Chapter 12 - Music and Planning
The weekend flew by for us. Mikaela and I officially revealed our relationship to everyone, and I know I saw Epps hand Will ten bucks. I'm not too surprised, though. We were kinda obvious. The rest of the weekend was spent doing what we could to help the bots in fixing up the main hangar, and actually managed to complete it before the end of the weekend. The families would move in that week, and I had a feeling it'd be an interesting experience for everyone. I did suggest to Optimus calling the base Omega Outpost One, and he agreed it was a good name. Plus, AOO1 is a more fun to say than Autobot Base.
Bee drove us all home that night, dropping Miles and Mikaela off at their houses before heading back to our place. Once I assured Mom and Dad everything went fine, I went to bed, though it felt a little odd not having Mikaela there. Sigh. We've not even been dating a week and I already miss her lots.
The next morning, I was looking through my closet for an outfit when I shifted a box and noticed something behind it. I pulled it out and it was a guitar case, with a very nice guitar inside. I pulled it out and strummed a cord or two and it was almost perfectly tuned, just a little adjusting needed.
I was hit with a memory from this world, taking guitar lessons over the summer and learning a few songs. Then the guitar got stuffed in the closet to make room for some boxes and I hadn't been able to pull it out since.
I had an idea and, once I was ready to go, carried the guitar, and sheet and a small pillow out to Bumblebee.
"What you got there, Alison?" he asked.
"It's a surprise. I just need you to keep it in the backseat until after school." I laid it across the seat, set the pillow on top and covered it with the sheet, making it a bit harder to see what it was. "You're probably gonna look this up, but don't tell Mikaela what's back there. I want it to be a surprise.
We went and picked Mikaela up and, though she asked, neither of us told her about the guitar, even when she bargained with kisses. School sort of dragged on that day, nothing really happened except for the announcement of a community halloween party on Saturday. Once the bell rang, we were out the door and racing to Bee and Barricade, who seemed as eager to get out as we did. We did notice that they had dents on their sides facing the other, and Mikaela glared at them. "What did you two do?" she asked.
"We kinda, had a debate and it got a little out of hand," Bumblebee admitted.
"Tattler," Barricade muttered and we rolled our eyes.
"I'm not healing that, you know" I said. "You'll have to pop those out yourself or with 'Kaela's help."
I slipped into Bumblebee's driver seat, with Mikaela taking the passenger's. "Will you tell me now what's back there?" she asked. "The suspense has been killing me all day."
I smiled and shook my head and Bee pulled out. "You'll see soon enough."
We all headed out to the look out again; it had kind of become our hanging place since we got back from Mission City. Bee and Cade turned on their holoavatars again, and Mikaela and Miles climbed out to sit on the hoods. I pulled the case out of the back seat and opened it, taking out the guitar before getting out of Bee.
"Check out what I dug out of my closet," I said, showing it to them.
"That's where that went!" Miles said. "I was wondering why you hadn't played it since before school started."
"It got shoved into the back when we were moving boxes. I found it this morning looking for some clothes."
"You play guitar?" Mikaela asked.
"A little. I took classes at the beginning of summer, then other stuff came up." I strummed the chords. "Wanna hear something."
"Yeah!" Bee said and the others agreed.
I sat on Bumblebee's hood, set the guitar in place and, after thinking a minute, started playing the opening strings of "Time of Your Life" by Green Day. After a moment, I closed my eyes and, when the intro was done, started to sing.
"Another turning point, a fork stuck in the road
Time grabs you by the wrist, directs you where to go
So make the best of this test and don't ask why
It's not a question but a lesson learned in time.
"It's something unpredictable but in the end is right
I hope you had the time of your life.
"So take the photographs and still frames in your mind
Hang it on a shelf in good health and good time
Tattoos of memories and dead skin on trial
For what it's worth, it was worth all the while.
I was a little lost in the music. It was a fitting song, I realized. There were a lot of trials and turning points in the last few months, and I had made the best of it.
"It's something unpredictable but in the end is right
I hope you had the time of your life."
When I finished, I kept my eyes closed for a moment and I actually felt a little teary. I blinked to hold them back and looked at everyone. Miles, Mikaela and Bee all had big grins, and Barricade had a small smile. "What'd you think?" I asked.
"That was great, Alison!" Mikaela said, giving me a one-arm hug.
