Rated: M for adult themes: language, violence, mental rape, character death, mech erotica, torture, gore, and suicidal ideation. This varies from chapter to chapter, so read at your own risk.
Important Note: This is an A.U. 2007 movie verse fic, NOT a ROTF/DOTM/AE/LK/BB or whatever follows fic.
Disclaimer: The only thing I own in this work of complete fiction is Velocity/Sira and Hardcore. They are mine. Everything else is copyrighted and owned by some really rich people. I make no money from this but wish I could.
XxxX
Full Velocity: Apocalypse Code
Chapter 4: Frontier
XxxX
This place offered rudimentary shelter, especially after Soundwave set off the disruptors. Already half abandoned, rundown, and dirty, the humans deserted large swaths of Detroit, leaving him alone. Massive factories offered a place from the elements and primative tools. Vacated vehicles supplied supplemental metals and gasoline for basic fuel.
Lowered to nothing more than a scavenger, anger glowed in his spark. He should be so much more; he was a noble. He should be on Cybertron, sitting in the Senate; instead, he hid on this dirt clot of a world. Eventually, his frame would heal. Eventually, he would remove Barricade. Eventually, he would take back everything owed to him. For now, he would hide and heal. He would plot and wait for his opportunity to show Decepticons and Autobots how he earned his name - Hardcore.
But he got sloppy. He saw the man with the binoculars a couple of days ago but assumed the man had not noticed him sitting in the shadows of a building. He believed the man belonged to one of the groups that traveled through the area, their meager belongings stacked on carts and pulled by animals as they headed to more hospitable locations. His part of Detroit was unwelcoming to humans, and he made sure they did not stay long.
Unfortunately, the man had not been a vagabond or pilgrim. The man was a hunter with a trap, and Hardcore walked right into it. Under fueled and exhausted, his processor lagged, not noticing the obvious clues. It didn't take much for the humans to overpower and restrain him. The chains stretched his arms painfully, nearly popping them out of their sockets. He knelt, bent at an odd angle, his helm nearly touching the floor. Had he been fully fueled and repaired, he might be able to break the chains, but that was a huge what-if.
Soon the humans would kill him, and he really didn't know how he felt about that. On the one hand, he would be out of his continuous pain, near starvation, and general all-around misery, but on the other hand, he would be dead. The question rested more on how long and painful the process would be – Cybertronians did not die easily.
Venting a deep sigh, Hardcore scanned the assembled pack of advanced apes mulling around the long-abandoned building. Their leader leaned against a support pole, his foot propped on a slab of shattered concrete. He placed a cigarette to his mouth and lit it with a lighter pulled from his pocket. A dusty coat covered most of his body down to his calves and flapped in the breeze.
They stared at each other as a horse whinnied outside. The light from the end of the cigarette glowed on the man's dark face before his exhale obscured it in a puff of smoke. The cloud irritated the mech's olfactory sensors.
After a blink of the optic shutters, Hardcore spoke. "How long will this take? I mean, are we just going to stare at each other all day?"
The man smirked. "Are you in a hurry to die?" He took another long drag on his cigarette. A couple of the others curiously turned toward them.
"I would prefer not to die at all. If it matters, I am not a Decepticon. I spoke against Soundwave's plan to attack your nation with an EMP. I barely escaped with my life and tried to rip the shield off as I renounced the Decepticon ways." Hardcore oozed with false sincerity.
Shaking his head, the man flicked the ashes off the end of his cigarette. "I don't care if you are a Decepticon or an Autobot; both threaten Earth." He dropped his cigarette on the floor and crushed it under his boot.
Hardcore sighed; the situation was worse than he thought. "Fortunately, you and I have the same enemies. I can help you," he offered.
"Unless you can tell me Optimus Prime's weaknesses, you are worthless to me." The man unslung his rifle and tucked it under his arm. Digging into a pouch at his waist, he pulled out several bullets. He slid them into the receiver, loading the weapon.
Focused on the gun, the former Decepticon desperately rattled, "Optimus Prime doesn't have any weaknesses. You could try to terminate his mate and hope the shock cripples him before his wrath destroys you."
"Try? We plan to execute her, just like we will execute you." The human braced the weapon against his shoulder and lined the sights on Hardcore's face.
