Dear Karma

A Transformers Story

Co-written by MeinBenutzername and A Humble Reader

Beta and Advisor: sacrificialHarmony

Note: Finally, some headway. As seen in the last chapter, it looks like the Transformers have decided to make an appearance. Now, the plan isn't to spoil any of the upcoming chapter in the Author's notes, so I'll leave it at restating what we all already know.

Thanks again to all of the reviewers, favorites, and follows.

Please enjoy the story, and leave a review if you deem us worthy.

Words:8356

Pages:25

Chapter 2

Terror's Special Kind of Hangover

In which the time simply flies while having fun, and one is left sprawled on the floor with only a headache and a vague notion of how they got there.

Sam sat, or rather, slumped, in the uncomfortable metal chair she had been requested (told) to sit in about an hour earlier. She was tired and annoyed, and so bored. When they drew close to where ever it was the talking police car was taking her, the windows had tinted themselves to almost black.

Sam would admit that for a moment she freaked out, and might have started hyperventilating a bit, but she quickly reassured herself when she remembered the whole secrecy thing that was gonna go down. She was gonna be blind-folded when she got out of the car, wouldn't it make sense that she didn't see everything through the windows first? It would make a blind-fold kind of pointless.

After maybe another half-hour of driving, (or maybe it was only fifteen minutes, who knew?) with nothing to look at but black windows and a pretty clean car interior, and only silence to keep her company, the car had stopped. By that time she was sitting normally with her bag resting in her lap, mulling over whether or not to strike up another conversation.

She jumped when the seatbelt unbuckled itself and she found herself none-too-gently removed from the vehicle by several pairs of strong hands. A blind-fold, one of those plastic ones that allowed no room for peeking, was almost immediately put over her eyes and she could only assume somebody had grabbed her bag where it fell on the ground.

No words were spoken, she was instead gripped by both arms and led into a building, where they spent what felt like another half hour walking (unfortunate considering the state of her feet), until they led her into a room instead of another hall.

Inside she was returned her sight, and promptly sat on one of those little table-cushion things like at the doctor's office. It even had that crinkly wax paper or whatever they put on it.

A doctor whose name she didn't catch set to work asking her where it hurt and bandaging her up, applying disinfectant and what-not. She thought it was funny that in what seemed to be a military installment they had the silly cartoon Band-Aids instead of plain tan ones.

Like she suspected, miraculously the worst of injuries was the gouge in her foot from when she had stepped on that shard of robo-stuff. (At least she now assumed it was robo-stuff. Would she get robot aids now? She certainly hoped not.) There were a few bits of glass stuck elsewhere, and she was covered in more bruises than she cared to count, but according to her doctor she probably wasn't feeling the full extent of the pain because she was suffering mild shock, and there was probably still adrenaline pumping through her systems.

At the time she just felt that sense of un-real-ness to everything, tinged with fear. Now she just felt annoyed. And ready to snark it out with Pens. Or the officer that came in to question her. Or maybe just hit something.

The Doc had given her painkillers and she did manage to get out a "Thanks, Doc!" with a decidedly Bugs Bunny tone to it, (if you ignored the crack in her voice) but she had been silent on the way to where she was now; the plain gray, probable interrogation-room, where she was bored out of her mind.

This was so horrible. Mostly recovered from her close encounter of the robot kind, mentally anyway, she felt ready to explode. She wanted to go home, call her stupid friends and tell them whatever bull she would be ordered to about what happened, order a pizza and eat some of those snacks, take a long, hot shower and then throw herself into bed. Or maybe just throw herself into bed. Cuddle with Bunnykins for a bit.

She also just wanted to be able to marvel with someone that hey, giant robots! Was this for real? (And why did that seem so dang familiar?)

But alas; she couldn't do either of those things because the powers that be decided they wanted to make her sit her in this freaking uncomfortable metal torture device, alone, and wait until they decided to stop dithering around with their heads up their asses and come and question her!

Okay, so maybe she was a little more than annoyed.

Groaning, she slowly righted herself on the chair. Scooting closer to what was a probably equally as uncomfortable metal table, she slumped the upper half of her body over that. Crossing her arms beneath her chin, she gazed absently at the wall in front of her.

Something was bothering her, something that wasn't the apparent incompetence of whoever dealt with witnesses to giant robots. (Again, part of her was still reeling from the sudden shift her perspective of reality took.)

And something seemed really familiar. (Apparently it was gonna plague her until she figured it out, because she couldn't stop thinking about it.) Not déjà vu, or anything, but like she knew this. God, she knew this. It was like that one formula she just knew but for the life of her couldn't remember on her test. She had seen it a thousand times, what was it? C equals...B minus...no, that wasn't...

Sam groaned and moved her face into her arms, squeezing her eyes shut in aggravation. Now instead of remembering whatever was so damn familiar about something, she was thinking of math formulas.

God damn it.

Finally drawn from within the tornado of her thoughts, (so many random, useless, fearful thoughts) Sam looked up when there was a loud clang in front of her.

