And Eyes 3
And Eyes That I Might See
Chapter 3
[Transformers 2007] The Autobots get cornered in a canyon after a Decepticon attack, along with a handful of humans. Unfortunately, one of them happens to be blind...
Characters/Pairings: Ratchet, Ironhide, Sam, Amanda (OC); non-pairing.
Ratings and Warnings: Odd sense of humor, physical disabilities, G1 characters, OCs. T for language.
Previous Chapters:
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
At FFnet
And Eyes: Chapter 3
The two of them-Sam and Amanda-half-staggered on the slight path they were following.
“Are you sure we’re on a trail?” said Amanda warily.
“Well, for a given extent of ‘trail.’ I think it’s actually a deer track…”
“Whatever it is, it can’t be any smoother walking than any other terrain they have around here.”
“You’d be surprised, I think.”
“Scary thought. Oh, how I miss the city… All this fresh air’s probably wreaking havoc with my lungs, no less.”
There was a slight pause as Sam tried to make her words make sense.
“They’ll get used to not killing themselves with every fresh breath I take, and they’ll have to readjust when I get back-assuming that I get back-which will be annoying.”
“Don’t worry-You’ll get back,” said Sam confidently.
“Why would you think that? This situation hardly fills me with confidence.”
“I’ve been in tighter situations, and we’ve managed out of those just fine.”
“So confident!”
“Oh, ye of little faith,” came a third voice, off to the right-it was a nice voice, Amanda thought, warm and amused, the owner on the younger side of middle-aged, she guessed.
“Sarah!” said Sam happily.
“Huh?” said Amanda.
“Amanda, this is Sarah. She’s the wife of the technically unofficial but more official than I am military envoy and diplomat to the Autobots. Basically, Will was one of the first people attacked by the Decepticons so he ended up involved in the whole save-the-world bit, and then one of the Autobots ended up moving in with him, Sarah and Annabelle-that’s their baby-after it was all finished. Please don’t tell Ironhide I said that, Sarah? And Sarah, this is Amanda. She’s blind.”
“I don’t introduce you as ‘And Person, this is Sam. He can see,’” muttered Amanda. “Jesus. You’d think I don’t have a personality, or something. Or any other distinguishing features…”
“It’s nice to meet you,” said Sarah politely.
“You, too,” said Amanda. “I’m sorry, I’m kind of disgruntled at the moment.”
“Yes, the Autobots can do that. You should have seen me the day I got introduced to ‘Hide-”
Sam coughed slightly. Sarah back-tracked. “Or, er, not have seen me, I suppose. Sorry about that, I’ve never…”
“Met a blind person?” said Amanda, sounding like she was torn between being caustic and being simply amused. “Because yes, it shows. As a blind person, I, personally, am highly offended by a metaphorical and idiomatic use of the word ‘see.’ I can’t believe you would be so incredibly insensitive as to use it.”
Sarah burst out laughing. Sam joined in, a few seconds later. Amanda let a slight grin show on her face.
“So you’re off to see Ratchet?” Sarah asked after a short while, still chuckling a little.
“I guess?” said Amanda.
“Yes,” said Sam. “Do you know where he is? He wasn’t over in the main cave, and he promised me holy hell if I didn’t get everyone checked out by him once they woke up-”
“He’s by the river with Ironhide. I just came back from there, myself. Do you want me to take over watching the rest of the humans?”
“Well, I guess they found ‘Hide’s leg. And yes, that’d be great. Thanks, Sarah! Oh, and if you see Mikaela, would you tell her where I am? And she’d probably like a few tips about how to deal with the baby, if you have the time. I think it’s got her kind of freaking out, and Bee just plain isn’t helping with that. I mean, I thought I was skittish around kids…”
“Yeah, Ironhide’s the same. I had just assumed it was his personality, though-you know. Maybe it’s an Autobot thing, though? Huh. A whole race of giant transforming alien robots, afraid of infants. It’s remarkably poetic.”
