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: I started this series of fics before Revenge of the Fallen hit the theaters. 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 10: Sin City
XxxX
Optimus meant it when he said he wanted to leave within an hour. The Prime stood in the chaos, barking orders, pointing directions, and commanding the final departure preparations. Both mech and men scurried with frantic urgency around the Prime of Cybertron.
Velocity stayed out of the way, standing to the side, waiting for the signal to fold into a Saturn Sky and leave. Like several other mechs chosen for this mission, she checked and rechecked weapons, maps, and meager gear, anticipation making her fidget.
Slipknot approached, his movements slow and cautious. Velocity didn't want to talk to him, having already swallowed the bitter resentment of losing her team; discussing what happened would only force her to regurgitate the acrid discontent.
"I wish you were still the team leader," the mech said, offering a platitude to keep the peace between them as he shifted from ped to ped.
Offering a cursory glance as she stowed her sword, the femme pushed back all immediate responses and chose a safe reply. "You will do great. You and the team don't need me anymore." The truth.
The mech glanced away, awkwardly watching the final preparations. He turned back to her and in a low voice, admitted, "I allowed Roadhazard to rejoin."
Grinding her dental plates, Velocity counted to five before answering. "I know, but this is your team now; my opinions should not influence your decisions." She swallowed the rising need to snap and growl. Anger constricted her chest and heated her energon.
In a quick motion, Slipknot stepped toward her and reached out to stroke her face. Dodging what equated to a Cybertronian kiss, Velocity growled a low warning as she stepped back.
The mech quickly mumbled, "My apologies." He dipped his helm in a slight bow. "I misunderstood."
Velocity's anger spilled over. "You didn't misunderstand shit. I thought we were friends, and you abused my trust to get a fucking promotion and then assumed I would what? Interface with you? I am the Prime's bondmate. Do you think you can even compare to him? Do you think you can offer me anything better?" She wanted the heat of her words to burn. Yes, she hit him low, but the image of her team snickering behind her back fueled her ire. Did they laugh at her? Did they make obscene comments about her? Did they bet if one of them could bed her? She wanted to cut out the pain of betrayal and humiliation from her soul and dump it on the mech.
Slipknot stammered with shock; he shook his head to the negative but could not get his vocals to work.
All activity paused on the runway, and Optimus called, "Autobots..."
"It isn't like that," Slipknot finally protested.
Velocity dropped into her altmode, zipping toward her mate as the Prime finished his order, "...Roll out."
XxxX
Preceptor entered his security code, and the blast door slid open. Stepping into the containment area, he waited for the door to shut and lock; only then would he open the next one. Entering the laboratory, he locked the internal door behind him, ensuring no one could bother him or accidentally breach the containment field around the device. If the Decepticon device crippled the Parhelion, they would all plummet to their deaths in one impressive feat of stupidity.
He did not want that to happen.
Before getting started, he scanned the area. All the test tubes, tools, scanners, containers, and data pads sat precisely where he had left them. He did not need all the equipment for studying the EMP relay, but 'bots obsessively liked to handle items and move things around. If he left his lab neatly stocked with research tools, he could quickly tell if someone had entered the area without his authorization. A trick he learned from Wheeljack, but that mech took it to the extreme.
Clearing unneeded items off the control board, Perceptor opened the small shutter to the viewing port. The device sat innocently in its container, its tentacles slowly slipping across its prison walls, searching for a way to hide. Not sentient or remotely alive, Soundwave had installed a basic survival protocol to find a secure place out of sight. The tentacles served as rudimentary receptors for locating adequate concealment; the Earth amoeba had higher intellectual capacity.
Perceptor pulled out a stool and settled himself for several breem of research. He wanted to know if Soundwave had installed a kill code, an easy way to shut the infernal things down. So far, studying the relays proved difficult; the EMP pulse either neutralized the scanners or distorted the reading beyond useability. So, they brought one of these things on the ship in a controlled, shielded, and secured environment, away from the rest of the relays and overlapping signals.
Something had triggered the alarm on his datapad; some anomaly had occurred. Within that anomaly, he might find a kill switch or a way to locate all the relays to help the Autobots on the ground as they aided the humans.
Activating a monitor, the scientist searched through the backlog of data gathered on the relay. The electromagnetic wavelength and megahertz fit within the expected parameters, and the electron voltage was high but not unusually so. The relay appeared just another Decepticon disruptor but on a much larger scale; it sent out a powerful EMP pulse, rested, then pulsed again in a rapid, ongoing cycle. Predictable and keeping him from discovering the device's secrets.