No longer alone, a man in a crisp black suit and some fancy shmancy shoes walked to the other side of the table. He dropped a folder on the surface in front of her, then a clipboard, a pen, and a recorder of some kind beside himself, before sitting down as well. Then he put his cute little briefcase on the floor by his chair leg.

Feeling petulant, Sam didn't shift in her position and instead remained with her arms on the table and her back end hanging off the edge of the chair that was rather far away from said table. She just stared at him blankly. Knowing that her gaze was well renowned amongst friends and family alike to be nothing short of unnerving, (even if they had grown immune) she wondered if she could manage to creep him out as revenge for making her wait.

The man just brought his hands to rest on the table, clasping them together slowly. He cleared his throat.

"I am going to be asking you some questions about what happened this evening. I want you to answer truthfully and to the best of your ability. Do you understand?" He met her stare with one of his own, seemingly unbothered.

Well, maybe she could just annoy him then. At least a little bit. She wanted out of here already.

"Do I need a lawyer? My mom told me not to say anything until I got a lawyer. If this is an interrogation then I think my mom should probably be called off of her business trip, and I probably need a lawyer. I did mention that right? Lawyers. And when can I get a bathroom break? A girl's gotta go sometime. And, you know, isn't this technically kidnapping? Huh." The man didn't react to her rambling questions. Not even an eye twitch. Damn.

"You do not need a lawyer. You are not in trouble, and this isn't an investigation. Your mother has been informed that you were in a minor vehicular accident and will be returning home as soon as you are released from the hospital. She has been convinced that you are fine and not to leave her business trip early. You are not a victim of a kidnapping, Miss Johnson. This is all perfectly legal and actually, standard procedure." Sam resisted the frown that wanted to stick on her face. They had lied to her mom? A car accident? Wait, how did they know who her mom was? But more importantly...

"But what about the bathroom break? I drank a lot of water today, you see. I-"

"I'm sure you can find it within your self-control to hold it, Samantha." He gave her a small, snarky smile before returning his face to an unreadable slate of nothingness and boorish government goon training.

The man leaned forward, looking very serious and making Sam uncomfortable. She scooted the chair a little closer to the table, and shifted in her arms a tiny bit.

"Samantha. What you witnessed is a matter of National Security, and top secret. I need you to cooperate and answer my questions. Without this little attitude display. Do you understand? This is a very serious matter, and not just some kind of game. I'm sure you're aware of the fact that could have very well died if our team had not reached your location in time." Sam hesitated for a moment, allowing the words to sink it.

He was right, and she didn't want to think about it, because that made it so much more real. Now that it was done and over with, she had been feeling a sort of relief. It was all so surreal in the aftermath. She had almost died? Pshaw, no biggie.

As long as she didn't think about the details (the devil's in the details) she would be okay.

Looked like her reality check wasn't going to bounce after all.

"Yeah, okay." Sam averted her gaze and instead stared at the wall just past this man's right shoulder, to her left. What an interesting piece of architecture. Certainly not as unpleasant as the harsh look on his face at the moment.

The man leaned back again, and unclasped his hands. He turned on the recorder and pulled the file towards himself. Opening it, he flipped a few pages and organized something before speaking again.

"Please state you full name, first middle and last, and your date of birth." Sam shifted again before replying.

"I...my name is Samantha Hope Johnson. I was born April 1st, 1997." He nodded, still looking over his papers. She wondered if that was 'her file' or something. Or maybe it was just his list of standard just-met-giant-robot-traumatize-ee questions.

"Good. Now, what are you parents' names?" Sam frowned.

Katherine Diane Johnson. I uh, don't know my Dad's name." He looked up now, questioning with his eyebrows alone. Sam scowled, partially at herself, and partially at him for making her elaborate. "Mom didn't talk about it after he left when I was little. I never asked. She never told." The man nodded and picked up the pen to scribble something on the clipboard.

"Alright. Do you have any siblings?"

"No."

"Relatives?"

"My Grandma and Grandpa. We don't see them much, only once or twice a year, really. I don't think I have any cousins, but I could be wrong. If I do, I haven't met them."

"Pets?"

"A Golden Retriver. She's four."

"And how old are you?"

"Sixteen."

"And how old is you mother?"

"Thirty-eight." The man nodded and scribbled some more things down on his clipboard. For a while there was nothing but the scritching on his paper. She stared at him, but her thoughts drifted briefly back to that familiarity.

He seemed to finish, and ripped the paper off of the clipboard. He put it in the folder, and pushed the folder aside. Bringing the clipboard in front of him, he finally looked up at her again.

"Alright, Samantha. Can you tell me what you were doing out in the desert where our men found you in the clutches of a level 7 threat Mech?" Sam blinked and finally shifted herself closer to the table, sitting up more. She rested her chin in her hand, and narrowed her eyes.

"Well, okay, assuming the threat thingy was the robot that attacked me, I had gotten bored at home. So I grabbed a bag of mostly eaten Doritos and decided to go for a walk out behind my house." The man quirked an eyebrow at her incredulously. He seemed to like doing that. The whole eyebrow quirk thing. Luckily she was able to respond in kind.

