Alien 3
Alien
Chapter 3
[Transformers, 2007 movie] The defeat of Megatron and the defense of earth has left everyone the chance to relax a little. Now, if only that was all that was out there...
Characters/Pairings: Sam, Mikaela and Autobots, OCs.
Ratings and Warnings: OC-heavy, a very little violence and language, psuedoscience, PG-13/T for safety.
Previous Chapters:
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
FFnet Link
Alien: Chapter 3
Author's Notes: To help with readability, spoken Portuguese will be indicated by solid italics.
On a final author’s note, thank you so much to Epona Harper for helping me with names. They would suck a lot and in a major way without her involvement, and she was willing to help someone who was essentially a total stranger (me) salvage parts of my story, and she is just over-all fantastic. Thank you!
oOoOoOo
“Ma’am?” said the airplane-driver to Maria’s mama. It woke the girl up.
“Yes?” her mama said, and her hand tightened a little on hers.
“I can let you out in a near-by city, but if you’re willing to, I’d really appreciate it if you would talk to some-people-I know about what you’ve seen. We need to stop whatever that was.”
Maria’s mama’s eyes were cold. “I lost my husband, my mother, two sisters and a brother and all their children. Of course I will do whatever I can to help.”
“Thank you.” The pilot’s words were sincere, heart-felt, but his position didn’t alter-he just looked straight ahead, hands moving occasionally on the baffling array of controls that made the plane fly. He made it look-more than natural, he made it look automatic.
Maria shivered, and wished her papa was there.
And then she cried. Her mama would have comforted her, but she was crying too, and that scared Maria most of all.
oOo
“I can’t believe my parent’s actually let me go,” said Sam, voice disbelieving and baffled.
“You’ve said that before,” said Mikaela, voice dry. “Five times, since we started driving, and I wasn’t counting before that.”
“But we’re talking about the people who gave me a one o’clock curfew after I saved the world.”
The radio sprang to life. “It’s the government,” crackled out the speakers. “They’re controlling our minds.”
“What’s that supposed to mean?” said Sam.
“Well, I imagine having the Secretary of Defense send a team of muscled men in dark suits so you can have a short chat on the phone would be fairly startling.”
Bumblebee gave a beep of approval.
The three of them were already in Nevada, and probably getting close to the government compound they were meeting Optimus Prime at-Sam didn’t know how close; Bumblebee was driving. His internal GPS-type system worked better than MapQuest when it came to directions, especially when the ending location was classified information released on a need-to-know basis. They still didn’t know why they were going there, but it couldn’t be good-not when the government was calling in the help of giant robots that, officially, didn’t exist anymore. At least, not on earth-the official story was that they had all left, returned to space, although a fair number of people (and the National Enquirer, which was having a field day) didn’t believe them.
“We’re here,” said Bumblebee, and Sam turned his attention away from his thoughts and back to reality, where they were rapidly approaching a high barbed-wire fence with an automated gate that was set into it, with a small building, almost definitely for a guard, to one side-it the only way into the area that Sam could see, and you could see for a long way in either direction, out here.
They pulled up to the gate, and voice emanated from a speaker set into the building; you couldn’t see into the building through the small panel of heavily tinted glass that made up the only window.
“ID?” the guard asked. Scrambling hastily for his wallet, Sam fingered through its contents quickly, finally pulling out the card the government had issued him for just this sort of situation. He had no idea what it actually said about him-and he probably wouldn’t have been told if he’d asked-but it did mean that they were going to get through the gates. Probably. They’d called ahead and been told they were-well, not welcome but permitted to visit, at least.
It seemed to take the guard a while to deliberate. Sam had been hastily patching together an excuse and/or defense for about 30 seconds before the response came. “ID accepted,” the voice said finally, and the card was pushed back out of the slot Sam had stuck it into. The gate shuddered up, and Bumblebee drove through, maybe a little faster than was entirely necessary.
The car gave off a distinct feeling of nervousness-maybe it was the slight flexing of the radio dial, the indistinct background murmur of static. Bumblebee hadn’t been very talkative since they’d started moving more and more towards the middle of nowhere, and the radio stations had faded out, one by one.
Of course, Sam thought, Bee’s last run-in with the government had been pretty traumatic. Sam himself had had more than a few nightmares about it, and he wasn’t even the one who had gone through the whole thing.
A single soldier was waiting outside what Sam assumed was the main building, (seeing as it was the only building…) presumably for them. Bumblebee pulled to a halt.
The soldier walked over to them, focusing on Sam and, to a lesser extent, Mikaela, though he did give her a quick once-over-Sam glared slightly at that. He didn’t pay the Camaro any attention. Probably meant that he didn’t have any idea it was one of the giant robots that had essentially flattened three full blocks of downtown Los Angeles.
“You’re expected. I’ve been told to inform you that the relevant parties are waiting for you on the north-eastern most airfield, which is accessible by the road you see in front of you. Follow it to road 127-A, then turn onto the left branch and continue to the end,” he said, standing loosely at attention. “There is no need to wait for an escort, one will not be provided.”
“Uh, thanks,” said Mikaela. Bumblebee revved his engine a little. When the soldier didn’t continue, they headed off in the direction he had indicated.
“I wonder what goes on here…” said Mikaela, off-handedly.
“Considering that the Hoover Dam was built to house Megatron and the Allspark, anything’s possible,” said Sam dryly. “And all guesses are off about Area 51.”
