Chapter Three - Irregular Orbit
I've added a little extra to the last part of this chapter. If you've read this story before, I suggest you take a look to see what's been revised.
See previous chapters for disclaimer.
Griffin Rock was considered to be one of the most idyllic and quaint towns on the East Coast, although, coupled with its plethora of high-end technology it seemed more likely that it had come out of some science fiction film from the 1950s. And it also happened to be a natural and unnatural disaster zone.
It was on one such idyllic day that Griffin Rock was so known for, that, tires shrieking, a banged up white sports car tore down Maple Street, swerving violently to avoid pedestrians, other vehicles, buildings, and the like. Not everyone was lucky enough to be avoided so easily, and several citizens had to stop or throw themselves out of the car's way, many yelling curses in its wake. A few minutes into its rampage, the rescue team sped around the corner, one in the air and three by land, doing their best to catch up to the speeder.
"What does this slagger think he's doing?" Heatwave demanded aloud, and his partner grumbled dangerously.
"Whoever it is, they had the gall to do something like this on a Sunday. This is my day off!"
"Quit whining."
Chief Burns interrupted before the aggrieve partners could begin an argument. "That's enough you two—we're here to catch a speeder, remember. Dani, I need you to fly ahead—see if he's headed anywhere in particular. Graham, follow her. See if you can create a blockade in time."
Dani and Graham accepted their orders without problem, Heatwave and Kade as well, albeit less enthusiastically. Chief Burns glanced down at the monitor imbedded into the dashboard, an eyebrow raised. "Why so quiet, Chase?" he inquired, hands resting calmly on the steering wheel as the police-bot speed on, having mastered driving as an Earth vehicle some time ago. "You're not as…curiously exuberant as you usually are when chasing someone down. Something wrong?"
During lengthier mission, Chase normally took great glee from citing all the laws their perps were breaking, and how by how much their jail time would be extended. That he wasn't doing so, and remaining silent at all, was cause for some concern on Charlie's part.
The police-bot did not answer for a moment. He smoothly cut around another corner before finally speaking. "Not anything I can properly put into words, Chief," Chase began, tone laced with minor uncertainly. "I do not think it has to do with this speeder…not much, at least."
Heatwave's strong tenor crackled over the com line. "I would listen to him if I were you," he advised with the exasperated tone of someone who knew from experience, "When Chase thinks something's wrong, then something's really wrong."
Before Charlie could answer or question either Autobot on what they meant, Cody's voice came over the com link as well. "Dad, I was just talking to Dani—the driver is following a pattern! I'm not that sure how he knows where he's going, according to his license plates he's not even from this state, but we know where he's headed."
"Where, Cody?" Chief Burns demanded.
The sounded worried when he answered, but nonetheless sure of himself. "The woods!"
"All right, team, Graham and Boulder are setting a blockade at the rim of the forest, but until then we need to stall the driver. Do what you can, but be careful!"
"Roger that, Dad," Kade said over the com link, before gunning Heatwave's engine. His eyes flickered to the monitor for s second before returning his attention to the road. "You ready to do some damage, Heat?"
"You bet," Heatwave growled, "and I told you to stop calling me that."
Kade rolled his eyes but directed the fire truck forward, until the extremely fast sports car was finally less than a hundred feet away. "Floor it, Heat!" Kade instructed, though Heatwave needn't be told even once, and was at the sports car's back bumper in seconds – no matter how quick the sports car, it could never trump a Cybertronian engine. On closer inspection, the Heatwave was surprised to see how much damage the vehicle had suffered.
The car was an impressive model to say the least, with tinted windows and once-gleaming paint. But now dents of varying sizes and depth traveled from head to taillight and all across its hood. Along with a heavy coating of dirt, there also appeared to be scorch marks, and…bullet holes?
Before Heatwave could react, Kade had jerked his steering wheel so that his front fender harshly rammed into the speeder's back bumper, sending the banged up car off course and barreling through a pair of garbage cans. Heatwave grunted as trash hit his windshield and grill, snapping for his partner to be more careful. "We want to stop him, not cause an accident," Heatwave muttered.
"Hey, guys!" Graham exclaimed over the com, startling the pair out of their escalating argument, "Boulder and I have finished the road block. Just make sure the driver stays on route now."
"Will do, Graham," Heatwave said, decelerating slightly, but keeping the sports car in his sights. The driver of the beaten vehicle seemed to be tiring or ready to give up—if the Autobot thought positively— as they slowed down as well, the vehicle's path becoming much less erratic.
"This guy's sure caused a lot of damage," Kade whistled, "here's hoping he's got insurance and a good lawyer."