"You went for a walk? According to my report here," He said, pulling something out of the folder again to look at it. So it was 'her file'. Neat. "you were found almost three and a half miles away from your place of residence. That was a walk?"

Internally, Sam balked. Had she really walked that far? Bejeezuz, she didn't think she had walked that far. She could barely do the mile run at school P.E. Then again, that was a run, and this was a walk...

"I guess." She said. "It's not like I kept track of exactly how many steps away from home I was. I just started walking and eating and then I stepped on a piece of metal or something, and I realized there was this huge trail of debris." Sam shrugged. "I followed it and found that crater. And then the monster-robot found me." He looked like he didn't really believe her.

Well then screw you, good sir. Wasn't he supposed to be like, a little sympathetic, or something? Stupid luck. Of course she got the emotionless butt holes.

"Alright...so, you followed this trail, and found the crater, with the robot inside." Sam cut him off.

"That's not what I said. The robot wasn't in the crater." The man frowned and began tapping the pen against the table.

"Then where was the robot?" He asked, looking over something in the folder again, flipping the page occasionally. Sam almost felt offended at his tone, as though he were talking to a first grader or something. She was at the very least second grade material.

Butt. Hole.

"Well, if you would let me explain before rudely assuming things..." She grumbled. He narrowed his eyes and gave her a look. Looks like her promise of no attitude wasn't holding very well. She was tired, cut her some slack. Jeesh.

You'd think these people had never heard of something called a coping mechanism before.

"I went down into the crater and looked around a bit. In the middle there was this..." Sam was sitting up fully now, and held her hand in front of her, forming a vaguely round shape. (So much for not thinking about the details...)

Maybe if she just thought of it as a story. Just a bedtime nightmare.

"...this, ball thing, I guess. It was about this big-" She gestured with her hands. "-about the size of a beach ball, maybe a bit bigger. It had some weird symbol-y stuff on it, not much. And there was a strip around the middle? And lots of lines. Kinda like a jig-saw puzzle or something." Sam's irritation with the man was quickly forgotten as she herself pondered the thing. What was it?

"It wasn't very heavy. Like, it wasn't filled with air, or anything, but it was pretty light, really easy to hold. And when I shook it, I think I heard something inside rattle-"

"You shook it?" the man interrupted, apparently surprised. Why wouldn't she shake it? She said as much.

"Well, yeah, I shook it. I mean, it looked like a puzzle or something, so I thought maybe there was a prize inside, or something. And I was right! Well, maybe. At the very least there was something inside of it..." He continued to look at her a little strangely.

"It didn't cross your mind that it might have been dangerous? An explosive of some kind?" Now it was Sam's turn for the strange looks. Whoopee.

"No. It looked harmless enough. It was just a ball, for goodness' sake. It was pretty interesting." The man shook his head but was apparently satisfied. The teen was suddenly struck with the mental image of him shaking his head and grumbling about "teenagers" under his breath. She wondered if he had kids.

He gestured for her to continue, and she complied.

"Well, anyway, there was definitely something in it, but I didn't get to find out what. Because suddenly there was this really loud roaring above me." Here came the hard part. Just a story...

"I thought I had heard a jet or plane or something fly over earlier, and I don't know if it was the robot or, well, an actual jet, but I just kinda hit the deck when it was practically on top of me." She was story-telling with vigor now, moving her hands around to accompany her words as she spoke.

She could do this. Ignore the terror building in your chest, girl. You can do this.

"For some reason I was still holding the ball, orb, sphere, whatever you wanna call it. When I looked up it was staring at me and I can't really remember what it said..." Sam frowned, her arms slowly lowering until they found their way back to her lap again. "Something about coming out to play...and squishy...little human, organic..." She trailed off and lapsed into silence.

After what was probably more than a few moments, the man cleared his throat, effectively removing her from her haze. (What had she been doing again?)

"And then...?" He questioned. Sam started, jumping in her seat a little. It caused a loud screech as the legs of the chair moved across the floor. Trying not to flinch, (or stutter) she quickly gathered her wits and continued.

"O-Oh. Well, I tried to run away, and it grabbed me right as I got to the edge...and I don't really remember, but I think it talked to me about something for a while. I think it made a lot of clicking and electronic-y noises, too." Just a story. Remember the noises? No, just a story.

"I tried to see if maybe I could get off the edge of its hand, but it was really far down. And then it stopped talking or whatever, and told me to give it the 'sphere', I think it said. And I didn't? I was still holding it for some reason. So it got mad, and then..." Sam trailed off uncertainly. What had happened after that? What did she remember? (No, what was the next part of the story?)

"I...well, I think...I remember it, the, the robot being mad, because I wouldn't let go, and then..." What was next? What was next? What had happened next?

"Then there was...I was sitting...the talking police car. There was the police car, and it talked to me, and told me what was going to happen. It was really calming, actually." Why did he need to know that? He didn't. Sam felt so confused. Her face probably showed as much, too.

