Okay but I have good excuses this time!
Work, school, and drama practice have been kicking my butt lately. Especially work. Hopefully I'll be quitting soon and getting a new job. I can't handle being there all weekend and till midnight on school nights; I need a job with better hours, a minimum wage pay, and breaks for non-minors. It's having effects on my grades. I should actually be recovering from my senior slide right now but GUESS WHAT heha…
Anyway, sorry for the shortness of this chapter. I was gonna include more but it was getting REALLY long and you guys have been waiting a while so HEY why not post part!? So yeah, not much happens I guess, but it's better than nothing, right?
My consciousness waned in and out. I wasn't quite asleep but never really awoke. Stuck in a dreamlike state, but worse. When I dream I can usually either tell that I am dreaming or wake myself up. This time it was different. The things I saw, heard, felt – I could not tell if they were real. I could never rouse myself to make sure. Just stuck in a mind-tumbling abyss.
Rough hands grabbed me and tossed me around. Bumblebee immobile under the freezing gas. Sam was yelling, demanding something. Barricade's evil red eyes glared as he crushed me. Arms held me firmly, protectively. People were running through the streets, screaming. Men in black armor swarmed over me like insects. My body stung like fire then faded into an icy cool. A police car ran me over, driving me into the ground. I was falling…falling…
THUMP
I snapped awake. My eyes darted around and my heartbeat thudded like a sledgehammer against my chest, but it began to subside as I realized that I was fully conscious again. It was loud, but my ears felt plugged. I was strapped to the back of whatever I was sitting on and propped somewhat upwards. Three people sat across from me. And armored man and... The hackers! Maggie (her hair had green streaks, just like it was supposed to) and Glen, wearing big headphones with microphones, were looking at me.
A soft, well-manicured hand brushed my hair out of my face. I rotated my head towards the gesture and found Mikaela sitting to my right. She too was buckled in with big earphones on her head. She smiled simply, sadly.
"Mm," I groaned. Not quite what I was going for, so I tried again. My throat felt like I was swallowing gravel. "Where…?" I heard my own voice crackling through earphones, caught by the microphone in front of me. I sounded pathetic. I had expected my voice to be a full octave lower like it felt, but instead it was small and childish.
"We're in a helicopter." Sam's voice answered. "They won't tell us where we're going."
Turning my head to the left, I looked for the boy. He sat on my other side, watching me with concerned eyes. In fact, everyone was looking at me. The teens, the hackers, everyone but the armored man. It made me nervous.
I tried to sit up. Everything hurt, and I groaned. "Bee?" I asked, my memory still foggy.
The query was met with silence. I looked at Mikaela, then Sam. Neither of them would meet my eyes.
Oh.
I slumped against my straps. They didn't let me go far, so I let my neck relax and my head fell against my chest like a dead corpse. I had failed. I had known what was coming and had done nothing to stop it. I didn't warn anyone when I remembered and then I forgot. I remembered too late and then I could do nothing to help. I was stupid, weak, and utterly useless. You were supposed to keep the bad stuff from happening. That's why you're here, remember? And you blew it. You could have told them while you remembered. What did you think you could do by yourself? You're such an idiot.
Tears slid down my nose and hit my hands. I looked down at them, sitting in my lap. Where I'd cut them on the grappling hook was now wrapped in white bandages. Below them, gaping holes in my jeans revealed my bandaged knees. My chest was in a dull pain, like a big bruise had formed on my sternum. I lifted both hands to my face and felt medical tape here and there, specifically a strip over my nose. I dropped my hands looked at them again. They hurt, but they were clean. Cleaner than they had been after I'd been rolling on the ground, at least.
A hand rubbed my back. One of the teenagers. They were so kind. Why? By now they must have figured out that I had known what was coming and had done nothing about it. Why weren't they mad? I bet they were mad. Just holding it back while we were in the presence of others. Sad, beaten up little girl - how would it look for them to be mad now? No, they'd wait and explode on me later. Shout, scream, maybe even hit. It was inevitable.
I closed my eyes, my lashes dampening. The rubbing felt nice.
"… So." Sam said awkwardly, addressing the two adults in front of us.
Maggie's heavy Australian accent carried no condensation, despite the significant age difference between us and her. "What'd they get you for?"
"Um, I bought a car… Turned out to be an alien robot. … Who knew?"
"You?" Mikaela asked.
"Caught something, maybe one of them, hacking into Air Force One."
"Huh." Sam muttered. No one seemed able to be surprised by anything anymore.