“So, why’s everybody asleep?” interjected Amanda. “I could understand it if one or two people had gotten concussions, what with all the rubble falling everywhere and everything, but all-what did you say? Ten or so?-people? That sounds pretty hard to swallow.”
“Uhm, Ratchet kind of drugged you all,” said Sam quickly, words all running together with his haste.
“He what?” said Amanda.
“Well, we needed to get everyone out of there, and we couldn’t deal with everyone panicking, but it’s hard to deal with the Transformers for the first time without panicking-”
“-from what I can tell, your first reaction was down-right graceful compared to most people’s,” said Sarah. “Especially considering that Sideswipe was your first contact. Sorry ‘bout that…”
“-and we didn’t have time for explanations, which is the only way it would work,” continued Sam, “So we ended up drugging everyone. Um. Ratchet promises that it has no side effects? And he’s good at what he does.”
Amanda growled unhappily.
oOo
Amanda yelped as she skidded down the last few steep feet of hillside. Carefully, feeling the ground in front of her with a toe, she took a few steps forward, giving Sam the space to follow her.
She imagined the area they were in was very pretty. As things were, it smelled gorgeous, the air very clear and clean, and crisp here, where the wind was blowing off of the river. The forest smelled faintly of dirt, dirt and pine trees in sunlight and cold air, and was exciting to walk around in, if alarmingly pointy.
Now her hands smelled overwhelmingly of pine. It would have been nice, except that it had a lot to do with the large gobs of sap ground into her palms from where she had tripped and caught herself against the trunk of a tree. And her slide down the hill had pressed dirt into the sap, making an almost impenetrable layer over patches of her palm. Amanda imagined it was what having really thick calluses would feel like, or possibly numb palms.
“So, why are we coming all the way over here, again?” muttered Amanda irascibly. Her feet were feeling already damp, but she couldn’t feel any ground near her that was dryer and less muddy than the patch she was standing on.
“Didn’t you hear earlier?” said Sam, sounding faintly surprised. “Oh. Guess not. Sorry about that… And, um, you’re standing in some sort of marshy spot… It’s a bit drier over here, towards your left.”
Amanda started picking her way over towards the sound of Sam’s voice, moving slowly and feeling her way with the toe of her shoe. At least she hadn’t been wearing pumps-or a pair of sandals, even worse-when she had been dragged outside. Tennis shoes were marginally more comfortable although, she was realizing, mesh let in an uncomfortable amount of water.
“A little more to your left will keep you out of a puddle. Yeah. Ratchet’s with Ironhide, who’s immobile at the moment-he lost a leg when-”
“He what?” cut in Amanda, voice horrified.
“No, no, it’s not as bad as it sounds! Robots, remember? Although I think someone was saying something about how the term ‘mech’ works better, or something… But Ratchet got to him quickly and got him stabilized, even if he couldn’t be moved, and now somebody’s found his leg and got it to him, so Ratchet can fix him. It’s really not all that big a deal-at least, not compared to what it would be with a human.”
“Urgh,” said Amanda faintly.
“What?” said Sam.
“My mind keeps on skipping when it reaches ‘somebody’s found his leg.’ Some phrases just shouldn’t be heard before breakfast… Or before whatever meal it is, at least. Any idea what time it is?”
“Uh… Midday-ish? I don’t have a watch on. The Autobots are more accurate. Okay, I’m going to step forward to meet you, okay? It gets pretty rough over here, and we’ve got a little ways to go before we run into Ratchet.”
“And we’re going to go meet Ratchet because he’s the medic, and he wants to check up on all of us.”
“Yeah, that’s it.”
“…after he drugged us all senseless.”
“Uh, yeah, that too.”
“Riiight.”
The two walked silently for a while.
“So, who’s this Ironhide person? Are all the Autobot names this, um…”
“Weird? Yeah. Apparently they pick them, and it has something to do with how Cybertronian names translate into English-although there aren’t direct equivalents for a lot of things, of course.”
