This is the rewritten version of chapter four! Thanks for reading and enjoy!

Please note: I do not own Transformers. I do, however, have my own OC's which I have inserted into the story. My OC's include Reese Shields and Chase Sanders. Electra belongs to my sister.

Secrets

Reese got up early the next morning to get ready for work. She donned her very basic uniform of a white button-up and a pair of khaki pants. Thanks to Agent Fowler, several amenities had been brought into the base from Reese's home, including her wardrobe and some of her furniture. The room she was in was now at least livable, having a proper bed, dresser, and vanity.

She sidled her way over to the vanity, sitting down in front of the large mirror. She cringed as her reflection stared back at her. She had never been terribly concerned with her looks, but now she was extremely self-conscious. She had medium length auburn hair that fell about her shoulders and framed her face, deep brown eyes, and a pretty smile. All those things, paired with her many freckles, made her quite a cute individual. Unfortunately, her face was now marred by an ugly scar that spanned from the bridge of her nose to her left ear. The stitches were still in it, and it was not a pretty sight.

As quickly as she possibly could, she brushed her hair and pulled it back into a high ponytail, her wispy side bangs falling loose from it and framing her face. She then grabbed her blue crystal necklace off the vanity and clasped it around her neck. It had been a gift from her grandfather, and she loved it dearly.

Now that she was ready, she grabbed her bag and got ready to leave. She walked into the main room of the base where Bulkhead was already waiting for her in his vehicle form.

"Hey, you ready to get going? We don't want you to be late on your first day back."

"Yep, all ready to go!"

"Well then let's get this show on the road! Hop in!" Bulkhead opened the passenger door of his vehicular form, closing it behind Reese as she climbed Reese was securely fastened with the seatbelt, Bulkhead pulled out of the base and onto the main road leading to Jasper.

"You will have to show me where this place you work is located," the Autobot insignia on bulkhead's steering wheel lit as he spoke.

"No problem, I will let you know when we get get closer to town."

"Sounds good. Hey, would you like to listen to some music? I have a Slash Monkey CD in the player right now, if you want to listen to it. It's Miko's favorite."

"What's Slash Monkey?" Reese queried curiously. She had never heard of the group before

"It's this group that makes insane screamo and metal music. They're great!" Bulkhead explained excitedly. Reese did not seem impressed though.

"How about something a little more… relaxing," She suggested, pulling up some soft piano music on her phone.

"Ah, so you're more of the classical type, huh?"

"Well, not just classical music. I also like electronic music, and some pop music too. I am just feeling a little stressed this morning, and classical music helps me relax."

"That makes sense."

The two quietly enjoyed the soft music, only interrupting it a few times for Reese to give Bulkhead direction. Finally, Bulkhead pulled into the parking lot of Reese's workplace and opened the passenger door, letting her hop out.

"Thanks for the ride, Bulk!"

"Any time, kid. Just let us know when you get off work and one of us will be here to pick you up."

"Will do."

With a deep breath, Reese turned and opened the door to the store. It felt like it had been forever since she had been there, and it felt kinda weird coming back after everything that had happened.

"Hello Reese, I'm glad to see you're back on your feet. I was informed of what happened, and I'm so sorry to hear about the accident. Be sure to take it easy, okay?" Reese's manager greeted her as she came in.

"I will, and thanks." Reese smiled as she walked over to the desk where she usually worked. It was nice to be back.

Reese's shift went pretty smoothly, since not a lot of people needed assistance. The only people she ended up helping were a guy whose computer had been messed up by a virus, and a couple of people who needed some tech support. Reese packed up her things and phoned back to base, letting them know she was done. She stood outside and surveyed her surroundings while she waited for her ride.

The first thing she noticed were the cars that were parked in the store lot. Most of them were the ones that belonged to the other employees, but there was one that stood out in particular. It was a black and green sports car.

Something about the car seemed vaguely familiar to Reese, but she couldn't quite place from where. It definitely wasn't a car one sees every day, but Reese couldn't remember where she had seen it before.

She didn't have to wonder long because Bumblebee came pulling into the parking lot to pick her up. Reese ran out to the car and hopped into the passenger seat.

"Hey Bee! How has your day been?" Reese adjusted her position in the seat and buckled her seat belt.

"Eh, it's been pretty slow. We haven't had any major missions today. The others are currently out scouting for energon. What about you?

"Was pretty slow too, which I guess is good, considering it's my first day back and all. It was really nice to get back behind the desk and get my mind off things."

"Glad it went well though," Bumblebee whirred as he pulled out of the driveway of the business and started driving back to base. He had just passed city limits when Reese sighed from the passenger seat and leaned her head against the window. "Hey, you okay?" Bumblebee whirred in a concerned tone.