Glen spoke up. "Man, me, I was just watchin' television. CNN. I shouldn't even be here."
I saw Sam's hand stretch forward for a shake out of my peripheral vision. "I'm Sam Witwicky."
"Witwicky?" Maggie asked, sounding surprised. "You by any chance related to an old sea captain named Archibald?"
"Yeah. He was my great-great-grandfather. And a great man."
As the introductions continued I remained silent, hoping I would not be noticed.
"And what about this sad child, huh?" Maggie asked, her voice softening a touch. "Whatever did she do to get in so much trouble?"
Sam sighed. "Well, she knows the future, I guess. Says this whole…situation, is a movie in another world."
"… You're kidding, right?"
"Maggie Madsen, not Margaret. The government got you to track the signal that hacked the base in Qatar. You're so smart, you make older people angry. Paid for college by modeling." I spouted out facts in a monotone voice, not lifting my head. "Glen Whitmann. Only hacker in the world who could break the code. You live with your grandma and your cousin. Your grandma doesn't like anyone on the carpet, especially police. Your cousin likes to play Dance Dance Revolution. You're still a virgin."
Shut up.
"Sorry." I added meekly, then shut up.
It was quiet for a long, long time.
"… Iris," Sam finally broke the silence. "You're scary."
After a while, we reached the Hoover Dam. I lifted my head enough to see out the window. Normally I'd be excited about seeing this kind of thing, but everything in me just felt numb.
It sure is big. Big enough to hide a world of secrets inside, if you'll excuse the cheesy saying. I remembered a scene from the movie: a freezing, moaning Bumblebee, covered in a net, being wheeled into the dam. In my mind's eye, I saw him strapped to a huge table, being shocked repeatedly. In pain and scared.
Squeezing shut my real eyes, I repeated one sentence over and over again in my head. I'm sorry.
Eventually we were transferred from helicopter to SUV. We hadn't been driving for long before the dam came into view. In the far distance, I could see a plaza carved into the side of the cliff. On it were two huge, bronze statues of angels. I wondered if it was true that their feet were shiny from people rubbing them for good luck, like in The Titan's Curse. I also wondered if they were really animatronic guardians, like they were in the same book. Then I wondered if I'd have to say 'please' and tell them that I was 'Zeus's kid' to get their help.
These thoughts should have amused me.
Right before we rolled up onto the dam, a government man who had been sitting in the front seat turned around. He took my arms, yanking me upwards and startling me. Before I could even think to fight back, I heard a small click.
Alarm bells started firing off in my head, making my heart rate go up again. I snatched back my hands and looked at them. They were now encircled with two steel bracelets, connected by a very short chain. Handcuffs.
The sight made my stomach drop, like it does on a descending airplane. I pulled at the bonds, ignoring the pain of metal cutting into my wounds.
"Iris!" I heard Sam say as I strained. "Stop! You're hurt!"
"Take them off." I squeaked, my breath becoming ragged. When no one responded, I turned to Mikaela with a new sense of urgency. I knew how good she was with handcuffs. "Mikaela, get them off of me!"
She didn't move at first, looking at me with her confused, concerned eyes.
"I can't do handcuffs!" I pleaded. Fear was in my voice, even I could hear that, and I was breaking into a cold sweat.
Even though she didn't understand my fear, Mikaela finally listened. But as she reached forward to comply, the government man reached back and grabbed her arm. "Let me go," the teen growled. "Or I'll bite your hand again."
Sure enough, the man's hand was bandaged. But all he did was pull on her arm until his hand was out of reach of her teeth. "The child is to stay restrained. Direct orders." He told her gruffly.
"Take 'em off!" I repeated, turning to the man and begging, shaking the cuffs in front of me. I felt like I was going to throw up. "Please! Get 'em off!"
Sam grabbed the man's arm and tried to get him to release Mikaela. "Hey! We're already stuck in here with you. She's just a kid! Why does she need handcuffs?" he asked, pulling.
"Get 'em offa me!" My voice rose to a new, frenzied high as my panic climbed. "Take 'em off!"
"Can't you see she's scared!?" Maggie yelled, joining in the fray. "Take them off!"
Glen took a different approach. "Hey, calm down, little girl," He tried to sound reassuring, but he was already perspiring with nervousness. "It's just handcuffs."
"Please!" I was screaming now. "I can't do this! GET 'EM OFF!"
With everyone pulling and yelling, the officer quickly became angry. "Fine!" he roared above the noise, letting go of Mikaela's arm. "Take them off! But if she tries anything, they go right back on."