Soon, an indistinct blur on the horizon resolved itself into what had to be the sitting form of a Transformer, despite the heat blurs that made it waver and jump against the horizon; the car sped up a little.
They pulled up next the small cluster of soldiers, officers and government officials-plus one giant robot-and Bumblebee shrugged open his doors, Sam and Mikaela following his wordless request to disembark; once they were out the car began to shudder and jerk, quickly shifting upwards into his more humanoid form.
The robot remained surly, glaring pointedly at the ground.
“Will you talk to him?” said the Secretary of Defense with a sigh; there was the distinct impression that he had been dealing with the newcomer for a while.
“Hmph,” he said, eyes narrowing a little more.
“God grant me patience,” muttered John Keller. His aide coughed slightly, maybe covering up what wanted to be a laugh.
“Have you seen him before?” asked Mikaela.
“No,” Bumblebee said, shaking his head-another human gesture he’d picked up, the rudimentary beginnings of the more subtle forms of body language.
The new Transformer muttered something that sounded rude, under his breath. It was too low for any of the humans to catch, but Bumblebee snorted.
“I’m guessing that it’s probably for the best if we don’t ask,” said Mikaela with a wry grin.
“I’m happy to translate,” said Bee with what Sam and Mikaela had come to recognize as a full grin. The soldiers were looking, if possible, even more weirded out by this sort of casual interaction than they had been by the sulky, beige-and-black robot alone.
Or maybe that had more to do with the fact that said giant robot had been a Camaro five minutes before.
“He’s refused to speak to anyone other than Optimus Prime,” said the Secretary of Defense, turning to face Bumblebee’s legs, Sam and Mikaela. He looked close to totally exhausted. “The number of soldier’s we’ve had to reveal this to, and what this is costing the government… If you only knew.”
“Optimus Prime is on his way,” said Bumblebee brightly. “He should be here in-five minutes.”
Most of the eyes in the group turned to the horizon-even, Sam noticed, the soldiers’. At least the Transformer didn’t try to make a break for it… Of course, now they had Bee there to go after him if he did try anything, and the yellow Autobot was an impressive fighter.
Of course, maybe Sam was a little biased.
Sure enough, though, a line of dust could be seen, steadily growing as the vehicle creating it drew nearer, and the glint of metal could be picked out-barely-by the humans; Sam knew that Bumblebee had a much better view.
“It’s him,” he confirmed, and a few minutes later Optimus was slipping straight from truck-mode and driving to robot-form and walking swiftly forward, before he joined the loose cluster-more or less, at least. Sam had already noticed the difficulty in loose conversation when one member of the group was 40 feet taller or shorter than the others.
“Finally,” muttered the beige Transformer, and Sam was struck with the distinct but irrational sensation of rolling eyes. It was something in the tone.
“What’s happening, Mr. Secretary?” said Optimus Prime calmly, a touch of steel in his voice.
“NBE 13-marked with Autobot identification, alliance unknown-was detained at 1100 hours on the 10th of August at U.S. Military Testing Area 78 when he walked onto the testing field from an unknown direction, presumably under some sort of cloaking device, and revealed himself, waited until he had drawn the attention of the on-duty commander, and then demanded he be allowed to speak with Optimus Prime, which was assumed a code name for a project. He offered mild resistance to capture attempts. Higher levels of command were contacted, and the current Secretary of Defense John Keller was placed in direct charge. Secretary of Defense John Keller contacted Sam Witwicky, who then relayed the necessary information to Optimus Prime, via his vehicle,” the soldier in charge said, sounding as if he was reading a memorized report.
“Bee’s not my anything!” said Sam. “Why do people keep saying that?”
Bumblebee beeped agreement and nodded his head forcefully.
“Thank you, Captain Whiliker, that will be enough,” said John Keller smoothly, cutting through the growing conversation.
“Name and alignment,” said Optimus Prime sternly, turning his attention onto the beige Autobot.
“Codename Landslide,” he said, voice still rebellious but more respectful than anyone had heard from him before. “Name-” and then he rattled off something that the humans couldn’t even completely hear, the lowest notes of its subterraneous rumblings vibrating in their bones. “Autobot.” The ‘of course’ wasn’t said but was heavily implied. John Keller’s aide seemed to be attempting to cover up a fit of laughter, for some unknown reason.
“I-might remember you,” Optimus Prime said, looking squarely at the intruder for a brief second before his eyes dimmed slightly; a second later they brightened again, and he continued the interrogation.
“What do you think of humans?”
“Annoying,” said Landslide promptly.
“Said the pot to the kettle,” muttered Mikaela to Sam. She couldn’t speak quietly enough that the three Autobots present couldn’t hear her, but she knew that the new one, at least, was unlikely to understand the reference.
“What do you think of Autobots?” said Optimus.
“Also annoying.”
“Decepticons?”
This time the only response was a wordless snarl, oddly metallic but as threatening as that of any carbon-based predator. The soldiers as a group flinched back, and Mikaela wordlessly found Sam’s hand with her own. Bumblebee shifted a little, until he was a little bit closer to being between the two civilian humans and Landslide.
“Why do you dislike them so strongly?”
“Just because I don’t like somebody doesn’t mean they should be annihilated.” Landslide’s voice was so matter-of-fact that it almost seemed as if it made sense.
“Equal opportunity misanthrope?” said Mikaela.
“No,” said one of the soldiers suddenly. “The root of misanthrope-anthro-refers directly to humans. Think like anthropology. It doesn’t work.”
“Quiet, Cahler,” snapped the captain.