“Ah. Cybertronian?”
“The Autobots and the Decepticons are from the planet Cybertron.”
“Cybertron? Are you serious? It’s… That’s… It’s like an incredibly bad sci-fi movie! Where all the planets have…” Amanda seemed to be fighting to control hysterical giggles. “Have names like ‘Cybertron’…!”
Sam coughed slightly to cover his own laughter. “Anyways, Ironhide’s one of the first five Autobots to land on Earth. Bumblebee was first, and then Optimus Prime, Ratchet, Jazz and Ironhide. Optimus Prime’s the leader, Ratchet’s the medic, as you know, and Ironhide’s the weapons specialist. Don’t freak out if he threatens to shoot you, okay? He does it to everyone, but, far as I know, he’s only ever shot at Decepticons. Optimus would never allow it.”
“And… Jazz?”
“Jazz was Optimus’ first lieutenant.”
“Was? Oh. Oh. I’m sorry. How…?”
“Okay. The Autobots came to Earth following the Decepticons, who were following the Allspark, which basically landed here by accident. The Allspark was… Well, it created new Cybertronian life, basically. The Decepticons were planning on using it to turn all the mechanical things on Earth-cell phones, cars, soda vending machines-into little miniature Decepticons hell-bent on killing all human life. With me so far?”
“Holy shit.” There was a brief pause. “Soda vending machines?”
“Uh, yeah. Far as we know, it’s still out there somewhere… The X-Box was more aggressive, we got that one.”
“…Someday, I will learn to stop asking questions.”
“So, a super-secret government agency called Sector 7-you follow the news? There was a bit about how it was being ended a while ago-was keeping the Allspark and Megatron hidden under the Hoover Dam.”
“Megatron?”
“Oh! Right. Megatron was the leader of the Decepticons. He’s dead now, thank God, but I’ll get to that later. So, Sector 7 figures out that I’d had contact with one of the Autobots, although they didn’t know what the Autobots were. They’d-well, my grandfather, actually-found Megatron frozen under ice in the Antarctic, which forces Cybertronians into kind of a dormant state. They were keeping him frozen, which is why he hadn’t busted out of the dam and killed everybody already. They were calling him NBE 1, for Non-Biological Extraterrestrial. I think.
“So, they captured me and Bumblebee-this is after the rest of the first wave of Autobots had shown up-and brought me, plus Mikaela, to the dam. Then we end up talking them into working for the right side, so they let us loose and let us collect Bumblebee and the rest of the Autobots to head to Mission City, where we head off the Decepticons, who’d woken up Megatron. We’ve got the Allspark at this point. Following all this so far?”
“…maybe?”
“Good enough, I guess. I certainly didn’t have that good a handle on events when the actual thing was going down. So, the Autobots and the Decepticons have a huge battle. At the end of it, I end up shoving the Allspark into Megatron’s heart-well, it’s not really a heart, but it’s kind of the Cybertronian equivalent, from what I can tell-which kills him and destroys the Allspark. But Jazz was killed in the battle.”
“Good god.”
“I’ll have to tell you the full version later-I left out all the bits with the glasses and my grandfather and meeting Mikaela. She’s my girlfriend.”
“Right. That was… the cliff notes, essentially?”
“Yeah.”
“That’s ridiculous. What’s that noise?”
“I think it’s probably Ratchet and Ironhide. I can’t really hear it. They should be just over this hill. The ground’s going to get harder to maneuver, though-it’s all torn up from the battle.”
Amanda promptly gave a short scream as she tripped over a large rut in the ground, clutching at Sam as she started to fall.
“Hyah! Agh. Um, sorry, Sam.”
“No problem. See what I mean, though?”
“See? Well, not really. No, don’t react, I’m joking. Joking!”
“Your sense of humor is seriously messed up.”
“Yeah, that’s what my therapist told me. That’s a joke as well, for the record.”
“You sure?”
“Reasonably. I-”
“Damn it, Ratchet!” bellowed a voice, startlingly close to the two humans. Amanda started, nearly losing her balance again.
