The Human Stain: Chapter 11

Winter's close...and the mountain high
I'll start my journey now
On this planet we call Earth we belong
I want to know
Why did God make me feel
There is more to be answered
Maybe God cannot remedy
Our souls if he tried
I seek peace of mind at least
And to know I did my best
I will pray for those I have loved

-Kamelot, Farewell

It was like being trapped by a circle of inert stone sentinels from Easter Island – both had inhuman features, massive bulk, and a height to match. The main difference compounded the problem for Claire, however. These were not immobile – indeed they could move, and indeed they were capable of great destruction.

She was suddenly glad she had grabbed her duffel bag and purse before leaving the Subaru.

The young woman had nearly lost her mind upon seeing Smokescreen in his true form. Now, surrounded as she was by five machines that no human had created, she wasn't so sure she hadn't already lost it. She backed up, her eyes as wide as dinner plates. Behind her, she felt the press of another warm back – Miguel. He had started walking backwards just as she had, and now they were back-to-back, staring in opposite directions like cornered rabbits.

"Screw this," Miguel hissed.

"Would be nice," Claire whimpered back, drawing a shuddering breath in the process. She held a thin rein of control over her body, and there was a visible strain on her features for keeping the panic at bay.

You've seen this before. You can do this. Breathe.

She stole a glance to Sam and Mikaela, who were completely composed if not concerned. If she could simply master their indifference, she could keep the dread from blooming in her chest.

She licked her dry lips, and took a step away from the flat plane of Miguel's back. Claire concentrated on familiarity in order to cope. Sam and Mikaela were not fearful, so she could attempt that example. The second thing she looked for was Smokescreen. He was just before her, as implacable as ever, and just as much a jerk as before. That hadn't changed. His outer appearance was a new color, a vibrant blue – the same color as the eyes he had now and the eyes he had as a hologram.

Her organic eyes met his digital ones, and the shutters containing them narrowed in consideration. He hadn't said a word, and without this she felt completely displaced from what she thought she knew of him. He looked like something else, the thing in the field, so undeniably other.

He wasn't familiar – she could recognize but she didn't know him.

Then, thankfully, he spoke.

"We will not harm you, humans."

Yep, that's him. Thankyouthankyouthankyou. It was enough.

"You must be the human that started this new breed of Decepticons." A new rumble, one she had never heard, erupted from behind her. Still small and scared, Claire whirled around. Come to think of it, she would rather have Smokescreen and Bumblebee at her back than the other three. She knew Smokescreen was an ass and Bumblebee was good-natured – until he crossed Smokescreen. There was nothing to be known about these others.

Claire pointed a finger at herself. "Me?" she squeaked.

It descended. It was the tallest of them all, an absolutely mighty being that soared over his counterparts by a good deal of distance. As it knelt on one knee, the ground beneath their feet trembled. Claire's way of coping with the situation went out the window.

Miguel wheezed.

"I assume you understand why you are here, Claire," the machine said. The voice was deep and male, coarse but commandeering. It was the voice of one who spoke with resolution and expected others to heed it. The stern countenance etched out of shiny plating only exacted this fact.

This must be Optimus, her mind concluded.

"Uh.. kinda…" She sounded like a field mouse talking to the combine tractor.

"Very well. I will explain more in just a minute." Optimus' eyes shifted to the left, towards what had been the GMC truck. There was a mechanized whirr from his optics as he did this, a small sound that she would not have heard had she not been so close to his head. Come to think of it, his head was nearly as tall as she was. Good lord.

"I am Optimus Prime, the leader of the Autobots. This is Ironhide, my Weapons Specialist."

Claire forced her line of sight to slip past the massive robot to regard the slightly shorter one on his right. This one had a broad mantle and looked more complex in structure than his leader. A rotating gear spun just under his right shoulder, and the truck's hazard lights blazed despite the daylight. The exterior of the GMC truck was so dark that there was barely a contrast between the wiring, gears, skeleton and plating while in his bipedal form.