I gulped back tears. "Mikaela," I offered my hands to her, my voice reduced to a whimper. "Please."
The teen wasted no time. She whipped out a bobby pin and set to work, but something was wrong. I saw it in the crease between her eyebrows. And it was taking a while. She muttered to herself, working harder.
Fear began to rise in my throat again. "Mikaela?" I asked tentatively.
She lifted her face, her expression simultaneously frantic and apologetic.
"Let me do it." The government man barked, reaching into the back seat and yanking me painfully by the chain. He revealed a small key and drove it into the hole. But then he began to have trouble too. "Stupid cuffs!" he grunted. No matter how hard he tried, my bonds wouldn't budge. Giving up, he dropped them.
I began to hyperventilate. "No, no no no," I moaned. Tears clouded my eyes and horror choked me, making me dizzy as I realized there was no escape. I lifted my foot between my arms and pushed on the chain with it, crying out as the sharp steel cut into my already tender wrists. I ignored the pleas for me to calm down from Mikaela, Sam, Glen, and Maggie, and the shouts of frustration from the government men. Just hysterical terror.
As the SUV rolled to a stop, Mikaela was furiously undoing my seatbelt. When I'd been unbuckled, Sam shoved the door open and took my arms. "Come on," he grunted as he quickly dragged me out into the open air.
Mad with panic, I rushed out of the vehicle and headed for the first hard object I saw: the wall that kept tourists safe from the height of the dam. I ran over and smashed the handcuffs down on the concrete, howling in pain at the sharp impact.
I felt the metal around my wrists fall away… Wait… No, they did not fall away. They…retracted. Like a living thing, snatching itself away.
What I saw when I looked down made the world stop. Glaring up at me, bright metal glinting in the sun, was Frenzy's severed head. He chattered angrily, teetering around on his spidery legs. He wasn't paying attention to his surroundings, and his legs slipped over the edge.
"No!" I gasped, reaching for the spazz-bot with both arms outstretched. Too late, I grabbed at the air where the Decepticon should have been.
Screaming like the freak he was, Frenzy fell off the side of the dam.
I leaned over the wall and helplessly watched him plummet.
Seeing me still, the teens joined me at the overlook. They hadn't seen what the handcuffs really were - what I had released. Sam carefully took my right hand, looked at it, and sighed. "You're bleeding again, but not much. Don't need to change the bandages." He was looking at me hard, even though I would not return the gaze. "Don't do that to yourself, okay?"
Mikaela gently rubbed my back. She didn't offer any words, just stroking my spine rhythmically, easing my breathing back into a normal pace.
I watched Frenzy go all the way down. He bounced against the concrete walls, almost the entire way, before hitting a pipeline and landing on the ground of the maintenance level.
Please, a hopeless prayer echoed through my otherwise-empty mind. Let him be dead.
Frenzy did not care what I wanted. Far, far below, I saw the tiny dot scuttle away and into the top-secret facility.
My lungs emptied themselves of breath as I leaned forward until my head met the wall. So, so useless. I couldn't even stop the spy from getting in. Disgusting. Back at square one. I had made no difference at all.
When I did not answer the teenagers, they did not push for a response. The two leaned over the wall, marveling at the height. Down the river, many other facilities were built into the high canyon cliffs. As Maggie and Glen joined us, Sam slapped the concrete experimentally. Solid as ever.
We didn't have long to take in the scenery; the government goons grabbed and began ushering us along the dam, quickly and roughly. "Get your hands off me!" Mikaela snapped at the agent who kept pushing her forward. Sam was equally upset. "Don't touch me!" I hated the grabbing and the shoving, but did not fight back this time. My numbness had started to fade, and I began to feel an emotion again: anger. The quicker we moved along with the story, the quicker we could get Bumblebee out.
"Hey kid." Simmons greeted Sam nonchalantly. The agent had been given a new, clean set of clothing, and now stood in front of us with his arms crossed smugly.
Just the sight of him made raised my anger to rage. On impulse I stepped forward, but my shoulder was grabbed in a vice-grip by one of the government men.
Simmons's eyebrows shot up at me, even from behind his sunglasses. "Whoa, hey, I said I wanted handcuffs on the kid!"
"Where's my car?" Sam demanded. Mikaela eyed the agent holding me and dared him to try anything.
"I think we got off to a bad start, huh?" Simmons asked, putting a 'friendly' hand on the boy's shoulder. "You must be hungry. You want a latte? HoHo? Double venti macchiato?" He glanced down at me. "Popsicle? What do kids eat these days?"
