FUN AUTHOR FACT #1: In the previous chapter, Gloria orders Sideswipe to not "do anything stupid while [she's] gone." This is actually something that I tell my horses whenever I leave them unattended on the cross ties when I run to grab something.

I just want to give a shout out to Lionlover190; thank you so much for all of your inspiring comments! I'm refueled and ready to write! :3 Oh, and thanks again to Memmi for her other comments as well, I'm so glad that someone else besides me thinks that Donovan is a sleazy jerk! :D

-…

Transformers: The Eye of Icarus

Chapter Seven: The Scratched Record That is the Mind

-…

I would have thought someone crazy to tell me just how willing I would be to lay down my life for someone I had never met before, but look at me now.

"Whatever happened to 'it's rude to keep a lady waiting'? And remember, he's a friend of mine, so you better behave. None of what happened last night."

Gloria reminded her car as she yawned, seeing the ten-minute mark of waiting outside of Alexei's house with no indicator he was coming out. The temperature was colder than yesterday and she wasn't too keen to wait outside her car even though the sun was out and shining. She knew her childhood friend well enough to know that he was just trying to piss her off this morning because of his belief that she was using him to fix her car for free. She finally tapped the horn, loud enough for the whole neighborhood to hear. The garage door slowly opened and Alexei crouched under the opening door, trying to look like he was disinterested… until he saw the car. He stumbled forward a few steps before his mind seemed to short circuit to leave him standing there, dumb and staring. She turned the car off and opened the door, leaning on the open door. "Still don't want to work on my car Alexei?" She asked, enjoying his gasping fish expression. He blinked and closed his mouth, opening it again to gape.

"How the HELL did you get that?" He croaked out, approaching the car and touching the hood, not quite believing what he was seeing.

"A friend," she half-lied, "and yes, this is the car that I'm having trouble with." He ignored her, circling the car to feast his eyes on the car at all angles.

"Some friend you have," he mused, "mind if you acquaint him with me?" She grimaced, but he was too focused on the car to notice. "The Stingray is still a concept: the Internet doesn't even know about its' specs! And here you are with one on my driveway…"

"Oi, the problem is under the hood, not the paint job." He seemed to snap out of it and walked to the hood of the car. "What's the problem?" He asked as she watched her pop the hood of the Corvette, smoothly opening to reveal the engine. He propped the hood open, eyes scanning the engine before him.

"It's starting on its own, and don't drool on anything." She teased, bumping him in the leg with how close he was examining him. He straightened, a bit flustered and tried to defend himself. "What makes you think that?" She rolled her eyes. "You are exactly like my brother, that's why." Alexei mocked an angry face at her but just smiled, starting back into his garage to grab some tools. He and her brother Gabe were like brothers in everything but blood. They were inseparable since the second grade when they found out that they both liked cars. Luckily, they looked completely different. While they both had brown hair, Alexei had bright hazel eyes and was half a head taller than Gabe. She was patient as he verbally broke down every aspect of the car's engine for the both of them. Some parts puzzled him, and he said he would have to look them up later for cross-reference. "So, what's his name?" He asked as he started to pick at and pulling on wires and pipes that were in the way of what he was looking for.

She was red and looked away. "Sideswipe, I think."

"How'd you get the name? And here we are, the solenoid."

"I think I saw it on the engine. Must be the brand or something." She smoothly lied, nervous. She was weird enough in his eyes to begin with, and saying she could read jibberish symbols was not going to help take away some of those weird points.

"I don't see any brands on the engine, or anything for that matter. I guess this is too much of a concept car to need labels right now."

"Oh, then I guess it just appeared in my head." She nervous laughed.

"I am jealous though, he seems like a nice car." He affectionately patted the engine and slammed the hood down. "That should do it. The solenoid was a bit off, but it was easy to adjust. You own me McDonalds." He grinned triumphantly, seeing that he was ending on the better deal. Maybe he could push his luck. "And I was wondering if maybe I could, you know-" She raised a hand to stop him, knowing where he was going.

"No. You are not driving this car. You're good at fixing cars, but when you're behind the wheel, you're a threat to every driver in a forty-mile radius."