"Don't forget it," Ironhide said, and Claire suddenly had the wild thought that he sounded almost like Clint Eastwood. The massive mech cracked the struts between his knuckles, creating a splintering sound that put the best tough guy to shame.

Optimus held out his metallic metacarpus to the former Hummer next. "This is Ratchet, my Medical Officer."

Ratchet was the shortest of the three. "A pleasure," he remarked simply. His intonation was amiable like Bumblebee's, but far more educated. Also, like Bumblebee, he was a stark contrast of yellow and black. Hummer lights and a wire cage sat proudly across his chest, and his mechanical eyes were noticeably intelligent.

Claire gave the Ratchet robot a tiny nod, and began to curl and unfurl her fingers in front of her.

"I know you have already met Smokescreen, my Diversionary Tactician. Bumblebee too, of course."

"'Diversionary Tactician?'" she exclaimed, spinning around just in time to catch Smokescreen posing proudly. "I can understand the first part, but the tactical needs work."

A silence fell upon them, and then Optimus chuckled. The rumble in his chest echoed throughout his entire body, something that could not be achieved in a human. He stood once more, and narrowed his eyes slightly as Smokescreen.

"I do quite well in my role," Smokescreen sniffed, appearing stung.

"Indeed, he does. All of the Autobots here are best suited for their job, and none other can achieve quite the same results."

"H-h-how did he find me?" It was a question that had been nagging at the back of Claire's mind for some time.

"I sent out a deep-space signal to any possible survivors. Cybertron is gone, but there might have been some Autobots that fled before its destruction. Smokescreen intercepted my signal shortly after Megatron's demise and followed it here. The rest of the explanation gets more complicated."

Again with the Megatron. That was to become her next inquest, but Miguel beat her to it.

"Hey, over here," he called, timidly waving one hand back and forth. "Excuse me?"

"Yes?" Optimus' blue optics reassigned himself to the male human next to Claire.

Miguel hesitated, presumably out of intimidation. Claire didn't blame him – Optimus was on an entirely different scale than they. "Um… I guess… who is Megatron?"

Optimus sighed and bowed his large head. "Long ago, I co-ruled Cybertron with Megatron. He was the leader of the Decepticons and my brother. Recently, he met his end in Mission City."

Miguel opened his mouth to speak, but then quickly shut it. He glanced at Claire for help, and found none. What was there to say to something as out-there as that? It explained some things, but it also raised more questions. In the end, the dark-haired man just shook his head and uttered a dumbstruck 'oh'.

Claire knew the subject would keep reaching further from her original question if she didn't flag it back. Drawing up her courage again, she blurted, "But how did he find me?"

"I know you can come to this conclusion on your own, Claire," Smokescreen stated smoothly.

Four Autobots and four humans turned their focus on the speaker. Some looked amused, others intrigued.

She turned to regard him with a hooked eyebrow, as if daring him to cross her. The woman was rapidly finding herself more at ease as things progressed. If they wanted her dead or hurt, they would have done it already. "What if happened to ask for a little help? Just a smidgen?"

Smokescreen paused, caught off guard by her last word. He seemed to process the data on that before he came across its definition. "Such quaint vocabulary this mud ball has," he remarked curiously. "But, back to the subject. If you are in such dire need for an answer and your organic brain is at a standstill, I will give you the full details."

God, he's such an arrogant asshole…

Optimus frowned, clearly disliking Smokescreen's tone. Bumblebee, who still stood next to Smokescreen, reached behind the other Autobot and touched upon a place where a spinal cord would have been located if he were human. The action gave Smokescreen a visible jolt, and Claire saw a puff of smoke and a spray of sparks shoot sideways.

Claire smiled instantly. She liked Bumblebee.

Smokescreen threw a glare at Bumblebee, and rubbed his backside simultaneously. "Piece of slag, you'll pay for that!" he vowed murderously.

"Enough, you two." It was Optimus. The tone he used with them was almost impatient. Across from him, Ratchet beamed out a laser over the heads of the humans and focused it directly on Smokescreen's midsection.

