Hey guys! Bet you didn't think that I'd be updating this soon, huh? Thank you to GrimlockX4 for your continuing support! I've managed to find some time to fix up some of the chapters that I've written ahead, so hopefully I'll be able to start posting more often. Thank you all for keeping up with my story! I appreciate every little bit of your support! Well, here's the next update!
Enjoy!
Disclaimer: I don't own Transformers, Hasbro does... But Hasbro doesn't own Cat or Five, those two are alllllllllllllllllllllllll mine.
--
"Holograms? Why would we need those for?" Sideswipe asked.
"With holograms, we could go out into the human public as needed and walk among them under cover. It would also better service us if we were in high risk reconnaissance situations. The types of situations where even being in our alt modes would be dangerous," Optimus answered.
"So how far are these holograms going to go from our shells?" Ironhide asked, crossing his arms.
"Well, for right now these are prototypes, so they only go about two-hundred feet before they falter. However, these are the only ones that we've managed to test without the holograms failing," Wheeljack replied.
"Failing?" Jazz raised an eye ridge.
"Just minor problems such as the hologram fading before it's supposed to. Nothing we can't fix easily, and nothing that will cause damage to our normal systems," Ratchet replied, giving assurance that the projectors were completely safe.
"So when do we get outfitted for these things?" Sunstreaker asked.
"Today. However, because these are going to be new to our systems, the first time that we activate the holograms we will need them to stay activated for an entire Earth cycle. That way all of the connections are made with the projectors correctly. They're going to take a lot of charge out of us, so we've created adaptations that will force our shells to recharge while we keep these holograms activated," Wheeljack explained.
"Well... As long as it's approved by Ratchet and Optimus, I'll try it," Jazz encouraged, looking over to Ironhide.
The battle-worn mech shook his cranium and sighed, "All right, I'm in too."
"We'll do it!" Sideswipe sounded cheerful.
"I suppose it couldn't do much harm..." Prowl didn't sound too assured that this would work, but he felt the same as Jazz. As long as it was approved by Ratchet and Optimus, he would agree to it.
"Good! Let's get started then. Can we have a volunteer to give it a first try?" Ratchet encouraged.
"I'll do it!" Sunstreaker stood up, looking proud and sure of himself.
Ratchet and Wheeljack escorted Sunny into Wheeljack's own lab, while Optimus seated himself at the meeting table.
"You sure this thing'll work, Optimus?" Ironhide asked.
The leader nodded, "It's mostly part of the human's technology for the projectors that Cat used, so they work, we just wanted to make sure that Wheeljack's changes would have no ill-effects on us."
"Ill-effects?" Ironhide was sounding less and less sure of this whole little experiment.
"It's all been taken care of, Ironhide. Ratchet and I witnessed Wheeljack's first attempt, and saw that the hologram was stable. We also looked over the designs and saw that there was no way that this could go wrong," the leader assured.
"...This is Wheeljack that you're speaking of, correct?" Prowl started to sound a lot like Ironhide at the moment.
Optimus just laughed.
--
It was two o'clock in the morning, and Cat had just arrived back to the base. She parked her motorcycle in it's normal spot and wearily walked back to her room. Her eyes were halfway open, heavy with the need for sleep. Getting to her room, Cat threw her jacket and helmet down on the table. A small dark object seemed to run towards her, causing her to stop in her tracks. The small form of Rotten ran into her legs, and hard. He was carrying a small chew toy and laid it at her feet, wagging his long, black tail.
-Flashback-
A couple of weeks after the little Frenzy incident, Cat, Sam and Mikaela were sitting in Cat's apartment, laughing and playing with the small Rott pup. Cat threw a small soft ball, and the dog ran after it, his paws skidding on the wood flooring as he chased it down the hallway, bringing it back.
"So have you decided what you're going to name him?" Mikaela asked.
Cat smirked and picked up the small pup, letting him lick her face, "Yeah, I've decided to call him Rotten."