“Ironhide vouches for you,” said Optimus Prime suddenly. “He says you’ve fought together before.”
“Yeah,” muttered Landslide.
“He’s a verified Autobot,” said Optimus again. “You’re free to release him.” There was no movement to do so by the soldiers.
“You heard the man!” cut in John Keller finally. “Let the robot go!”
The ends of the ropes were released, slithering down to the ground, and slowly, shudderingly, Landslide slid. He was tall-they all were, from a human perspective-but shorter than Optimus was; maybe the size of a large car, when transformed.
“I’ve been looking for other Autobots for a while,” he said at last, shifting a little as he stood. Sam thought he looked stiff, inasmuch as giant robots could. He knew the cold used to subdue them-even in the diluted form the ropes took-wasn’t comfortable. Almost subconsciously, he reached back to rest a hand on Bee’s foot, almost as if to assure himself he was still there.
He hissed as his hand touched the robot, drawing it forward with an in-drawn breath of pain.
“What’s wrong?” asked Mikaela worriedly.
“Burned my hand on the hot metal,” he said, sheepish. “It’s the sun…”
Mikaela was trying to hide her amusement, and failing miserably. Bee looked torn between the humor of the situation and concern for his ward.
“You were about that hot for a few days,” Mikaela said brightly. Sam glared at her.
“The sunburn wasn’t that bad.” And really, it hadn’t been, and it was mostly gone by now, though there was still some redness and peeling along his shoulders.
The new Autobot-Landslide-was watching them with a measure of disinterested, vague curiosity (Sam wasn’t sure how he’d pulled that one off) and mild contempt, forming an expression that was reminding Mikaela of certain cats she’d known-the ones who definitely didn’t care about what you did, especially when you were scritching behind their ears, and the fact that they were purring was pure coincidence. In fact, they weren’t purring at all. It was all an illusion.
She realized with a jolt that essentially everyone else was watching them as well.
“Ah,” said Sam. Apparently he’d noticed the same thing.
As one, Bumblebee and Optimus Prime suddenly shifted towards a particular patch of what looked like empty sky to weak human eyes.
“There’s going to be a small biplane approaching from that direction,” said Bee after a few brief minutes, turning to face the humans, who were all looking curious. “You should give the orders to allow passage. I think you’re going to want to hear this…”
A few minutes later, a biplane had appeared, painted splotchedly in various shades of deep red and orange, in a way that almost wanted to be a camo pattern but didn’t quite manage it.
Currently, it was circling the area, a few hundred feet up. Apparently, Optimus was giving directions of some sort over a radio link.
“Is there any sort of lake around here?” asked Bumblebee, who was apparently listening in. Optimus gave him a look.
“Not with the drought,” said another soldier, silencing himself after the captain had given him a look that was the equal of Optimus’. The total incredulity the appearance of giant robots that changed into cars had instilled in them was apparently inhibiting their professionalism. Sam didn’t mind, certainly-it was entertaining, and their captain kind of got on his nerves, and it drove him to distraction.
Finally, with the unnerving request by Optimus that a medic be informed and on-hand, the plane continued out of the circle, swooping low over the ground in a shallow arc; at the bottom of it, at an elevation that had half the soldiers wincing at the expected crash, someone was jettisoned from the plane, which came out of the dive and picked up the speed it had lost, curling back around towards the group; a little ways away, the plane began to shift, transforming in mid-air to land in a crouch in robot-mode; what had looked like random patterns on the plane had formed into some sort of intricate, daubed chain of red-orange curling around the robot’s deep red body.
There was a shrill scream from the huddled forms of the two soldiers who had been sent to look after the body that had jumped from the plane. It was, presumably, from the unknown passenger.
“Solarity,” said Optimus Prime, facing the new Autobot.
“Hey,” said Bumblebee with a wave.
The soldiers looked torn between whether to treat the new giant robot as a threat that needed immediate neutralizing or not. John Keller gave them a stern look, and they backed down slightly. It probably helped that any of the three new ‘opponents’ that had appeared were capable of killing a handful of them with a single casual misstep-and that was without pulling out the guns that had been shown from the footage of the destruction of Los Angeles.
There was another scream from the direction of where the biplane-Solarity-had let out his passenger.
Solarity sighed. “It’s alright, ma’am. I can explain,” he called out. The rest of the party looked blankly at him.
“Come again?” said one of the soldiers.
(“Shut up, Cahler!” snapped the captain.)
“It’s Portuguese,” Mikaela said. “I don’t know what he said, though…”
“Monster!” screamed the women. Then, “Maria! Maria, stay close to me!”
“You’re going to have to come with me, miss,” said one of the soldiers, a trifle nervously. He didn’t know how to react to this distraught woman screaming in some language he couldn’t speak, frantically trying to shelter her daughter from them and obviously as frightened by the giant robots as he was-if not more so.
“American! Soldier! Stay away from me-you’re guarding them!”
“I don’t understand you-”
“Bastard! Son of-”
“Mama!” said Maria, startled by her normally soft-spoken mother’s cursing.
“Oh, Maria! I’m so sorry, I didn’t know what that thing was, I never should have put you in harm’s way like that…”
“No, Mama. they’re the ones who saved that city!”
“I don’t trust them-not with you, my little Maria-and I don’t trust their allies,” and here she paused to glare at the nearest soldier “and I don’t trust their motives. Yes, they fought off those others, but for all we know they’re merely defending their own territory, and they’ll claim it and everything on it some time when we’re helpless!”
