Dear Karma

A Transformers Story

Co-written by Mein Benutzername and A Humble Reader

Beta and Advisor:

Note: Wow. We sincerely apologize for the ridiculous amount of time it has taken to get this chapter out for you. Life still happens, unfortunately. Luckily, we have done quite a bit of planning ahead at this point, so hopefully then next installment will be out within a few months.

In the meantime, we hope you have a happy new year!

Please enjoy the chapter, and leave a comment if you deem us worthy.

Words: 4803

Pages: 15

Chapter 6

Waking up to a Nightmare

In which boredom leads to several things, none of them in any way pleasant.

It had been a week since Sam had been government-napped and forced to stay in some freaky underground bunker type thing. She had to suffer through three hours of MRI, because apparently she fidgeted and botched the first two. It was non-consecutive, of course, but it was still absolute torture for the poor girl.

Just the other day they did the PET scan, and a few other things she didn't care to remember. There were lots of blood tests, which wonderful Doctor Barnes made even better with his threats of bodily harm.

She actually saw him scold somebody one time. Like, really come down on them, for breaching some kind of safety procedure in his presence. It was terrifying. So far she had just been subject to his gruff, unhappy-attitude. Barnes annoyed? She wanted to be on a different continent.

She also saw Paul again. What she really wanted to do was ream the guy out for abandoning her with two total strangers, but she had figured out by that point that it usually just made him laugh. It would take at least an hour in her presence for any whining to really get to him. So she settled for the silent treatment.

As it turned out, Paul could handle the silent treatment pretty well. He just chattered on, and sometimes even supplied a few comments for her since she wasn't talking.

"I really am sorry about all of this, Sam. I know from experience that MRI's are pretty uncomfortable."

"Of course they're uncomfortable! How could anyone stay still for so long?"

"Yes, yes! I know what you mean. But then again, how could anyone stay silent for so long, Sam?"

"It takes someone with real determination to pout as expertly as I do, Paul. Not just anyone can do this-"

"Shut up, will you!?"

"Ah, there she is! So, what did you want for dinner?"

Yes, Sam usually lost the battle when it came to dealing with Paul. She kept getting mixed signals from the guy- sometimes he'd do something so utterly parent-like that she knew that he just had to have kids. And then other times he just…seemed like he didn't. She couldn't figure him out. She also couldn't figure out why she was so determined to guess whether he had kids or not. She needed something to do with her time, she supposed.

But this, of course, only added to her irritation with his existence.

Right now she was sitting in some kind of break room with Captain Nice Hair, who was actually named Major William Lennox. He asked her to call him Will, or even Lennox if it made her more comfortable. It still felt weird. (She was surprised she was able to call Paul Paul. Maybe it was because lying bastards deserved to be called by their names? That way they couldn't, you know, lie about it.)

The room was pretty small, and occasionally someone who was dressed in normal clothes would come in, grab something from the snack machines or a cup from the coffee maker, chat with her caretaker, and then leave again.

The walls were a neutral beige, and there was a small kitchen space for making some snacks in the corner. She glanced in the fridge once and found it littered with sandwiches that were all labeled with who they belonged to, and accompanying threats if anybody was feeling a little too lazy to make their own.

She had her feet propped up on a table and a Sudoku book in her lap, and one hand was tapping the pen against the pages irritably. The Major sat across from her, a pile of documents and other papers spread out in front of him on the wooden surface.

Sudoku, because when she had talked to Paul like Mr. Lennox had suggested, he told her flat-out that she wouldn't be getting her phone back at all until she got home. Safety protocols or something dumb like that.

Also, it looked like somebody had realized that Paul usually ended up setting her off in some way whenever she was forced to be with him for long periods of time, and so her new babysitter was…you guessed it, William Lennox.

She did still have to see Paul, of course, but now he wasn't the one sitting with her all day to supervise her. Since she couldn't stand being cooped up in a single room for eternity, but she also wasn't allowed to go gallivanting across a top-secret government facility, she was required to have somebody with her at-all-times.

And they wouldn't even let her have her phone to entertain herself.

Sam bit her lip and filled in a five, running the pencil eraser across the boxes to make sure it didn't intersect with itself or break any of the rules. Sudoku wasn't her greatest idea of "fun", but it was loads better than sitting in a room with a military guy who was probably just as bored as she was, and suffering under an awkward silence.