"Rotten? What made you come up with that name?" Sam asked.
"Are you kidding?" Cat smiled and reached behind her, pulling out a weaved basket full of nothing but toys. Pig ears, tug toys, marrow bones, squeaking soft toys and tennis balls filled the basket to its rims.
"He's only been here for a couple of weeks and already he's got me wrapped around his little paw..." Cat laughed and set the pup down, throwing the small chew toy down the hallway again.
"Aww," Mikaela smiled at Cat.
"What?" Cat gave her a raised eyebrow.
"You love him," she squeaked with joy.
Cat rolled her eyes, but smiled when the little creature brought the toy back to her, laying it in her lap this time.
"Yeah well... Don't tell anyone..." Cat scratched the small dog's back and watched as it rolled over so that she would rub his belly.
"Yeah, I'd say he's got you all right," Sam laughed.
-End Flashback-
Cat picked the little guy up and felt his hot tongue run across the bottom of her chin.
"Has Bluestreak been taking care of you, little guy?" Cat cooed at her small friend, remembering that Bluestreak had promised to look after the animal whenever she was gone for more than a few hours. She saw that the food bowls were partly full, and the water dish was near the top of the rim.
"Yeah, he's been here recently," Cat gave a tired smile, "You ready for bed little guy?"
Rotten gave a whimper in return as an answer. He knew what "bed" meant. Cat walked into the kitchen and opened up the small kennel, placing the pup inside.
"Sorry Rotten, but you're still too young to know better than to mess up the bed sheets," she locked it into place and stood back up, turning down the hallway to get into her bedroom. She dropped on the bed like a ton of bricks.
"I love the bike... But driving on it for 5 hours straight is a bit much..." her eyes closed and within seconds she was asleep.
--
-Earlier-
"So have you all picked the hologram that you'll be using?" Wheeljack asked, watching as the others had their optics off, while they went through the new programming in the projector's system to pick how their holograms would look.
"I want mine to be the same color as me!" Sunstreaker griped.
"Humans can't paint their skin different colors the same way we can... However, they can dye their hair different colors. You may want to try that," Wheeljack suggested.
Sunstreaker whined a little, but continued on with his search for the perfect human form of himself. As soon as they were all finished, Wheeljack hooked them all up to the adaptations that would keep their actual bodies recharging while their systems made all the connections to their new projectors.
"Everyone ready?" The science officer asked.
"Let's do this!" the two jovial voices of the twins shouted, while everyone else grumbled, excluding Optimus, who only hoped that everything would actually go as planned.
"Activate your projectors!" Wheeljack gave the okay, as the Autobots all activated their holograms at once.
--
Cat's eyes blurred into perspective. Her tired body protested against moving after only four hours of sleep, but she couldn't help but hear the cries of Rotten from his kennel.
"Ugh... Must need to go out already..." she grouched as she rolled out of bed, her shoulders slumped, her eyes halfway open, and her feet dragging on the floor.
Cat managed to get to the kitchen, where she saw Rotten raise his tail and wag it profusely.
"All right, little guy... Let's get this over with so I can go back to sleep..." she opened the kennel and picked the small pup up, "Let's hope we can avoid anyone who are going to ask too many questions about where I've been..."
Cat walked down the hallways and corridors of the base. And it was quiet the entire way.
"Odd... Where is everyone?" Not that she minded the fact that not even a technician was around to bother her, but something seemed off.
Even on the way back from taking Rotten, Cat encountered no problems. She barely saw a group of day shifters from some of the laboratories.
Arriving back to her room and placing Rotten back in his Kennel, Cat kicked off her sandals and threw off her light jacket. Since she had gone to bed with her clothes on, she decided to take the extra time and put on the more comfortable pajamas, and climb into bed.
Cat had relaxed in her bed just enough to the point where she could finally feel her muscles begin to tingle.
A giggle.
Cat's eyes shot open and she sat up in bed.