Solarity flinched back a little, the movement quickly stilled.
“What?” murmured Optimus. Obligingly, Solarity translated. Sam’s eyes were wide by the time he’d finished, and Optimus Prime was frowning deeply.
“We should go talk to her,” said Mikaela abruptly. “Tell her what we went through, with Bee.”
“I’m the only translator,” said Solarity. “And it would probably be… unwise to have me approach her.”
“Why was it necessary that this happen here?” snapped John Keller. “Calming the woman down from her hysterics is all well and good, but what does it have to do with vital, military-related information?”
Solarity looked agitated. “I was flying over the Amazon Rainforest when a disturbance caught my attention. I flew lower to look, and discovered a village that was being attacked by some sort of plant-it was moving fast enough to catch someone-that is faster than is normal, right?-and seemed to be overrunning the village. It was almost completely filled in within a matter of minutes. The only two survivors I spotted were those two, a mother and her daughter, and I did a quick fly-over, but the plants seemed aware of me and attempted to pull me out of the air. I didn’t spot any survivors, but I couldn’t carry any more passengers safely, so I did not spend much time looking.
“As far as I know, they’re the only eye-witnesses still alive.”
Sam gulped audibly. “That’s-really freaky.”
“Plants?” muttered Mikaela incredulously.
“Ah,” said the Secretary of Defense. “Thank you for bringing this to our attention.” He was frowning deeply.
“What can we do to help?” said Optimus Prime, voice concerned, turning the man.
“Probably something,” he said. “Assuming, that is, that the Brazilian government will let us into the country. If not, you’ll have to get in and act on your own.
“Still, though, this is enough of a potential risk that I should be able to get at least a little American involvement allowed. You should start driving towards the area soon-you’ll take longer than we will, but we need to get permission and round up a team if we do. Can I have radio contact information?”
“Yes,” said Prime.
“Sam,” said John Keller, turning to the teenager. “You and Mikaela should probably stay out of this, but you’re not going to even if I did. And you’d just encourage it, even if I did say no,” he continued, looking sharply at Bumblebee. “That said, I trust you to be careful enough that they both make it through fairly intact, so I’ll tell your parents something about what’s happening, Sam, and give your mother an excuse she’ll swallow, Mikaela.
“In the meantime, I agree that you’re the best people to talk to the woman over there. Captain Perch, contact the main building and see if you have anyone who speaks Portuguese. I need to go contact the emergency team we’ve set up for this sort of an event-Cahler, Johns, you’re my temporary bodyguards.
“What are we waiting for people? Move!”
“Well, I don’t know about you, but I’m waiting for a translator,” muttered Sam.
“Solarity, Landslide, I know it’s a lot to ask, when you’re not part of the regular Autobot fighting force, but would you be willing to help with this? It doesn’t sound like anything I’ve heard of before.”
“Definitely,” Solarity cut in, no hesitation in his voice.
“…fine,” drawled Landslide, a minute later. “Not like there’s much else to do-aside from being ‘detained’ by pompous officials, apparently.”
“At least you didn’t try to shoot them,” sighed Optimus.
oOo
An hour later, Sam and Mikaela were back in Bumblebee and headed back towards California; they’d stop by home briefly for clothes and food for the ride, then head south towards Brazil-unless they were contacted by the government and told otherwise for whatever reason, be it the danger of the situation or a refusal to cooperate by the Brazilian government.
“At least Raquel calmed down some,” sighed Mikaela. “It seems like I keep on forgetting how-intimidating-you can be when you first see you.”
There was a pause that seemed almost hesitant before Bumblebee responded with a recording. “‘It’s some sort of robot,” Sam’s voice said. “It’s probably Japanese.’”
“Aaagh,” Sam muttered, thumping his head into his hands before he playfully hit the dashboard. He was in the passenger seat, and Mikaela was “driving”-that is, she was the one in the driver’s seat. Bumblebee was the one doing the actual driving. It was usually like that, when they were driving somewhere-it felt kind of weird for either one of them to be driving their best friend around, especially when he was so much better at it than they were. (It just came naturally to him, you could say.)
“I can’t believe you saved that!” Mikaela giggled.
“I can’t believe you saved that,” Sam groaned.
“But I think there was something bothering you before that,” Mikaela said, and she was serious again.
It was Mikaela’s voice that played this time, more quietly. “‘I keep on forgetting how-intimidating-you can be when you first see you.’”
“I think Raquel will get over it,” Sam said, and hoped he was picking the right meaning of the replayed phrase. It was tricky to talk to Bee when he was in car form, when his voice hurt the most to use-it was something to do with how the broken pieces had bumped back together, and somehow being in the car form upset the delicate balance it had been knocked into, the one that allowed Bumblebee to talk again. “Certainly Maria is well over her fear. Her mom had to keep on chivvying her away from where you and Solarity were standing.”
“I’ll admit, you gave us a bit of a shock, at first,” said Mikaela, “but I know you now. You two are my favorite people to spend the day with, and the ones I trust most. And yeah, some people aren’t going to get over it, but some people never manage to get over the idea that white people are somehow intrinsically better than anyone else-and that’s utter bullshit, and their loss.” Her voice was low, intense.
Sam just reached over to rub a hand along the steering wheel, his other one sliding into Mikaela’s.
After a quiet minute, the radio crackled back to life, playing something low-key and happy. Sam smiled, and life-despite the thing in Brazil, despite the difficulties of adapting to life with an Autobot, despite concerns about anything-was good.
