I had to ask Chapter 9, a transformers fanfic

CWC: Hello! Despite school, college classes, my first test, and a heavy case of writer's block, I am back! Sorry it took so long!

Prowl-Muse: You will be lucky if you have any readers left.

CWC: Hush, you. My readers are awesome! On with the story!

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Chapter 9: Crossing Borders

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Teresa's POV

"Yo, femme," Barricade's voice pulls me out of the light daze caused by extreme boredom.

"What's up big bot," I ask, glancing down at the radio even though his holoform is activated.

"There's a big place up ahead, looks like a toll booth, with these weird flags. Should we be worried?"

"What?!" I sit up with a jolt to stare forward. Cars are lined up for a short distance outside of a large building with lots of toll booths where uniformed guards are checking papers, the noon sun glinting off shiny paint jobs and snow drifts alike.

"Pull off, pull off," I shout, eyes widening. A confused Cade speedily complies, pulling off the highway and onto an off-ramp that loops us around until we're heading in the opposite direction. Leaning back over the seat, I breathe a sigh of relief as the station disappears behind us. Barricade shoots me a confused glare.

"What the pit was that about," he asks even as he accelerates back to the speed limit and blows past a huge white and blue cab-over-engine Freightliner car carrier.

"That," I say, going back to sitting up straight in the passenger seat. "That was the American-Canadian border. Congratulations, Barricade, you've managed to drive over practically the entire Eastern Seaboard in about a week, even with sticking to the back roads for most of the trip."

"Why did we have to turn around," Cade questions.

"Because I don't have my passport and blasting through the border is always a great way to get the police on your tail," I respond, looking down at my feet and grimacing. The floor is invisible under a layer of candy wrappers and my purse and book bag.

Bending over, I start gathering up the wrappers as Barricade states, "So we cannot go any further north without a passport, we cannot go east because of the Atlantic ocean, and we cannot go west because of the Autobots."

"So we have to go back south," I finish obviously as I wad up the papers and stuff them in a plastic bag for disposal. "Will the Autobots expect us to double back," I ask as I go back to arranging the bags so that I have some leg room.

"Probably not, but we will have to take a different route to avoid detection," Cade replies. "No, we cannot stop at your house," he says quickly. I shoot my friend? Big brother? Ride? I shoot my partner a bemused smirk.

"I wasn't going to ask," I say, holding my hands up in an 'I surrender' gesture. "Besides, what would I go back for?"

A grunt is the only answer I get out of Barricade before we go back to the dull silence that had preceded our arrival at the border. After almost thirty seconds of mind-numbing silence, I let out an explosive sigh and, after a minute or so of rummaging around in my backpack while getting odd looks from Cade, emerge with several maps.

Unfolding one, I look over the squiggly pen line that marks our route from Miniville, Tennessee to our last stop on the outskirts of New York City. I retrieve a pen from my pocket and turn to Cade, whose holoform is leaning over to see what I'm doing.

"Where do you feel like going now," I ask, gesturing to the map. Barricade shrugs as he straightens back up to stare at the road.

"It doesn't matter to me, as long as we stay away from Nevada," he replies as he swerves around a silver sedan. I look down at the map and shrug before folding it up and putting it away.

"Here's the plan: whenever we come to a crossroads, I'll pick a random direction and we'll see where we end up. Good," I say, glancing at the pretend Mustang for confirmation.

Barricade answers with, "Sounds good to me," before all is quiet again. There is another short silence, this time broken by the radio flicking on.

I stare at the dial with quiet amusement as it turns on its own for a few seconds before finally settling on a country station. I smirk at the song playing and am soon singing along to "Sweet Home Alabama" as the highway speeds by, the snow glinting in the sun. Barricade merely rolls his eyes under his sunglasses and gives me an amused smirk.

A comfortable couple of hours pass as I torture Cade with my horrible singing before we stop for supper at a convenient Subway, where my partner discovers that water isn't very good at cutting the heat from jalapeño peppers.

"Very funny," he grumbles around the straw in his mouth as he sucks down Coke at an astonishing rate. I can't help but smirk and continue eating my sandwich, popping a jalapeno in my mouth every so often just to tease him. After supper we're back on the road and I start up another game of 'guess the tune.' As the time nears eight o'clock and sky darkens, I turn to Cade, who has deactivated his holoform.