Straining against the cables, Hardcore attempted to pull away. "You only captured me because I am low on fuel and require repairs. That femme is functioning with full tanks." He cringed, waiting for the explosion of a bullet to rip through his optic and into his processor. It wouldn't kill him but hurt like the pit and glitch many of his functions.
The man continued to look down the sights of the rifle but had not pressed the trigger.
Hardcore continued, more to postpone the inevitable, but wondering if he had a slim chance to salvage his aft. Staring down the rifle barrel, he forced a chuckle. "Velocity will shred your chains." He pulled at the restraints around his arms to make his point. "She survived capture once, and I doubt anyone will get near her again."
Looking up from the sights, the human softly asked, "And how do you know this?" Thoughts rolled behind those dark eyes.
"Because my team captured her," Hardcore swore in High Iaconian as he raised his helm and offered the curse to Primus. Recovering from his dramatic outburst, the Decepticon continued, "I apologize. That femme is bad luck; something about her is wrong.
"Anyways, my team captured her purely by luck after chasing her for hundreds of miles. Keeping her functioning was a pain in the aft; we mitigated most of her defenses, but she still found ways to injure us or try to escape. You are vastly mistaken if you think she will go down without a long and brutal fight. I would be forever in your debt if you allowed me the chance to kill her; her existence is part of the reason I am without any alliance."
"I thought you said it was because you objected to Soundwave's plan."
Quickly recovering from his mistake, Hardcore calmly informed the humans, "Capturing Velocity was part of Soundwave's plan." The mech made a mental note to construct a story to tell the humans later.
The man drummed his fingers on the barrel of his weapon. After a few seconds, he lowered the rifle. "We were informed she is small, weak, and defenseless; that is why she rarely leaves the Prime's side. What are her defensive capabilities?
A sigh rattled through Hardcore's vents. "Small, yes, but far from defenseless. Femmes are nasty by design, and even the small ones are dangerous."
They stared at each other; the gentle scrape of a boot on the pavement and a soft cough from an unseen hunter reminded Hardcore that he and this man were not alone. The mech broke the silence. "I know I will never see Cybertron again, no matter which side wins this war. My only hope is to survive on Earth, and if I can spend that time hurting those that betrayed me, well - even better."
The man raised his hand and made a motion.
"Marcus?" a female voice questioned from the shadows.
"Don't fuck with us." The man named Marcus threatened. "If I think you are lying or setting up my people, I will make sure your death is slow and painful."
"Don't betray me, and I have nothing against your people," Hardcore countered.
A silent pact sealed the arrangement, and Hardcore knew the humans would eventually try to betray him, but he would strike long before they did.
"Do it."
Without warning, the tension of the cables relaxed, and Hardcore slammed face-first into the concrete. Twisting, the mech pushed himself upright, the chains still wrapped around his wrists. Hardcore nodded; in his current condition, it wouldn't take much for a human to terminate him, much less another of his own kind. "As long as I don't have to stay in Detroit, we can work together."
XxxX
"Hold it steady," Wheeljack instructed the technician, stabilizing the cold chemistry flashlight.
Darkness encircled them. The massive cave complex at Cheyenne Mountain remained offline, turning ten miles of tunnels into a black maze. Fortune had smiled, and he found what he needed in Colorado Springs to recreate the orbs he made at Alpha Base.
"I didn't move it," Airman Coraline Jackson retorted.
The Autobot scientist cut the human femme an irritated glance. "There is a shadow blocking the opening," he argued, but his tone lacked heat.
The woman rolled her dark eyes in annoyance. "Your arm is in the way."
Wheeljack shifted his arm, and light poured into the access panel. A sheepish smile spread across his features. "I believe you are correct. Perhaps it is time for a break?"
As the woman rolled the luminescent globe out of the way, Wheeljack shimmied back from the generator, careful not to bump or damage any equipment. He finished his assessment of the six massive generators designed to support the mountain complex in times like this. Right now, they lived in the dark like the rest of the country. He sat up and stretched stiff joints.
The Autobot enjoyed working alongside humans; he found them imaginative, inquisitive, and comical, but he realized his friendship with Tony had been unique – special. They met mentally, bouncing off each other to see who could create the most ridiculous ideas with real-world applications. Over high grade and beer, practical theories devolved into outrageous suppositions. They happily and brutally critiqued one another, sharing the need to improve and simultaneously be correct. On many of these ludicrous discourses, Ratchet would join them and add his piercing and hysterical observations to the fray. He missed Tony; the young man's death left a hole in his spark.