"Well said," Chase opined smartly over the com link.
"Heatwave, Kade, you're almost there," Chief Burns said, "It's around the next corner." The odd procession turned, as Charlie instructed, when out of nowhere, the sports revved its engine and zoomed forward.
"Whoa, whoa, whoa!" Kade yelped, his knuckles white on Heatwave's steering wheel, "he's gonna go for it! Guys, he's gonna try to get past you!"
By the blockade, both Graham and the chief received Kade's message and peered down the road, where sure enough, the sports car was speeding towards them.
"Chase, Boulder, cut him off!" Charlie barked and the two complied, transforming and running up to intercept the vehicle.
The sports car swerved wildly, completing a one eighty degree turn so rapidly that it left dark skid marks on the road, and it sped back down the street, this time in the opposite direction.
Chief Burns blinked. "Well. I guess you bots scared him off. Dani, any idea of where he's going?"
"You know, this guy is a pretty manic driver," Dani observed, "but anyway, he's still driving beside the barricade, and...Oh, he's found some old construction equipment. Planks of wood, steel poles, and…scrap!"
"Dani?" Charlie exclaimed, "What happened?"
"The maniac's reversing. I think he's gonna—he just did."
"What?" Chef Burns demanded, "What did he do?"
"He leapt over the barricade using the construction equipment," Blades fretted.
"I forgot that I left those there," Boulder bemoaned, collapsing back into his alt mode. Graham laid a comforting hand on his distraught partner's door.
Chase waited for his partner to deactivate his com link before stepping forward. "I apologize for our collective failure, Chief Burns," he declared, helm bowed, "As a senior officer, I should have performed more satisfactorily."
"Its fine, Chase," Charlie said, waving the bot's worry aside. "You were right about that speeder though." He ran a tired hand through his gray hair before activating his com again, "Cody, we're gonna start heading back. Keep me posted on Dani and Kade's progress, will ya?"
"Will do, Dad."
Kade groaned, leaning back into the driver's seat with his arms folded over his chest. "Why are we still looking for this guy?" he demanded petulantly, glaring out the windshield at the multitude of trees passing by, allowing Heatwave to take the wheel. "You know as well as I do that we'll never find him in this maze."
Heatwave only grunted, continuing his search. "God, you are so stubborn!" Kade complained.
"Like you're any different?" Heatwave pointed out.
Kade huffed at the slight, hunching back into the upholstery. "Well, I don't mean to be a backseat driver, but what the heck are we even looking for?"
"I am looking for a trail," Heatwave snapped, "tracks, maybe. You didn't see the shape this guy's car was in. I thought it would've broken down by now."
"Huh. Well, there's human tech for—gah!" Kade was cut off as Heatwave reverted to bipedal mode, throwing the human out of his cab at the same time.
Kade rubbed his sore backside from where he'd fallen on the ground, glaring daggers at his partner's back. "Hey, what's the big idea, Heat?"
"Quiet," Heatwave muttered, going down on one knee to closely observe at something in the dirt. Kade stood and tried to look around his partner.
"What is it?" Kade asked, resolving to walk around the bot's massive frame. "Tracks?"
Heatwave shook his helm, lifting an enormous digit to point at the dirt. "Energon."
Kade finally got a good look at what Heatwave was talking about, and found a few small puddles of iridescent blue liquid staining the earth. "And…what's that?" he asked, glancing up at his partner.
Heatwave grunted. "Well I guess it would make sense that you've never seen it before—we never get too badly hurt on our missions." Heatwave glanced down at his human partner. "Energon flows through us. It's our life force. For those with weapons, our ammo."
Kade made a face. "So you're saying that this is robot blood? Gross. Did one of you bots get cut or something?"
Heatwave shook his helm. "No one on my team had been injured to point of spilling energon."
"So that means…"
Heatwave nodded, optics narrowing. "There's more to our speeder than meets the eye."
"So your team was unable to apprehend the speeder, Chief?" Doc Greene inquired curiously as Charlie placed a hamburger on his plate.
"Unfortunately, yes," the chief of police admitted, "but I sent Dani and Kade with their bots to see if they could find any trace of him. Good thing is we live on an island, so there's not really anywhere for him to run."
The scientist set his plate down on the patio table, sitting himself down with a brooding look crossing his worn features. "Did you cross-reference his license plate? To see who the driver is?"