"No damage," the medic reported tiredly.

Miguel and Claire were still staring in fascination when the beam dissolved into thin air.

Smokescreen stood straighter, and Bumblebee made a humming sound that might have either had something to do with mechanics or amusement – Claire couldn't tell which.

The blue Autobot reshaped the metallic plates on his face into some semblance of a scowl. "I was ordered to find you by Optimus once I arrived. I first used the Internet to scour news articles on any humans involved in accidents where they had lost a section of their body. Your Trans-Organic was the very first created by the Decepticons, so we were aware of its existence and appearance. There was one article that had a picture next to it, as well as your name and location. You matched the appearance of the Decepticon perfectly." His range of sight fell to her prosthesis, which was still covered by Miguel's oversized slacks.

Claire swallowed nervously as all the parts began to come together. "And?" she prompted. She set her duffel bag on the ground next to her feet and shifted the purse on her shoulder.

"I kept … digging, as you humans would say. After learning your initial location, I followed the … trail of papers … to a notice put forth by another local newspaper. It was brief, but it mentioned you had… you had mated… married… another human by the name of Simon Walters."

Claire thought digging was a good idea. Yes, she needed to start digging right now. The hole had to be deep, dark, and wide. She would promptly cover herself over after that – all this personal history was embarrassing. And not just embarrassing - really embarrassing. "So… you…"

"…And then I discovered a useful thing called 'Facebook'."

"Lovely," she said dryly. She hadn't updated her Facebook page for nearly two years. Her life after the move had been so humdrum that she hadn't bothered. Not only that, there was also the fact that she had divorced a popular boy who had stayed by her side from the attack onwards. Her old circle of friends, even Jen, had pulled back since he had served her the papers. He had by then become friends with them, and in the end her friends were his, and they stood by him for his reasons. She crashed, ran, and ended up in the middle of the desert mixing paint. There wasn't anymore to it, save for the obvious truth - she was a coward.

"You had your current location on your profile. I found you living in this area, which is coincidentally near where Megatron died. I followed you here, and intercepted primitive electronic signals put forth from your phones. I put myself in place behind the 'garage' where you were having your car worked on. It worked out as I thought it would."

"You mean you were looking for me since…"

"For a… a month, by your species' way of measuring time." He was full of pauses, which meant he was running Internet searches left and right for the right words to fill his sentences. Without them, it would not have had much clarity. Claire was beginning to realize just how much work he had put into helping her, be it in this sense or another.

Yeah, but that's just a function of his orders, her mind reminded her. The thought spurned a large bout of bitterness.

"So, let me get this straight," she said, suddenly miffed. "You 'A', stalked me on the web, somehow hacked into Facebook and took down my location, then 'B', showed up at my location disguised as a loaner car because 'C', you were listening in on all my cell phone conversations!? Does this in any way strike you as wrong?"

"It is called espionage, not 'spying'," he corrected.

"OH. MY. GOD." Claire threw her hands up in the air, paced a couple of quick, frustrated circles in the sand and then leveled him with a glare. "You are just a piece work… crappy work at that."

"Enough," Optimus intercepted. He took one step forward, and she felt Miguel grab her wrist. He was scared, he always would be. He had seen what those large feet were capable of pulverizing, and so had she. All eyes, organic and mechanical, went to Optimus. "It was for your own safety that I asked him to do what he did. We knew you were still alive."

"How?" she inquired, now put into place by his presence.

"We… captured the Trans-Organic and held her for a short while. She later escaped under our watch, but in the duration we had her we extracted some useful information. She was seeking you for quite some time. Her processor is much simpler than ours, and it is unable to browse the World Wide Web. Everything Trans-Organics do must be done the hard way. Nevertheless, Ratchet was able to tap into her processor in order to retrieve what she knew of you."

Miguel perked up. "So… they have weak points."