Chapter 3
[Transformers, 2007 movie] The defeat of Megatron and the defense of earth has left everyone the chance to relax a little. Now, if only that was all that was out there...
Characters/Pairings: Sam, Mikaela and Autobots, OCs.
Ratings and Warnings: OC-heavy, a very little violence and language, psuedoscience, PG-13/T for safety.
Previous Chapters:
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
FFnet Link
Alien: Chapter 3
Author's Notes: To help with readability, spoken Portuguese will be indicated by solid italics.
On a final author’s note, thank you so much to Epona Harper for helping me with names. They would suck a lot and in a major way without her involvement, and she was willing to help someone who was essentially a total stranger (me) salvage parts of my story, and she is just over-all fantastic. Thank you!
oOoOoOo
“Ma’am?” said the airplane-driver to Maria’s mama. It woke the girl up.
“Yes?” her mama said, and her hand tightened a little on hers.
“I can let you out in a near-by city, but if you’re willing to, I’d really appreciate it if you would talk to some-people-I know about what you’ve seen. We need to stop whatever that was.”
Maria’s mama’s eyes were cold. “I lost my husband, my mother, two sisters and a brother and all their children. Of course I will do whatever I can to help.”
“Thank you.” The pilot’s words were sincere, heart-felt, but his position didn’t alter-he just looked straight ahead, hands moving occasionally on the baffling array of controls that made the plane fly. He made it look-more than natural, he made it look automatic.
Maria shivered, and wished her papa was there.
And then she cried. Her mama would have comforted her, but she was crying too, and that scared Maria most of all.
oOo
“I can’t believe my parent’s actually let me go,” said Sam, voice disbelieving and baffled.
“You’ve said that before,” said Mikaela, voice dry. “Five times, since we started driving, and I wasn’t counting before that.”
“But we’re talking about the people who gave me a one o’clock curfew after I saved the world.”
The radio sprang to life. “It’s the government,” crackled out the speakers. “They’re controlling our minds.”
“What’s that supposed to mean?” said Sam.
“Well, I imagine having the Secretary of Defense send a team of muscled men in dark suits so you can have a short chat on the phone would be fairly startling.”
Bumblebee gave a beep of approval.
The three of them were already in Nevada, and probably getting close to the government compound they were meeting Optimus Prime at-Sam didn’t know how close; Bumblebee was driving. His internal GPS-type system worked better than MapQuest when it came to directions, especially when the ending location was classified information released on a need-to-know basis. They still didn’t know why they were going there, but it couldn’t be good-not when the government was calling in the help of giant robots that, officially, didn’t exist anymore. At least, not on earth-the official story was that they had all left, returned to space, although a fair number of people (and the National Enquirer, which was having a field day) didn’t believe them.
“We’re here,” said Bumblebee, and Sam turned his attention away from his thoughts and back to reality, where they were rapidly approaching a high barbed-wire fence with an automated gate that was set into it, with a small building, almost definitely for a guard, to one side-it the only way into the area that Sam could see, and you could see for a long way in either direction, out here.
They pulled up to the gate, and voice emanated from a speaker set into the building; you couldn’t see into the building through the small panel of heavily tinted glass that made up the only window.
“ID?” the guard asked. Scrambling hastily for his wallet, Sam fingered through its contents quickly, finally pulling out the card the government had issued him for just this sort of situation. He had no idea what it actually said about him-and he probably wouldn’t have been told if he’d asked-but it did mean that they were going to get through the gates. Probably. They’d called ahead and been told they were-well, not welcome but permitted to visit, at least.
It seemed to take the guard a while to deliberate. Sam had been hastily patching together an excuse and/or defense for about 30 seconds before the response came. “ID accepted,” the voice said finally, and the card was pushed back out of the slot Sam had stuck it into. The gate shuddered up, and Bumblebee drove through, maybe a little faster than was entirely necessary.
The car gave off a distinct feeling of nervousness-maybe it was the slight flexing of the radio dial, the indistinct background murmur of static. Bumblebee hadn’t been very talkative since they’d started moving more and more towards the middle of nowhere, and the radio stations had faded out, one by one.
Of course, Sam thought, Bee’s last run-in with the government had been pretty traumatic. Sam himself had had more than a few nightmares about it, and he wasn’t even the one who had gone through the whole thing.
A single soldier was waiting outside what Sam assumed was the main building, (seeing as it was the only building…) presumably for them. Bumblebee pulled to a halt.
The soldier walked over to them, focusing on Sam and, to a lesser extent, Mikaela, though he did give her a quick once-over-Sam glared slightly at that. He didn’t pay the Camaro any attention. Probably meant that he didn’t have any idea it was one of the giant robots that had essentially flattened three full blocks of downtown Los Angeles.
“You’re expected. I’ve been told to inform you that the relevant parties are waiting for you on the north-eastern most airfield, which is accessible by the road you see in front of you. Follow it to road 127-A, then turn onto the left branch and continue to the end,” he said, standing loosely at attention. “There is no need to wait for an escort, one will not be provided.”
“Uh, thanks,” said Mikaela. Bumblebee revved his engine a little. When the soldier didn’t continue, they headed off in the direction he had indicated.
“I wonder what goes on here…” said Mikaela, off-handedly.
“Considering that the Hoover Dam was built to house Megatron and the Allspark, anything’s possible,” said Sam dryly. “And all guesses are off about Area 51.”