There was one thing that had been niggling at the back of Sam's mind, however, almost since the very moment she saw the guy. (It was almost as persistent as her thoughts and speculations about the thingy – thoughts and speculations she would not start thinking about right now)

You see, Major Lennox was looking very familiar to our misplaced high-school student, and it was killing her trying to figure out why. She knew she had never met him before in her life. But he was just…well, she couldn't really explain it.

It was like she was seeing a pattern in everything he did. It was so weird. It was giving her serious déjà vu.

Filling in a six, she traced the boxes again before bringing the pencil up to her mouth to chew on the eraser, eyes still flitting across the page. This was really bugging her. Maybe she should ask. But how weird would that be? She'd been here for a little over a week now. But if she didn't ask, then she would leave and it would probably bother her for the rest of her life.

Sam choked on some inhaled eraser shreds and had a small coughing fit. Will looked up at her in mild concern.

"You alright?" He asked her, his pen stilling for a moment.

Sam dropped her pencil and held up her hand in a "just a moment" gesture while nodding her head. This was why she normally used pens, damn it.

After she'd regained her breath, the brunette nodded to the Major again.

"Yeah," she croaked, "Sorry, I just got a mouthful of eraser. I'm fine." Will nodded and moved to return to his paper work. Sam bit her tongue lightly in indecision, and then posed her question.

"Hey, uh, Mr. Lennox?"

"It's okay for you to call me Will, Sam. Or Lennox, even. But whenever you say mister it just makes me feel old. I am not that old, despite whatever Epps says." He grumbled the last part half to himself, but Sam just blinked sluggishly. Will began tapping his pen in a steady rhythm.

"Ah…okay. Well, anyway, I was wondering…" Sam averted her eyes. She was going to feel like such a huge idiot. But…

"Well, it's just, there's this weird thing- you look like, super familiar, but I know I've never met you before and, it's kind of been bothering me. It's like when you forget a word, you know? You know what the word is and what it means and everything, but then suddenly right when you need it you forget the word. And…" She looked up when the tapping stopped.

Will had a kind of half-frown half-grin on his face. It was an odd look, but it managed to convey his sentiments well enough.

"Oh, that. You really haven't realized it yet?" He asked her, resuming flicking the pen around in-between his fingers. He started shifting some of the papers absently.

Sam shook her head no, and Will released a large sigh and ran a hand through his hair. He turned to face her completely in the chair and gave a slight grimace.

"Yeah." He said. "You said you've seen the movies right? That's what it is. They made me and Epps and a couple of the other guys on my team play in the movies. I guess it was a neat experience, but I miss the days where I could go into the grocery without at least one person "recognizing" Major Duhamel."

Sam mouthed "Duhamel" silently to herself, before recognition struck.

"Oh." She said dumbly. Major Duhamel. The Major Duhamel from the first three Transformers movies, that Major Duhamel.

She and Anna and Penelope had discussed the attractiveness of those men. Things just got really awkward. "Oh. I guess that's all part of the, uh, ridiculously elaborate cover story then?" She'd never be able to look anyone at this base in the eye again. Will nodded and finally returned most of his focus to his papers.

"Yup." He said. "That way for a while we could get away with being seen pretty openly without arousing any suspicion, since everybody knew that there was military and fancy cars involved in the filming. It still gives us some extra freedom, since these things keep on getting made, and even if a movie isn't currently in production, we might just be moving the "props" for storage reasons.

"In any case," he went on, "It made it so we could perform an operation without having to go in disguised as civs first. Pretty handy." Sam made a noncommittal noise of agreement.

The whole explanation had been interesting and illuminated a few more things for her, but the only thing she could think of was all the times Pens had made some kind of…er…inappropriate comment about Will.

It was also why she was so fixated on his hair at first – all of her friends, even Rachel, who abhorred everything to do with Transformers, had mentioned in passing that the actor did have some pretty great hair.

Trying to distance herself from her personal embarrassment, she asked about something else that had just occurred to her.

"Hey, were you even allowed to tell me all of that? Isn't everything here like, classified?" She bent down to the floor to pick up her pencil and moved her feet back on the table. She had slid them off during her coughing fit.

Will shook his head no as he moved a couple of documents between his hands, looking between them a few times before finally setting the one in his right on top. He picked up another.

"Nah, I've read your file. That was pretty well within your clearance level. I didn't break any rules or anything – just clarified something that was probably glossed over the first time around. No biggie." He scribbled something down quickly and moved the completed sheet to his growing "discard pile" of stuff she assumed had been completely filled out.