"They are a blending of organic and robotic, a supreme upgrade from their past incarnations. They have the advantages of their human donors. This extends to thoughts, memories, knowledges… but they are also at a disadvantage due to their size and limited bionics. They do not have the full range of capabilities that we and their Decepticon masters have. It does not negate their strengths, however."

"I don't get it," Claire said, pinching the bridge of her nose between a thumb and forefinger. She began to pace nervously. "Are you saying a Decepticon bit off my leg in 1997? They said it was a great white that just wanted a taste."

Miguel snapped his eyes over to Claire. "You didn't mention that before."

Claire hit him back with her steady eyes. "No one asks. Everyone treats it like some taboo subject. It's not rude to ask me about it. I won't take offense."

Miguel didn't know how to respond to that. His eyes fell away.

"It was a shark," Smokescreen said, taking his turn to talk. "Your limb was still inside its stomach when the Decepticons captured it."

Claire blanched. "They stole my leg out of a 17 foot great white?" If that were true, the shark truly did have a predator. "How did they even know?"

Smokescreen tapped his metal cranium, and the reverberation echoed hollowly. If the situation hadn't been so serious, she would have laughed about it. "Again, the Internet. They read the news too. They found the shark the same day it took your leg. Digestion hadn't occurred at any great rate, so your limb was still intact."

"Why didn't they just come after me themselves?!"

"Decepticons would rather work below the radar if the chance presented itself. Fortunately for them, it did. They had their first Trans-Organic in need DNA, and you had lost a sample large enough."

"I-I-can't… they spawned a killer clone off a severed leg they found in a shark's stomach!?"

"That's gross," Miguel mentioned thoughtfully.

Claire smacked him on the shoulder. "No duh."

Sam and Mikaela were trading looks from where they stood adjacent to Claire and Miguel. The disgust was plainly written all over the brunette's face, and her mouth pursed to form a soundless, 'ew'. Sam merely looked intrigued.

Claire stood there, surrounded by robots and humans alike, and could definitely attest to feeling like a freak show. She readjusted the shoulder strap of her purse against her frame, and shifted her weight as well.

"How do they make them? How do they…"

Optimus' powerful voice answered her first. "We do not know. There were once Trans-Organics on Cybertron long before us, but these were sealed far below our home world. If the Decepticons somehow discovered the original schematics left by the Quintessons, it is not so unbelievable that they would attempt to pick up where the Quintessons left off."

"Quintessons?" Sam inquired quietly. He had remained silent all throughout the talks, seemingly satisfied to listen instead of contributing. Claire could see that this was a new word for him, though – heck, it was a new word for them all.

"Yes," Optimus nodded. "They lived on Cybertron long before we did and created the first sparklings of our race."

"I never heard that before," the teenager blinked.

"Indeed, it was never mentioned."

Sam looked thoughtful again, and Mikaela gave him a worried glance.

"What do we do now?" Claire asked.

"We… wait." Optimus turned, causing Ratchet and Ironhide to step aside as he took a position on the crag overlooking the city below. "More Decepticons have arrived in numbers that far surpass our own. We have not been able to locate them, but we are hoping that my signal was heard by more than just Smokescreen."

Claire frowned. It seemed suicide to stay in a small circle of Autobots while an innumerable army of Decepticons was gathering upon Earth.

Then again, she wasn't the leader of an Inter-galactic civilian militia from the planet Cybertron. What did she know?

Still not a whole hell of a lot.

He found her just as the dark veil of night was beginning to spread across the sky. She was seated on a rocky outcropping nearby the look out with her duffel bag and purse sitting between both legs. The woman's eyes were scanning the horizon, tired and red-rimmed. The air at that height was warm and gusty, but with the approach of night came a cold undercurrent. The other Autobots were still discussing battle plans in the place she had left them, and Miguel was busy interrogating Sam and Mikaela in a small group composed only of humans.

When the hologram sat next to her, she realized she wasn't alone. Her eyes slid sideways, taking in the image of Smokescreen's human dissimulation. She chuffed once, and then turned away. "Why are you here? Shouldn't you be down there with your leader?" She craned her neck around and glanced down at the others. They were far enough away to appear as indistinct figures, but close enough that she could hear the modulations of their discourse. Smokescreen was physically still with them, but his hologram was here, with her. He had onelong projection range.