Soon, an indistinct blur on the horizon resolved itself into what had to be the sitting form of a Transformer, despite the heat blurs that made it waver and jump against the horizon; the car sped up a little.
They pulled up next the small cluster of soldiers, officers and government officials-plus one giant robot-and Bumblebee shrugged open his doors, Sam and Mikaela following his wordless request to disembark; once they were out the car began to shudder and jerk, quickly shifting upwards into his more humanoid form.
The robot remained surly, glaring pointedly at the ground.
“Will you talk to him?” said the Secretary of Defense with a sigh; there was the distinct impression that he had been dealing with the newcomer for a while.
“Hmph,” he said, eyes narrowing a little more.
“God grant me patience,” muttered John Keller. His aide coughed slightly, maybe covering up what wanted to be a laugh.
“Have you seen him before?” asked Mikaela.
“No,” Bumblebee said, shaking his head-another human gesture he’d picked up, the rudimentary beginnings of the more subtle forms of body language.
The new Transformer muttered something that sounded rude, under his breath. It was too low for any of the humans to catch, but Bumblebee snorted.
“I’m guessing that it’s probably for the best if we don’t ask,” said Mikaela with a wry grin.
“I’m happy to translate,” said Bee with what Sam and Mikaela had come to recognize as a full grin. The soldiers were looking, if possible, even more weirded out by this sort of casual interaction than they had been by the sulky, beige-and-black robot alone.
Or maybe that had more to do with the fact that said giant robot had been a Camaro five minutes before.
“He’s refused to speak to anyone other than Optimus Prime,” said the Secretary of Defense, turning to face Bumblebee’s legs, Sam and Mikaela. He looked close to totally exhausted. “The number of soldier’s we’ve had to reveal this to, and what this is costing the government… If you only knew.”
“Optimus Prime is on his way,” said Bumblebee brightly. “He should be here in-five minutes.”
Most of the eyes in the group turned to the horizon-even, Sam noticed, the soldiers’. At least the Transformer didn’t try to make a break for it… Of course, now they had Bee there to go after him if he did try anything, and the yellow Autobot was an impressive fighter.
Of course, maybe Sam was a little biased.
Sure enough, though, a line of dust could be seen, steadily growing as the vehicle creating it drew nearer, and the glint of metal could be picked out-barely-by the humans; Sam knew that Bumblebee had a much better view.
“It’s him,” he confirmed, and a few minutes later Optimus was slipping straight from truck-mode and driving to robot-form and walking swiftly forward, before he joined the loose cluster-more or less, at least. Sam had already noticed the difficulty in loose conversation when one member of the group was 40 feet taller or shorter than the others.
“Finally,” muttered the beige Transformer, and Sam was struck with the distinct but irrational sensation of rolling eyes. It was something in the tone.
“What’s happening, Mr. Secretary?” said Optimus Prime calmly, a touch of steel in his voice.
“NBE 13-marked with Autobot identification, alliance unknown-was detained at 1100 hours on the 10th of August at U.S. Military Testing Area 78 when he walked onto the testing field from an unknown direction, presumably under some sort of cloaking device, and revealed himself, waited until he had drawn the attention of the on-duty commander, and then demanded he be allowed to speak with Optimus Prime, which was assumed a code name for a project. He offered mild resistance to capture attempts. Higher levels of command were contacted, and the current Secretary of Defense John Keller was placed in direct charge. Secretary of Defense John Keller contacted Sam Witwicky, who then relayed the necessary information to Optimus Prime, via his vehicle,” the soldier in charge said, sounding as if he was reading a memorized report.
“Bee’s not my anything!” said Sam. “Why do people keep saying that?”
Bumblebee beeped agreement and nodded his head forcefully.
“Thank you, Captain Whiliker, that will be enough,” said John Keller smoothly, cutting through the growing conversation.
“Name and alignment,” said Optimus Prime sternly, turning his attention onto the beige Autobot.
“Codename Landslide,” he said, voice still rebellious but more respectful than anyone had heard from him before. “Name-” and then he rattled off something that the humans couldn’t even completely hear, the lowest notes of its subterraneous rumblings vibrating in their bones. “Autobot.” The ‘of course’ wasn’t said but was heavily implied. John Keller’s aide seemed to be attempting to cover up a fit of laughter, for some unknown reason.
“I-might remember you,” Optimus Prime said, looking squarely at the intruder for a brief second before his eyes dimmed slightly; a second later they brightened again, and he continued the interrogation.
“What do you think of humans?”
“Annoying,” said Landslide promptly.
“Said the pot to the kettle,” muttered Mikaela to Sam. She couldn’t speak quietly enough that the three Autobots present couldn’t hear her, but she knew that the new one, at least, was unlikely to understand the reference.
“What do you think of Autobots?” said Optimus.
“Also annoying.”
“Decepticons?”
This time the only response was a wordless snarl, oddly metallic but as threatening as that of any carbon-based predator. The soldiers as a group flinched back, and Mikaela wordlessly found Sam’s hand with her own. Bumblebee shifted a little, until he was a little bit closer to being between the two civilian humans and Landslide.
“Why do you dislike them so strongly?”
“Just because I don’t like somebody doesn’t mean they should be annihilated.” Landslide’s voice was so matter-of-fact that it almost seemed as if it made sense.
“Equal opportunity misanthrope?” said Mikaela.
“No,” said one of the soldiers suddenly. “The root of misanthrope-anthro-refers directly to humans. Think like anthropology. It doesn’t work.”
“Quiet, Cahler,” snapped the captain.
