Wow, sorry for the long delay! A big shout-out to TimeLordBud for getting the wheels turning for this fic again. Updates may be far between, I'm afraid, but I'm not giving up on this story. Again, thanks dude for all your help! This wouldn't be possible without you!
This chapter: Morgan tries to re acclimate herself to her actual life and there will be a brief glimpse of a new enemy faction!
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Morgan was still struggling to wrap her head around everything, but was slowly starting to grasp that this was reality. An orderly dressed in white had come to her table and helped Morgan to her feet when she'd finished eating, insisting that she be shown the way to her quarters.
"This way, Commander." the orderly said, placing her hand on Morgan's upper arm and guiding her though several long corridors to one with a bit dimmer lighting and an ugly but homely short carpet on the floor.
"Here we are, just remember it's the third one on the left. Welcome home! You're more than welcome to explore the compound as well to get you bearings, oh, and you'll need this to get into most of the rooms." The orderly said, dropping a keycard into Morgan's hand and pointing at a small scanning pad next to the door before leaving. Morgan watched her leave, then swiped the keycard and noted the heavy clunk as the lock inside the door disengaged. She entered her quarters and shut the door behind her, getting an odd feeling of deja vu and also a feeling like she'd just walked into her own house.
Morgan looked around the perfectly normal room, surprised that it looked like her apartment might have. It was mostly clean, a small amount of clutter making it realistic and giving her the illusion she might have only left for a short while. Her eyes fell on a fairly large cage against one wall close to her bunk and she looked in, curious.
An inquisitive black and white face looked up at her with dark oil spot eyes, whiskers twitching. A cute but full-grown rat was clinging to the bars of its cage with it's front paws whilst keeping its tail neatly wrapped around its hind feet. Morgan's sharp eye caught the small nameplate on the front of the cage and she nearly laughed.
"Blitz...I should have known." she laughed shortly to herself, letting the rodent sniff her hand through the bars of the cage. She stepped back from her apparent pet and looked around the room again, recognition and memories flooding back to her every minute. She shook her head, grumbling at another oncoming headache, and made her way to the door, letting herself back into the hallway.
Morgan looked down the carpeted hallway and then down another that changed to white tile halfway down. She took that direction, following the corridors until it started to seem very familiar. Quite on accident, she walked directly into the medical wing and stopped, unsure of where to go or what to do. She lifted her head in recognition, though, when the older doctor she'd spoken with earlier got her attention.
"Ah, Commander Greene. I see you're up and about, that's a good sign. How's your memory coming?" he asked. Morgan gave a small nod.
"Better, I think. This is all becoming so familiar, like I know I've been here. I think I remember my room too." she answered. The doctor clapped his hands.
"Marvelous! It seems you are finally recovering. It was a minor setback about your reaction to the simulator this time...but no matter, I think you'll do fine! You are the star of this study, after all." the doctor said, making Morgan feel a little uncomfortable but she hid it nonetheless.
"Yeah...about that, what again was it that I'm a part of?" Morgan asked nicely, hoping she'd get a more in-depth answer from the doctor. He waved his hand.
"You'll remember it in a short time I'm sure, but for now... You were part of a large study and group of experiments cataloging the effects of energon on humans and seeing if it could be refined or used in some way to benefit the homosapien race. In you, we found that certain individuals can be tolerant of the implant that allows the energon to be altered into a semi-nontoxic state that one could tolerate in one's blood. No doubt the effects are masked from your recovery, but in theory from your test results, this substance can allow humans to greatly increase their physical speed and reaction time, heighten the senses of perception, and increase strength by as much as twenty percent!" the doctor exclaimed in a bit of a mad-scientist way. Morgan listened in curiosity, speaking again.
"The Cybertronians...the Autobots, if you will, are real. Correct?" Morgan asked. The doctor nodded emphatically, waving her over to a computer console and having her sit after he accessed the passcode and brought up a file.
"Oh yes. There is a small team of Autobots that are being kept under political refugee status and they've allied themselves with our government. They sort of help solve our problems and keep the bigger baddies at bay." the doctor said, looking over Morgan's shoulder.
"Those are all profiles of the Autobots currently known to reside on earth. Their enemies, the Decepticons, are less known. We do have some vague, shady intel that a vagabond group has allied themselves with a human faction...but we've yet to confirm it... I'll leave you to it then." the doctor said, clapping Morgan on the shoulder before leaving. Morgan took a deep breath and clicked to the first page of the document.