Miles nodded. "That was. It was even better than the last time I heard it."
"You're not too bad," Barricade said, flicking his cigarette. "Better than quite a few of the people on the radio."
I blushed a little. "Please, I'm not that good. I'm still a beginner, and that's one of the only ones I know."
"Still, you're good. Keep it up and you could be star level," Bee said.
"Did you guys have music on Cybertron?" Miles asked.
"In a way," Barricade said. "It was different than what you have, partially because our audial range is different than yours. It was also much more 'synthetic', as you would put it."
"I think this song is a good example," Bumblebee said. He closed his holo's eyes and his radio started playing. It was like a mix of nightcore, Daft Punk and the G major audio edits, but not in such a way you were overloaded with noise. It was kinda nice, actually.
"That is cool," Mikaela said. "Do you guys listen to that when you're by yourselves?"
"Sometimes," Bee said, ending the music and opening his holo's eyes. "I like going through the top 100 stations."
"What about you, Barricade?"
The fake cop shrugged. "Symphonic metal is not so bad. And some of the alternate as well."
I smiled. "Ever heard Within Temptation?" We all talked music and hung out for about an hour or so, and I mentioned needing to learn to play a halloween song.
"Oh, that reminds me," Miles said. "The big community Halloween party is on Saturday, right?"
"Yeah, it is," Mikaela said. "I got a costume, but I wasn't sure if I was gonna go to it or not."
An idea came to me. "Hey, Will and Epps families are moving in this week, right?"
"Yeah," Bee said. "They should be getting to base tomorrow."
"And your holos work up to several miles and can still be considered viable, so long as no one notices the hair?"
"What are you getting at?" Barricade asked.
"The community party is open to anyone who can buy tickets," I explained, "and the kids are gonna have to miss Halloween in their old neighborhoods, not to mention transferring schools and everything. Plus, the bots should be able to see more human culture." I looked to make sure everyone was following. "So, we buy tickets for the bots and Lennoxes and Epps, and then we have the bots use their holoforms to go to the party, with us there to make sure that they don't cause trouble. Plus," I looked at Barricade, "You can come in your holo and talk to Optimus about a truce."
Barricade raised a brow. "Are you serious?"
"It'd be the best opportunity, 'cause you can park across town and you'll have all of us making sure that Ironhide can't leave to go blow you up."
"You think that's smart?" Miles asked. "I mean, the bots do kinda stand out even with the holos."
"And they've been here for two months. They won't be up to date with things, so anyone talking to them could pick up something," Mikaela added.
"Actually, we've been here about a year," Bumblebee said. "They others were just waiting in orbit while I came down and investigated."
I nodded. "There's that, plus, it is the best time. Optimus and Ironhide won't be able to cause a scene unless they leave, and I plan on recruiting Will and Epps to help us hold him in." I looked to Barricade. "It really comes down to you, if you want to try for it."
Barricade frowned and ducked his head a little in thought. The cigarette twirled in his fingers, and it was a few minutes before he nodded and looked up. "What the hell, might as well try. I'd rather have some kind of truce than be open for slaughter."
Bumblebee sighed, the Camaro actually sinking on his tires a bit. "Are we gonna tell Optimus of this beforehand, or just spring it on him at the party?"
"I can tell him," I said. "I'll just say he sent me a message on my ebay or something."
Barricade smirked. "Of course, LadyLover217."
"That name is so on the nose," Mikaela commented.
"Better than IFuckingLoveLadies, though, am I right?" I asked and we laughed.
Okay, everyone, I have a conundrum. When I started writing AllSpark, I only had the idea of Alison being dropped into the movies and trying to fix them, and the only things I had plotted were up to Mission City and the plot point of, Alison being kidnapped and taken to the Fallen at some point. Now, I've done some actual plotting and working on details, and I realize that I have lots of little details I need to correct. So rather than go back and manually fix them, I'm going to write the story up to chapter twenty as is, then go back and fix the mistakes.
But now, I don't know if I should repost the edited/updated chapters on the current story, or put them up as a different one. I'm not deleting the current story, but I'm not sure what I should do. I have a poll on my profile where you guys can vote on what I should do. My options are A) Change/Update the current story; B) Post a new story; or C) Post a new story, but continue updating both of them. Let me know what you guys think and I'll let you know my decision in the notes of Chapter 15.
