Great! Still loving the reviews. We've got some more great theories, and I think congratulations are in order for Hocapontas. But outside of this correct guess that has now been confirmed, I can't really say anyone else has quite gotten it. Though, I think we're in the right ballpark right now... just the wrong sport, if you know what I mean.

I hope you enjoy the chapter!

If my goal were to remain as quiet and discrete as possible, I would have been failing miserably. All pretenses of acting mature and grown up as only a twenty eight year old in a seventeen year old's body could were gone. There were people running around, trying to stop me while under specific orders not to hurt me. They wanted the information I had, and I suddenly felt reluctant to help them. Blocking the stairs and ladders up to the platform they had built around my guardian really did nothing close to what they had hoped. I've spent enough time around Autobots in ways no other human has, and I threw them all into shock and flurries when I leapt at the cold metal of Bumblebee's armor.

Climbing the chilled metal was more difficult than the living protoform of one of my family. It's rigid and unmoving, and my fingers were quickly getting frozen. But the temperature only drove me higher and higher until I reached the first of the hoses they were using to keep him unconscious. I twisted my arms to secure myself to my guardian's armor and threw my legs out to kick at the hoses, tossing them away. People were shouting, everyone was running, and I heard someone stop someone else from using weaponry to take me down.

I didn't even have the first hose shut down and pushed away before rope came flying at me. With my legs thrown out like they were, I was an easy target. My arms were twisted as my weight fell fully onto them, and I had to release my hold on the cold armor before I fell, lest I break one of them. Nevertheless, I came crashing to the ground and hit with an impact hard enough to knock the wind out of me. My vision was swimming- whether from the fall or from fury I couldn't tell -and I was thrashing to get free.

They can't do this! Not to Bumblebee! They've had Bumblebee frozen here for decades instead of Megatron? I can't believe this! NO!

"Sam. Sam. Sam!" A voice broke through as I finally started to calm down. "Sam! Come on, snap out of it." That's Mikaela, trying to grab at my arms still tangled in the ropes. A crowd had gathered around us, at the base of my frozen guardian's feet. She had made sure no one else came closer, but she didn't seem pleased with my actions. "What were you thinking? Look, every doubt I ever had about anything you said, I take it back. But do you realize that these people mean business? They have guns, and they have a giant frozen alien. You can't just go on blind fury-attacks!"

I huffed, not in the mood to humor her. "I take it back too. I'm not cooperating."

"Sam, what did you expect to see? A giant alien robot. You knew what we were walking into, at least, you seemed like you did."

"I was expecting a bigger one. More grey, uglier." I growled, standing up and more calmly throwing the ropes away. "Not him! You've got to release him now!" I glared at all the faceless suits around us. "Let. Him. Go!"

"I'm sorry, we can't do that, son." It's Simmons, stepping closer than the others now. "That wasn't part of the deal, and we aren't about to set loose a fifteen foot tall alien robot."

"Why not? I'll tell you all about him, if that makes you feel better." I took a step closer to the freezing metal behind me, which was incidentally farther from everyone that had gathered. "His name is Bumblebee, and he's just a scout. He's probably the nicest one you'll meet, he loves to play video games, has a terrible sense of humor, and he likes to listen to weird music. He'd never hurt a human- he'd go out of his way to fall on his own face before accidentally hitting the ground close enough to a human to even make them uncomfortable. You let him go, and I swear, the idiot would probably be apologizing himself!"

"How do you know so much, son?" Simmons didn't believe me for a second. "We've had this thing locked up here for about a century, and you don't look that old."

I narrowed my eyes and bit my lip. "He isn't supposed to be here. Megatron is. Megatron was in the Arctic Circle when my great grandfather found him and went crazy. Then you idiots showed up and took him down here. Megatron is supposed to be the one frozen in ice, and he," I put a hand on the yellow armor, "is supposed to be my car! This is all wrong."

"He claims he's from the future." Mikaela sighed.

"Aliens is one thing, but we've found no indication that this thing has time-traveling capabilities. That's still the stuff of science fiction novels." Simmons scoffed.

"I don't know. He sure knew a lot about me. How else do you explain how he knows all this stuff?" She crossed her arms and sided with me, but didn't come any closer.

"Time travel is impossible, son. You better rethink your story." Simmons sighed. "Now step away from the alien, and come with me."

"No. Alright, it's not... it's not... we don't..." I shook my head, not sure how exactly to say this without making them even more skeptical of me. If they'd just release Bumblebee, I'm sure he could back me up. Even though no one else seems to be even slightly aware of the events that have already taken place, I just know Bumblebee will remember.

"You don't what?"