A computer-generated picture of Optimus appeared on the screen, a block of text next to it. She looked around, making sure no one saw that she actually recognized the bots for fear they might think it another side effect. She felt relieved, actually, to see the leader of the Autobots was real and actually existed. She scrolled through the text, finding it was mostly statistics.
Designation: Optimus Prime
Optimus Prime is leader of the group of autonomous beings from the planet Cybertron, they've sworn to protect our planet an-
She skipped his profile, clicking the next arrow to see Ratchet, still looking like normal. Bumblebee was on the next page, of course in a 'warrior' pose with his battle mask drawn. After that was Jazz. She was taken aback, she'd been told Jazz was torn in half by Megatron himself, and Ironhide was the one that had found him. Then again...everything she'd been told had now been called a lie. Confused, she saw that his stats read "First Lieutenant," that had been Ironhide's post... Next on the screen was Sideswipe, still looking as he always did. She clicked again, and the picture of Optimus came up again, signaling the list had been gone through.
Morgan frowned, scrolling through the list again before calling the doctor back over. He walked back to the console and leaned down.
"Yes?"
"The Autobots...there aren't very many of them..." Morgan started. The doctor chuckled.
"No, that's why I said 'small' team. However, Optimus has informed us that his team has made contact with an even smaller group of renegades that they're trying to convince to come here under our government's blessing." the doctor answered. Morgan kept her frown.
"What about Ironhide?" she asked.
"Who? Sweetie, he might have just been created for your simulation. You can ask around, but I've never even heard that name before." the senior doctor said. Morgan stood suddenly, nearly tipping over the rolling chair she'd been sitting on.
"I have to go." she said curtly, brushing past him and walking past the gurneys and I.V stands to the doorway.
"Commander!" the doctor called after her, but she chose to ignore him. In a mental blur, she walked briskly back the way she came.
….
"Swindle...are you sure we can trust these humans? They are a pathetic and primitive race...we don't need them!" A voice spoke from the darkness of a run down warehouse. A flash of purple optics turned his way, narrowing.
"What are you saying, Brawl? That I made a bad decision? Why don't you be the leader then!" The rogue Combaticon said. Brawl sighed, looking back at the other small group of their number in recharge close by.
"I'm just sayin', we've all seen better days. I can't do us any better, so I'm fine with things right now..." The grunge-coated Cybertronian said. Swindle scoffed.
"Well good...we're all beat up and low on energon, and these small creatures think us gods. With luck, we can get them to mine energon for us, and when we're back on our feet, well, we'll see how useful they are then." Swindle said, chuckling darkly as Brawl joined in.
….
Morgan's thoughts were going a mile a minute, her heart aching that her best friend in the world simply didn't exist. She even broke into a jog to try and clear her head.
She jogged around a corner and abruptly smacked into a large, solid door. Briefly rubbing her knee that she'd banged against it, she tested the door. Locked. She did, however, notice a scanner mounted on the wall next to it. Curious, she swiped her keycard over it and it made an affirmative tone, a heavy lock inside the door sliding away with a clunk. The door opened by itself, and Morgan let herself in.
As soon as she crossed the threshold, she almost stumbled when a feeling of vertigo came over her. Morgan heard a brief rushing noise in her ears, shaking her head to get rid of it. She then marvelled at the place she was in.
There was a strange mixture of foliage and trees in the massive area, and the concrete floor and storage crates were visible amidst all the flora. She could hear birds too, as clearly as if they were sitting on her shoulder. The strange room seemed to shift, the plants growing to cover the manmade structures unnaturally fast. As Morgan walked, she nearly tripped over something and stopped to examine it. A very odd shaped and textured stick lay in her path, and kneeling, she picked it up.
The next thing she knew, she was surrounded by security guards all with their weapons drawn at her, shouting. Startled, she took a step back and the guards leveled their guns. It was then she realized she was holding a pistol in her right hand.
A gentle hand reached from behind her and quickly disarmed her of the gun. In cold dread, Morgan realized it had a full magazine and a round in the chamber. She hadn't had any idea what just happened. Morgan looked over her shoulder to see the woman with the same last name as she did.
"Get her to medical, now."
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