"Alright." She said. Sam wiggled around in her chair until she felt moderately comfortable again, and readjusted her Sudoku. She flipped back to her current puzzle and began re-familiarizing herself with her answers so far.

The two settled back into a comfortable silence as they worked. Someone came in a few minutes later and made themselves a coffee, but they were in and out quick enough that they didn't really pay the visitor any mind.

About fifteen minutes and one more completed puzzle later, Will groaned and threw his pen and most recent paper down on the table top in frustration. He slumped back in his chair and crossed his arms over his chest, letting his head loll up towards the ceiling.

Ever so cautiously, Sam lowered her pencil and cleared her throat.

"Uhm…something the matter?"

The man righted himself quickly enough, only to lean over the table and glare at his workload.

"I have to go and get another form from my office, which is at least a ten minute walk from here. I thought I'd grabbed everything this morning, but apparently not…" He sighed and stood up, running a hand through his hair again.

"Whatever." He said. "I can't finish this form without the one from my office, and it's due by tomorrow. You stay here, okay? I'll be back soon."

As he made his way for the door, Sam frowned. Well that didn't seem fair.

"Hang on!" She said, knocking her Sudoku book and pencil onto the table before trotting up behind him. "I don't wanna sit in here all alone!" She complained.

Will raised one eyebrow and gave her a mildly incredulous look.

"Really?" He asked. "You're – what, seventeen years old? I think you can handle being in the break room by yourself for twenty minutes." He sounded a little annoyed, and Sam frowned.

She knew she could be kinda frustrating (or rather a lot) sometimes, but all she wanted to do was stretch her legs. They'd been in that room for ages, and it wasn't like she asked to be here.

She liked Mr. Lennox. Will. Whatever his name was – he was nice, and she didn't think he had lied to her yet, and he made good jokes from time to time, and was just all around pleasant to spend time with. (And was also apparently a movie star on the side?)

They had had a couple of bad days where Sam was in a foul mood, usually after a checkup or scan or something having to do with Paul, and she could tell that it annoyed him a little. She tried not to be a nuisance to him, though. She could only imagine the horror of being asked to drop everything to watch some stupid kid who'd gotten themselves involved in a crazy mess like…well, his job.

Even so, despite her best intentions, she just couldn't keep the whine out of her voice.

"Come on! I don't wanna be stuck sitting in that stupid chair doing puzzles all day! Besides, this way you're still watching me, and I get to move around for a little bit. I won't complain or anything, I swear! But I'm bored." Will rolled his eyes, but he did sigh and slowly move to hold open the door for her.

"Fine, then. I'm just grabbing something real quick, anyway." He conceded. "But! You have to promise not to mess with any of the stuff in the hanger, and nothing in my office, either. This is just so you can walk around for a bit, got it?" Sam nodded enthusiastically and he followed her out into the hall, closing the door lightly behind them.

"Thanks." She said. Will just nodded and they were on their way.

Sam did her best to keep her promise and didn't say anything on the walk. Occasionally her reluctant guide would stop to talk with someone they passed, and she just went to studying the walls and rooms around them. They went up a couple of flights of stairs and eventually got to a section of building that had – lo and behold – windows!

"Are we on ground level again?" She asked. Will nodded in front of her, but didn't slow down at all.

"Yup. My office is part of a hanger, and the hanger is part of the main complex. I see a lot of incoming and outgoing traffic up here. It has to be on the main floor. It's pretty hard to get vehicles below ground without some pretty impressive architecture."

Sam nodded, doing her best to see out the windows as she passed.

All that was really visible was barren desert-like land and a couple of runways. She thought she might have seen a jeep or something patrolling the perimeter in the distance, but by the time she got to the next window it was gone.

Sam still had no idea where she was, though, so that information was kind of useless. The only thing it really gained her was the knowledge that wherever they were, they also had planes (probably?), and it was maybe still in Arizona. Or it was, at the very least, a state with the same kind of landscape. So that narrowed it down to…Nevada, Utah, and California. Those were the closest three to where she lived (Only a few hours away, each), and the landscape didn't change very much between them.

They only went a little farther before they came out into a big hanger. To be honest, it kind of reminded her of the gymnasium at the school. Big, airy, a few random pieces of equipment here and there. The walls were white and gray, and they had some fluorescent lights hanging on cords from the ceiling. If she craned her neck up, she could see the curved rafters high above her head coated in a thin layer of shadow.

Will got a lot of hellos on their walk to the little cube she assumed was his office. He also got a few salutes, which made the teen feel incredibly, incredibly out of place, and only served to remind her that she was not exactly in home territory. She crossed her arms over her chest absently.