"We don't usually have time travel. It isn't exactly something a technology we have developed or anything. It's more like a side effect." I hedged.

"A side effect? Like, 'may cause coughing, rash, swollen throat, or time travel'? You're kidding me, right?" Simmons was losing more and more of his patience. He was advancing now.

"No. Their ancestors had this technology called a 'space bridge', but they kind of lost it a long time ago. Before the war. But now they started to dig up more of it, trying to put it back together and get it to work again, but we didn't know how it worked. It sort of bridges two physical locations through something we call 'sub space', but it's real complicated. I don't know much about it, but I do know that time and space are more connected than the extent of human sciences imply. I'm not exactly sure how it all works, but I know that what we had didn't work right, and it sent me here." I shook my head. "I'm not a scientist, but I know that if you find yourself crashing into a bunch of volatile space bridge pieces, some weird time-space stuff is going to happen."

"It sounds like you were sent through time and space, then." Mikaela mused. "I thought it was just time."

"It's hard to separate the two." I allowed. "But I definitely was sent to the same place I was at the time I arrived in this continuum. My point is, I know these guys better than you can even imagine, and you don't have any idea, but you can't keep Bee like this. I swear, if you let him defrost, he'll be well behaved. Sure, he's going to dislike you a bit, but that's because you're all jerks. Let him go." I looked up at my best friend, completely offline. "Let him go."

"And what reason do we have for letting this thing defrost? Why would we do that? What even assures me that you're telling the truth, or that you even know what you're talking about?" Simmons challenged.

"You're going to have to trust me, I guess." Because all of my evidence, all of my proof is frozen in ice.

He scoffed. "Fat chance. You know what? Take these two and lock them up somewhere. I have to fix this mess before Tom gets back."

Two men grabbed our arms again- maybe the same men that had drafted us down into the interrogation room -and we were dragged out of the hanger. I didn't have any energy to fight it, I could only watch Bumblebee disappear from view as I furiously thought up ways to defrost him. What should I do? How did the Decepticons defrost Megatron? I remember the sirens going off, but why? What did they do? I just can't remember.

"I thought I was going to see the Allspark too?" I spoke up as we were pushed into another room.

"You just deprived yourself of that now, didn't you?" One of the nameless men sneered at me.

The other one made a show to lock the door while it was still open. "Hope you're comfortable, you just signed up for an all-expenses paid vacation for life."

They slammed the door and I laid down on the ground. Forget the chairs, forget the table. I chose the ground.

"I really hope you know what you're doing, because I didn't sign up for actually getting trapped here forever." Mikaela was getting increasingly skeptical of me and worried we actually were trapped. She pulled out one of the chairs and sat down, glaring down at me. "That show back there wasn't very comforting. Are you sure you have a handle on the situation?"

"Yes." I sighed, closing my eyes. I just didn't expect to see Bumblebee there. But... it makes sense. It makes sense in that something must have changed prior to my own arrival, but I just can't believe that it lead to Bumblebee getting frozen in there instead of Megatron. Unless this is somehow an alternate continuum from the beginning of its timeline, it doesn't make sense that things have changed that I couldn't possibly have affected.

But if Bumblebee were sent back too, to an earlier time, it's possible.

"Alright. So that thing back there was supposed to be your first car, not Doc?" She sounded calmer when she spoke again, several minutes later. I nodded. "Alright. Okay, then what is this Cube thing? What's your plan now? I don't really like sitting here, not sure if I'm ever going to get to go home again."

"I know exactly how you feel." I sighed, not bothering to answer her other questions.

What is my plan now? Same as before. Only instead of hacking Megatron's communications, I'm going to defrost Bumblebee. I freaked out back there, and I acted without thinking. If I could have just waited a moment to think it through, I would have realized that running over there to kick at their equipment would be the most unproductive method I could have chosen. I need to wait and gain their trust. Make them actually think I'm on their side, all the while sabotaging... what? How to get Bee to defrost? I don't know technology very well, but I suppose one way is to cut the power? How do you cut the power to a building that literally generates massive amounts of power itself? Turn off the entire Dam?

"Sam. I can't believe this. Will you just come clean already? I believe, you, alright? Anything you tell me, I will believe you. No doubts, no questions, I'm just going to take your word for it. Now please, tell me what you're going to do now." Mikaela spoke up again after an even longer bout of silence.