"It was really monotone. And just, level headed I guess. And it calmed me down a lot, except that part when it first started talking when I was about to use my phone; that freaked me out a lot. Like, really bad." Rambling. She was rambling. Get to the point, Sammy. (Sammy-mammy; was that what mommy had said?)

"Any...anyway, that's all- that's all I remember. Yeah. That's what happened." She gave herself a firm mental shake, and maybe a physical one too- she wasn't really sure anymore. The terror was suddenly back full force, and she resisted the urge to stand up and run to the corner so she could hide. (She wanted her mommy to hug her so bad- call her Sammy-mammy and a big baby and tell her to stop shaking because it was over, and all just a bad dream, with Sweetie Pie in her lap and some hot chocolate in her hands, so maybe she would stop shivering and it would be okay again.)

So much for story-telling and coping mechanisms.

Mr. no-name government worker seemed to be looking at her with at least a small hint of concern now, though Sam didn't fully register it at the time. Otherwise she might have felt offended that it took him so damn long.

He rubbed the side of his face and seemed frustrated, maybe even worried, by something.

"Well." He said, giving her a look, and causing her gaze to snap back to him from where it had drifted. "You're absolutely sure that's what happened? What he was after? The ball?" Sam took a moment to listen to his words, let their simplicity sink in, and then nodded. The man blew out a tired puff of air and let his hand flop down to his side. (His voice wasn't as calming, like the car's. Oh god, she was going insane, wasn't she? To think a monotone AI remote controlled car's computerized voice was soothing.)

Apparently he had been scribbling during story time too, because he ripped another piece of paper from the clipboard, this one with significantly more scribbles, and slipped that one into her folder as well.

"Alright, Miss Johnson. This may seem exhausting, but I need you to write down, in as much detail as possible, the story you just told me. We would also appreciate it if you gave us every detail possible about that sphere, ball; whatever you want to call it- that you found in the crater. When you've finished with that, another man will be in here with something for you to eat. After that there are some forms you need to sign, some things to be explained, and some instructions for you to follow, and then you'll probably be home free." Sam frowned.

"Probably?" She asked. (There wasn't a quiver in her voice.) The man stood, straightening his things and adjusting his tie and spinning the clipboard and pen to her across the cold gray table. He picked up the recorder and slipped it into his pocket and picked up his briefcase with the folder. She ignored the sympathetic look he sent her way.

"Yes. Probably. This isn't a situation we encounter often, I'm afraid. I'm not sure how it will be handled by my superiors. I'm sorry." He stuck out one hand for her to shake. For a moment, she regarded it like it was poison, and then slowly brought hers up to meet it. (Her hand wasn't shaking a little- surely that was her imagination. The sedatives-pills-whatevers- were supposed to stop that. Right?) "Thank you for your time, Sam."

She just nodded and watched as he walked out the door.

Okay, so maybe he wasn't as bad as she originally thought. They couldn't blame her for being cautious. (And scared.)

Sighing, she cast a weary glance to the items on the table. Grumbling again, she pulled it the rest of the way towards her and began writing furiously. The sooner she got this done the sooner she got food, apparently. Since her stomach was about to eat itself with hunger, (or maybe the butterflies were the lingering signs of her panic) this sounded like a good idea.

(And the sooner she was done with this 'report' the sooner she could forget everything.)

(Approximately) Half an hour, one sore hand, and two pages filled front-and-back with microscopic Sam-writing later, the teenager found herself staring at a couple of oven-cooked chicken fingers, a suspicious lump of what she presumed to be mashed potatoes, and an innocent pile of corn. They had even given her a little chocolate milk carton. It had one of those really bad jokes on the back and everything.

How cute.

Personally, she felt she deserved a little more than these meager winnings for her trials. After all, she did include a poorly drawn re-creation of the ball she found in her 'report.' That warranted at least some MacDonald's, right? The questionable quality of her meal was at least expected with MacDonald's food-stuffs.

Now officially deemed recovered from what she supposed was a mild panic attack when she was telling Mr. Suit about what had happened, she debated on whether or not to complain about the current state of affairs. (It didn't matter to her that she had been the one to deem herself recovered; it wasn't like there was anybody else there to do it for her, or anyone else who realized she was relapsing, or whatever, anyway.)

The empty feeling in her stomach winning out over her compulsion to complain and generally be a nuisance, she mentally shrugged and picked up her fork to start with the corn, which currently looked the most edible.

Half-way through her meal, she wondered if the guard at the door with his hands over his crotch in standard Military stick-up-the-ass fashion was going to stare at her the whole time. She bet he was probably fascinated with her ability to eat what was surely recycled trash. Or maybe he was just waiting to snatch the plate from her as soon as she was done. Buzzard.

The door opened then, embarrassingly right as she had decided to let her chicken finger hang half out of her mouth while she opened the milk carton. She may or may not have been testing for a reaction from the guard.

Wondering if her face resembled a tomato yet, she quickly ripped the offending foodstuffs out of her mouth and swallowed what was left without hardly chewing it at all. She coughed a bit, choking slightly, and then calmly resumed opening her milk carton after the lump of un-chewed meat was all the way down.