Another giggle.
Cat looked around her room and saw that she couldn't pick up any infrared signatures.
"Who's there?!" she yelled.
"Shhh! Shut up!" she heard a whisper.
Cat jumped out of bed and made a dash towards the hallway. When she arrived, she stopped dead in her tracks… And screamed…
--
"Have you experienced any problems with your hologram as of yet?" A slightly grayed and light brown short haired, muscled human male asked.
The other male was short black-haired, a bit taller than the other, also muscle bound.
"I experienced a minor problem when I traversed a bit too far than the projector has allowed for. Other than that, so far so good. This might actually be a creation of Wheeljack's that hasn't totally been a -"
"AHHHHHHHH!" a woman's scream had the two holograms turning in their shoes.
"Was that Cat?!" the shorter hologram asked.
"I believe so!" the other answered as they ran towards the sound.
--
"WHO THE HELL ARE YOU?!" an angry Cat chased three holograms towards the exit of her room, with the intent of bodily harm.
"RUN RUN RUN IDIOT!" one of the holograms yelled, pushing another out of the way.
"CALM DOWN GIRL! IT'S US!" the hologram that was mere inches from the clutches of the angered girl hollered in desperation as the others scattered.
Cat managed to corner one of them by the front entrance when the door flew open, where two other holograms looking rather startled and confused gasped and moved out of the way. The hologram that was cornered in front of the door turned and "EEKED" just before being pummeled to the ground right outside the door. Cat had the intruder straddled, her left fist curled tightly, holding the red shirt tightly in her grasp. Her metal right arm was raised, her eyes were wide and feral, death was spelled out within them.
"YOU'VE GOT TEN SECONDS TO EXPLAIN YOURSELF BEFORE I BUST YOUR SKULL!" Cat growled.
"Meep..." The red haired, blue eyed hologram cringed. Even though he was a hologram, Sideswipe couldn't help but feel a bit displaced being under the crushing weight of the human girl's furious expression.
"Cat! Stop!" Bluestreak's messy light brown haired hologram yelled, Sunstreaker's blonde haired feature appeared directly behind him.
"What is the meaning of this?!" Optimus's voice boomed, confused.
"I found these three guys in my room, Optimus! I was about to pound on them when-" Cat turned and looked in the direction from where the voice of the Autobot leader had come from. She froze.
"W-Who said that?" she asked.
"Cat," Ratchet's hologram put his hands up to try and calm her before there was a major problem, "It's us. Just relax before you damage Sideswipe!... On second thought..."
Optimus's human form glared down at the medic.
Ratchet sighed and repeated, "It's all right, Cat. Just calm down."
Cat still had her metal fist raised, but turned her head around to see the other two holograms standing there, gawking. She then looked down to the male that she had pinned to the ground and asked, "S-Sideswipe?"
The red-haired hologram nodded slowly, "Yeah, it's me... And that's Sunny and Blue too," he pointed towards the other two intruders.
Cat immediately stood up and backed away from where the five stood.
"Wha-? How did-?... What the hell is going on here?!"
--
It had taken a few minutes to explain everything, but Optimus and Ratchet managed to calm Cat down enough so that she was no longer irate.
"So what brought all this on?" Cat asked as she sipped on a glass of ice water.
"Wheeljack got the idea to create human holograms for us as better disguises. This way we'll be able to go out into public without worry of being discovered. We can even use them for reconnaissance missions when it's too dangerous to use either of our other two forms," Ratchet explained.
"I see... Couldn't you have warned me before doing something like that?" Cat asked.
"We would have explained everything if you had been around to explain this to..." Optimus crossed his arms.
"Hey! You guys get time to yourselves, and so should I!" Cat smirked but it didn't last long. She looked over to Blue and the twins and gave a confused expression.
"How did you guys get in anyway?" she asked.
"We used the emergency code on the keypad... It was supposed to be a funny surprise," Sideswipe answered.
