get out of there before drawing any attention from humans he would have to leave, now. Gently he placed his new friend on the ground and returned to simply being a yellow Camaro with black racing strips with an engine that could out run any Earth vehicle.

Throwing open his passenger side door, Bumblebee made an encouraging click at the tiny bot on the floor to have him climb aboard. Even after Bee maneuver himself so that the spider had the shortest distance possible to travel on his gimpy leg it still took a painful ten minutes for the little guy to climb aboard and sag, completely spent for the moment into Bumblebee's passenger seat. The door closed with a quick snap and the Cybertronian raced out of the airport just as the first worker was pulling in to park.

The spider bot however was chittering away angrily, his screen flashing between HELP and LILI. He began digging his four working legs into his seat, and when that failed to get a response, turned one of his legs into a miniature buzzsaw and attacked the door.

Bee threw him out and then continued driving. His goal was to help Sam, not Lili. But a mile past the guilt over came him and he turned around. The tiny mech had moved, a couple inches, back towards the airport. A quick scan revealed no one in the area, so he transformed and gently picked up the other mech to place him in his palm. He got straight to the point.

"Who's Lili?"

He was rewarded with a video of humanoid robot brushing a strand of hair out of a sleeping Sam's face. It was this robot he though was Lili.

"She's alive like you?"

A nod. A shake. Bee wasn't sure what that meant. "What does she need help with?" The tiny spider mech helped him with Sam, surely he could quickly return the favor. And it looked like Lili was a friend of Sam's too, if the video was anything to by.

FREE wash BASE

Ah, a rescue mission then. Bumblebee was in the mood for one of those. And for dealing some damage to the government. He transformed, once again offering a ride to the little mech, and made his towards McGuire. A message was sent to Prime informing him of the knowledge Bee found about Sam and then a quick notification was sent to Ratchet stating he had acquired mechs in need of repairs.

Duty done, Bee turned his scanners inward to find his passenger had settled in a cup holder. The spider mech had curled around the base, head resting lightly on top of the four uninjured legs.

"Sorry I hurt you," Bee said over the radio.

ITOK appeared on the small screen followed by WORY.

The clicking noise Bee responded with was the Cybertronian vocal equivalent to a sigh. "Yes, I'm worried about Sam."

BEOK

The rode on in silence for a few miles before Bumblebee spoke up again. "So, is 'Spidey' your name?"

The happy string of beeps was all he needed for a yes.

A/N: Sorry it took so long to get this up, it has been ready for a while. I had to go back and put Lilith in cuz a couple of you wanted to see her again. Don't know if she'll actually make an appearance, but at least she's no longer at the base where I had originally planned to leave her. I'm so mean! But really, she's kinda hopeless, unable to move her legs. And she really won't make much progress on her own.

Hope the Spidey talk isn't too hard to understand and you guys all jet when I mean when he says something like "HELO wash PAL". He's simply refreshing his screen, in case you missed that. Because he is mobile, he may show up later. We'll see. I can tell you, after the massive amount of writing I've been doing, that the Cons do show up sometime. In like...chapter 10. I'd say more, but I'm not entirely sure where this thing is going anymore. My outline is pretty much so messed up at this point I can't really follow any of my sub points. I blame Sally. You'll guys meet her in Chapter 9. Or maybe it's all the crazy good hot chocolate I get on Tues (my writing days). Or New Zealand is messing with my brain. I've been here less than a month and I already don't want to go home T.T

So yeah, still up in the air about NaNo next month. I've got even votes for exclusive writing for this fic and for starting on Frozen's sequel. Any other voters?