The Human Stain: Chapter 7
It's the perfect time of year
Somewhere far away from here
I feel fine enough, I guess
Considering everything's a mess
- Barenaked Ladies, Pinch Me
o..Before she existed here, she existed before, in memory..o
She is standing in the Santa Cruz High parking lot, a place she hadn't been in a great while. She is sixteen, nearly seventeen now. These things she knows just as much as she knows her own name.
"Claire."
Claire turns, seeking the one who sundered the silence. The sun is bright in her eyes and she blinks rapidly.
"Jen?" Her voice doesn't echo across the lot, instead, it is swallowed by the sunlight, seamlessly slipping into eerie silence.
"You can do it."
Claire glances down at her new plastic leg, surprised to find that she is surprised to see it. How did…
Oh…
A switch goes on in her head, and it is suddenly clear why.
"I c-can't go in," Claire stammers, "I'm not the same. They will point and stare."
"You haven't changed," her best friend says, stepping closer.
"I'm not good enough," she insists desperately, "I can't face them, I don't have a choice."
There were always choices, and none of them easy, but she had always known that.
There is still time to walk away.
Her brain goes cold.
Jen's smile is slow and simple. The brunette shakes her head, and Claire wonders why her childhood friend seems so much older.
"You're holding on too hard." The meaning doesn't seem to apply to returning to school anymore, but there is no quick answer as to why this is so. Her mind is foggy.
"Why are you here?"
"…For you."
"I've never done anything like this before. How will I know what to do?"
Jen cocks her head to one side, and a waterfall of hair streams over one shoulder.
"But you have. That's why we're here."
That's why we're here.
The words were familiar, even if Jen's placid expression wasn't.
Claire stares at nothing, all the memories flooding down, threatening to sweep her away, the memory of loss, and then the memory of the present, and then the memory of before, and –
o...o
Claire woke up before the sun.
A cool breeze blew across her skin, drying the sweat of fear that had bubbled up as she dreamed.
Processing her senses into some semblance of order, the woman grimaced when she moved. She was layered in a thin sheen of perspiration from head to toe, the product of night sweats. Her pajamas were sticking to her in stiff patches, breaking only when she moved her aching limbs. In short, she felt pretty disgusting. She needed to pee quite badly, and a shower wouldn't hurt. The results of last night's events hit her like a slap upside the head, and she ran a frustrated hand through her matted hair. Oddly enough, it wasn't panic or a barrage of solutions that first came to mind.
I bet I smell something awful.
Bracing herself for the worst, she raised one arm and smelled the concave area just below her left shoulder.
Affirmative, Captain.
Scrunching her nose and sighing in defeat, Claire glumly lanced her gaze over at the source of her frustration. The Datsun was once again nothing more than a vehicle sitting solidly upon all four wheels like cars did. For a split second, she felt a small hope flicker within her that there was nothing amiss, and that all should be as it should.
Why were you sleeping out here, then?
Good point.
Pulling herself to her feet, Claire attempted to dust herself off when a dull pain coursed its way up her nervous system. The bleeding on the sole of her foot had long since crusted over, but standing had reopened the wound. Great, just great.
"I need to go home," she said suddenly. Yes, it was quite possible home was no longer a safe place, but she would take her chances. There was no way she was going around like she was, simply no way.
As if on cue, the car – Smokescreen, was it? – replied to her. "They know to find you there now."
A cacophonous quiet settled between them, and Claire could hear a coyote declare his presence somewhere along the western range. From her right, she could hear the steady din of cars. A highway was nearby, which indicated people were as well. If there were people, there weren't shapeshifting cars.
Well, possibly. It was also possible too that those people weren't really people – maybe they were all transforming androids like the thing from last night.
The world seemed to rise all around her, swallowing the shadows of all that seemed safe. She was underneath a warming sky, but there was neither shade nor shelter from the harsh reality she found herself left with.
She was wracking her brains swiftly, trying to think of a response that wasn't as disheartening as what she was really thinking when Smokescreen started his engine.
"I don't care," she finally said. A rattle of sound escaped her lips as she breathed out a sigh. "Why did that … Decepta-whatever try to kill me? Did you know it was coming?"