"Tch. Killjoy." He mumbled, but she could tell he was still in good humor. He motioned for her to come inside, taking one last glance at her car.

…..

"So, why are you telling me about this dream?" He asked from the couch he was sprawled across in his living room. She rolled her eyes, looking at him with her good eye from the second couch in the room. Cartoons were playing on the television but neither of them was watching the brawl-fest that the main character was participating in against his foe.

"Because, Sherlock, you're my crazy UFO outer space man. Plus you're my friend, so you should listen to my problems."

"Reality check Mulan: I'm a guy. Girls are where you get sympathy from, not your crazy UFO slash car nut friend." He chugged his water bottle and threw it into the trashcan. He knew that she would chew him out for calling her Mulan, her favorite Disney princess. He was shocked to receive silence from her couch.

"Yeah. Sorry." Her voice was nearly drowned out by the sound of the television. He groaned in his head, putting his hands over his face: women, why were they so confusing? And why did he try to understand her? "Fine: tell me again about this dream of yours." He asked grudgingly.

"I can't remember much, but it just felt real. Like, too real to be just a dream. The feeling of weightlessness is the biggest thing I can remember the most, not the pictures. I watch something falling to Earth from space. Then after a few moments I'm falling too, through the atmosphere. Yellow. Orange. Red. White. Blue, and maybe violet by the end of it. Then nothing. Black. Of course, my mom woke me up before the dream could end naturally."

"Where did that thing crash? I mean, before you crashed?" He asked: she bit her lip in momentary thought. "I think Russia maybe? I couldn't really tell."

A commercial came on advertising candy. There was silence.

"Sounds like Tunguska, but why did you have a dream about that? Was there something on television about it? You should have recorded it for me. Hey, are you okay?" He sat up on the couch, looking at Gloria. She was standing up, watching the television as the show came back on. They were floating above space while the narrator talked about the characters. He could tell she wasn't paying attention to what was being said, her eyes distant in thought. Her own water bottle slipped from her hand and fell onto the car, spilling. "I have to go." She blurted, leaving him in the living room. "Hey, Mulan- wait!" She grabbed her shoes and jacket, heading out the door before he could try and stop her.

"What's with you? You need to get towels to get the water up! And what about my food?" He stopped in front of her car, the engine drowning his voice out. She gave him a sympathetic look as the car skidded out of the driveway and swerved to parallel his house. The impatient engine roared, lurching forward to send her out of his sight. He shouted at her until she left his sight.

Her chest hurt for leaving him behind, but she needed to get somewhere. Tunguska, huh? She was familiar with the story of the impact through her uncle. But there was something more now, something in her memories that were stirring and she had to bring them to light. What she needed was to go back to her aunt's house and investigate something that seemed so obvious now: she wanted to smack her head against the dashboard for her previous stupidity. She had a good idea of where exactly she should search.

…..

She hopped out of the car, hastily locking the car behind her as she ran inside the house, dropping her stuff beside the door and headed down into the basement. She turned on the lights and headed down to her uncle's office. Pausing, she tried to door and found that it was unlocked, letting her to walk inside. She looked inside, finding the room immaculate just like her uncle liked it. Running her hand through her hair, she began to pace in front of her uncle's desk. What was she doing in here? This was her uncle's private office- he didn't even allow his wife, her aunt, in this room. This was a definite rule breaker, but something was in her head telling her to do this, whispering that something down here needed to be found by her. She walked over to the file cabinet and opened the top drawer, but found nothing inside. Quickly pulling the other drawers, she found them all empty. Slamming the last one closed with her foot, she paced around once more. Trying the desk, she found the drawers filled with office supplies. Jittery, she went to the paintings and looked behind them one by one, finding nothing once more. Finally, she went to his small bookshelf and began to throw books on the floor, frantic. She finally got results when she found a small safe behind the last of the books. It was a digital safe. Frantically, she began to type in a date.

30-06-08.