"Yea, I just wish I didn't have to go straight back to base. Don't get me wrong, the base is nice and all, but this is my first time out in a week, and I was hoping I could spend a little more time out and about. You know what I mean?" Reese stared at the desert landscape of Nevada listlessly.

"Well, nobody said we had to go straight back to base after you got off of work," Bumblebee had a mischievous tone to his voice. "What if I let you go for a spin out in the desert close to base for a little bit?" Reese could almost hear the grin in Bee's voice. He was pretty good at finding loopholes in the rules. She instantly brightened at his comment.

"Well, Optimus never said we couldn't, so I don't see why not." Reese smiled as Bee turned to go past the base instead of going inside. He slowed to a stop and Reese climbed into the driver's seat. "You sure you're good with this Bee?

"You bet! Honestly, I didn't really want to go back to base just yet either. This is going to be waaay more fun!" Bee whirred excitedly. Who knew he could be so mischievous? With that response, Reese floored the gas pedal and sped off into the desert landscape. She laughed aloud as she completed several sharp maneuvers. She stopped by drifting sideways until they came to a halt.

"Phew, that was great!" Her heart was pounding in her chest from the rush of adrenaline. A sound that vaguely resembled laughter came from the car itself. It was obvious that Bee had enjoyed the spin just as much as she had. She sighed contentedly and laid her head against the headrest. They had stopped behind a fairly large plateau similar to the one that housed the Autobot base. As Reese looked at the rock wall in front of them, squinting closer as something caught her eye. It was a bit of a glint coming from a crack in the wall, almost as if a sun ray was bouncing off of a piece of metal. "Hey Bee, do you see that glint coming from that crack in the wall just ahead of us?"

"Not really, I think all that adrenaline, as you humans call it, is getting to your organic processor." Bee whirred humorously.

"Well I see something; give me a sec, I'm gonna go investigate." Before Bumblebee could protest, Reese had gotten out of the car and was walking up to the rock wall. To her surprise there was a metal console hidden behind some rocks. "Hey Bee, could you lend me a hand and move this big rock? The one beside the crack?"

Bee transformed and crouched down next to Reese. He gently removed the rock that she was pointing at, revealing the console interface. He let out what sounded like a low whistle as Reese examined it closely.

"What do you think it is?" Bee whirred curiously.

"I don't know but I plan on finding out." Reese pressed some of the buttons on the console's interface. The screen flickered to life, emitting a bluish-green colour. The screen continued to flicker consistently, but the option for inputting a password showed up, nonetheless. "Hmm, I wonder what the pass-code could be," she thought aloud. She tampered with the console for a few minutes, trying to figure out what the password was, but it was no use.

After a few more minutes of trying to guess the password, the screen fritzed out and sparked a few times before turning black.

"Well, scrap." Reese muttered frustratedly. "I think the thing just died. It looks pretty old and it doesn't seem to have been well kept. I just wanted to know what it did."

"Maybe you shouldn't be messing with private property, Reese. As fascinating as it is, we don't know who it belongs to."

"Oh, come on Bee, aren't you just the least bit curious?"

"I mean, I am, but it doesn't matter anyways, since it seems to have died." Bee whirred as he leaned against the rock wall. To his, and Reese's surprise, the wall gave way and receded backwards, revealing a hidden door.

"Whoa, cool!" Reese ran forward to open the door, but Bee put out his servo to block her.

"What's up with you Bee?" She looked a little annoyed that he would stop her like that.

"You don't know what's in there. There is probably a reason it was sealed away. You shouldn't go getting into things that don't pertain to you… Besides, what if there was something dangerous in there, huh? You could get hurt, and I'm supposed to be protecting you."

"C'mon Bee, this place has clearly been abandoned for a long time. Besides, if there was something dangerous in there, I have you to protect me." She pushed past his servo and pulled down on the lever of the large metal door. Its rusty hinges creaked as it slowly swung open, and with that creak came an audible groan of frustration from Bee. "Relax Bee, I'm sure there is nothing to worry about." Reese smiled reassuringly up at the scout before walking inside.

The room was dark, and the air was thick with dust, eliciting a coughing fit from Reese. Once the fit had passed, she looked up and surveyed her surroundings, or, at least she tried to. The room was so dark that she couldn't see anything clearly. "Hey Bee, you mind providing a little light?" In response Bumblebee illuminated the headlights on his chassis. The light showed that the room was full of old tech equipment, and everything was covered in a thick layer of dust. "What is this place?" Reese said aloud, more to herself than to Bumblebee. The bot just looked down at her and shrugged his shoulder plating. "Well, give me a boost and I will see if I can bring some of these computer mainframes back online." Reese pointed to one of the main computer consoles.

Bumblebee gently picked her up and set her down on the platform where the console was located. Reese immediately went to work trying to boot up the computers. To her excitement, the computer turned on right away, emitting the same bluish-green light that the console outside had.