Scanning through the backlog of data, he almost missed the millisecond where the wavelength and hertz fluctuated and then resumed prior ranges. That one point meant nothing, for science relied upon repetition, repetition in experiments, repetition in results, and repetition of a hidden signal. Flicking his fingers over the keyboard, Perceptor pulled up the data from the shift before and found the same modulation in frequency.
Once was an accident, twice a coincidence, and the third time a pattern. Perceptor did not believe in coincidences. Checking the chronometer, the next change in the frequency should occur tomorrow, and he intended to be ready for it.
XxxX
The first forty-five miles, the convoy took at a comfortable pace. Over the months, they had cleared all the roads in and around Creech, pushing stalled vehicles off the concrete and into the desert. This maintenance ended in Las Vegas; even on reconnaissance missions, everyone took to the desert to avoid the city. Now they had little choice. The heavily loaded trailers wouldn't do so well offroad, especially once they left the Las Vegas Valley and entered the Rocky Mountains. Velocity did not envy Optimus, Huffer, or Longhaul, having to pull the trailers across the continent.
Once in the Null zone, their internal comms didn't function; therefore, no bot-to-bot chatter, and not having a human passenger meant she had no one to talk to. For the moment, she kept her thoughts firmly controlled and contained; no dark ideas or bleak realizations crept into her consciousness. Instead, she focused on the rush of the wind around her armor, the comfortable hum of her tires on the concrete, and the blur of the desert landscape. She hadn't told anyone but looked forward to leaving the harsh and barren desert for a while. Not that she didn't appreciate the bleak, empty beauty of the land, but she was a child of the forest. She missed the towering trees, thick fern carpets that grew from spring rainstorms, and the green-black shadows beneath heavy canopies. Getting away from sand, rocks, cacti, and scrub-brush might do her some good.
No one told her they neared the city; no one had to; the repositioning of Autobots and the increasing speed offered significant clues. Optimus dropped back from point and let Longhaul take the lead. A rare moment for the Prime, but the other Autobot's altform resembled something from a Mad Max movie, colored dull browns and grays, with heavy impact bars wrapped around his front and down the sides, perfect for pushing anything and everything out of his way. Also, two humans sat in his cab, both military and both heavily armed.
Behind Longhaul came Optimus, then the smaller members of the convoy. Sideswipe maneuvered close to Velocity, and she assumed he was assigned as her bodyguard or just being a perve and looking at her altmode aft. Her former teammates became a tight mass around her and the melee warrior, their human passengers readying weapons. Finally, Huffer and his locked and loaded passengers, a rear guard against flanking maneuvers if they encountered problems.
Their speed increased as the tall buildings of Las Vegas solidified in the distance; they planned to pass through the city as fast as possible. Velocity's pump pounded, not from exertion but anticipation. She had no idea what to expect and hoped all the preparation and strategizing before the trip would be for naught. She didn't want a fight, especially against people – humans.
As they entered the edge of the desert city, rows of houses lined either side of Interstate 95, pushed back from the road by a wide swath of rock and sand. All optics and eyes were alert because the 95/Skye Canon Parkway interchange loomed ahead. They would have to go below the bridge, a dark shadow bisecting the road. Everyone agreed that bridges would offer the most likely points for an ambush.
The crunch and screech of metal ripped Velocity from her thoughts, and a couple of cars tumbled to the side of the road. The convoy continued. Longhaul only cleared debris from their path.
A chuckle resonated beside her. Sideswipe pulled nose to nose and only inches away. The Autobot yelled for everyone to hear, "You jumped. I thought you were going to leak on yourself."
Velocity only growled, which led to more laughter from the twin.
Another useless vehicle shot to the side of the road, a truck kicking up a puff of dust as it tumbled out of their way. Velocity shivered. She could only see the backend of the trailer Optimus pulled. Trusting her mate to keep her safe, she still wanted to know what lay ahead, not what moved past her.
Immediately a shadow fell overhead; a concrete span of a bridge blocked the sunlight. Tension rolled off the Prime in waves, crashing over her and adding to her own anxiety.
Within a second, the brilliant sun returned and baked her roof.
As a group, the convoy slid onto the Bruce Woodbury Beltway, cutting across the northern part of the city through primarily residential areas and far away from the Strip and downtown. According to Ultra Magnus, tall buildings equated to high ground and offered advantageous attack points. She would have never considered a tall building an advantage point, but she thought like an organic predator. High rises did not provide the same protections as a thick forest or jagged mountain; human buildings had long, narrow hallways and blind corners better for laying traps or ambushes. Tall buildings could fall, or you could fall from them. She would not seek out a high rise in a battle, but she wasn't really a Cybertronian with a million years of battle experience.