"I will attempt to inform you of everything in due time."
"Why not now?"
"Because…" it began.
Claire suddenly cut the car off.
"I need to go to the bathroom." Some part of her was still in some suspension of disbelief that she was talking to something-that-should-not-be. Not only that, she had just told it she had to find a toilet.
"Bathroom?" it questioned, and there was a bad moment when Claire thought she would have to explain herself. Heat rose in her neck, flushing the skin beneath her dirt-caked cheeks. Her modesty was just about to be impugned upon.
It didn't allow her enough time, however.
"Oh," Smokescreen rumbled.
"Oh?" she said, turning his single word into a query.
"I just looked it up. I would have rather gone on in my own ignorance, but we can't have everything," the car remarked dryly.
She was going to die. "You just looked it up?"
"I am connected to your Internet."
Claire wanted to dig herself a deep hole and never emerge. "What did you…"
"It was an instructional video for sparklings of your species."
The thin line of Claire's mouth stretched tight and pulled down. She did not know what a 'sparkling' was, but the context gave her a pretty good idea. "Eh…" Her face was on fire.
"It seems to be a very private matter to you humans, yet you go into great depth about various aspects of it. You put all knowledge possible pertaining to it on your Internet, but you seem to find it disquieting now. You are very contradictory creatures, you know."
She blew a wisp of hair out of her eyes and leveled the car with a dark look. Her embarrassment began to seep out of her stiff shoulders, leaving her a bit miffed. The way the car went on made her sound like some curious zoological organism. She was a person, damnit, and she would make it see that.
"Don't call me contradictory, Franken-car."
"Franken-car? An interesting conjunction." The motor continued to run steadily, uninterrupted. Several seconds slipped by, as if it were thinking or browsing 'their Internet', and then it did the unexpected.
The windshield wipers arced, making a single pass.
There wasn't a drop of water in the sky. Claire glanced up, ascertained the burgeoning dawn was a cloudless one, and then lifted an eyebrow at Smokescreen. It took several moments for her mind to process what it might have meant by its strange action, and then it hit her like a brick.
The damn car had just done the equivalent of an eyeroll.
Of course, in vehicle form it did not have eyes. – but this was just something that could be worked around.
"Did you just…"
"I find your creativity lacking." It sounded bored.
"Look, I never said I was creative."
"Yes, you did," Smokescreen countered.
Stumped, she dropped the accusing digit she had been sticking in its general direction. After rewinding through a bit of their conversation yesterday, she made a strangled sound from somewhere in her throat. "That's because I thought you were something that my mind made up, because this WHOLE THING is surreal!"
"What is so unbelievable?"
She gave a derisive snort. "You're talking, for one."
"I find it more compelling that I would have the capacity for language when compared to a pulsating muscle locked inside a calcium container."
Flustered and having no recourse for that statement, she aimed low. "Y-you're such an asshole!"
"On the contrary, I would feel it more appropriate that you carried that designation."
"What!?"
"It's simple. You have one, I do not. And, if I am correct, you need to use it."
It took her all of eight seconds to pop her jaw shut after that.
They drove along in silence. Claire had her hands crossed over her chest in the driver's side seat while she seethed. She refused to talk to the thing, or even acknowledge it existed save for the fact she was sitting in it as it drove. At first it had been rather unsettling to watch the steering wheel move of its own accord, but her continuing anger overrode any qualms her sensibilities presented after a minute or two.
She hadn't known it very long – and she used the word 'it' as anyone rightly should – after all, it was a machine. Machines did not have genders. She had read about a robot that was created in the likeness of a Japanese female once, but it didn't make it female. Claire did not care how many life-like qualities they gave it; it didn't have hormones or a reproductive system. Smokescreen sounded male, but it was all an illusion – just like the Japanese robot. It seemed to have a keen intelligence, and she briefly mused over what built it. It had called itself an Autobot, from what she recalled – what was the higher creator that molded them? Was it an alien? One of flesh and blood? Why would the giant car talk so casually of 'fleshlings' if it was? It would seem to her offensive to the one that made it.