Wheeljack quickly learned he had been spoiled by some of the better representatives of the human species. The damage from Soundwave's Null Zone introduced Wheeljack to less savory human traits: desperation, violence, and, the worst, in his opinion, willful ignorance. Fortunately, in Airman Jackson, he found a courageous, curious, stalwart, and practical assistant with training, education, and opportunity, she could go far. Wheeljack decided he would do everything he could to give her those things.
Cory's stiffened salute pulled the Autobot out of his thoughts. Glancing around, the scientist watched a man materialize from the shadows. Not all humans earned his admiration, and this one could go and frag himself with Megatron's cannon. Fortunately, being an elite researcher on Cybertron taught him how to play the game of polite respect even when others didn't deserve it.
"Staff Sergeant Thomas, what can I do for you?" The Autobot asked while picking up the access panel. "Cory, can you help me? I'll hold, and you screw."
The saluting woman shot him a look and then refocused on the sergeant. A second later, she dropped to the toolbox and grabbed the screwdriver. Moving next to him, she picked up the cup of screws from the floor.
"Do you have any information?" the human barked with a curl of disdain in his words.
The Staff Sargent belonged category of humans that believed everyone should be beneath them. Wheeljack knew Cybertronians like that and happily put those types in their place while smiling the entire time.
"I do, and it is propitious." The Autobot announced as he held the heavy cover, watching the woman nimbly twist the tool. "Convene your superiors; avoiding misconstrued data is vital." He waved his hand dismissively. "Shoo shoo."
The human blinked several times, either confused by the vocabulary or stunned at his dismissal. Either way, Wheeljack wanted him gone; Cory worked better when she wasn't nervous.
As the footsteps faded, Cory visibly relaxed. Her shoulders loosened, her breathing slowed, and her movements became more fluid—a noticeable change, even for him. Wheeljack recalled incidences at Alpha Base between a male and a formerly organic female. "Has he hurt you? Or tried to force copulation?"
"Oh my God, no," the woman sputtered, dropping the screwdriver. Reaching for it, she clarified, "He wouldn't dare. It's just that air of superiority floating around him."
"I thought that was his cologne," Wheeljack admitted, relief lightening his mood.
XxxX
Sipping his coffee, Brian carefully closed the door. He watched the wood silently settle into the jam and slowly released the latch. A board beneath him creaked from his weight, and he froze, not wanting to wake the rest of the house. He loved mornings like this. The fog would swirl between the trees, blanketing the world in cottony, gray sheet. Even the chickens stayed quiet. Some mornings he could almost believe everything would be ok.
Shifting his weight, the assistant turned, intending to stealthily make his way to one of the rocking chairs on the porch. Instead, he screamed and tossed the coffee mug at the tank turret spinning its cannon toward him. As he scrambled to remember how to work the door latch, he continued his screaming, interlacing it with profanity. From inside the house, muffled shouts and the pounding of feet echoed dully.
Giving up trying to save himself, Brian cowered on the porch, his peaceful morning forgotten as he pleaded for his life. The barrel of the cannon pointed directly at him.
A goliath casually walked from behind the house. Only his legs showed between the posts; the porch roof didn't even reach his knees. Brian sobbed, knowing his life would end soon.
The second robot curled his fist and slammed on top of the tank. "Primus dammit. Stop it, you sadistic bastard; the wee human leaked on himself."
The front door slammed open, and Paul rushed out, rifle to his shoulder. Beth followed, leveling a shotgun at her hip.
Brian crawled into the house and threw himself into Mark's arms, begging his lover not to go outside. Instead of listening, the older man forced him to follow Miriam outside.
The SecDef stood with her hands on her hips, her sweats flapping in the breeze. "What are you doing? Stand up and answer me."
The tank backed up and shifted, then kept shifting until it stood up and reformed into a towering alien robot. "I was just having some fun. Everybody I've done that to jumped and laughed."
"Well, maybe because they are all military and know you." The Sec Def snapped. "What are you doing here?"
A police car arrived, and Brian sighed. Then the police car stopped and turned itself inside out; the black and white robot strolled past the bigger ones, shooting the tank a scathing look. Stopping, he kneeled before the SecDef. "Secretary Hernandez, I send greetings from Optimus Prime."