“Need to stop doing that,” she muttered.
“Hey, Ironhide, Ratchet!” Sam called out. “This is Amanda. And since you told me to make sure you check everyone over when they wake up, Ratchet…”
“Good, good. Ironhide, stay where you are. Amanda, hm? Right.”
There was a brief, intense silence. “You’re being scanned,” Sam explained. Amanda stood still, fighting the urge to wrap her arms around her defensively. “Ratchet, Amanda’s blind.”
“Hello, nice to meet you, too,” muttered the girl.
“Ah, that would explain the anomaly I was reading in the report… How severely did you hit your head, Amanda? Do you remember?”
“Um. I think it was mostly my body that got hit, and that’s mostly just bruises. The blindness has kind of been a thing of mine for a while…”
There was a rush of air, and the slight mechanical noises she had come to interpret as Autobot movement were suddenly a lot closer. She took an instinctive step back, then another, shying away.
“Huh. Odd. Did you choose this, or…?”
“Not much choosing to do. It’s just something I have to live with. I think there’s some research into a few things that might help, eventually, but it’s all highly experimental and mostly just theories and conjecture, at this point.” She shrugged. “It’s really not all that bad.” There was another brief pause. “At least, it’s really not all that bad until you’re plunged into a bad science fiction movie in the middle of the woods. I’m sorry, it’s been a long day, despite the fact that I haven’t been awake an hour.”
“Ratchet? Would you fix me? You know, like you’re supposed to be doing…?”
“Just stay still. Nothing’s going to happen to Sarah in the middle of an Autobot camp with no threat of attacks. I give you full permission to dismember anyone who lets her come to harm while you’re waiting a while.”
There were a few more minutes of silence. Amanda shifted uncomfortably. The Autobots were incredibly imposing-especially this one, Ratchet, with his intense focus. And she kept on wondering if specialized robot vision and ‘scanning’ meant that he could see through her clothes.
“It seems like there should be something to reverse the irregularities,” muttered Ratchet finally. “Maybe… I’ll need to talk to Wheeljack.”
“No,” said Sam firmly.
“What?” said Amanda. She must have missed a connecting sentence in the conversation, or something, because she was utterly lost.
“Whenever Wheeljack and Ratchet start cooperating, things stop exploding and start going wrong in worse ways. Wheeljack by himself just means that things blow up, but I have no idea what would end up happening if they decide to come up with a cure for blindness…”
Amanda gulped audibly.
“We’re not that bad,” said Ratchet mildly.
“Yes, you are,” said Sam with an air of finality.
“Not,” said Ratchet.
“Gonna have to agree with the kid on this one, Ratchet,” said Ironhide.
“Shut up, Ironhide,” said Ratchet loftily. “May I remind you that your leg is not attached at the moment?”
“I like how I am totally not a part of this decision in any way, shape or form,” said Amanda loudly.
“It’ll be fine for the moment, at least,” said Sam comfortingly. He patted her shoulder briefly. “Without an actual lab, they’re pretty limited in what they can do.”
“Oh, you really know how to comfort a girl. Tell me, was it that sort of sweet talk that won you that girlfriend you were talking about?”
“No, I’m pretty sure that it was saving the world. Or possibly my car.”
“…Ah. I get it now,” said Amanda. “Because of the whole… Right. Now that I’ve been fully checked out, can I have something to eat?”
“Yes,” said Ratchet-his voice had retreated, closer to where ‘Ironhide’ was, Amanda thought. It was hard to tell, though-those harmonics. They kept on messing her up.
“Don’t listen to him, you don’t need his permission to eat.”
“Keep in mind, Sam, that I am in a position to cut off your food ration altogether.”
“Not if Bee has anything to say about it.”
“Bumblebee is lower than me in rank, Sam.”
“Damn.”
“Damn you and your earth logic,” Amanda muttered quietly to herself.
“What?” said Sam, turning to her.