"Where's my car?" Sam repeated.
"Son," another man in a suit and sunglasses joined us. The man held a metal briefcase handcuffed to his left wrist, which made my skin crawl. He was the guy in charge of Sector 7, oh what was his name? … Banacheck! Tom Banacheck. I liked him better than Simmons. He wasn't so mean. "I need you to listen to me very carefully. Some really bad things have happened this past week. People have died. More people could be killed. We need to know everything you know, work together, to stop those things from happening."
Sam nodded, but did not relax. "Okay. But first I'll take my car, my parents - maybe you should write that down - get her dad outta jail," He was talking about Mikaela now. "Oh, and her juive record. That's gotta be gone. Like, forever. And this one," I startled a bit to feel a hand on my head. "You gotta promise me you won't hurt her. It's the only way I'll talk."
"Agreed." Banacheck replied. "However, as security is important, we may have to take some precautions." He bent down to me. "Hello," he said, being somewhat friendlier to me. "Do you mind telling me who you are?"
"You won't find me in your data banks." I replied glumly. "I'm not from here."
Banacheck was silent for a moment. "Are you one of the aliens?" he asked passively.
I shook my head.
The man contemplated this for a moment, then he offered, "Would you mind if we made sure?" At my widening eyes, he straightened up to reassure the teens as well as me. "Just a few passive scans only. Nothing intrusive, no…dissection." He bent back down to me. "Deal?" He offered his hand.
I gulped and looked up at the teens. "It's your choice." Sam told me. Mikaela said nothing, but she looked uncannily like a mother bear. No advice, just a clear message that I my decision would be backed.
Sucking in a deep breath, I turned around and shook the man's hand. "Deal."
As Banacheck released my hand, I noticed camouflaged bodies out of the corner of my eye. I looked up, and what I saw instantly lifted my heart. It was Lennox and Epps, just as I'd expected, but Fig and Donnelly were there too! How had they survived? Actually, it looked like a lot more of Lennox's team had made it out of Qatar safely. Injured and grim-faced, but alive. That was a miracle in itself.
"Ladies and gentlemen," Banacheck straightened up and addressed the crowd. "Follow me. Time is of the essence."
I listened to Mikaela thanking Sam and Simmons muttering to himself as we walked, but my mind was stuck on the soldiers. They're alive. They're ALIVE!
Thank you!
Banacheck stayed true to his word. I was not dissected, only scanned. Their beepers went crazy over me, but when I became alarmed I was told that this was because I had been in such close contact with the aliens. When they used a more thorough scan, they finally determined that I was indeed human.
We passed huge turbines as we descended into the bowels of the dam, the only truthful part about the structure. As Banacheck lead us past the main work area, Simmons began to unburden himself of some classified info. "Alright, here's the situation." he explained. "We appear to be facing war against a highly advanced technological civilization far superior to our own. You've all had direct contact with the NBEs-"
"Which, like it or not," Banacheck added. "Makes you the world's foremost experts on the…visitors. In this situation, age is of no consequence. It's your individual experiences that are important and that interest us as a matter of national and world security."
"NBEs?" Epps inquired.
"Non-Biological Extraterrestrials. Try and keep up with the acronyms." Simmons responded.
The soldier seemed thoroughly offended. "Oh, like CQ?" He shot back. "Vector Delta, Niner-Alpha? That kind of acronym?"
Surprisingly, Simmons seemed to realize that he overstepped. "Maybe."
We approached a huge door. Like the kind you'd find in an airline hanger, only way, way deep underground.
"What you're about to see is totally classified. Few people know about it and fewer get to experience in person." Banacheck explained as the door began to rumble open "Don't forget to breathe."
The chamber we entered was ginormous. The object of our attention stood on a big, circular platform, fed by tubes that leaked that same, supercooled liquid. Somewhere along the way they transferred their poison to huge, metal arms connected themselves to the figure, spraying it endlessly with the evil gas. It hardened into blue-tinted ice that filled in the gaps of its armor, rooted its feet to the ground, and hung off protruding spikes in icicles. Rolling slowly in the most dramatic way, mist drifted down along that thing's sharp frame to the ground.
That thing.
That thing.
Commander of the Decepticons. Bigger than Optimus Prime. Evil enough to destroy millions of civilizations, including his own, in the wake of his destruction. Frozen immobile, but very much alive.
They were keeping the Hell Bringer in a giant refrigerator.
"Dear God." Maggie murmured. This was all new to her and Glen.
Fig muttered "Demonio." under his breath.