The new man in a stiff black suit (not the same one, this one was distinctly older, judging by the gleam on his shiny mostly-bald head) gave a small little smile before closing the door behind the guard as he left, and took a seat. She kept herself from speaking as he organized his (thick) stack of papers by drinking her milk with as much normalcy as she could muster, and watching him from the corner of her eye. She was slouched casually in her seat, limbs splayed about in typical teenager style.

Done straightening his things, he clasped his hands in front of him and waited patiently for her to stop pretending that she hadn't drained her milk carton almost as soon as the spout had touched her lips.

Deciding to comply, for now, she gave up the act and put the carton back on the table. She rested her elbow on the back of the metal hunk of evil posing as a chair, and met his gaze evenly.

He smiled warmly.

"Sam. May I call you Sam? My name is Paul Blakemore. You can call me Paul. That way we'll be even." Sam nodded, hesitantly. Agent-Government-Man Paul smiled again.

"Good. Well, Sam. My job is pretty simple. I'm here to make the rest of this as easy as possible, for the both of us, so that we can both get on with our lives." Another winning smile. She guessed this was okay. She really did want to get home.

"Alright." She said, not looking away from him for a few moments. "What's with the stack of fancy looking documents?" Paul sighed a bit and shuffled some of the papers off the top of the stack, straightening them again as soon as they were separated.

"That, unfortunately, is the bad part about my job. This may take a while."

God damn it.

Luckily Paul was good at his job, and really did do his best to make it easy. At least someone was going to cut her some slack today.

Basically, it was several hours' worth of non-disclosure agreement after non-disclosure agreement. He was really vague on a lot of things, and a lot of the time was also spent with her re-hashing exactly what she knew about these robots; which in her opinion, was didley squat.

All she really knew was that 'Hey, giant robots exist and the government apparently doesn't want this to be common knowledge!' He kept asking what she knew about their construction and behavior and a bunch of other stuff, to which she had no clue. He also asked about the ball a lot too; what it looked like, did it make any noises, did you see anything strange happen, did it appear to shift at all- what kind of a question was that, anyway?

He told her as well, that at the end of everything, all of the official papers and the repeating questions, the bare necessities of the situation would be explained. The need-to-knows that would hopefully satisfy her curiosity and answer the questions that had been piling up with every vague reference Paul made to the 'government secrets.'

Of course, all that stuff would come after and only after she was sworn to secrecy and bound by too many contracts to count.

It was also hinted that she wouldn't be allowed to leave until everything was said and done, too.

So, Sam was a prisoner of sorts. She guessed she didn't really mind all that much. Paul was really doing his best to help her, and had a healthy sense of humor to deal with the sarcasm constantly rolling off of her tongue. And her grumpiness.

Now, normally, Sam would utterly deny any claims of her being a 'grumpy, stuffy, pouty spoil-sport with anger management issues and a stick up her ass,' as Anna had so lovingly deemed her early on in their friendship. Right now, she would still deny stuffy, pouty spoil-sport with anger management issues, (so what if she punched Anna on the shoulder with a little more force than necessary sometimes?) but she was fully accepting of the 'grumpy' part. Maybe she did have a stick up her ass right now.

Because at that point in time, if you looked up the definition of the word grumpy, all you would be greeted with was a picture of her beautiful scowling face.

She wasn't blaming Paul, in any of this, of course. She actually thought he was really nice and was ever thankful for his willingness to put up with her.

Because she could barely handle putting up with herself. It was a wonder how this man was doing it. He deserved a medal when this was over. Maybe she'd give him a hug or something. Ew, no, never mind. Where had that come from? She hated hugs.

Sam had decided that instead of blindly signing every scrap of paper beside the x on the dotted line, she was going to at the very least skim every last one of these thrice damned contracts.

Boy, was she regretting it.

Sam thought maybe even Paul's endless patience might be wearing thin, too.

"Alright," Paul said, preparing to go over one of the final papers in the stack, for perhaps the fifth time. They had been on this one for a while, and thus far it was the one she disagreed with the most vehemently. Truthfully, she had understood the reasoning behind most of the other documents.

But this just wasn't sitting well with her. At all.

Or maybe she was just at her breaking point and decidedly done with being compliant.

Paul started in on her again.

"This is an outline, that we've both already read, several times, that details what you're going to have to tell your friends and family when you return home. You get that, Sam, I know you get that. I don't understand why you're so hung up on this." Sam, currently wearing the title of Grouchiest Person on the Planet, sat with her feet propped up on the table and her arms crossed over her stomach. One hand was holding the document in question rigid for her to glare at. Paul just had his palms splayed out across the paper-littered table as though pleading with her to please please please shut up and sign the document already.

"I don't like it. I understand the need for secrecy, but this? Are you serious? Not only does it sound ridiculous, improbable actually, but apparently you already totaled our truck to make it believable? Like, what the Hell? How's insurance gonna pay for that? Also, what gave these guys the god damn right? I loved that truck! It had this really nice smell to it any everything! I have memories in that hunking piece of junk! Excuse me, had!" Paul sighed and resisted the urge to rub at his temples.