The lock popped undone, allowing her to open it and pull out the files that were in the safe. Hands shaking, she pulled them out and sat at the desk and placed them before her. Her mind was running in circles, skipping over bits and pieces. It was like she had been given a dot-by-dot picture with only the starting and ending dots with a few pinpoints in between. Throat dry, she opened the files. She swallowed, reading the information before her as quickly as she could.

Photographs consisted of most of the first file. The photographs were old, black and white and grainy. The landscape in the photographs was unusual, the land was dead; trees were pushed down to the ground and burned for miles from the photograph. The only life in the pictures was the explorers themselves and the dogs that they had with them. It looked like it was summer from the garb they had on. Moving from picture to picture, two men kept appearing, probably the leaders of the expedition, directing everything from setting up camp to using equipment with the other men. In two photographs she saw a man in a military uniform, but she couldn't be sure just what he was.

The next file was more technical. Pieces of parchment from journals that looked like they would fall apart if touched. Military papers labeled 'CLASSIFIED' and large portions blacked out with a clumsy hand in magic marker. She tried reading it, but it was either coded or in Old Russian that she didn't know how to read except for bits and pieces that were scattered around the documents. One word she could make out was in English in bold letters.

ICARUS.

She closed the file and angrily threw it on the floor, rocking the chair she was in. This got her nowhere! Her head was buzzing with thoughts that just kept repeating, half-formed and inconsistent. Icarus? What was Icarus? Could it have been a secret Soviet Union weapon? Maybe the site they were at. But, if that was Tunguska, scientists had concluded that there was no radiation there or any evidence of it being a weapon and had vouched it had come from space…

"But what does this have to do with me?" She asked the room, but of course she wouldn't get an answer.

Thud.

She held her breath, ears alert to what was outside of the office. Was that the furnance?

Thud thud.

Oh no! Was that the garage door opening? She jumped out of the chair and grabbed the files to stuff them back into the safe, locking it. She wished she hadn't torn apart the bookshelf, but she had no choice but to put them back up wherever she could. Doing an once-over to make the books were upright, she darted out of the room and ran upstairs. She opened the basement door a crack to peek to make sure she could slip out. Quickly, she slipped through the door and closed it behind her, relieved that her aunt wasn't there. "Hello? Aunt Kathy?" She called, heading into the living room to try and find her, but saw no evidence that anyone else was there. "Hello? Are you home Aunt Kathy?" She tried again, drifting upstairs. She knocked on her aunt's bedroom, but got no response. Gloria frowned, putting her hands on her hips: maybe it was the furnace, but it sounded a lot like someone was in the garage…

At least I got the office fixed before Aunt Kathy got home. Convincing herself it was the furnace, she walked back downstairs and decided she should at least put Sideswipe inside the garage so her aunt wouldn't yell at her. She grabbed the key and jogged outside, planning on making a quick run back inside but found her car to be missing. "WHAT?" She shouted in disbelief, looking around for any sign of it. There was no way in hell that someone could have stolen that car! She stumbled back inside, fumbling with her phone. Should she call the police first? Or maybe Donovan because he gave her that car? He was going to KILL her if this was actually happening to her. She hit the dial button and put it to her ear, heading to the garage. "- hello?" Her aunt asked over the line.

"Aunt Kathy," Gloria exclaimed as relief washing over her while she opened the door to the garage, "where are you?"

"Gloria, I'm at my job right now. Is something wrong?"

"You aren't going to believe this, but-" her voice died in her throat, forgetting the conversation.

"Gloria? What's wrong? Did something happen?" Her aunt's voice was concerned at her niece's silence.

"Um, it's nothing. The television wasn't working but now it's on. Sorry to bother you." She hung up, phone nearly falling out of her grasp from shock. Her car was in the garage.

To any car person: yes, I moved the solenoid to be accessible on the top of the car. Why? BECAUSE I AM GOD TO THIS WORLD. Now, off to work on a new chapter. It's strange now since I don't actually have the next bits of this story written out yet while all of the previous chapters were all ready to go...

Wait, am I the only one to think that I make Gloria drop EVERYTHING she holds? I guess I made her a butterfingers without realizing it. Oopsies.

Please read and review, thanks!

-Mika