Then again, this Smokescreen seemed to be an offensive entity by his very nature. What kind of name was that, anyways? It made her feel slightly better in a most peevish way to think his name stupid. It sounded like something you would set up in a fireplace, anyway.
Her eyes were drawn out the driver's side window, and she watched the lines of scenery blur by. They had pulled onto the highway just as the sun was coming up, and no one had suspected anything amiss. The cars and trucks they passed were all given suspicious appraisals by Claire, even while she refused to talk to the alien life form encasing her in its cab. She had many biting questions at the back of her brain, each begging in its own way to be answered. There were so many things she did not understand, but she felt she would in time – but the problem was not the time, it was the lack of it. Both then and now, the world seemed shattered and poorly glued together, almost as if it was an accident and someone was trying to cover it up. No one noticed that everything was suddenly off-kilter, but she did. No one could point out the fault lines suddenly running through her life, the fractured edges where everything had broken apart.
But Claire could see them.
The need to urinate was growing stronger by the second, and she did not know where Smokescreen was taking her. She just knew that it knew that time was of the essence.
"We had better be heading for my house. Are we almost there?" The clichéd question that popped from between her lips earned her another pass of the windshield wipers.
Balling her hand into a fist, Claire brought the lower end down hard on the dashboard. "Stop that!"
"Why?" The question was genuinely curious, and he seemed unphased by the blow.
"Because it's rude," she supplied.
"As is striking the one transporting you. I know humans are subject to violent tendencies, but…"
"I'll show you violent…"
She would have said more, but something stopped her mouth from forming the rest of her sentence.
The scene that unfolded through the driver's side window was quite chaotic. Rubble littered a square patch of land where she had known a small bar to have existed. She couldn't quite recall the name of it, but she had passed it by several times since moving to Nevada. It had recently been renovated, upgraded from the status of hole-in-the-wall to happenin'-hot-spot, if there were such places in Boulder City.
Now, though – it was just a fractured mess of wood, concrete, glass and other objects strewn in disarray about the landscape. Small pit fires burned in spots where the debris was piled the highest, and Claire could make out the imprint of the building's foundation at the center of the mess. Oddly, there was a deep orifice nearby the remnants of the foundation, almost as if someone was digging a deep pit next to the building. The cavity was still smoking, leading her to wonder. It was like ground zero, and she could only reason that the bar's boiler had exploded during the night.
I hope everyone got out safely.
There were people present, too. Flashing lights sat beneath three ambulances, two fire trucks, and at least five police cruisers. What looked like battle-worn refugees congregated in close clusters, speaking animatedly with officers. Claire was surprised to find that Smokescreen had slowed, but upon looking forward she could see why. The sparse traffic along the highway had created a blockage as people slowed to gawk. The car ahead of the Datsun was inching along at less than five miles an hour as it passed through. Some small part of Claire was thankful for this, and she indulged her curiosity by staring out at the scene once more.
"I wonder what happened," she asked quietly.
"You wouldn't believe it if I told you," came her answer.
"You know?!" Eyes widening, the young woman straightened in her seat and tapped the steering wheel. "Do tell!"
"You humans are really a nosey lot."
Irritated, Claire chuffed. "You are not helping."
"I never claimed I would."
They began to speed up as the drivers ahead of them lost sight of the fiasco, and Claire was just about to slump down in defeat when something – no, someone – caught her eye.
Miguel.
She would know his face from anywhere – the tanned skin, the shock of blue-black hair. His angular features and aquiline nose suggested at a more Spanish ancestry than anything else, and it was all these things that led her to recognize him. He was standing next to the road, along the shoulder where the asphalt turned to gravel. Next to him was a plump woman who made the Boyd men look positively waifish. Both Miguel and the woman wore the expressions of holocaust survivors. They were slumped slightly forward, as if standing straight caused them a great deal of discomfort.
"Stop."
"Why?"
"Just do it, okay? I know that man." She pressed a finger to the driver's side window, and leaned her face close to the glass.
The engine sputtered like a first-generation Ford Model T. "You're secreting oil all over me!"
"Slow down or I'll breathe all over you too." Her lips were dangerously close to the window.
