A/N: I am so glad everyone enjoys this idea as much as I do. :) This has to be my favorite story to write at the moment. So thank you for reviewing and enjoying the story. :D
A major thanks to Razorgaze, my wonderful beta in all things Transformers. Her story, "Our Debt" is linked in my profile page. Please do read it. It is so worth the time. :D
Breem is 8.3 minutes, Joor is 6.5 hours, Orn is 13 days and Vorn is 84 years earth time.
Disclaimer: I can only dream of owning any of this, save for any OCs I might create. Please do not sue. I am making no money from this. It is purely for fun.
Chapter 3
Less than a joor out of hiding and I already wanted to crawl back into my nice, safe storm drain. Two Autobots prowled around the school campus in their disguises, hunting for Primus only knew what. Scouts they were, Bumblebee and Hound by human designation. The thought that they were there looking for me, that somehow they knew I still existed, made my battle systems scream for activation. Not that I would know what to do with a battle system, anyway. So much of my programming was new to me now.
I was like a child, both in the human world and in the Cybertronian one. But unlike a child, I had no support structure to protect me, to teach and guide me. I was on my own. And if it was one thing that my life with the Decepticons taught me about the Autobots, it was that they wouldn't attack a group of humans. So into the crowd of students I went, heading towards what I hoped was the main computer lab.
I grabbed the first open terminal I could find, and, glancing around to make sure no one was paying too much attention to me, I let the tip of my pinky finger on my right hand transform into a hair-thin probe. Down into the keyboard it went, slipping between keys and plastic to the wire connecting it to the computer. I moved my fingers across the keys, calling up whatever website that the girls around me were into. It seemed a fashion site called "Vogue" was of import to them. I pretended to scan the pages of shoes and clothing and makeup while my processors did the real work.
I needed a simple name, one that wouldn't stand out too much but not lost to obscurity, either. A quick search for popular femme names of the last human year revealed a list of twenty names and their meanings. One in particular caught my optic: Zoe. I liked that one. It meant 'life.' That was the one word that meant the most to me now. Life. The name Kaitlyn was also of interest, in that it meant 'pure.' Given that I had never mated and I was certainly as pure as a Cybertronian could be in my current state of awareness, it seemed to work.
I was to be called Zoe Kaitlyn. Zoe Kaitlyn. I rolled the designation around in my processors and found that I liked it a great deal. It was my name. The first thing I had truly had as my own in my entire existence.
And now for a surname... My optics caught an add for Ralph Lauren on the Vogue page. Next to it was an article talking about his daughter Dylan and her new candy shop company. I rather liked that name of Dylan, too. But the spelling needed to change.
So I became Zoe Kaitlyn Dillyn. A few more twists of programming here and there and I became Zoe Kaitlyn Dillyn, freshmen on campus with full scholarship, recently enrolled during the add/drop period of classes. I was an only child whose parents died in a car accident when I was seventeen. I was nineteen now, with a healthy trust fund due to the life insurance my parents had at the time of their deaths. And in three to four business days, I would have the documentation and credit cards to prove it.
I had no family, no one to challenge my background. No one to stand in my way…except for those two Autobot scouts, that was. So far they had not taken notice of me, and I had other pressing concerns. Like… meeting my new dorm mate and picking up my books and supplies from the campus store.
I can't explain why that was suddenly more pressing that the idea of Autobots raining a hail of plasma fire down on my head. It just was. And the fact that I could make that decision was a heady thrill that kept my systems warm for a long time to come.