Miriam shut her eyes and sighed. "Prowl, I don't know if I am happy to see you or not."
Brian stuttered, "You know its name?" A breeze brushed against him, chilling his wet pants with humiliation. Around him, Paul lowered his weapon, but Aunt Beth kept her shotgun ready.
XxxX
Miriam watched Brian retreat into the house. She didn't fault the man, Cybertronians were intimidating, and Warpath stood taller than Optimus Prime and appeared more heavily armed. But looks were deceiving; reports stated that the Prime outclassed most of his kind in battle.
The cool morning breeze bit through her sweatpants and t-shirt; she crossed her arms over her chest to keep warm and appear less afraid than she felt. If the Autobots found them, so could the Decepticons. "How did you find us?"
Wordlessly, Prowl slipped his hand between armor plates on his chest and pulled something out. Reaching toward her, a folded piece of paper sat pinched between the mech's index and middle fingers.
Taking the offering, she unfolded it. Reading the message, she handed it to Paul. "You wrote this?" A question, no accusation in her tone.
Paul glanced at the note. "I did. I left it with Agent Thomas Grey when we split ways in D.C. as part of the Line of Secession, I had to keep you safe, and no one would come looking for you at my Aunt's house. He was to hold onto the instructions until it was safe to return to Washington."
All eyes turned to Prowl. The black and white Autobot remained kneeling. "It is not safe to return to D.C. Large parts of the city are controlled by a group that appears hostile to your government.
"The President is presumed dead, and we were only allowed a day to search the city, not long enough to find any other government representatives. It appears until others are located that you are the leader of the United States."
Miriam staggered, her knees wanting to buckle. A metal hand offered her support, but her mind began racing. It was all gone; everything had disappeared in one night. The nation stood defenseless against its enemies. Tears streamed down her cheeks, unabashed and unhidden. She sagged against the Autobot's palm, unable to stand anymore.
Her sobs filled the damp air. Paul wrapped his arms around her, holding her against his chest.
"We found one. This area should be cleared." The voice pulled Miriam from her misery. Out of the woods walked two more Autobots, both in shades of yellow. She knew them from their files.
Bumblebee held a very alien-looking device; pale tentacles dangled as he walked. The other one, Sun-something, frowned.
Prowl's voice startled her. "Good. Continue the search. We need an area large enough for the shuttle to land and to establish communications with the Parhelion." He turned his attention to her. "Madam, we are here to help rebuild."
XxxX
He liked this fortress beneath the mountain. The long tunnels carved from granite surrounding steel buildings sit on top of springs to negate seismic activity—the massive underground lakes and the failsafe for airflow, heating, and cooling. The humans built this place right. It could use a few improvements, but the overall design had his approval.
Currently, he paced the long dark hall, his processor buzzing with possibilities. Mumbling to himself, he identified potential problems and corresponding solutions. Occasionally, he would stop and, with a marker, scribble notes on the side of the metal building setting secured within the cave. He had been at this a while; column after column of Cybertronian glyphs and equations covered the wall. If he was correct, they might be able to salvage this fortress and use it as a starting place to rebuild.
"Cory, find me data on how deep they buried the communication lines and the type of insulation."
The woman at his peds scrutinized the numerous binders scattered around the access tunnel. Making her selection, she pulled it to her lap and carefully leafed through the yellowed pages. Printed in the 1950s and 1960s, NORAD's schematics did not hold up to the test of time very well, and the brittle pages crumbled if handled roughly.
Wheeljack let the woman search for the data. The archivists who assembled this data were not the most thoughtful at cross-referencing. It would take the Airman some time to find the information, allowing him to massage the equations again and contemplate how a former archivist named Orion would be appalled at this mess.
As his thoughts gave way to the notes and equations, time didn't exist. Wheeljack's processor twisted the equations, working through one variable at a time, crunching the numbers as if made of beryllium-coated energon goodies – his favorite. Where Prowl, running wide open, could analyze thousands of moving data points and form probable outcomes, Wheeljack could process complex equations within seconds and rerun them, changing one or two variables at a time. As he stared at the equations, his processor hummed, internally watching the Decepticon pulse travel down earth circuitry changing the alignment of atoms within the wires and destroying the conductivity. As he changed the variables, the pulse slowed or stopped altogether. "Have you figured out how deep those wires are buried?"