That brooked no argument. The engine made a high, tinny sound before pulling to the side and slowing to a stop. Claire leaned away from the glass, satisfied with the result, and opened the door. The car's exhaust was emitting charcoal-gray smoke in noxious clouds, and she faintly wondered if Smokescreen was acting huffy.
No matter.
"Miguel!" she held up one hand. The Hispanic man turned, eyeing her with a weary look. He did not appear to make the connection in his mind immediately, but as she stepped closer realization dawned on his haggard face. She noticed that he had a deep scar streaked across one cheek. His skin was darker than normal, and it took her a moment to see why – he was coated in ash.
"Claire…?!" he said in disbelief.
She limped to a halt a few feet away, still favoring her prosthesis.
Time skipped a beat, and then Miguel filled the pregnant pause before she could. "You look like hell."
She was about to say the same of him. Glancing down at her dirty pajama top and bottoms, she lost herself to a nervous laugh. She had been so concentrated on how bad helooked that she hadn't factored in how she might appear.
It was like some big, cosmic joke. Someone up there was getting his jimmies out of this.
"I've been through hell," she said solemnly.
"Us too," he agreed, gesturing to the woman next to him. "This is Teresa, she was with me when The Broken Spoke… broke."
"Nice to meet you," the short woman next to him offered. She had the same sort of accent Miguel had – nothing thick, but there was a resonant quality that bespoke of their Latin origins.
Claire began to work her fingers through her scraggly hair, attempting to straighten it. She was barefoot, dirty, and she smelled bad – but suddenly it became inanely important that her hair was free of knots. Nodding to Teresa, Claire once more returned her focus to Miguel's weary face. A deep line had been created in the space between his thick eyebrows, and Claire wondered if he would ever be able to rid himself of it.
"What happened here? It broke…?"
"It…" Miguel trailed uncertainly, trading a quick look of indecisiveness with Teresa. They both seemed very troubled by something.
"It…" Claire encouraged him on.
"It's too loco. I don't even think I remember it right," Miguel said helplessly.
Claire fell silent. It sounded quite consistent with what she would like to tell him.
It was Teresa piped up next. "It was a monster." Her voice was grave and thin, eyes downcast. Somehow, that explanation was all Claire needed.
"Was it about my height, looked kind of like me? Metal talons, like Freddy Krueger?"
She could not possibly expect the backlash that she received for that.
Miguel was not amused. "What the hell, do you think this is some joke to us!?" he spat in disgust. "This really happened. We really saw something. If you're not here to help, I think you'd better go."
Both of them were glaring at her, and it took Claire a moment to realize that they might have encountered something besides her killer clone. Her face registered surprise.
Wait, that means there are more than just…
"Leave us alone." Miguel was turning away, one hand slung over Teresa's low shoulders.
"Wait!" Claire lunged forward, encircling her hand around Miguel's free bicep. "I didn't mean to come across as sarcastic, I mean that…"
"What did you mean, Claire?" Miguel glanced back over his shoulder, eyes narrowed and dangerous.
"I mean that I saw something that looked like that. It tried to kill me. What did you see?" Her gray eyes met his brown ones, entreating upon him to hear her out. There was a certain hopelessness to the way she held on to his arm, as if losing whatever tenuous experience they both shared during that night was the last thing they should do.
Slowly, his body followed the direction of his head. Teresa, by extension, also turned on her heel and faced Claire once more. The woman was still staring at the ground. "You're serious?"
Claire nodded, once.
"You know how fucking nuts that sounds, right?" he continued.
Again, she nodded.
"I wouldn't be even close to believing you if I hadn't been through that shit last night."
Teresa began to tremble, a fine shake that shivered through her body quivered her lower lip. "It was El Diablo," she whispered.
"Might have been," Miguel agreed. "Whatever it was, it was huge. It picked The Spoke right off the ground and threw the entire thing on top of the owner. He had a gun, he tried to shoot at it…" Miguel paused and his eyes momentarily lost focus. He was still looking at Claire, but not at her – through her. He was seeing something else. He stayed like this a second longer, and then suddenly jerked. "Didn't do a damn thing," he finished. "We ran for it, and woke up later on the side of a hill. That's when the cops started showing up."