She was being difficult and she knew it, and he knew it, and she knew he knew it, but that didn't seem to matter to her at all. All that seemed to matter right now was whining.

"Sam, you already had warning earlier when you were first questioned. I believe you were told that your mother had been informed you were in a car wreck? You didn't have any problems then, did you?" Sam threw her hands up in the air in angry, righteous, teenage fury.

"But when that happened I was confused and probably still suffering from the shock of giant robots and talking cars! Or, better yet, drugs! I was on painkillers or something! This isn't fair! I'm gonna be in so much trouble when I get home! Not only does this make me look like an unsafe driver and irresponsible in general, which I'm not, but now it's gonna be on my record forever!" Sam knew she was being stupid and maybe a little bit petty, and self-centered, but she didn't care.

"I can't believe this! I just...you're not even giving me a choice!"

In truth, Sam really did grasp the gravity of the situation she had somehow landed herself in. Personally, she thought she was doing an excellent job of grasping. As a matter of fact, she was pretty sure that nobody had nothin' on grasping things compared to her.

It was just the sudden lack of control with everything. Her world was thrown for a loop, alright. She's mostly recovered from that. She can't tell anybody about it unless they're government approved; understandable, thanks to her amazing grasping capabilities. Lots of frustrating loops to jump through and subtle threats to take heed of, she's even handling that pretty well.

But then they just said 'Here's the story, we already set everything up, have fun trying to explain this one, sucker.'

Sam released a long-suffering sigh and allowed her head to loll back, bringing the much hated document to cover her face with a moan.

She needed sleep. She might even need coffee.

It was at this moment that she realized things were getting desperate, taking a turn for the worse. If she thought she needed coffee, something she had sworn off long ago, there was definitely something wrong. Time to stop being a brat, then.

"Fine. Whatever. I'll just go home and lie to everyone and be looked upon as a delinquent for the rest of my life. People will look at me in the yearbooks and say 'Look! It's that girl that totaled her car when she drove it into a building!' Or something like that."

Among the responses Sam expected to hear, a light chuckle was not one of them.

"Sam, maybe you haven't been reading the outline as thoroughly as I thought. The crash that was staged wasn't your fault at all. As the story goes; you went on a walk, then out to pick something up from the store, and were T-boned at the intersection on the passenger side by a drunk driver. You got out of the crash with very little injury sustained, and after a brief stay in the hospital, returned home." Sam just groaned and moved her feet off the table, opting instead to shove the paper at Paul and smoosh her face into her arms where she laid them next on the table.

"I don't even care anymore. Whatever. I'm fine with the stupid story. I know what to do. Let me sign the fricking paper and let's go over the rest so that I can go home." Paul chuckled again and slid the sheet and pen into her arms. Removing her face from her cocoon, she quickly found where x marked the spot, and left a microscopic signature in poor cursive, just as she had done for the other fifty papers.

"Okay." She moaned. "What's next." Paul smiled at her.

"That's it!" He said, clapping his hands together once as though celebrating the end of a great event. Or hours of torture. Whatever floats your boat.

"That's it?" she asked, perking up a little. No more papers to sign?

"That's it." He said, his grin wide. "Here comes the fun part." Sam snorted.

"Fun part? Excuse me, but did you just say fun part? There's a 'fun part' in all of this?" Paul nodded happily, gathering up the mess they had created when Sam felt the sudden urge to be responsible and learn about what she was actually going to be signing. Wow, had that gone wrong.

With all of his supplies collected, he stood up from the table, with a disbelieving Sam left to stare at him suspiciously.

"You're serious?" she questioned again. "Excuse my French; but you really aren't shitting me right now? This is a legitimate claim?" Paul just grinned.

"Oh, bringing out the big guns, are we? Think maybe if you use bigger words you'll catch me in my lie?" Sam leveled him with a sufficiently questioning look while he mocked her.

"Perhaps." She said vaguely. Paul chuckled, and Sam smiled a bit.

"Alright then, come and 'perhaps' yourself into the hall with me. I'll explain while we walk, and this way you can stretch some feeling back into your limbs and stop whining about that chair." Sam was all smiles as she leapt up, having to keep herself from full out sprinting to the door ahead of him.

Oh her poor, abused buttocks. Finally. She was free.

"Alright," Paul said to her, holding open the door with his briefcase held to his chest. "You know the drill. Ladies first." Sam stepped out of the room and he came right behind her, and the two fell into a comfortable stride. Sam just followed his lead, turning where he turning, and glad that her foot only felt a little sore at the moment, instead of throbbing or anything.

"Alright Sam, the jig is up; time for those secrets you've been waiting for."

"Oh, goodie!"

"Haha, yes, goodie. Now, I don't want you to think I'm crazy or anything, but have you ever seen the movie trilogy The Transformers? Or maybe the old cartoon?" Sam stopped dead in her tracks.