If Will noticed when she started sticking a little closer to him, he didn't say anything.

They got to the office and Will was about to punch in some kind of passcode, but stopped. He turned to glance at the girl behind him, who was observing with thinly veiled curiosity.

"Nothing against you, kiddo, but can you turn around? Security protocols." Sam scowled at him, but turned around none-the-less, mumbling "my name's not kiddo" under her breath. Will just shook his head and looked to the ceiling as if asking for help from above.

Sam heard a complicated series of beeps, a little humming noise, and then an accepting ping. Will opened the door but stopped to look at her again. He sounded mildly exasperated.

"Can you wait out here and keep out of the way? I don't mind if you look around a bit, but stay close to my office. I'll be out in a few minutes." Sam frowned and nodded, stiffening a bit and gripping her arms a little harder.

"Yeah. I'm not a child, I know better than to wander off. I won't talk to strangers or anything." Will just went inside.

Spinning around on her heel, Sam pulled out her best glare and scowled at anybody that got too close. Things were going fine at first, but apparently nothing ever went her way. All she had wanted was to go on a walk! He didn't have to be such a buttmunch about it.

She fumed silently. Yeah, okay, most of the time she thought he was a pretty cool guy. (Better than Paul, at least.) But she hadn't even done anything! Literally, nothing.

She stood outside the door, tapping her foot in agitation and glaring into the floor as though its existence was a personal offense.

"Well, someone is looking rather pleasant this afternoon."

Sam jumped and barely kept from shrieking as she whirled to face whoever had snuck up on her.

Joseph Barnes gave a wry smile for her antics before reassuming his mask of sarcasm and eternal dissatisfaction with everything. Sam was feeling similar at the moment, except with less sarcasm. Nobody could outdo Barnes in the sarcasm area; he was practically the head of the department.

"What are you doing out here, Samantha? And where is the Major? I thought he was supposed to stay with you." There was a clipboard in the man's hands, as there always seemed to be, and he was wearing a pair of brown pants and a white dress shirt. Bland as ever.

Sam scowled and didn't say anything.

Barnes sighed and pinched the bridge of his nose, all previous amusement replaced with almost immediate frustration. Sam snidely thought that he was learning.

"Fine then, Sam. Where is Major Lennox?"

"He's in his office." Sam grumbled. She turned away from him to continue glaring at the rest of the world. Barnes just shook his head and made his way to the door. Before entering, he turned and shook a finger at her threateningly.

"Don't you touch anything in here, girl! If I find you've moved from that spot you'll be stuck with a knot on your head and the worst tasting painkillers I can find!" Sam turned to snap something right back at him, only to see the door slam for her trouble.

Scowling with a new level of ferocity, she turned back to the hanger again. Feeling thoroughly wronged, she searched for something else to grab her attention.

There were several vehicles in the hanger, closer to the entrance. She realized then that the hanger was actually open right now, and a tiny part of her contemplated whether or not anyone would notice if just kind of…walked out.

Shifting her focus again, she looked back to the vehicles. There were some non-descript jeeps, a flatbed, and a couple of emergency vehicles. Her gaze wandered across the room and she watched as a couple of men and women in uniform unloaded something from one of the jeeps.

Cars were consistently coming in and going out, and there was a steady background of growling engines, and the faint smell of hot asphalt and burning gas. It was midday, probably around three o'clock. Sam had eaten just a couple of hours ago, and already the heat of the surface was making her uncomfortable compared to the cooler air in the lower floors.

She was so focused on the soldiers unloading crates that she almost missed what happened next. But then again, it would be pretty hard to miss unless you were in a coma or something else as equally ridiculous.

She was startled and jumped again when seemingly out of the blue, two sports cars came streaking into the hanger, swerving dangerously with engines growling and driving circles around vehicles and people alike.

Sam gaped. What the hell were two cars doing…chasing each other around a…a…a top secret military base? It didn't make any sense.

People yelled angrily and she thought she even saw a couple try and dive out of the way. Soon there was smoke and the overpowering smell of burning rubber as they performed donuts and way-too-fast turns all over the place, treating the equipment and people as though they were just an obstacle course.

Sam backed up closer to the office, wondering who the heck let stunt drivers onto the base, when what was a potentially scary situation became less annoying and startling and instead made a solid switch to utterly terrifying.

Three electronic tones, a grinding of metal, and suddenly there was a robot slowly forming to tower above their heads.