“Ah, pay me no mind. Quoting to myself, more or less. It seemed appropriate. Food, please?”
“Sure. Okay, now we need to go back the way we came…”
“Argh. That hill.”
“Yeah, back up the hill.”
“And through the woods, to Grandmother’s house, I suppose.” Amanda’s voice was resigned.
“Well, to the place we’ve got food stored, really, but Grandmother’s house works just as well. Okay, there’s a large hole slightly behind you and to your right, so be careful when you turn around-I’m going to have to go around it, it’s up to my waist with a few inches of water in the bottom. Not fun. Okay, that’s fine-you’ve got plenty of room before you run into it-Why do you keep on sticking your foot out?”
“To feel what’s there, doofus.”
“Doofus?”
“Yes. Doofus.” Amanda giggled.
“Were you dropped on your head as a child, or something?”
“Yes. It’s why I’m blind.”
There was a stunned silence. Ratchet made a slight noise neither of the two humans could fully interpret.
“Oh my God I’m so sorry-” Sam began.
“Joking, remember?”
Ironhide laughed out loud.
--End Chapter 3--
Chapter 3
[Transformers 2007] The Autobots get cornered in a canyon after a Decepticon attack, along with a handful of humans. Unfortunately, one of them happens to be blind...
Characters/Pairings: Ratchet, Ironhide, Sam, Amanda (OC); non-pairing.
Ratings and Warnings: Odd sense of humor, physical disabilities, G1 characters, OCs. T for language.
Previous Chapters:
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
At FFnet
And Eyes: Chapter 3
The two of them-Sam and Amanda-half-staggered on the slight path they were following.
“Are you sure we’re on a trail?” said Amanda warily.
“Well, for a given extent of ‘trail.’ I think it’s actually a deer track…”
“Whatever it is, it can’t be any smoother walking than any other terrain they have around here.”
“You’d be surprised, I think.”
“Scary thought. Oh, how I miss the city… All this fresh air’s probably wreaking havoc with my lungs, no less.”
There was a slight pause as Sam tried to make her words make sense.
“They’ll get used to not killing themselves with every fresh breath I take, and they’ll have to readjust when I get back-assuming that I get back-which will be annoying.”
“Don’t worry-You’ll get back,” said Sam confidently.
“Why would you think that? This situation hardly fills me with confidence.”
“I’ve been in tighter situations, and we’ve managed out of those just fine.”
“So confident!”
“Oh, ye of little faith,” came a third voice, off to the right-it was a nice voice, Amanda thought, warm and amused, the owner on the younger side of middle-aged, she guessed.
“Sarah!” said Sam happily.
“Huh?” said Amanda.
“Amanda, this is Sarah. She’s the wife of the technically unofficial but more official than I am military envoy and diplomat to the Autobots. Basically, Will was one of the first people attacked by the Decepticons so he ended up involved in the whole save-the-world bit, and then one of the Autobots ended up moving in with him, Sarah and Annabelle-that’s their baby-after it was all finished. Please don’t tell Ironhide I said that, Sarah? And Sarah, this is Amanda. She’s blind.”
“I don’t introduce you as ‘And Person, this is Sam. He can see,’” muttered Amanda. “Jesus. You’d think I don’t have a personality, or something. Or any other distinguishing features…”
“It’s nice to meet you,” said Sarah politely.
“You, too,” said Amanda. “I’m sorry, I’m kind of disgruntled at the moment.”
“Yes, the Autobots can do that. You should have seen me the day I got introduced to ‘Hide-”
Sam coughed slightly. Sarah back-tracked. “Or, er, not have seen me, I suppose. Sorry about that, I’ve never…”
“Met a blind person?” said Amanda, sounding like she was torn between being caustic and being simply amused. “Because yes, it shows. As a blind person, I, personally, am highly offended by a metaphorical and idiomatic use of the word ‘see.’ I can’t believe you would be so incredibly insensitive as to use it.”
