Hope?
It was at least a three-hour flight before we made it to our destination. All of our vehicles were prepared and ready to go from the very beginning, yet those few hours seemed very, very long. During the time we sat in a row on one side of the cargo plane, I thought to myself while the others discussed past events among themselves, and talked of the hope that had suddenly come to light. I stared in dismay at the floor, a frown wanting to tug at my features, yet I subdued it, unwilling to show the emotions that I was feeling underneath.
While with his last dying breath Baker had told us the city in which Dr. Tully was hiding, he hadn't given us much more than that. And it had been Megatron himself that had taken his life, and on top of that, I had failed twice to bring down the monster. It was something that I did not want to have happen twice. Whether he would be human or Cybertronian when all of this ended, I had no choice but to snuff out his spark. And neither drugs nor fear would perturb me in this quest. We would do this as we had hundreds of times before- battle.
"Optimus."
I looked up from the focused point on the floor into Ratchet's optics, who had risen. "Come on. We've landed."
I nodded once and rose to my feet, but he stopped me, gesturing to my bloodied clothes. "You might want to change real fast before we roll out."
"Yes." I said, and went to get a fresh shirt and a pair of jeans. I changed in the small restroom that was provided for us, staring into the mirror at the scar on my left side. Megatron had claimed that he had no intention of ever turning back. That he wanted to rule the humans' way. It hadn't sounded like Megatron at all. Had he gone mad, during the three years now that he had been human, or were human emotions that able to influence one's mind? The Decepticon's leader had been human for two more years than we had, along with his Decepticons. And, other than the confrontation three hours ago and Starscream, I hadn't seen much of his army. Would we face them, sometime in the future? I slipped the shirt over my head and slid the flame jacket over my shoulders once more, setting it right before exiting the bathroom and joining my fellow Autobots yet again. "Board your vehicles, start them up." I instructed bluntly. "We will begin our search now. Stay in your teams. Ask around, but be discreet. We don't want the Decepticons picking up on our trail, or Dr. Tully's. If you should run into a Decepticon, eliminate him swiftly."
"Yes, sir." A collaboration of replies met my audits, and I nodded before turning away and climbing into my truck. The others followed my lead and we began, our usual teams splitting up and spreading all about New Orleans. Bumblebee stuck close to me as we searched half of the southern district, listening into conversations as well as awaiting any word on the estranged Dr. Tully. It seemed as though we weren't catching up on any word at all; for days we without any word, meeting back at the hotel where we had rented joint rooms for all of us and discussing what we had learned every night. The pressure seemed to grow; we had no idea what the Decepticons were up to, nor where they were hiding, and if they were closer to Dr. Tully than we were. After the fourth day, we were beginning to be certain that our tactics weren't as effective as we believed. I decided that we would try one more day, and if our tactics still didn't yield any results, I would relay new instructions.
Bumblebee followed me to a pub that was located on the southern outskirts. I looked around upon stepping in, my optics getting used to the gloomy interior. There was a Shadow Man sitting in the back, a smirk on his lips from the very second that he spotted me, his eyes taking on a knowing gleam that set me ill at ease. I motioned for Bumblebee to follow me forward without a word, trying to keep my attention off of the skeleton-like man, and keep my mind on the task at hand.
My scout raised his eyebrows at a man that was passed out on the bar, his hand still closed around an alcoholic drink. "I don't like this place, Optimus." he mumbled, taking a seat beside me and folding his hands in his lap.
"Nor do I, Bumblebee." I said, my tones low. I waved off the bartender as he approached, saying that we were only here for a rest and a chat, and had no desire for any alcoholic drinks. When he asked if we wanted water, I turned to Bumblebee, who nodded his head. "We might as well get something," he said after the bartender had turned away. "That way we don't look too suspicious. Even though this place is already giving off-"
"Bad vibes?"
Bumblebee and I turned around and started up in unison, as the voodoo man was now sitting in the table no more than three feet behind us, his wide-brimmed hat casting a shadow over his flashing eyes. My scout blinked, then stammered, "W-what do you want?"
"Jus' your attention." The man shifted his weight around and turned to face us with his legs straddled over the chair, and chin resting on his folded arms, while his arms rested on the back of his chair. "You and I both know y'all don't belong here." His accent was so heavy it was almost hard to understand him. His dark-toned skin made his flashy white smile stand out all too well.
"I believe you have the wrong pair." I said, trying to wave off the dark feeling he was bringing to the atmosphere.