Before Cat could even begin to tear into the trio, Optimus said something first.
"That code is to be used for emergencies only! In fact, had Ratchet or I been at our normal posts, we probably would have noticed that the code was used and sent everyone here!" he scolded.
"Sent everyone here?" Bluestreak asked.
"Yes, Cat set that code so that it would give us a silent alarm! If we had been in our normal modes, we would have had Autobots and military personnel here within seconds!" Ratchet crossed his arms.
"That, and I had no idea what was going on! I was set on "kill" mode!" Cat griped.
Sunny smirked, "Not that you would have been able to harm us."
"You didn't look so sure of that when Cat was about to damage your brother," Ratchet commented with a smirk.
"Yeah... well..." the blond grumbled under his breath and looked away with a sour expression on his face.
"I can't say I'm surprised at the twins, but I'm slightly surprised that they managed to talk you into this little caper, Bluestreak," Optimus commented.
Bluestreak's hologram looked ashamed, "Yeah... so am I..."
Cat smirked -That's the first time I haven't heard him go on a word bender.-
--
Wheeljack's hologram form was rather suave for what you'd think. He was tall with medium, black, wavy hair, wearing tight fitting blue jeans and a white muscle shirt. He was in the medical bay, monitoring all of the Autobot's original forms, ensuring that there wouldn't be a complication with the charging systems. He checked his internal chronometer and smirked.
"Only twelve hours left before the systems fully connect to the projectors! Hopefully, I've broken the chain of bad luck with my inventions! Perhaps if I continue this new trend, I'll no longer have to present my ideas before building them!" he felt a great deal of hope for this inventions, as well as for his future inventions.
He walked over to the mainframe and pulled up the blueprints for the projectors. He overlooked them, already thinking of ways to improve them so that they could travel farther with them, and possibly carry heavy loads as well. He was so into looking over the blueprints, that he didn't even notice that a small error code was blinking on the monitor screens for every shell being charged.
--
Cat stretched out on the couch and yawned. After enjoying listening to the twins get a good scolding from Optimus, the day was more boring afterward. Even little Rotten was curled up on his small dog bed. Cat was fixing herself some lunch and waiting for it to heat up when she heard a knock at the door. She raised an eyebrow at the door, wondering if she should bother getting up to answer it.
"Eh... I suppose whoever's there has to be more entertaining than what I'm doing now..." she go up from the couch and walked to the door, opening it.
From behind the door, the new faces of Jazz, Ironhide and Prowl peered through. Jazz's form was a young, dark skinned man, about in his mid twenties or so. His baby blue eyes made his facial features look as cheerful and as easygoing as what the mech was normally like his in normal form. Ironhide was a short buzzed cut, dirty blonde look, wearing camo pants and army regulation boots, along with a dark fitting wife-beater tank; looking to be about in his early forties or so. Prowl was an averaged size man, probably looked about to be in his mid thirties, dressed in black slacks and a white button down polo shirt.
Cat smirked, "Too easy. Prowl, Jazz, and Hide. Lookin' good guys!"
"Heard ya had an incident with a few of our boys earlier today," Jazz grinned.
"Yeah, but they're being taken care of. Although I sort of felt sorry for Blue. I don't think he really wanted to "surprise" me like the twins had planned to do," Cat replied.
Cat was about to invite them in when she noticed that the three of them had wandering eyes. Wandering as if they were looking for something specific.
"Everything okay?" Cat asked, confused.
"Well... We stopped by because we... Well I'm not sure exactly how to describe it," Prowl looked to be beside himself.
"I believe the term is "aroma". We could... smell... something," Ironhide commented.
"Smell? Are you holograms supposed to be able to pick up olfactory senses?" Cat asked, allowing them into her apartment as they spread out a little, overlooking the apartment.
"We dunno," Jazz answered, "But as we walked by, we could smell something that had an effect on us of some sort..."
"What sort of effect?" Cat asked, worried about where they were going with this.