Claire listened to Miguel in disbelief. "Are you sure?" she questioned when he finished.
He gave a simple nod. "Unless I got hit with something and dreamt it all… but, the thing is…" he glanced down to Teresa as he said it, "she saw it too. Everyone did." One of his calloused hands swept outward towards the larger mass of people still gathered around the emergency vehicles. Claire, Miguel and Teresa stood twenty feet away from them, but even with the distance Claire could not mistake the doubt in the voices of the officers or the panic in the eyes of the witnesses.
"I think I know what that was," Claire finally said.
Miguel had followed her gaze, but whipped his head around when he heard this. "You've seen metal giants too?"
"Yeah, I guess I have. I'll explain… in the car." Her tenor turned cryptic. "Do you guys have a ride?"
"Naw, my truck and her car were completely destroyed. We were going to call for a ride."
"I'll drive you," Claire offered.
"That would be great," he said. He sounded exhausted.
It was about then that Claire remembered that the Datsun was a two-seater, and this realization made her curse aloud. "Oh, wait, I forgot… my car can only fit - "
About the same time, she had been turning around to regard said car – only it wasn't the way she had left it.
There, in the place she had left the 1979 Datsun, was a 2003 four-door Subaru Impreza.
" – four people," she finished with a wheeze.
Disclaimer: I do not own Transformers. All recognizable characters are the property of HasTak. All original characters are mine.
A/N: This was a fun chapter for me, especially the beginning. I like how Smoke and Claire's relationship is forming… or maybe how it's taking a sudden nosedive. Either works. At any rate, I just type as I go and the characters 'tell' me how they would react to their interaction with one another. Their conversation in this chapter just had me grinning.
Dandyparakeet: Starscream's Army? Maybe. Possibly. Maybe not completely. Maybe not at all. Who knows? Oh, wait, I guess I should… hm.. well in that case I guess I'll just refrain from comment. XD Claire wasn't in this chapter because I will be going into scenes with other characters when the plot requires it. Claire is the main character, but she's not the only character. Other characters like Miguel, General Richardson, Mick Boyd and his sons all shape the story in important ways. I can't leave them out!
soaringphoenix:How is my favorite firebird today! Lolz. I like that someone else likes what I'm doing with this too – I could do cut scenes to transformers, but I do not plan to. The only way the inner workings of the transformers will be revealed is through the eyes of humans. If there isn't a human in the room, I'm not writing a scene. It's kind of my personal challenge in this story, and it keeps you all wondering, so… yeah. As for your question about Smokescreen… well, he's an underdeveloped character that never really showed up much in the original series. He's had several incarnations since then as Transformers took different shapes, but no on really pinned down who he was. I wanted to play with that – besides that, he's a cheater, gambler and will go to any lengths to win. He's very Decepticonish, which appealed to me. I may be working towards an anti-hero status with him, I'm not sure. It depends on what he wants to do.
The Toe of Sauron: Thanks for coming out of stealth mode, I appreciate it. ) I do go into flowery descriptions now and then, I'll admit to it. I do it because I'm dealing with emotional, needy human creatures prone to violent tendencies (Smoke said it best). I also like dealing with subtext in a story (might have something to do with my name), so I factor that in too. I like speed and realism, though, don't get me wrong. Suedom is not in the cards for me, and let me know if I am straying that way. I don't want any of my characters to be favored by me, especially Claire. I have two working legs, so when I made Claire I had to figure out something important that would impact the story later with her (the prosthesis, of course, but I'm not telling you why)! I like the 'terminator' idea too, which is why I ran with it.
Rindesayu and Elita One: Thanks so much for the reviews you have been giving me, it means so much! I live off the feedback. If you do not feed me I shall shrivel up and die. Rindesayu and Dandyparakeet both are wondering about those incoming transformers. You'll just have to keep reading to see. ) Thanks again!
Thanks to everyone who has given me feedback. If you haven't yet, please feel free! Long A/N this time. I'm going to have to cut that down for the next chapter. I'm taking tomorrow off, so I'll resume updates on Monday!