"Yes, Airman. How deep are those wires buried?" General Pierce's voice yanked the scientist out of his thoughts.
"Oh, good. You are here." Wheeljack turned to face the Base Commander, crushing several used-up markers beneath his peds. "I won't waste time by explaining the details," he waved at the rows of glyphs and equations, "I'm pretty certain the Cheyenne Mountain Complex has been spared most of the pulse's destructive effects. The amount of iron ore in the granite acted like a Faraday cage, impeding the pulse wave frequency. Actually, any variation in the frequency would render it harmless or melt…."
General Pierce interrupted, "Are you saying we can fire up the generators? That we can restore the power and go live?" His eyes opened wide enough that the Autobot wondered if the fuzzy eyebrows would move to the top of the human's bald head and stay there.
Wheeljack chuckled, "Absolutely not." He glanced at Cory, she watched the exchange, but her finger marked a page in one of the binders. Leaving the equations, the Autobot squatted to sit on his haunches. "I am saying your electronics - probably - were not damaged, but I cannot be certain without further testing. My concern is if we 'fire things up,' it may permanently damage your equipment. It was a fluke of geology that this facility was spared.
"Also, I believe we have cleared a large enough area to set up our communications array and establish contact with Autobot command."
XxxX
The city and the front range of the Rocky Mountains sat hazy and distant as they slowly walked along the flat prairie. The hum and buzz of a thousand insects surrounded him, disturbed by his peds crushing the long grass. Hound rechecked the map. Once the first and second disruptors were located and destroyed, Perceptor plotted the most logical grid for the other several hundred thousand. Unfortunately, what Perceptor decided as the most logical did not apply to the reality of the terrain or Soundwave's actions. Spaced approximately ten Earth miles apart, locating the disruptors should have been easy, but the devices could be anywhere between five or twelve miles apart. And several times, two active disruptors sat only a city block apart. This irregularity made locating the disruptors arduous and frustrating. Even to a Cybertronian, one square earth mile was a large area to try and find a hidden or buried disruptor, much less two or three square miles.
Hound pointed this disparity to the scientist and was informed, "Mathematically, the average is ten miles apart. Follow the grid."
According to the grid, the disruptor should be located in this area. Hound looked to his left, an abandoned house nestled in the center of a wide plot of land. Three rough crosses stood over three mounds of turned dirt. He looked away, trying not to think about the dead in that yard. Once, people and their domesticated animals lived here, but thanks to Soundwave, some of the family and – at his peds, the bleached skeleton of a dog hid among the tall grass – and their pets died. He had seen vorns of war, and he was tired of the death.
A whistle split the air and pulled the tracker from his thoughts. Snapping his head up, Hound searched the landscape for Mirage; the spy stood in the shadow of a barn, waving at him.
Hound left the dead and walked toward whatever Mirage found. Calmly strolling over the ground, the tracker observed his surroundings. The house belonged to a larger parcel of land with several other buildings. A wire fence surrounded a paddock designed for animals, and the barn sat on the other side of the pasture.
Stepping over the fence, he avoided a pile of dried excrement, not that it bothered him; most of the dirt on this planet had made its way into, through, and out of the digestive tract of primitive Annelida; basically, all dirt was worm shit. The pasture held nothing of interest, just ground trampled by the hooves of creatures gone.
Stepping over the other section of fence, he called to Mirage, "What did you find?"
The haughty Autobot kneeled in the dirt, and Hound resisted the urge to explain he knelt in worm dung. Petty, but the expressions and discomfort from the defunct noble would have been good for a laugh.
Carefully scraping away the earth with his hands, Mirage exposed the top of a disruptor. Looking simultaneously proud and bored, he tipped his helm up and said. "I assume you want me to destroy this one too." The words rolled out of his vocals like he doubted anyone would contradict him.
But contradicting was exactly what Hound intended. "Nope. We are saving this one for Perceptor," he chuckled with a broad smile, hiding how much all this disturbed him. "Let's box this one up and go find Cliffjumper. I think a well-deserved recharge is in order."
XxxX
Author's Notes:
NORAD is awesome. Some liberties were taken with the binders, but the general details presented are accurate.