"Now, don't you lie to me. Why don't y'all join me to the table back there, 'gentlemen', and we'll have us a li'l talk?" The man gestured to the table he had first been sitting at when we had walked in. I turned my optics back toward him, only to find that he had already moved and was sitting at the table we just had our attention directed on. I looked to Bumblebee, wondering if we should have followed his instructions. After all, he already seemed to know that there was something different about us. It would have been better to at least be sure that he didn't know the truth, and only just suspected. Together we walked forward, forgetting about the water we had ordered, and took our seats across from him.
"What do you want from us?"
"I know more than you." The man shuffled a strange deck of cards as he spoke. "I know you men ain't human, neither."
"How?" Bumblebee demanded.
"Everyone got a vibe, and your vibes just ain't right." He stopped shuffling the cards for just a moment, twirling one in his fingers. "An' I got the cards to tell me everything that the vibes don't."
"You keep your mouth shut, then . . ." Bumblebee began, and it made the smile on the man's face stretch almost impossibly wider.
"How're ya gonna make me?" his eyes turned to me before my scout could answer. "You got an air 'bout you. Mind striking a deal?"
"And what deal would this be?" I asked cautiously, my face skeptical. The man returned to skillfully shuffling the cards, sometimes in ways that made me wonder how it was physically possible. He then replied smugly, "You let me read your fortune, I'll tell ya where the guy you're looking for is hiding."
Bumblebee opened his mouth again, no doubt about to question him as to how he had gained such information, but stopped when I held up a hand. "You really know where Dr. Joseph Tully is hiding?" The man nodded once. "I'll even keep my mouth closed about all of your secrets I know . . . Do we have a deal?" His hand reached out, his dark skin almost matching the color of the wood underneath. Slowly I slid my hand forward, until our skin touched and we shook hands. Excitedly he sat back and flipped the cards from one hand to another in succession, making a recurring noise. He then fanned the cards out and extended them to me. "Just pick three."
I randomly drew three from the deck, and went to flip them over as he put the other away. Quickly he stretched out his free hand and stopped me, placing his cold skin yet again on mine. "Ah, ah, ah. Not so fast. Don't look at 'em yet. That's all in good time." I let go as he gestured for him to hand me the cards, and he displayed them in a row in front of me on the table. He flipped the first one over, and I froze.
The likeness of the card that held my image was almost alarming. And not the image of how I was now- the real me, Cybertronian. I was standing tall in bot mode, with a smile playing at the corners of my metallic lips. Immediately I missed it, and wanted to reach out and touch he card, yet kept my hands to myself when the Shadow Man began to speak. "You're a leader. Standin' tall over a number of your foes. You come here to protect others." He turned to flip the second card, and this one held my image as I was then- human. I was holding the same pose as I had in the first card, standing tall, but instead of a smile on my face, there was a frown, the blue eyes reflecting sorrow. "But y'all cursed, Changed by your enemy, forced to walk in a skin that don't belong to you. You searching for the man that will Change you back. When you find him, but can't convince him to come . . ." The man moved his hand and turned over the third card. The image of this one was me, still in human form. Now I wasn't standing tall, yet I was on my knees, my hands turned submissively toward the sky, my head hanging low. ". . . You and your people stay like that forever."
I looked toward him, not at all pleased with what had been portrayed to me. But before I could ask him the question that was forming on the tip of my tongue, he began to speak again. Somehow he flipped the top card forward and revealed a hidden card underneath, and this one portrayed me again. I was in bot form, which seemed like a good sign, until I noticed the position I was in. Again I was on my knees, and my head was thrown back, my mouth open in a cry of anguish, my fists clenched and held off at angles to my sides. "If you convince him to come with you . . ." the Shadow Man continued, his voice grave, "there's unavoidable death in your future."
"Whose death?"
"I don't know. The cards don't say nothin' about that." He said, and he took the cards from me, all except the first. "You can keep that one, and this piece of information:
"He's hidin' out south, in the bayou. You go down the river 'til you see a house floatin' on the water, with a junkyard off to the side. You find him there."
"Thank you." I said, and rose to my feet. The man smiled the widest smile we had seen him perform, taking off his hat to reveal a bald head underneath. "No, no. Thank you."
We left the establishment as quickly as we could manage, and we gathered together to prepare to go down the river to the bayou. Not only was I shaken from the experience, but Bumblebee was as well. There was a pause over the radio as we drove back to the meeting place, only broken once when Bumblebee commented he didn't feel like going to New Orleans again anytime soon. I had to agree. Once we made it back to our meeting place, I gathered the others around.
"The objective is to find Tully, and convince him to come with us. At this point, he is our last hope."