All the little wheels in her head stopped spinning, the gears ground to a halt, and the lights flickered in warning.

"You mean...with like, the really good CG and Optimus Prime and Shia LaBeouf and all that? I've...I've seen those. What does that have to do with anything?" Paul stopped walking and turned to face her. He had one hand in his pocket and was sending her a sympathetic looking smile, which she decided she really didn't like.

"Well, it's good that you've at least seen the movies, that will give us a little bit to work with." Sam hesitated and chose her next words carefully. Or debated on whether not she should even go along with the little joke he seemed to be playing on her.

"Well...I've seen the, uh G1? Yeah, All of season one and half of season 2 of the G1 cartoons with my friends, but I don't..." Sam trailed off uncertainly. Just what was he getting at? Slowly, the gears jerked themselves back into motion and she began to think.

"Do you mean to say," Sam began warily, "That the government, or multiple governments, since apparently they attack people, made...giant, transforming robots to mimic a 70's cartoon?" Paul gave a short, shallow laugh and shook his head in the negative.

"That's probably the most logical reasoning I've heard some people come up with, but no, that's not it." He gestured for her to continue walking with him again, and ever so painfully slowly, Sam managed to get her legs in working order. Mostly.

"Then what is it, exactly?" Paul gave her a half-glance and another smile.

"Well, I can't tell you everything, but this little accident has granted you clearance to know the basics."

"Around the late 70's, early 80's, the exact timing isn't specific, is when the first of the transformers accurate merchandise came out."

"Accurate?" Same questioned. Paul shushed her.

"Yes. Before that I believe there was some experimenting with *'Gobots' something or other- but that's beside the point. You see, about three years prior to that, when the transformers toy line and shows first came out, the Autobots really did land here on good ole' planet earth."

"I don't have top top clearance myself, but I know the story. I kind of have to, since part of my job is explaining all of this to civilians who become unintentionally involved- like yourself."

"So, the Autobots made contact with the American government. America was the superpower, after all. The free nation; the most logical choice. It took time, a lot of adjusting, and several football fields worth of red tape, but eventually it was decided that this was something to be shared with all of the governments of the world."

"By that point close to a year had passed. As expected, when the Autobots were finally revealed to the rest of planet earth, there was an initial uproar; lots of blame games played for a while."

"But the fact remained that there was a very real threat approaching, and even the unhappy, power hungry politicians involved had to recognize that. The Autobots managed to reach earth before any Decepticons, as far as they knew. In fact, it was believed that the Decepticons didn't even know about our planet. Yet, anyway. It was unanimously decided, once the other governments were done pouting at America for hoarding their secrets, that the public was not to know of the alien presence on our planet."

"At this point we are approximately halfway into year two with the very small number of Autobots among us. Nothing concrete was set up; the scouts sent here to make contact were shuttled from top secret base to top secret base, a new branch of military to work with the bots was only just hitting the drawing board, and there was an increasingly alarming amount of accidental sightings that perhaps weren't all benign in origin."

"They had to find a way to keep people from realizing the truth, and, so what is to this day probably the most insane idea anyone had ever heard of, was proposed. They would pull a fast one over the whole planet."

It took her a moment, because Sam was waiting for Paul to continue, but she soon realized he was looking to her for a reaction. Picking her jaw up off the floor, she blinked to clear her head.

"They...they decided to...make a toy line and a cartoon?" Paul grinned and nodded. They kept walking.

"Precisely. There's a quote from someone, I think. It's along the lines of 'The best trick the Devil ever played was convincing the world he didn't exist.' That's exactly what was decided they were going to do."

"One person was selected for the job. They knew the truth, all of it, and were given a very detailed set of instructions. This person was to go out and find someone who could make this work. A company, an aspiring artist, a toy making franchise; something to jumpstart the process."

"They would come forward with this brilliant idea of giant alien robots, fighting an eons long civil war." Paul grinned.

"It's funny, really. To keep the world from learning the truth, they were told the truth in such a way that no one would ever believe it was real." Sam silently found herself agreeing.

"The names of actual Autobots and Decepticons were used. Appearances were as close a match as they could get without outright handing the artists and designers a picture of Optimus Prime and saying 'Here you go, make this a child-friendly television icon.'"

"Ironically, the most information that's true, or the closest to being accurate anyway, is in the G1 series. Once Hasbro and their associations had their hands on the idea, the characters, and the premise, the governments let them run wild. Multiple continuities, alternate universes, variations on appearance; the whole shebang."

"There are elements of truth in almost every version of the transformers, of course. The names, the war. Decepticons were purposefully portrayed as a horrible evil, with an occasional possibility for redemption here and there, but mostly just plain bad. Autobots were the Earth's allies, through and through."

"Sensitive information on the pasts of certain figureheads and leaders, such as Megatron and Optimus Prime, were vaguely outlined by our inside guy, and expanded upon by the company. By the end of year three, testing with gobots was done and they moved on with their plan."

"In hindsight, it was realized that they might have played all of this a bit more strategically, with less truth and more fabrication, but there was no turning back now."