The Beltway changed the landscape. Instead of houses rushing past, a concrete wall separated the road from the homes and small businesses, one of the improvement projects cities loved to tout. A barrier to cut down road noise in residential sections, keep kids from wandering onto the roads and ultimately block easy access to other areas, forcing those without cars to sink deeper into poverty. But the walls also boxed in the convoy and hid potential threats.
Velocity could see even less—the back of Optimus's trailer, concrete walls, and other Autobots. The noise of tires on the road and ramped-up engines echoed in her audios, depriving her of her acute hearing. Anything could occur mere feet away, and she wouldn't notice until it was too late. Claustrophobia pressed against her, tightening her vents and making it hard to cycle. Her instincts screamed for her to run away, to get out of this area, for she was exposed, and her senses dulled and useless. A shiver rattled her armor.
The bridge overhead plunged her into a shadow that lasted seconds but startled her, nonetheless. She didn't see it coming.
"We've been spotted," yelled Sideswipe. The warrior slid even closer to her. "There was a rider on the bridge."
"Fuck," hissed Velocity, not caring if anyone heard her.
Another bridge passed overhead, its shadow darkening her world for a second. Fearful anticipation thrummed through her fuel lines; she growled at nothing.
Another crash as Longhaul pushed a commuter van out of the way, followed by another crunch, and a small car spun into the rocky median to her left. The noise grated on her, just another thing to ramp up her systems.
Darkness engulfed her again, then spit her into the daylight just as fast. More vehicles crunched, crashed, and twisted to the side, audio-splitting noises that sounded like battling mechs. Sideswipe pressed against her, his electrical field invading, choking; Optimus's trailer a couple of feet away from her front bumper, blocking her sight; around her, a team she no longer fully trusted, their motives unknown and questioned; below a sunbaked road that heated her tires and offered nothing giving or soft; and above, the desert sun broiled mercilessly. She almost screamed. It was too much.
Red lights flashed as Optimus braked hard.
Velocity slammed on her brakes, locking up her front tires, but Sideswipe slammed into her side, pushing her into Kaleidoscope. The brightly colored mech transformed and wrapped his arms around her as they tumbled into the median. Her own transformation happened without conscious thought, and she came to a rest, tangled on top of the mech. He offered her a smile; then his optics opened wide. Holding her tighter, he rolled away from the convoy and onto the oncoming lanes. For half a second, Velocity feared being hit by a vehicle, then reminded herself they were the only vehicles running.
Now, resting beneath Kaleidoscope, she looked out from between his arms. Optimus had jackknifed his trailer and transformed. He grappled Huffer as the other semi attempted to stop. The Prime's peds ripped concrete apart as he strained against the inertia of the other Autobot. Huffer slowed and stopped as Optimus's aft bumped against the jackknifed trailer.
Basic physics lessons rattled through Velocity's processor as Kaleidoscope stood and pulled her up with him. Something about objects in motion tend to stay in motion, and the heavier an object, the longer it takes to stop, friction forces, and dusty equations. Basically, Huffer pulled a heavy load and needed more space to come to a stop.
The rest of the convoy had scattered to both sides of the road, giving the semis room. Now they all stood and stretched. Humans adjusted their weapons and walked around, and one guy took a piss beside a Corolla.
Velocity walked ahead, wanting to see what caused the sudden stop. Cars. A massive pile of cars, some stacked neatly on each other, stretched to both sides of the walls bordering the road and nearly as tall as the bridge. Some showed minor damage, while others were blackened, burned out, and crumpled.
"Sorry, Boss. I was talking with Antonio and not paying attention," Longhaul admitted; his human passengers at his peds looked as chagrined as the Autobot sounded. His trailer sat in the middle of the road, the cause of the Cybertronian near pile-up.
"Let's clear a path before the humans become aggressive." Optimus's tone for "humans" led the femme to believe he meant a different word. Cold anger chilled the air around him.
Velocity could not blame him; Las Vegas had become a sore spot with all the Autobots. While they all agreed that the residents of Sin City were not their enemies, fringe groups – what they hoped were fringe – had not only attacked but killed some of their allies. The raiding party did not help remove that wedge of animosity. They stood in enemy territory, looking at a wall of dead vehicles made to stop anyone from passing.
