The Thing in the Valley

Chapter 5: The Chase

Disclaimer: If it's in this fic, I don't own it.

Boulder spun his treads until they burned streaks into the floor, threw his weight around corners like he was Chase's size, slammed sideways into walls, desperate to reach Blades and the humans. Graham navigated from inside, one hand gripping Boulder's steering level while he navigated by tablet. "Just two more tunnels, then the next right."

"That puts our ETA at 24 seconds," Boulder calculated, transmitting directly to Blades. "Can you hang on for that long?"

Down in the tunnels, Blades spun into the thing, slicing along its arm plating with his back rotors. His weight fell onto the front of his feet, keeping him bobbing and spinning while his blades whistled past, against, through the attacking Thing. The Thing kept its feet planted and wound its body against the floor like a snake in its death throes. Blades stepped over every attempt to trip him. Rotor tips scraped against the wall and ceiling and filled the tunnels with shrapnel.

Boulder's transmission came through Dani's comm link. "Can you hang on for that long?"

"Half a minute? I think so." Dani pressed Doctor Greene and Frankie against the wall, shielding them with her body. She kept her eyes firmly on the Thing, flashlight shining into its left eye in a distant attempt to help Blades. "Blades has got it pinned down."

The Thing stretched out its neck and bit, teeth sinking into Blades's left ankle. The helicopter pivoted on that foot, clipping its outstretched neck and wrenching the teeth free from his leg. It snapped back against the ground, nearly flattening the cornered humans.

"On second thought, Blades has got US pinned down, too." The Thing focused one bright eye on her, blinding her. "Hurry, please!"

"Almost there!" Boulder called back. "I'll take Frankie and Doc back to base while you guys hold off the monster."

Somewhere behind her, Frankie asked, "How is Boulder-"

"Questions later!" Dani snapped. "Life in danger now. Blades! Holding up?"

"Barely!" Blades twitched as his concentration broke. The Thing wound around his ankle in his moment of weakness; with a buzz of his tail rotor, he scared it off. "Where are the others?"

"Over here!"

Boulder whirled around the corner, over-steered and bumped the wall. Blades yelped and jumped backwards; his rotors clipped back down. The Thing didn't have time to look up before Boulder drove on top of it and parked spitefully on its head. Blades yelped as it twitched, clawing at Boulder's treads ineffectually.

Graham threw open the door. "Scientists and children first!"

"We'll bring back whatever's left of it." Dani patted the positively green Doc Greene on the back. "See you topside."

The Greenes clambered into Boulder's cab, twitching at every little move the Thing made. It still wriggled from underneath Boulder, its cries muffled by his bulk, blindly groping for anything to catch onto. Doc slammed the door behind him with more than a little panic, punching the locking button as hard as he would allow himself.

The Thing grunted low and lurched, and Boulder began to rock.

Graham gulped. "Boulder, stop doing that."

Although his face registered his fear, Boulder spoke in his "robot" voice. "I'm not, sir."

"Don't let that thing go near you!" Blades chided Boulder in his real voice. Little bubbles of energon rose up from where he had been bitten, scratched, and tore by the machine. "I'm telling you, once you get moving again, don't stop! That thing is evil!"

Dani gulped, trying hard to get Doc and Frankie into Boulder without them asking questions. "Um, you got that, Graham?"

"Y-yeah, I got it." Graham latched onto the controls while the Greens pressed back into their seats, belted and buckled. He hurriedly pressed a few stray buttons on his Tablet while he could, switching on the beginnings of an escape plan. "All right, count of three, we roll out, and Blades keeps the machine busy. One-"

It roared, twisting its body. Boulder's right tread left the ground.

Blades jumped. "TwothreeRUNBOULDER!"

Boulder bolted. The thing's claws dug into the grooves of his treads, unable to catch him up, twisting its arm cables into tight coils before it let go. As Blades dove for it, it folded into itself, forcing its body thin as its arms and slithering out between Blades's fingertips. It bounded through the tunnels after Boulder with a long, boneless gait, disappearing into the dark before Blades could pick up speed. Long limbs moving unlike any Earthly creature, almost floating, it caught up to the bulldozer in three strides.

Boulder turned a sharp corner, just avoiding the wall. The Thing slammed into the wall and sprung back, easily as if it were made of jelly. It reached after Boulder with infinitely telescoping arms, just barely missing his exhaust pipes.

"How is it doing that?" Graham bleated.

"It's just like the movies!" Frankie squealed, half in panic. "No matter what we do, the monster's gonna catch up to us once we trip and fall!"

The comm link crackled, and Chase spoke, "Heatwave and I are currently on an intercept course with the beast. ETA is 24.9 seconds, 47.8 seconds for Heatwave and Kade."