"I already tried that," Charlie confessed, handing Graham his own burger, "All we know is that's a Nevada license plate. The computer came up with nothing. "
Doc Greene did a double take, his burger already halfway to his mouth as he paused. "Nothing? But that's impossible, even if it's a stolen car." He set his hamburger down with a raised brow. "Is the computer inside your police-bot, Chief? Perhaps I could have a look at it—take it apart, put it back together, to see if there's anything wrong with the wiring. It wouldn't take long, and I've been curious about the mechanics behind your rescue robots."
With a surreptitious glance to the pair of parked vehicles behind the basketball court, Chief Burns caught his partner shuddering. "Ah, no thanks, Doc!" Charlie said quickly, to the scientist's surprise.
"But why—"
"Ah, Cody, come get your burger!" Charlie called quickly, stifling Doc Greene's question.
On the basketball court, Cody executed an impressive free-throw before passing the ball to Frankie and jogging over to the grill. Doc Greene's furrowed brow smoothed out as the boy received his lunch. "Ah, the birthday boy!" he smiled, reaching a gloved hand into one of his many of pockets, "I have your gift here…somewhere…"
"Top left pocket, Daddy!" Frankie chimed.
Greene fished out the small rectangular parcel, sending his daughter a wave. "Thank you, my dear!" He then held it out to the teen with a grin.
"Awesome!" Cody crowed, setting his plate down to accept the gift, "Thanks, Doc!" Before he could open it though, Heatwave came barreling up the driveway, Blades roaring up next to him, stopping side by side. The two passengers disembarked, and Charlie ran up to meet them.
"Did you find anything?"
Dani shook her head, moving her helmet to her hip. "I didn't. But Kade did."
Kade glanced back at his partner, still in vehicle mode, then to his gathered friends and family before answering, quiet enough that he couldn't be heard from across the court.
"Heatwave thinks that out speeder was a bot in disguise."
As Charlie stepped back, running a tired hand through his hair, Doc Greene spoke up from the other side of the court. "Is everything all right, Chief?" he called helpfully.
Charlie turned, a small smile plastered onto his features. "Oh, yeah, everything's fine. They didn't find much on our speeder." He turned to his two children beside him. "Get something to eat, kids. We'll keep looking tomorrow." The pair quickly agreed, rushing to join the festivities, and the unease lifted.
Charlie turned to the row of rescue bots, all in alt modes, and smiled apologetically. "Sorry, guys," he muttered, before commanding loudly, "Bots, transform and return to the firehouse."
The Rescue Bots did as they were told, seamlessly reverting to their proto-forms with visors lowered over emotionless optics. They marched back to the firehouse entrance, Boulder breaking protocol for an instant to look longingly back at the human festivities they were missing.
Only Frankie noticed.
To Frankie's great luck and relief, her bedroom was built apart from the rest of the enormous laboratory complex. If one listened closely, the sound of drilling and clanking could still be heard from the far reaches of the edifice, but their distance did nothing to wake Francine Greene, snuggled deep into her warm blankets, who was long used to the sound of her father inventing into the late hours of the night.
Her bedroom was dark, save for the painstakingly constructed glow-in-the-dark constellations on the ceiling, and the blinds over her wide window weren't closed all the way, and would've provided ample moonlight if not for the light that abruptly outshone it.
Frankie was jolted awake by the startlingly loud roar of an engine, blinking against the brightness. The sound soon passed, as did the piercing glow of headlights, but by that time she was already sitting up in bed, rubbing her eyes as she suppressed a yawn. Confusion settled then, since the alarm system around the lab should have gone off at the first sign of an intruder.
The girl slipped out of bed and into her slippers, snatching her jacket from her desk as a second thought. Padding into the hall, Frankie still heard the telltale cacophony of her father hard at work and deduced that he hadn't heard the car engine.
Not even bothering with stealth, as she doubted that her father would notice even a herd of elephants stampeding through the lab when in the middle of an invention, Frankie used the holographic dog door to get out, and was promptly greeted by the night's usual chill. She zipped up her jacket stuffed her hands into the pockets, continuing forward, her curiosity peaked. A few seconds passed without any clue to the strange visitor, when Frankie the sound again, though much fainter—the rumbling of an engine.
Frankie hurried to follow the noise, several different scenarios flashing through her mind—thieves after her father's research and equipment, the speeder from earlier that day hiding on their land, Doctor Morocco back for revenge… if anything, these thoughts made her go faster.
Finally, Frankie came upon the multiple warehouses her father kept apart from the main laboratory building, built to store surplus materials and outdated inventions. The warehouses' internal lighting was based on motion sensors, and the lights were on within one of them, escaping through the high windows. Her excited breath coming out in a cloud of vapor, and Frankie raced over to the warehouse. She crouched and pressed her back against the wall, crawling to the tall entrance before carefully poking her head in through the partially open door. What she found inside would forever remain seared into her memory.