A welcomed electrical field enveloped her; while still laced with shards of anger, it warmed and softened around her. A hand slid over her shoulder and across her chest. "Are you OK?" Optimus asked softly.
A small smile tipped her features as she laid a hand on his and leaned into his embrace. "I'm good; let's just get out of this fucking town."
They stayed this way for several seconds, connecting and comforting each other. That was all it took; a slight touch and the crushing anxiety from before melted like ice on summer pavement. Optimus pulled away and headed to the barrier.
"Have a seat," Kaleidoscope called and patted the gravel beside him with an orange and purple hand.
"Shouldn't we help them?"
"Nope, that is a job for the big guys. The warriors have taken up positions to watch for trouble, so us normal bots can rest for a minute."
Strolling back to the mech, the femme chose to stand next to her friend – former friend – were they ever friends?
Velocity watched Optimus as he surveyed the mound of cars and conferred with Longhaul. She enjoyed the view, watching the massive Prime move with fluid grace as lascivious thoughts steamed her energon. Optimus glanced at her over his shoulder, apparently noticing the shift in her mood over their bond.
"Slipknot does like you. He wanted the chance to serve as your keeper." The mech's words hit a hard cord within the femme, shattering the fantasy in her head.
"Slipknot wanted…" She let her words trail off. "Why are you telling me this? What do you want?" Velocity snapped.
The mech tipped his bright green helm to look up at her, shading his optics with a hand. "I don't want anything except not to see my friends hurt.
"You have been sparked and lived on Earth your whole life. It has shaped you in a million different ways. But Earth is not Cybertron, and Slip' is concerned, we all are, that the Prime has not taught you enough."
A growl tainted her words before she could swallow it. "Optimus has taught me a lot, and you don't understand what happened."
A sad smile flittered across the mech's golden face. "I know Slip' tried to show his concern, and you got mad." The mech held up his hand to silence her as he continued. "He offered to show you respect and affection in the Cybertronian manner with a simple caress on the cheek. A gesture between close friends. Didn't you teach us that the human kiss can be offered as romantic, familial, or between friends? The same with caressing the check, but you thought it only meant one thing." Sadness weighed in his words.
The discomfort of confusion and guilt pricked at Velocity, and she could not look at the garish mech; his words hit a nerve she did not know existed. Instead, the femme crossed her arms over her chest and looked away, only to see Slipknot chatting with Roadhazard. She chose to focus on her peds instead.
"Trust me, Slip' sees you as a good friend, nothing else. He is not so stupid as to compete against the Prime, and I am certain your bondmate has no intention of sharing."
Movement distracted her from the rocks between her toes, Longhaul spun his hook-tipped chains into the wall of cars and anchored it with a tug. Optimus joined the Autobot, and together they pulled, dislodging a crumpled Dodge from the bottom of the heap, causing the wall to collapse like stacked dominos. The screeching crash shook the ground and kicked up a cloud of pale dust. The rest of the Autobots began shoving vehicles to the side, clearing a path.
Anger spiked along her bond to the Prime, cold and sharp; it pulled her focus from her conversation with Kaleidoscope and toward her mate. Optimus stared past the span of the bridge to the street. Several people on foot watched with weapons in hand but not aimed.
"Was this to stop us?" yelled the Prime. "In the minutes it took us to breach this barrier, how many humans have died from lack of food and water? How many could have been saved with medicine? You stand against us as we are trying to help open supply lines and stop this disruptor pulse; therefore, you fight against your own survival and against those who are not your enemy. If you raise your weapons against us, I will defend my Autobots and make certain you can never attack us again."
A chill ran along Velocity's spinal assembly. She had never heard her bondmate threaten any human. The gentle, permissive Optimus had been stripped away, and a ragged, experienced warrior stood on the road, pointing at the humans.
One of the men motioned with his hand, and the rest of the group didn't move. "We did not make this barrier, do not judge us by the actions of others."
Turning to the scattered Autobots, Optimus grumbled, "Let us leave this city," as he started his transformation.
Velocity took his lead, as did the others. They intended to rush out of Las Vegas before the odds turned against them.
XxxX
Authors Note: For some reason, this was a hard chapter to write. Nothing fit; I went through several scenarios of events in Las Vegas, and none felt right.
I don't know much about wavelengths or hertz or such; if I used the terminology wrong, I apologize.
Also, I took some liberty with the roads and layout of the city. Having Maps open while I wrote helped, as my trips there only encompassed the airport and the Strip. Nothing against the people of Las Vegas; humans will show their best and worst in this fic.