"You know, this computer looks a heck of a lot like the computer mainframe back at base. I wonder if this place is like a little outpost or something that was connected to the original base."

"Maybe, I don't know…" Bumblebee seemed a little antsy as he looked behind himself for like the fifth time.

"I wonder if it uses the same password as the mainframe back at base," Reese wondered aloud, typing the passcode into the system.

"How would you know the passcode to the mainframe back at base?" Bumblebee queried suspiciously.

"Oh, you know… I might have seen Ratchet put it in a few times," Reese mentioned in the most nonchalant voice she could muster. Sure, it probably wasn't the best thing to do, but hey, when there was nothing else to do around the base, watching Ratchet work had become one of her most frequented pass-times.

"YES! It worked!" Reese exclaimed as the passcode was accepted and the mainframe came online. "Now, let's see what's in here."

"Reese, maybe we should go. We probably shouldn't be here. This is probably some kind of government secret."

"Oh please, Bumblebee, You're a government secret! I seriously doubt that me poking around some old abandoned outpost is going to get me in much trouble."

"I don't know, Reese…" Bumblebee warned.

"Bee, its fine, it will be our little secret. Nobody has to even know we found it. It's clearly been long forgotten, so why bring people's attention to it now?"

Bumblebee decided not to argue any further with the girl. It was clear that she was much too curious to be reasoned with at the moment.

Reese began looking through the different files that appeared, but it looked like most everything had been erased. "Scrap, I was hoping there would be something useful in here." Reese banged her fist on the console in frustration. In doing so, she pressed a key that brought up a file that had been in the process of deletion when the console was shut down. "Hello, what do we have here," Reese fiddled around with the file and was finally able to restore most of the data. She was so completely absorbed in what she was doing that she didn't notice Bumblebee walk over and tap the platform beside her.

"Gah! Bumblebee! Don't scare me like that!"

"Reese, we need to get back to base. I have a bad feeling that Optimus is going to be looking for us, or at least wondering where we are, and I can't get a signal in here." Reese could hear the concern in his artificial voice.

"Fine, fine, we can leave, but I want to come back again sometimes soon…" Reese reluctantly signed out of the mainframe and shut it down, following Bumblebee back outside into the dry desert heat.

The two pulled back into base as quietly as possible, hoping not to attract much attention. To their disappointment, however, Optimus was standing in the main room of the base, waiting for them.

Bumblebee transformed, setting Reese down on the ground. She followed him to the Prime, cowering behind his pede. "Let me handle this," he whispered to her.

"Where have you two been? We have been trying to contact you, but you were out of communication range. We were beginning to worry," Optimus asked his scout sternly.

"We… decided to take a little detour. Reese wasn't quite ready to head back to base, so we decided to go for a little drive, so she could enjoy the fresh air," Bumblebee explained innocently.

"Then why were you out of communication range?" Optimus raised an optic ridge, not fully believing what his scout was telling him.

Reese decided to run forward now, she didn't want Bumblebee to end up spilling the beans on their new little secret.

"We found an interesting looking cave and went to explore it. Turns out, the rocks or something must have blocked communication signals. I'm sorry for making you worry…" Reese hung her head a little bit, for not telling the whole truth. It stung a little since Reese knew that she had no reason to lie to Optimus, but she wasn't ready to divulge this secret just yet. She would tell him in due time, after she had figured out what was there.

Optimus looked down at her sternly for a few moments, but then his features softened. He knelt and addressed her in a comforting tone. "Thank you for your honesty, Reese. We are just glad that you are safe. Please be sure to inform us of your plans beforehand, in the future, so that we know not to worry, okay?"
Reese nodded, feeling a twinge of guilt at his comment on honesty. Yes, what she had said was technically the truth, but it was not the whole truth. How could she test his trust like this? She looked up at Bumblebee with a weak smile, and she could see thanks in his optics.

"Thanks for saving my bacon back there… Optimus is pretty strict when it comes to protocol. Still, we should tell them about the hidden outpost," Bumblebee whirred softly so that nobody else could hear.

"We will, I promise. Just… not yet. I want to find out what was in that file that I was able to salvage. Then, we can tell the others about it. Okay?"

"Reese, they were probably deleting those files for a reason. I still think we should just forget we ever found it."

Reese pouted up at the bot, clearly disappointed. "If it was so important, wouldn't they have made sure it was completely deleted before shutting down the computer? I'm sure its fine…"

"Well, if you get into trouble for this, you can't tell me I didn't tell you so."

"It will be fine, I promise."

"Fine…" Bumblebee agreed reluctantly, rolling his optics. This was going to come back to bite him in the aft at some point. He just knew it.

Yay, chapter 4 has officially been rewritten! Now to get onto chapter 5! Please review and let me know what you think of the story. That is a HUGE motivator for me to keep up my writing. Thanks again for reading, and as always, Have a lovely and blessed day!