Sam stopped breathing.

Oh god.

No way. No way no way no way please no way-

The one that stood up was red and made a kind of electronic laughing noise, its eyes glowing an icy blue as they followed its yellow counterpart around the room. It made an electronic symphony of beeps, grunts, grindings and clicks that was suddenly all too familiar to Sam, with a lilting cadence that apparently prompted the other one to screech out of his obstacle course and also transform.

By this point Sam was huddled against the wall of the office, scrunched up as small as she could possibly be without having her feet leave the floor. The robots were massive, and terrifying. She had forgotten how their faces looked almost real. They had metal, but far too human lips, and noses and eyes and chins and it was just too much.

The yellow one stomped up to the red and shoved a finger accusingly into his chest, and his faced was twisted into what could honestly only be classified as a snarl. The other one held up his hands in mock surrender, but he was facing away now, and Sam couldn't see his expression.

Sam didn't want to see any of it anymore.

She slammed her eyes shut so fast she felt a slight ache begin to form, but ignored it and began chanting quietly to herself.

"Nightmare, nightmare, nightmare, just a stupid fucking nightmare…"

She heard a door slam beside her and jolted again, her eyes snapping open and her head whipping to the side.

"Sunstreaker, Sideswipe!" Barnes bellowed. He sounded angry – no, he sounded furious. Sam was just about to sing his praises to high heaven, since apparently he had confidence that the giant death machines would be willing to listen to him and not squish him mercilessly under their feet, until he switched from English to something entirely more terrifying.

Sam was fairly certain that all of the color must have drained from her face. And she felt with a certainty that could only equate to dread something cold and hard settle in the pit of her stomach. Absolute and petrifying terror.

The good doctor was spouting out beeps and buzzes and electronic tones as though it were perfectly normal as he stomped towards the two towering titans. Sam followed his movements, wide eyed, and sucked in a sharp breath when suddenly, his very form seemed to glitch.

She began hyperventilating quietly in her scrunched up ball. Suddenly, Barnes disappeared, quite obviously fizzling out of existence as if he were some fuzzy image on a projection screen, and one of the emergency response vehicles that had been stuffed closer to the entrance of the open hanger began to change.

Sam's first thought was that Barnes had been disintegrated or something. The aliens fired an invisible laser beam at him and he just ceased to exist. But she knew better the moment the ambulance stood up. No, it wasn't possible, and it didn't make any sense, and she just felt so betrayed, but somehow, Barnes was one of them.

She couldn't take this anymore. She just couldn't handle this. It had been frustrating for the past week, yes, but this was too much, and she needed to get out. Now.

She bolted to a standing position so fast that her head ached, and almost immediately pressed herself flat against the wall of Will's office. Her focus flitted away from the robots for a split second when she saw something running towards their feet, but her eyes quickly found their way back to the giants.

As it turned out, the figure jogging straight into the heart of the argument was Will. Her heart felt as though it was being constricted when she realized, and all that she could think about was how people were perfectly sized to fit inside of giant robot hands, and how if they picked him up and squeezed just a little too hard-

"Let go, or I'll rip your arms off!"

She wanted to scream at him to get the Hell out of there, but she couldn't find her voice. She could only watch as he stood in front of them, hands on his hips, shouting up at them while they shouted at each other.

And then it happened. Time slowed down, and everything she saw became sharp. Her head felt like it was trapped under the water, and she couldn't properly hear anything, as it all sounded muffled and strange.

The yellow one shifted his hand into a gun and kicked on the power, shoving the red one with it, the inside glowing and hot. There was a mass shift in the room as any and all armed personnel raised their weapons and prepared to fire.

Sam finally moved herself away from the wall, images of an even bigger robot with wings and glowing red eyes superimposed over the events transpiring inside of the hanger.

Time sped up again, and she ran.

Sam flipped herself around and bolted, practically flying as her feet slapped the floor. She felt energized, propelled by her fear. Hands grabbed at her and voices yelled, but all it did was make her run even faster.

She couldn't handle it again, she just couldn't. Her life was supposed the back to normal after this. Two weeks, and then she was done – no more aliens, or robots, or almost dying because of it; no more sarcastic doctors or lying bastards that you couldn't help but like!

Eventually, she hid herself in a closet. A locker. Something. All she knew was that it was small, and dark, and it felt safe. She needed safe. She could close her eyes and sit in the dark and pretend she was back at home under her covers dreading having to get out of bed to take her dog for a walk. Safe.

Sam started to cry.