Sarah burst out laughing. Sam joined in, a few seconds later. Amanda let a slight grin show on her face.
“So you’re off to see Ratchet?” Sarah asked after a short while, still chuckling a little.
“I guess?” said Amanda.
“Yes,” said Sam. “Do you know where he is? He wasn’t over in the main cave, and he promised me holy hell if I didn’t get everyone checked out by him once they woke up-”
“He’s by the river with Ironhide. I just came back from there, myself. Do you want me to take over watching the rest of the humans?”
“Well, I guess they found ‘Hide’s leg. And yes, that’d be great. Thanks, Sarah! Oh, and if you see Mikaela, would you tell her where I am? And she’d probably like a few tips about how to deal with the baby, if you have the time. I think it’s got her kind of freaking out, and Bee just plain isn’t helping with that. I mean, I thought I was skittish around kids…”
“Yeah, Ironhide’s the same. I had just assumed it was his personality, though-you know. Maybe it’s an Autobot thing, though? Huh. A whole race of giant transforming alien robots, afraid of infants. It’s remarkably poetic.”
“So, why’s everybody asleep?” interjected Amanda. “I could understand it if one or two people had gotten concussions, what with all the rubble falling everywhere and everything, but all-what did you say? Ten or so?-people? That sounds pretty hard to swallow.”
“Uhm, Ratchet kind of drugged you all,” said Sam quickly, words all running together with his haste.
“He what?” said Amanda.
“Well, we needed to get everyone out of there, and we couldn’t deal with everyone panicking, but it’s hard to deal with the Transformers for the first time without panicking-”
“-from what I can tell, your first reaction was down-right graceful compared to most people’s,” said Sarah. “Especially considering that Sideswipe was your first contact. Sorry ‘bout that…”
“-and we didn’t have time for explanations, which is the only way it would work,” continued Sam, “So we ended up drugging everyone. Um. Ratchet promises that it has no side effects? And he’s good at what he does.”
Amanda growled unhappily.
oOo
Amanda yelped as she skidded down the last few steep feet of hillside. Carefully, feeling the ground in front of her with a toe, she took a few steps forward, giving Sam the space to follow her.
She imagined the area they were in was very pretty. As things were, it smelled gorgeous, the air very clear and clean, and crisp here, where the wind was blowing off of the river. The forest smelled faintly of dirt, dirt and pine trees in sunlight and cold air, and was exciting to walk around in, if alarmingly pointy.
Now her hands smelled overwhelmingly of pine. It would have been nice, except that it had a lot to do with the large gobs of sap ground into her palms from where she had tripped and caught herself against the trunk of a tree. And her slide down the hill had pressed dirt into the sap, making an almost impenetrable layer over patches of her palm. Amanda imagined it was what having really thick calluses would feel like, or possibly numb palms.
“So, why are we coming all the way over here, again?” muttered Amanda irascibly. Her feet were feeling already damp, but she couldn’t feel any ground near her that was dryer and less muddy than the patch she was standing on.
“Didn’t you hear earlier?” said Sam, sounding faintly surprised. “Oh. Guess not. Sorry about that… And, um, you’re standing in some sort of marshy spot… It’s a bit drier over here, towards your left.”
Amanda started picking her way over towards the sound of Sam’s voice, moving slowly and feeling her way with the toe of her shoe. At least she hadn’t been wearing pumps-or a pair of sandals, even worse-when she had been dragged outside. Tennis shoes were marginally more comfortable although, she was realizing, mesh let in an uncomfortable amount of water.
“A little more to your left will keep you out of a puddle. Yeah. Ratchet’s with Ironhide, who’s immobile at the moment-he lost a leg when-”
“He what?” cut in Amanda, voice horrified.
“No, no, it’s not as bad as it sounds! Robots, remember? Although I think someone was saying something about how the term ‘mech’ works better, or something… But Ratchet got to him quickly and got him stabilized, even if he couldn’t be moved, and now somebody’s found his leg and got it to him, so Ratchet can fix him. It’s really not all that big a deal-at least, not compared to what it would be with a human.”