“Ironhide vouches for you,” said Optimus Prime suddenly. “He says you’ve fought together before.”
“Yeah,” muttered Landslide.
“He’s a verified Autobot,” said Optimus again. “You’re free to release him.” There was no movement to do so by the soldiers.
“You heard the man!” cut in John Keller finally. “Let the robot go!”
The ends of the ropes were released, slithering down to the ground, and slowly, shudderingly, Landslide slid. He was tall-they all were, from a human perspective-but shorter than Optimus was; maybe the size of a large car, when transformed.
“I’ve been looking for other Autobots for a while,” he said at last, shifting a little as he stood. Sam thought he looked stiff, inasmuch as giant robots could. He knew the cold used to subdue them-even in the diluted form the ropes took-wasn’t comfortable. Almost subconsciously, he reached back to rest a hand on Bee’s foot, almost as if to assure himself he was still there.
He hissed as his hand touched the robot, drawing it forward with an in-drawn breath of pain.
“What’s wrong?” asked Mikaela worriedly.
“Burned my hand on the hot metal,” he said, sheepish. “It’s the sun…”
Mikaela was trying to hide her amusement, and failing miserably. Bee looked torn between the humor of the situation and concern for his ward.
“You were about that hot for a few days,” Mikaela said brightly. Sam glared at her.
“The sunburn wasn’t that bad.” And really, it hadn’t been, and it was mostly gone by now, though there was still some redness and peeling along his shoulders.
The new Autobot-Landslide-was watching them with a measure of disinterested, vague curiosity (Sam wasn’t sure how he’d pulled that one off) and mild contempt, forming an expression that was reminding Mikaela of certain cats she’d known-the ones who definitely didn’t care about what you did, especially when you were scritching behind their ears, and the fact that they were purring was pure coincidence. In fact, they weren’t purring at all. It was all an illusion.
She realized with a jolt that essentially everyone else was watching them as well.
“Ah,” said Sam. Apparently he’d noticed the same thing.
As one, Bumblebee and Optimus Prime suddenly shifted towards a particular patch of what looked like empty sky to weak human eyes.
“There’s going to be a small biplane approaching from that direction,” said Bee after a few brief minutes, turning to face the humans, who were all looking curious. “You should give the orders to allow passage. I think you’re going to want to hear this…”
A few minutes later, a biplane had appeared, painted splotchedly in various shades of deep red and orange, in a way that almost wanted to be a camo pattern but didn’t quite manage it.
Currently, it was circling the area, a few hundred feet up. Apparently, Optimus was giving directions of some sort over a radio link.
“Is there any sort of lake around here?” asked Bumblebee, who was apparently listening in. Optimus gave him a look.
“Not with the drought,” said another soldier, silencing himself after the captain had given him a look that was the equal of Optimus’. The total incredulity the appearance of giant robots that changed into cars had instilled in them was apparently inhibiting their professionalism. Sam didn’t mind, certainly-it was entertaining, and their captain kind of got on his nerves, and it drove him to distraction.
Finally, with the unnerving request by Optimus that a medic be informed and on-hand, the plane continued out of the circle, swooping low over the ground in a shallow arc; at the bottom of it, at an elevation that had half the soldiers wincing at the expected crash, someone was jettisoned from the plane, which came out of the dive and picked up the speed it had lost, curling back around towards the group; a little ways away, the plane began to shift, transforming in mid-air to land in a crouch in robot-mode; what had looked like random patterns on the plane had formed into some sort of intricate, daubed chain of red-orange curling around the robot’s deep red body.
There was a shrill scream from the huddled forms of the two soldiers who had been sent to look after the body that had jumped from the plane. It was, presumably, from the unknown passenger.
“Solarity,” said Optimus Prime, facing the new Autobot.
“Hey,” said Bumblebee with a wave.
The soldiers looked torn between whether to treat the new giant robot as a threat that needed immediate neutralizing or not. John Keller gave them a stern look, and they backed down slightly. It probably helped that any of the three new ‘opponents’ that had appeared were capable of killing a handful of them with a single casual misstep-and that was without pulling out the guns that had been shown from the footage of the destruction of Los Angeles.
There was another scream from the direction of where the biplane-Solarity-had let out his passenger.
Solarity sighed. “It’s alright, ma’am. I can explain,” he called out. The rest of the party looked blankly at him.
“Come again?” said one of the soldiers.
(“Shut up, Cahler!” snapped the captain.)
“It’s Portuguese,” Mikaela said. “I don’t know what he said, though…”
“Monster!” screamed the women. Then, “Maria! Maria, stay close to me!”
“You’re going to have to come with me, miss,” said one of the soldiers, a trifle nervously. He didn’t know how to react to this distraught woman screaming in some language he couldn’t speak, frantically trying to shelter her daughter from them and obviously as frightened by the giant robots as he was-if not more so.
“American! Soldier! Stay away from me-you’re guarding them!”
“I don’t understand you-”
“Bastard! Son of-”
“Mama!” said Maria, startled by her normally soft-spoken mother’s cursing.
“Oh, Maria! I’m so sorry, I didn’t know what that thing was, I never should have put you in harm’s way like that…”
“No, Mama. they’re the ones who saved that city!”
“I don’t trust them-not with you, my little Maria-and I don’t trust their allies,” and here she paused to glare at the nearest soldier “and I don’t trust their motives. Yes, they fought off those others, but for all we know they’re merely defending their own territory, and they’ll claim it and everything on it some time when we’re helpless!”