A blast door shut behind Boulder, blocking the monster's path. Before the humans could register it losing their trail, it was behind them again, slinking through a human-sized side door in a side tunnel to follow its prey.

Behind the escaping bulldozer, the tunnels fell back into pitch darkness, lit only by Dani's flashlight and Blades's wounds. They followed Boulder's trail until they heard the blast door slam, Blades running into it headlong as Dani stared in amazement.

Dani shouted, "What was that?"

"That was me."

Up in the fire station, Cody was met with a collective shout from all his siblings, all the Rescue Bots, and his father. He pulled the headset away from his ear with one hand, holding his blanket tight to his body with the other.

"Cody, what are you doing on the line?"

"The power's out and the back-up generator's in the control room." He didn't have the nerve to say he got spooked. Cody replaced the headphones and went back to the screen, typing in the commands to shut the tunnel's blast doors whenever the monster got near one. The little red blip that was the Thing never stopped moving, but sometimes it would pause in frustration, giving him a little time to plan ahead. "I wasn't gonna do anything until I saw Graham turning on the controls for the safety doors. I figured I'd try to keep it from following you."

"That's my boy," Charlie beamed. "Good job, Cody."

"I've got a direct link to that schematic, Cody," Boulder interrupted. "Just shut whatever door you can, and I'll avoid it. Try to box it in."

"I've been trying to box it in!" Cody was familiar with this kind of thing. It was a minigame on a few of Kade's video games, but... "It keeps going through the walls!"

"The schematics only show the blast doors, not the normal ones," Dani announced. "It's been wiggling through them."

"It can't do that!" Heatwave growled. "Its head itself is bigger than a human door!"

"That hasn't been stopping it." Down in the tunnels, Blades picked up a piece of the monster's shell from a doorway. Dani focused her flashlight on it; triangular, one side of it was clearly a slice from Blades, while another was a rough tear from where the monster had oozed its way through. "That thing can squish itself more than we give it credit for."

Back in Boulder, Doctor Greene was tapping Graham's shoulder. "Um, excuse me, but how are the-"

"Bigger problems!" Graham snapped. He and Boulder drove determinedly towards a weak shaft of light and rain water. If memory served him, it was the tunnel exit near the ferry to the mainland. "Okay, I can see an exit from here. I'll get-"

The Thing came through a wall, in front of them, eyes bright, arms outstretched, teeth bared, screaming, silhouetted against the curtain of rain. Boulder and the Greenes shrieked; the Rescue Bot threw himself to the right just as a blast door came down in front of the thing. Boulder drove hard, wincing each time a blast door closed, cutting off the sight of those bright piercing optics.

"New plan!" Chief Burns called over the comm link. "Boulder, Chase, intercept. We're going to separate Doc and Frankie."

The Boulder turned another right. The doors shut around them like ringing bells, and the thing roared in frustration. The Greenes yelped and dove into each others arms. Doc held Frankie tight to his shoulder.

"Cody, call the mayor and tell him to evacuate the island, Code Yellow, Rogue Machinery."

Cody saluted the comm link habitually. "Yes, sir!"

"Heatwave, Kade, back to the fire station."

Heatwave snarled before Kade could. "What? Why? I need to stay down here and help my team!"

"Yeah! We're way more useful down here than above ground doing evacuation work!" added Kade.

"Kade needs to go up top and gather all the volunteers he can so we can apprehend this thing." Chief Burns's voice grew quiet. "Heatwave, you need to take Cody and Frankie to the mainland, where they'll be safe."

Chief Burns cut the comm link to the others, speaking directly to Kade and Heatwave while Chase drove to meet Boulder. "I know you're afraid of That Thing."

Heatwave's "console face" flinched. Kade could see the shame in that look and squeezed Heatwave's steering wheel in support.

"But I also know that you're good at putting on your brave face when it gets down to it. Frankie and Cody need someone right now who understands exactly why they're scared, but won't let himself be distracted by it. Can I trust you with that?"

Heatwave stayed quiet, thinking. Stay with Cody and Frankie. Leave the island. Abandon his team. Not face the thing made of body parts. Possibly see them again. Possibly be the only Rescue Bot left alive Save the kids. Save the kids, said his CPU above all else. However scared he was, Frankie and Cody were small and defenseless and... meat. Whatever terror he felt, they must have felt it tenfold. "... Yes sir."

When Chase spoke, he spoke quietly and reverently, breaking Charlie Burns out of his moment of worry. "Sir, we will rendezvous with Boulder and the others in 3.2 seconds."

The thing roared in the dark. Boulder and Chase stopped side by side, nose to tail end, engines running. Doors popped open, and the switch to Chief Burn's car was made as quickly as possible. Frankie and Doc shared one small wave before the Rescue Bots took off in separate directions, Chase heading for the fire station and Boulder heading towards the center of town.