Leaning against one of the (thankfully) concrete walls was a robot. Perhaps as tall as the police-bot that worked with Chief Burns, this entity was burly and white with red and green painted finish, and fin like shapes sticking out of either side of its face. While the huge robot itself was still shocking, perhaps even more so was how much damage it appeared to have sustained. Its entire body was covered in deep scratches and dents, while a portion of its side seemed to have caved in, blue liquid spilling from the injury, even leaking through the fingers of the hand it had pressed against the wound.
And it was speaking.
"Wheeljack to-to Autobot Base O-Omega One. I'm…ugh… currently in uncharted territory and in need of….m-medical care. Do you…do you read?" The bot paused, as if waiting for answer, before slamming the back of its head into the wall in frustration. "Frag," it hissed, and Frankie noticed that its hands were trembling, a puddle of the bright blue liquid beginning to form beside it.
Unable to simply watch the robot bleed to death, Frankie stood, knees shaking despite her best intentions, and stepped into the warehouse. She was in plain view of the robot and it never occurred to her whether or not it would harm her.
The robot quickly spotted her, and its jaw slackened in a way that was almost comical. "Scrap," it swore.
They stared at each other for several strained seconds, and despite the fear coiling in her gut Frankie could not look away. The robot seemed to be facing a similar problem, its eyes as bright blue as the liquid that seeped out of its wound, and just as wide as hers.
The robot snapped out of its stupor, blinking and furrowing its brow in a disturbingly human fashion, and fixed her with a very irritated look.
"Take a picture, fleshy, it'll last longer."
It sounded male, and its voice was rough, trying and failing to hide any pain it might be feeling – but Frankie had heard it speaking before knowing she was there, and didn't buy the act for a second.
And crud, it had spoken to her hadn't it?
Frankie felt panic well in her chest as the robot continued watching her, the annoyed set to its face belied by his occasional grimace. She realized that it was expecting her to scream or faint or some other similar expression of fear. But Frankie found she barely breathe, much less scream.
"Do you need help?" Frankie blurted before she really did pass out.
The robot blinked again, surprise rippling across its features momentarily replacing its pained expression. Both the grimace and annoyed look returned shortly, and its eyebrows threatened to climb off its head entirely.
"And how do you plan on doing that, fleshy? You got an Energon mine I don't know about?"
Apparently robots could be sarcastic. Fantastic.
Frankie frowned, feeling some of her courage returning. "No," she said, planting her hands on her waist. "But we've got welding equipment and sheets of metal that would go a long way in patching you up. And I'm sure your fuel source could be duplicated if need be."
She became quiet when she noticed the robot's bewildered expression. "Well scrap!" he grunted, "I'm impressed, fleshy. I'll take 'em."
Frankie smiled weakly, relieved. "Good. I'll get them from the lab right now."
"I'll be here," the robot responded.
Frankie was able to slip in and out of the lab with little hassle, avoiding the hall she knew her father was occupying and stealing into the vacant storage rooms. There she found what she had offered the robot and loaded it onto a cart. She refused to allow the abnormality of the situation deter her, and worked with marked efficiency – if she stopped to think about the sentient robot bleeding out over the floor of her father's warehouse she couldn't guarantee that she could keep herself from having a minor breakdown.
She burst out of the lab as quickly as she could, pushing the heavy cart in front of her. The breeze, previously cold, instead felt like a balm against her warm skin as she hurried down the path to the warehouses.
"I'm back!" Frankie announced, pushing the door open to make room for the cart. When she turned to face the robot, her stomach swooped in horror. His body was much too relaxed, his eyes closed – he was getting worse.
"About time," he muttered, without any of the muted energy from before.
"I've got everything here," Frankie said hurriedly, worried about what would happen if he fell asleep – or whatever the robot equivalent was. "Do you need me to help with anything?"
The robot chuckled somewhat breathlessly. "Thanks, fleshy, but I've got it from here."
"I have a name you know," Frankie retorted adamantly.
"Don't care," the robot answered, though his voice was becomingly startlingly sluggish.
Panic flashed through her, quick and cold. "Is something wrong?"
The robot shook his head, though the movement was very faint. "Not really. My systems are shutting down for repairs – I've been runnin' damaged without recharge for…a while."
"So you'll wake up then?" Frankie asked quickly.
"Quit worrying, fleshy."
"My name's Frankie," she corrected.
"Nice to meetcha. Call me Wheeljack."