Solarity flinched back a little, the movement quickly stilled.
“What?” murmured Optimus. Obligingly, Solarity translated. Sam’s eyes were wide by the time he’d finished, and Optimus Prime was frowning deeply.
“We should go talk to her,” said Mikaela abruptly. “Tell her what we went through, with Bee.”
“I’m the only translator,” said Solarity. “And it would probably be… unwise to have me approach her.”
“Why was it necessary that this happen here?” snapped John Keller. “Calming the woman down from her hysterics is all well and good, but what does it have to do with vital, military-related information?”
Solarity looked agitated. “I was flying over the Amazon Rainforest when a disturbance caught my attention. I flew lower to look, and discovered a village that was being attacked by some sort of plant-it was moving fast enough to catch someone-that is faster than is normal, right?-and seemed to be overrunning the village. It was almost completely filled in within a matter of minutes. The only two survivors I spotted were those two, a mother and her daughter, and I did a quick fly-over, but the plants seemed aware of me and attempted to pull me out of the air. I didn’t spot any survivors, but I couldn’t carry any more passengers safely, so I did not spend much time looking.
“As far as I know, they’re the only eye-witnesses still alive.”
Sam gulped audibly. “That’s-really freaky.”
“Plants?” muttered Mikaela incredulously.
“Ah,” said the Secretary of Defense. “Thank you for bringing this to our attention.” He was frowning deeply.
“What can we do to help?” said Optimus Prime, voice concerned, turning the man.
“Probably something,” he said. “Assuming, that is, that the Brazilian government will let us into the country. If not, you’ll have to get in and act on your own.
“Still, though, this is enough of a potential risk that I should be able to get at least a little American involvement allowed. You should start driving towards the area soon-you’ll take longer than we will, but we need to get permission and round up a team if we do. Can I have radio contact information?”
“Yes,” said Prime.
“Sam,” said John Keller, turning to the teenager. “You and Mikaela should probably stay out of this, but you’re not going to even if I did. And you’d just encourage it, even if I did say no,” he continued, looking sharply at Bumblebee. “That said, I trust you to be careful enough that they both make it through fairly intact, so I’ll tell your parents something about what’s happening, Sam, and give your mother an excuse she’ll swallow, Mikaela.
“In the meantime, I agree that you’re the best people to talk to the woman over there. Captain Perch, contact the main building and see if you have anyone who speaks Portuguese. I need to go contact the emergency team we’ve set up for this sort of an event-Cahler, Johns, you’re my temporary bodyguards.
“What are we waiting for people? Move!”
“Well, I don’t know about you, but I’m waiting for a translator,” muttered Sam.
“Solarity, Landslide, I know it’s a lot to ask, when you’re not part of the regular Autobot fighting force, but would you be willing to help with this? It doesn’t sound like anything I’ve heard of before.”
“Definitely,” Solarity cut in, no hesitation in his voice.
“…fine,” drawled Landslide, a minute later. “Not like there’s much else to do-aside from being ‘detained’ by pompous officials, apparently.”
“At least you didn’t try to shoot them,” sighed Optimus.
oOo
An hour later, Sam and Mikaela were back in Bumblebee and headed back towards California; they’d stop by home briefly for clothes and food for the ride, then head south towards Brazil-unless they were contacted by the government and told otherwise for whatever reason, be it the danger of the situation or a refusal to cooperate by the Brazilian government.
“At least Raquel calmed down some,” sighed Mikaela. “It seems like I keep on forgetting how-intimidating-you can be when you first see you.”
There was a pause that seemed almost hesitant before Bumblebee responded with a recording. “‘It’s some sort of robot,” Sam’s voice said. “It’s probably Japanese.’”
“Aaagh,” Sam muttered, thumping his head into his hands before he playfully hit the dashboard. He was in the passenger seat, and Mikaela was “driving”-that is, she was the one in the driver’s seat. Bumblebee was the one doing the actual driving. It was usually like that, when they were driving somewhere-it felt kind of weird for either one of them to be driving their best friend around, especially when he was so much better at it than they were. (It just came naturally to him, you could say.)
“I can’t believe you saved that!” Mikaela giggled.
“I can’t believe you saved that,” Sam groaned.
“But I think there was something bothering you before that,” Mikaela said, and she was serious again.
It was Mikaela’s voice that played this time, more quietly. “‘I keep on forgetting how-intimidating-you can be when you first see you.’”
“I think Raquel will get over it,” Sam said, and hoped he was picking the right meaning of the replayed phrase. It was tricky to talk to Bee when he was in car form, when his voice hurt the most to use-it was something to do with how the broken pieces had bumped back together, and somehow being in the car form upset the delicate balance it had been knocked into, the one that allowed Bumblebee to talk again. “Certainly Maria is well over her fear. Her mom had to keep on chivvying her away from where you and Solarity were standing.”
“I’ll admit, you gave us a bit of a shock, at first,” said Mikaela, “but I know you now. You two are my favorite people to spend the day with, and the ones I trust most. And yeah, some people aren’t going to get over it, but some people never manage to get over the idea that white people are somehow intrinsically better than anyone else-and that’s utter bullshit, and their loss.” Her voice was low, intense.
Sam just reached over to rub a hand along the steering wheel, his other one sliding into Mikaela’s.
After a quiet minute, the radio crackled back to life, playing something low-key and happy. Sam smiled, and life-despite the thing in Brazil, despite the difficulties of adapting to life with an Autobot, despite concerns about anything-was good.