"I have the choice to come and go. I am not programmed to follow Optimus' every whim. I am autonomous."

Claire wracked her brain for the definition of 'autonomous' and found none. It wasn't exactly an everyday word, and she unfortunately was just an everyday person. She eventually took it to mean he had independent thought, given the context he used it in. "Alright, fair enough. Can't you find some other place to be, then?" Her tone was bitchy, and she knew it.

He did not seem to mind, strangely enough. "What's wrong with this one?" he asked idly.

"What's wrong? I'm here, that's what's wrong."

"My dear Claire, I was not of the thought that you held such a low opinion of yourself." A flinty grin spread on his hologram's features.

"Ass."

"Again, we've been over this. I am of the belief that you…"

She held up a pausing finger. "Oh, no, don't you go there again. You're nothing but a perverted jerk."

He seemed bemused by this. His grin widened. "Is it not a saying of your kind that 'misery loves company'? I only sought out another like myself. You cannot fault me for that, can you?"

Indignation filled her and she turned on him savagely. "I am not a jerk, nor an asshole. You're in that category by yourself. God, you are… you are infuriating! I'm out of here."

A sweep of disappointment filled his features, but this was just as quickly masked. "I am not trying to get on your… bad side… Claire."

"Well, congrats, here's your medal." She picked up a small pebble and tossed it at him, watching as it bounced and tumbled right on through. "You do, you did. You're all making myself and Miguel just more than a little nuts," snarled the woman. She abruptly stood and started to pick her away around the rocks in her path.

Unfortunately, he appeared just in front of her for all the world like a ghostly apparition. She gave a cry of surprise and stumbled backwards, sliding as a chorus of rocks tumbled underfoot.

Smokescreen's eyes narrowed slightly, and a knowing smile just barely curved the corners of the mouth where the grin had been a second before. Claire was panting with the adrenaline rush of being startled in such a way, but quickly recovered.

Or, at least she thought so.

The hologram's hand reached out to touch her forearm. The illusory limb passed through her physical counterpart just as she suspected it would, but the result was not exactly calculable. A faint tingle, a buzz, passed along the delicate hairs there. It was not the uncomfortable sting of friction, but more a magnetization that swept up her forearm and made her hair stand on end. What the hell…

"What was that!?" she gasped crossly.

He just smiled. "This hologram is formed by an electrical current. It is not entirely insubstantial."

"Go to hell," she cursed, sweeping around him. If he came down there to torment her in his usual churlish manner, she could get it. It was his personality, after all. She would simply get up and leave once the insults became too much. What really pissed her off was the fact that he had escalated it to zapping her like a lab rat. She made a careful pass around his hologram, angry at him and herself for ever being attracted to it. There was no allure to his mechanoid or car forms – indeed, it would be a scary thing if she were enthralled by it. It all boiled down to how she felt a magnetism for his holographic image that had nothing to do with the fizzle that still crept along her skin.

Still, it was quite unnatural. He was really an 20 foot robot, and she was a dinky little human. It did not mesh.

"Claire," he called from behind. His voice was softer than before, and he did not attempt to surprise her again.

She would not listen. She was already on more level ground, and made a resolute march back towards Sam, Mikaela and Miguel.

Damn him.

Disclaimer: I do not own Transformers. All recognizable characters are the property of HasTak. All original characters are mine.

A/N: And there is Chapter 11! Will Claire and Smokescreen ever see eye-to-eye? Hm, seems it's still really rocky.

I hope you all enjoyed it… I had a lot of explaining to do in this chapter, so I hope it didn't lag much for you guys. Thanks to the reviewers who I have never heard from before, I couldn't believe you liked my OC's… but I am happy for that, really! I am in kind of a rush so I will make this author's note short instead of going into a reply for each one of you – count on that next chapter!