Secretary of Defense John Keller, whom I had not noticed had joined us, breathed in horror. "What is this?"
Everyone else had stopped in awe and dread at the ominous figure, but only I could know what he was truly capable of. My head swam through the many memories of what was to come. How many lives would be lost when he escaped? How could I possibly hope change anything when I was working against him?
Oh…my God. Even my thoughts whimpered in terror. He's going to kill us all.
"Hey," I jumped as a strong hand held my shoulder. Slowly, reluctantly, I tore my gaze away from the beast and turned. Captain William Lennox stood behind me, gazing down with kind eyes. "You okay, kid?" He asked, sounding genuinely concerned.
My mouth flapped like a fish, trying to push some comprehensible sound through my throat. I pointed at the giant and heard a rumble behind my eyes. "He…"
"Hey," Lennox's tone turned comforting. He squatted down to my level, holding my arms carefully. "It's gonna be okay." He smiled and tried to lighten the mood. "I'm William Lennox, but my friends call me Wild Bill. What's your name?"
I stared at him, surprised at his warmth. Then I remembered that he had a baby daughter at home who he'd never met. "Iris." I replied meekly.
Lennox took my hand softly in his, careful of my bandages, and shook it. "Nice to meet you, Iris. You see my guys over there?" I followed his pointed finger to Epps, Fig, and Donnelly. The group was moving forward, so they did not notice us, but the soldiers stayed together. They strode not with confidence, more like toughness that could only come from hardship. Even from behind they looked like the noble military heroes pictured on billboards and commercials. The image of protection.
"We're soldiers." Lennox said, bringing my attention back to him. "We fight bad guys all the time. And we're gonna do everything we can to keep you safe, alright?"
Guilt flooded me at the kindness of the man. He didn't even know me, or what I'd done, or what I'd probably do to screw up the future. And yet here he was, calming me down, telling me they'd take care of me. That was my job.
I nodded.
The soldier smiled, gave my arm an encouraging squeeze, and stood up again. We walked quickly to rejoin the group, which had gotten closer to the monster while Banacheck explained theories on when and how he crashed here.
"We call it NBE 1." Simmons was introducing as we caught up. Then he glanced at Epps. "Acronym."
"I got it." The man snapped. I really didn't think it was a good idea to start antagonizing the soldiers.
Sam spoke up. "Sir, I don't mean to correct you on everything you think you know but…that's Megatron. He's the leader of the Decepticons."
"It's been in cryostasis since 1935." Banacheck continued, again looking at Sam. "Archibald Witwicky made one of the greatest discoveries in the history of mankind."
Simmons took up the narration. "Fact is, you're looking at the source of the modern age. Microchips, lasers, spaceflight, cars, all reverse-engineered by studying it. NBE 1." He got very close to Sam's face, but the boy didn't flinch. "That's what we call it."
"And you didn't think that the United States military would need to know what you're keeping a hostile alien robot frozen in the basement?" A severely frustrated Keller asked Banacheck.
"Until these events, we had no credible threat to national security." The man replied slowly.
"Well you got one now!" Keller replied, shaking his head. I didn't mind him much. He seemed to be one of the few people who had any common sense here. Plus, I liked how he pronounced robot 'robutt'.
Lennox asked a good question. "So why Earth?" he asked.
Sam answered, "It's the Allspark."
"'Allspark?' What is that?" Keller asked, looking more and more annoyed at the different terminology everyone used.
"Well, yeah, they came here looking for some sort of cube-looking thing. And then Mister NBE 1 here, aka Megatron-," Sam turned and met Simmons's eyes. "That's what they call him - who's pretty much the harbinger of universal death, wants to use the Cube to transform human technology, to take over the universe. That's their plan." Then he looked right down at me. "Right?"
I sighed. "Well, it wasn't their first plan, but it is now."
"Are you sure about that?" Simmons asked us in a new air of severity.
"Yeah." Sam answered. He paused, looking straight at the government man. "You guys know where it is, don't you?" Less of a question, more of a statement.
There was an awkward silence, only broken when Banacheck said, "Follow me."
As he led us away from NBE 1, I turned around to look at Megatron one last time. He seemed to be following me with his eyes, unlit but certainly not unalive. I swore I could hear him breathing. But they don't breathe. I shivered, and not from the temperature.
Yeah, I know. It's a crappy chapter and a crappy place to end it. But hey, since it's only part of the original that means the next one should be up soon yaaaay!
How did I do writing Iris's panic attack? I felt like it sucked but editing was getting me nowhere.
So! Review please! And don't be too mad at meeeee!