"How often do Cybertronians need to sleep," I ask curiously, eyeing a sign and pulling out the map.

"Depends on how much energon we've had and what we've been doing. Why," Barricade asks, confusion evident in his voice.

"Humans can't go for very long without sleeping, but sometimes they choose to stay up all night to study or just for fun. Thought I'd give you a warning, that's what I'm doing," I answer, marking the town we just passed on the map.

"So I will be forced to deal with you for twelve more hours," Cade asks blankly.

"Yup," I reply cheerily, re-folding the map and stuffing it in my bag.

"Oh joy," he deadpans.

I lean my head against the cool glass of Barricade's window and smirk as I prop my feet on the dashboard.

"You know you love me," I say, tilting my head back to try and see the stars.

"Like a hole in the helm," Cade counters, flicking his headlights onto low beam and back to high as we pass the first car we've seen for fifteen minutes. We're still driving on the back roads, and making great time due to Barry's snow tires and driving skills on the wintry roads. It's almost midnight when, looking at the scenery, I notice a spot where somebody went off the road. I glance down the narrow alley out of curiosity and gasp.

"Barricade, pull over, pull over," I shout, eyes wide. Cade, seeing what I have, backs up slightly to the alley formed by the trees and stops, allowing me to get out. I pull my hoody closer to my body as I shiver in the cold and march through the tunnel of damaged trees. Cursing my lack of a thicker coat, I pace slowly forward with Barricade driving slowly behind me, holoform activated just in case. Broken limbs litter the snowy ground, revealed by Barricade's strong headlights, and we have to go quite a way into the trees before we find what caused such damage.

"Slag," I mutter as the light reflects brightly off the battered trunk of a car, embedded up to the rear axles in a snow bank with the back tires, which are off the ground, barely visible. Even what little of the car I can see is dented and worn, no doubt from battling with the trees before ramming itself into the snow. Judging by the amount of snow that has fallen on the car, obscuring the license plate, it's been here for at least a day.

Where is the driver?

As the thought crosses my mind, my eyes widen and I rush forward, frantically digging through the snow to reveal the back window of the sleek car. Wiping as much frost from it as I can, I peer into the interior of the vehicle. Nothing moves inside, though I can't see much with the darkness and the snow. I'm about to move away when I feel a hand land on my shoulder. Stifling a shriek, I spin around and glare at Barricade's holoform.

"Your core temperature is dropping," he reports blankly, eyes still hidden behind sunglasses despite the fact that it's nighttime. "You should get back inside."

"Wait…" A weak voice come from the other side of the car, and, ignoring Barricade's suddenly confused expression, I race around the car. I'm yanked to a halt, however, when my jacket catches on the edge of the license plate. Stopping, I release my jacket, unintentionally wiping the snow from the plate in the process, and freeze, gaping.

"DA-JAZ-MN," the plate reads proudly, and a feeling of dread finds its way into the pit of my stomach as I lean around the end of the car and catch sight of the horribly familiar figure lying prone in the snow on the other side of the car, or should I say his real body.

He's as skinny as a twig, thin enough for me to count the ribs under his white jacket and red T-shirt, his clothes are ripped and dirty, his visor has a crack running through one side of the lens, and his black hair is tangled, matted, and rumpled, but he still manages to give me a small smile.

"What's crackin little glitches," Jazz says with a woozy grin before his head hits the ground with a slight thump.

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"Crap," I shout, rushing forward and bending down to examine the body. The sound of shifting metal informs me that Barricade has transformed, but I'm totally unprepared for him to scoop me up in one huge hand and dart backwards away from the Autobot, one hand transformed into a wickedly spinning mace.

"What the heck are you doing?" My voice is slightly shaky, and Barricade doesn't move from his defensive stance, tension practically thrumming through his frame. Reaching up, I pound against his fingers and he loosens them slightly, bright red optics glancing down at me before returning to the unconscious mech.

"Let me down," I order, and he jerks in surprise.

"Not on your life, squishy," Barricade growls, still in full-out battle mode. I sigh, and try a different approach.

"Barricade, is the Autobot attacking us," I ask pointedly, and his optics flicker to me for a few seconds longer.

"No," he answers. His weapon slows in its spinning and finally stops, but his hand does not reappear.