"Decades passed. More Autobots arrived on the planet, but with them came Decepticon scouts, and finally the earth was fully realized by our common enemy as a target that could change the war."

"With Decepticon sightings becoming more and more common, and it becoming harder and harder to explain them away, the movies were brought into existence. The purpose of the films was to let people who witnessed such things think it was some kind of stunt. Even if they weren't truly satisfied, it was a way to make everything make sense again. Just another act from those big brains down in Hollywood."

"The movies allowed no room for conspiracy theorists to worm their way out of their holes and begin to guess at the truth. The truth that was actually in front of everyone the whole time."

They had reached some kind of exit door, and Paul was standing in front of her, watching her expectantly. For a while she just stood and stared back at him.

This was the fun part, huh.

Sam let out a dry, humorless laugh, and ran one hand through her hair. Absently she noted that it was turning into a bush again, and she realized she had probably looked like crap through this entire experience. For some reason, she found it didn't bother her that much.

"I guess this elaborate 'truth in plain sight' thing also makes anyone who tries to break the contract look crazy, huh?" She asked him. Paul gave her that sympathetic smile again. Guess she knew why he felt sorry for her now. Nearly get killed and have all of that dumped on you...what 'fun' indeed.

Paul shrugged.

"If you want to think about it that way." He looked to an officer, one of two who were guarding the door they were standing in front of, and he came forward with something that Sam recognized in his hands.

"My bag!" she said. Paul chuckled and took it from the solider, handing it back to her.

"Sorry about that. We had to search your belongings for any disguised cybertronians, or anything suspicious. You'll be glad to know you're clean." He winked at her then, and a sly smile slid onto his face.

"That's a pretty cute Valentines card you have there by the way. It must have been given to you by someone very special." Sam just scowled at him to hide the red creeping up her cheeks and slipped her purse into its familiar spot over her shoulder blades.

"Ha ha, very funny. You're hysterical." She grouched. Internally she was dying. Oh god. He had seen that. She only hoped that maybe his not top top clearance would keep him from telling a certain giant alien robot. And God, was it weird to think about that being real.

She would need a few weeks to recover from this one.

Another realization smacking her in the face, the color that had previously colored her cheeks a healthy pink, now drained and set her looking white as snow.

"Oh god- does that mean- the talking police car was- and- I was inside and- oh my god." Paul grinned at her again and slapped one arm over her shoulders in a very friendly fashion.

"Yup!" He chirped. "It sure does. Now, it looks like it's time for you to head out, with those splendid thoughts kept in mind. You'll have to be blindfolded again, for most of the trip. Is that alright with you? And you know your story?" Sam nodded and frowned.

"Yeah I got it. Down pat." She spun herself towards him and stuck out a hand awkwardly. "Nice to meet you...?" Paul grinned and shook her hand vigorously, giving her a good pat on the back for good measure.

"Good meeting you too, Sam. You're a nice kid. Stay out of trouble, you hear?" Sam allowed a tiny smile to slip out.

"I don't know, have you seen my luck? The most I can promise is to try." Paul laughed and gave her a friendly squeeze before releasing her to go and be blindfolded and finally head home. Before he left her to it, he gave a little mock salute, which she returned with as much sarcasm poured into the action as she could muster.

"You do that, Sam. Have a nice life kid." And with those parting words, the man who somehow became her friend over hours of endless paperwork and impossible things, was gone.

Sam was blindfolded and lead to a car, and she began her journey home. Back to a world of normal things, she thought. But, she reminded herself, now with a new knowledge of things impossible, lurking, in the shadows beyond them.

She could already feel the headache forming from the things to come, oh, the things to come.

Note: Ah, at last. Hopefully this didn't move too fast for you, even if it certainly left Sam in the dust. Suddenly everything she knew is just a little bit different, and she's left to sort it out on her own.

*Gobots – We're not entirely clear, but the Gobots seemed to be the precursor, or predecessor, to the Transformers. Since we wanted to make this as realistic as possible, they were included in this great big conspiracy. (We are pretty sure that at some point they were considered an alternate universe of the Transformers.) The timing may be a little off, but we hope it's within you all to forgive us. Any further inquiry can probably be answered by a quick Wikipedia search.

This chapter was particularly enjoyable for the both of us to write, as Benu got to do some experimentation with the effects of shock, and I got to spend hours with her typing up the explanation for this twisted multiverse we've concocted. At first we were unsure of whether or not it should be explained so quickly; toying with the idea of leaving you as much in the dark as Sam was very appealing for a time. However, it would make sense that Sam would be shuffled in and out of the government's hands as quickly as possible, so we're left with a confused grump of a teenager, and some explaining to be had in the next chapter.

Ironically this was completed the night Chapter 1 Part 2 was published, which was unintentional by all means. However, it is keeping us with the plan to stay one chapter ahead at-all-times.

We appreciate, highly, highly appreciate, the reviews, favorites, and follows we have received for our writing efforts.

We hope you enjoyed.

Thanks much, and pleas come again.