"I don't know." I answered honestly, but decided to humor her and not make her even more upset. So I started to think out loud. "I need to defrost Bumblebee. I'm not getting anywhere until then. He doesn't deserve to be frozen like that. And I have to get ahold of the Allspark. It was destroyed in my continuity, and maybe it doesn't have to be this time. In my continuity, it was the Decepticons that crashed here and had the coordinates to it, and the Autobots that could only follow them here. I think they've switched now, and I'm not sure why, but I think that's what this is all about. That means the Autobots have been on Earth for a while now, and they would have attacked the soldiers in Qatar."

I laughed a bit. "Right. Attacking human soldiers is the last thing they'd ever do. So that didn't happen, and they never even showed up there I bet. But on the flip side, that would have put the Decepticons in position to track down Archibald's glasses and find me, posing as my first car."

"Doc is an alien?" Mikaela's eyebrows shot up, but I snorted and shook my head.

"No. Doc is an old piece of shit car." She gave me an irritated look. "Sorry. An old fixed up car. It's actually pretty alright now, of course. But the fact it's a normal car means the Decepticons either never found out about the glasses and tracked them to me, or they've been taking a different route in taking them. I would bet anything that Barricade has been posing as a normal patrolling cop, keeping an eye on me until they knew where the glasses were, and then sending in Frenzy to take them." I stopped, hoping my Decepticon analysis skills are still lacking.

"What?" She prompted, satisfied by my line of thought.

"And the most opportune time to take them would be after I'd gone for an indefinite period of time on a road trip, when there's little chance he'd be caught. I'd bet you anything that they've already got the glasses."

"And what's so important about these glasses?" She distracted me momentarily.

"They're my great grandfather's glasses. Apparently in this timeline, he stumbled upon Bumblebee and got the coordinates to the Allspark imprinted into his glasses and his brain. In my continuity, he found Megatron there. That's how Sector Seven found out about him, from Archibald's crazy ramblings. His glasses were passed down, and I did my genealogy report on him."

"I remember that." She mused. "You brought in a bunch of old sailing tools."

I nodded, trying to get back onto the subject at hand. "So if the Decepticons have the glasses, I'd bet they're on their way here for the Allspark now. They could be here any minute, or they might not be here for a few days. I have no idea." I shook my head. "But the Autobots? If they're in the 'con's place here, they've been searching the globe trying to find out what happened with Bumblebee and the Allspark. My bet is that only Bee has the coordinates, just like how only Megatron had them."

"So where are they now?" She prompted me once more.

I thought a moment, squeezing my eyes shut. This is all theoretical, and it's entirely based off how well I know them. Honestly, I could be completely off. But... if I were them this is what I would do. And being as I am an Autobot and I think very similarly to their general thoughts, I think I'm pretty close.

"For whatever lead the Decepicons had found, they attempted to hack top-secret government files. Probably for information on this place. Assuming the Autobots found the same leads, they would have attempted to find the same information out. I was never a part of that end of things, but I do know that Will got involved because the Decepticons attacked their base in Qatar for this information. I think there were other strikes, and I don't know for sure what the Autobots would do in that situation, but I'm sure they would have gotten the info they needed by now. So whatever means they did it through- certainly more peaceful than the Decepticons' had been -they're more than likely headed this way too."

"So without doing anything, everyone's coming here." She mused. I nodded.

"That's how it happened. Everyone just collided here, and Sector Seven realized exactly what an 'alien war' meant. We were both there, but that's because Sector Seven found me. You were caught in the crossfire because you're nosy, and Bumblebee had been fighting the Decepticon that he'd unintentionally lead to me. Their presence lead Sector Seven to me, and we were all three brought in."

"When was that? Maybe if it's all to happen on the same day, we can be prepared for these 'Decepticons' and 'Autobots'." She sat up right, still in this with me.

I shook my head and didn't move to get up. "A month ago. Since the Decepticons didn't insert themselves directly into my life, they didn't draw Sector Seven's attention or the Autobots' attention. The 'bots are still on their own leads, and S-7's situation hasn't changed at all. I have no idea when anyone will get here. Pit, they still might not."

"So what are you going to do?" She asked the million dollar question. Now that we've established all this, what everyone else is probably doing, it's time to strike a little closer to home.

"I'm going to get the Allspark."

So... that could have been handled a bit better.

Now if we can take Sam's speculation at face value, we know a bit more about what's happening. But surely even Sam's bound to be wrong about some things, right? Or is he? Hmmmmm...

Now I don't write for reviews, and I would never withhold a chapter until I got a certain amount. However, if I keep getting reviews like this, I wouldn't be surprised if you got the entire story this week. I try to stretch it out to last, but you people are spoiling me. And I love it. But reviews or not, I'm updating another chapter today because I'm stuck on a detail or two in the 9th chapter, and I don't want to force it. Reviews always help me through writer's block too.