"Is he in any condition to attack us," I ask, and Barricade pauses. His eyes shine a strange shade of purple for a brief second before he grunts and shifts into a more relaxed stance, still holding me in his right hand.

"No," he finally responds. "He's nearly offline."

The blood drains from my face. "Barricade, put me down. I need to check on him," I say, a pleading note in my voice. The former Decepticon shakes his head.

"There's nothing you can do for him, femme," he states, a nearly unnoticeable trace of regret in his tone.

"How do you know," I object, beginning to struggle in his fingers. Barricade instantly looks down at me, concentrating on keeping me in his hand.

"Stop that," he grumbles as I wiggle out of his grasp and, quickly swapping spinning blades of doom for his slightly less dangerous left hand, moves to catch me. "Not until you tell me why I shouldn't crawl down there and start helping him the same way I helped you," I order, still scrambling between his digits. Barry releases a cavernous sigh.

"Fine, just stop squirming like a sparkling and look." His optics flare a brilliant blue before the light coming from them intensifies and focuses, projecting a picture directly onto the frame of the fallen Autobot.

It shows the basic frame of the car, laced with tubes and wires I'm completely unfamiliar with. Almost all of them are cracked, bright blue fluid leaking out. The most stunning thing is a spherical chamber located almost in the center of the hood, right underneath where the engine would be. A large crack winds down the side, and a blinding light shines out.

"What is that light?" I blink at the glare, and it disappears as the projection vanishes. Barricade huffs a sigh.

"Okay, squishy, mech biology basics. That light was the Autobot's spark. Every mech and femme has one. It's kind of like a heart, for a human, but it's also the soul of the Cybertronian; if the body was destroyed but the spark was safe, the bot could live on. That's why we're so hard to kill; we can always bounce back. What you just saw, however, was a crack in the spark casing, what protects it from the outside world.

With that cracked, the mech's in some serious trouble, not even counting all the busted energon lines he's got. Even if I wanted to, I don't have the right tools to fix him up, and neither do you." His voice has gone from harsh and angry to almost sympathetic as Barricade gently lowers me to the ground. I bite my lip and make no move towards the mech lying half-buried in snow.

"So there's nothing we can do for him," I ask quietly, hating the desperate quiver as my brain scrambles for some way to help the bot.

"Nope," Cade says bluntly, but doesn't make any other remarks. I stand silently for a minute, grieving for the death of someone I don't even know, when my not quite grief frozen brain latches on to one small part of the explanation.

"Wait, you said that you don't have the right tools to fix him, correct? Well who does?" Barricade's expression shifts into a glare.

"The Autobots could repair him, but his communication systems are shot. There's no way for him to call for help," he admits almost reluctantly, and I whirl on him, eyes wide.

"Well then call them and get them to come fix their friend," I almost shout. "It's not that simple," Cade states, a hint of irritation in his answer.

"How do you expect me to contact them? I don't have any of their comm. signals, and would they even believe me? Besides, by the time I find their system, hack it to put a message in without them noticing, and get out of here, the Auto-fool could already be dead!" I hesitate, listening to him, and almost immediately come up with a solution.

"You don't have to find their network, or even hack it," I reply, a smile forming on my face as the idea gains momentum. "Just open up an internet picture and I'll tell you what to do next. Quick! Transform!"

Confused, Barricade changes anyway, and I leap into the driver's seat. "Can you project some kind of screen," I ask, and the radio flips back to reveal a screen in the middle of the dashboard. It's already open to Google, and I grin.

"What are you doing," Barricade asks, no doubt keeping a metal 'eye' on what I'm typing as I pull up my email and start to type.

"The government keeps tabs on almost everything that goes on the internet, especially when it has to do with something they want to keep secret. They do that by setting filters up to looks for certain words in the right order. 'Nuclear' and 'weapon' don't ring any alarms, but put them together and suddenly you have the entire police force tail on your," I explain, biting my tongue as it starts to slip in my excitement.

"What does that have to do with anything?" Barricade is still confused, and the loaded email is taking shape.

"If I send an email with enough trigger words in it, the government will find it almost immediately. The more trigger words, the higher priority it will be given, so if I use enough they should send it to your buddies the Autobots. Then I'll tell them Jazz where is hurt and help send they will." My excitement peaks and I grin as I finish the short note, ignoring my final mistakes and clicking with a flourish.