Before they could answer, Cat heard a loud rumbling noise... An odd sort of sound with these three... She looked over to the boys and her eyes widened, "Did... Did one of your stomachs just... did one of your stomachs just growl?!"
"Is that what that noise is? It's been annoying the slag out of us! We thought that something was wrong with these forms!" Ironhide said gruffly.
"What's it mean when yo stomach "growls"?" Jazz asked, looking rather curious.
"It... Well it means that you're hungry... But I thought that being hungry wasn't supposed to be something that would have an effect on you?" Cat asked.
Jazz shrugged.
Cat raised an eyebrow, "Er... I'm-uh... Going to call Jack... You guys stay here and don't... eat anything."
Cat walked down the hallway and into her computer room, Rotten prancing behind her, his claws causing him to slip and slide across the hardwood floors. Cat sat down at her desk, in front of the computer and reached over, grabbing the phone which was off to the side. She dialed through the internal dialing system which got to the lab.
-Jack here-
"Wheeljack? Hey it's Cat.."
-Well good afternoon kiddo. What can I do for you?-
"Uh, yeah... I had some questions about this new hologram program that you have going... Could you send me the blueprints for the projector system?"
-Absolutely! I can send them to you right this second! Actually, I was just overlooking it myself. I'm almost overjoyed at the fact that the group has allowed me to try a new invention out on them.-
Cat checked her email and saw that Wheeljack had already sent her the document containing the blueprints. She stayed on the line while she overlooked them.
-So, you've discovered that you're even more interested in my new design?- Wheeljack boasted.
"Uh, well, I had some questions about it, really."
-Oh? And what would you like to know?-
"Well, you see I've got three of the guys here, and they're exhibiting some strange... things..."
-...Exactly what do you mean by strange things?-
"Well, they only stopped by because they said they could smell the food that I was cooking."
-Ah, yes. The holograms are equipped with olfactory senses. Most Autobots have them anyway. Is that what you were referring to as a "symptom"?-
"Well it's not so much that they could just smell, but they were having human reactions to it."
-Human reactions? Could you be more specific?-
"They're stomachs were growling."
Wheeljack took a moment to ponder the meaning of a "growling stomach".
-This action demonstrates that a human is in need of refueling. But the holograms are not supposed to have refueling capabilities.-
"Yeah, which is why I'm calling you... If they're not supposed to feel a hunger pang, why are these three sniffing through my kitchen like bloodhounds?"
And then she saw it.
"Hey Jack? Do me a favor and tell me what this little section is," Cat zoomed in on a section of the blueprints, saved the image and sent it to the science officer.
-Ah, yes. That is the converter that turns the molecules into solid masses, making the hologram more believable. Why do you ask?-
"The molecules that form the holograms... It looks like it's taking a lot of power... And maybe more than that," Cat was so into paying attention to the blueprints that she barely noticed Rotten scratching against her legs and whining for attention.
-Impossible. There are safety features that prevent such occurences. If the converters over compensated, I would probably be seeing alarms, or error codes which-
"... Jack?" Cat looked at her phone, thinking that she had lost connection, "Jack? You there?"
-Primus... Catherine, do you think that you could come down to the lab and assist me?-
"Assist you with what?"
-It seems that you are correct... The converters have failed, and I can only wonder what sort of problems it will cause.-
Cat's eyes widened as she realized what was going on.
"Hey girl! You- uh... You mind if we have a taste of your human fuel?" Jazz poked his head into the computer room.
"Jack... You didn't create a hologram projector... You created a matter converter!" She swiveled around in her chair and saw that all three of the "holograms" were in the room, all of their stomachs growling.
"Matter converter? What's that mean for us exactly?" Ironhide asked.
"...It means your sparks are being converted into your hologram bodies... You're turning into humans!" Cat felt an aneurism coming on.
--
I think that's about as good as it should get for a cliffhanger Chapter Teaser, don't you?