"What do you think," I ask eagerly, and I see the mouse of the touchscreen moving as Barricade scans the document.

Megatron, Decepticons, Offline, Autobots, Starscream, Energon, Leader, Sparklings, Barricade, Femme, Neutral, Slag, Starscream, Slagger, Glitch-head, Cybertron, Barricade, Jazz, Neutral, Optimus Prime, Jazz, Autobot, Megatron, Megatron, Optimus Prime, Decepticon, All Spark, Spark, Spark Chamber, Processor, Offline, Stasis, Recharge, Barricade, Neutral, Mission City

HELLO! Attention all Autobots! The Autobot known as Jazz has been found in critical condition in Pennsylvania! The location is near Glendale Lake, in a state park. His spark chamber is cracked and he's leaking energon. Send medical help immediately! Even if you ignore every other word, please come help!

I can almost feel Barricade smirk. "Good plan, femme. The Auto-fool doesn't go the Well and we get away without a scratch. You'd have made a good Decepticon," he states, pleased. I roll my eyes.

"No, I would make a horrible Decepticon, and that I'll take as a complement. Now do you know any other words I could add to make it seem more believable?" Barricade is silent for a moment.

"No, I think it's good. Send it off." I smirk and click send as Cade's engine starts up. The flashing 'Message Sent' icon vanishes as the radio reappears, and I glance back at the Autobot as Barricade makes his way carefully back to the road.

"Are you sure we've done all we can," I ask one more time as Barry's tires make contact with pavement once more and we start off on our journey.

"Trust me, femme, he'll get all the help he needs as soon as the Autobots get there. We've done everything we can, and it's more than most would have done anyway," he replies, and I smirk at him as I take the steering wheel.

"Take a recharge nap," I order playfully as Cade puts out a questioning vibe. "You would make a horrible Decepticon, too, you know," I say quietly, and feel the seat tremble underneath me.

"I was a great Decepticon," Barricade answers tonelessly. "That's the problem."

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Somewhere in the Nevada Desert, a bank of computers begins to light up. The first word sets off hundreds of alarms, forcing the system to take a closer look. By the time the automated filter reads through the email, the warning system is nearly exploding, sending the heavily worded email directly to the one person it had been authorized to.

A small light blinks on in a chamber in the Autobot Headquarters, and the Second in Command comes fully out of recharge at the pinging of an email in his mailbox. Blue optics widen very slightly, and then narrow as he opens the message reads its contents.

:: Prowl to Prime, come in Prime. ::

:: …. Prowl, could this not have waited until morning? ::

:: receiving email attachment… ::

:: …. Prime to Ratchet. Sending attachment. ::

:: *&^$^%#&$#(&^%*^&%*! PRIME! I need to be there YESTERDAY! ::

:: Leave as soon as you are able. Prowl, are you sure this email is correct? ::

:: Sir, can we take the chance that it is not? There are only five humans outside of the soldiers and government officials who know of our existence. Four of them are still in this state. The only one we do not have contact with was last sighted in Tennessee in the company of a Decepticon. The likelihood of this being a hoax is less than five percent. ::

:: Very well. The question remains, why has the fifth human waited for so long to contact us? We assumed she perished at the hands of Barricade days ago. ::

:: I do not have the answer, Prime. ::

:: Affirmative. We shall have to deal with this in the morning. Has Ratchet left yet? ::

:: He just came through the barracks shouting for Jolt and 'one of those slagging twins.' ::

:: Good. We will discuss more once the sun has risen and Ratchet has reported back. Prime out. ::

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CWC: Okay, small problem. I originally intended for this story to go in a completely different direction, so I have almost nothing pre-written. That means, unfortunately, updates will be sporadic at best and horribly short at worst. I will try to update more often, though, and will not abandon this story!

Prowl-Muse: I will not allow it.

CWC: *rolls eyes* Yeah, right. The mini-cop-bot won't let me stop typing. Scary.

Prowl-Muse: *pulls out pack of Oreos*

CWC: Ooooohhhh! Gimme gimme gimme!

Prowl-Muse: Not until you have at least six pages written.

CWC: Okay! *Starts typing rapidly*

Prowl-Muse: *Sighs* She'll be absolutely useless now. Good bye, readers. Those who review will receive a virtual Oreo.

CWC: I don't own anything you recognize! Except Teresa, she is mine.

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