“Urgh,” said Amanda faintly.
“What?” said Sam.
“My mind keeps on skipping when it reaches ‘somebody’s found his leg.’ Some phrases just shouldn’t be heard before breakfast… Or before whatever meal it is, at least. Any idea what time it is?”
“Uh… Midday-ish? I don’t have a watch on. The Autobots are more accurate. Okay, I’m going to step forward to meet you, okay? It gets pretty rough over here, and we’ve got a little ways to go before we run into Ratchet.”
“And we’re going to go meet Ratchet because he’s the medic, and he wants to check up on all of us.”
“Yeah, that’s it.”
“…after he drugged us all senseless.”
“Uh, yeah, that too.”
“Riiight.”
The two walked silently for a while.
“So, who’s this Ironhide person? Are all the Autobot names this, um…”
“Weird? Yeah. Apparently they pick them, and it has something to do with how Cybertronian names translate into English-although there aren’t direct equivalents for a lot of things, of course.”
“Ah. Cybertronian?”
“The Autobots and the Decepticons are from the planet Cybertron.”
“Cybertron? Are you serious? It’s… That’s… It’s like an incredibly bad sci-fi movie! Where all the planets have…” Amanda seemed to be fighting to control hysterical giggles. “Have names like ‘Cybertron’…!”
Sam coughed slightly to cover his own laughter. “Anyways, Ironhide’s one of the first five Autobots to land on Earth. Bumblebee was first, and then Optimus Prime, Ratchet, Jazz and Ironhide. Optimus Prime’s the leader, Ratchet’s the medic, as you know, and Ironhide’s the weapons specialist. Don’t freak out if he threatens to shoot you, okay? He does it to everyone, but, far as I know, he’s only ever shot at Decepticons. Optimus would never allow it.”
“And… Jazz?”
“Jazz was Optimus’ first lieutenant.”
“Was? Oh. Oh. I’m sorry. How…?”
“Okay. The Autobots came to Earth following the Decepticons, who were following the Allspark, which basically landed here by accident. The Allspark was… Well, it created new Cybertronian life, basically. The Decepticons were planning on using it to turn all the mechanical things on Earth-cell phones, cars, soda vending machines-into little miniature Decepticons hell-bent on killing all human life. With me so far?”
“Holy shit.” There was a brief pause. “Soda vending machines?”
“Uh, yeah. Far as we know, it’s still out there somewhere… The X-Box was more aggressive, we got that one.”
“…Someday, I will learn to stop asking questions.”
“So, a super-secret government agency called Sector 7-you follow the news? There was a bit about how it was being ended a while ago-was keeping the Allspark and Megatron hidden under the Hoover Dam.”
“Megatron?”
“Oh! Right. Megatron was the leader of the Decepticons. He’s dead now, thank God, but I’ll get to that later. So, Sector 7 figures out that I’d had contact with one of the Autobots, although they didn’t know what the Autobots were. They’d-well, my grandfather, actually-found Megatron frozen under ice in the Antarctic, which forces Cybertronians into kind of a dormant state. They were keeping him frozen, which is why he hadn’t busted out of the dam and killed everybody already. They were calling him NBE 1, for Non-Biological Extraterrestrial. I think.
“So, they captured me and Bumblebee-this is after the rest of the first wave of Autobots had shown up-and brought me, plus Mikaela, to the dam. Then we end up talking them into working for the right side, so they let us loose and let us collect Bumblebee and the rest of the Autobots to head to Mission City, where we head off the Decepticons, who’d woken up Megatron. We’ve got the Allspark at this point. Following all this so far?”
“…maybe?”
“Good enough, I guess. I certainly didn’t have that good a handle on events when the actual thing was going down. So, the Autobots and the Decepticons have a huge battle. At the end of it, I end up shoving the Allspark into Megatron’s heart-well, it’s not really a heart, but it’s kind of the Cybertronian equivalent, from what I can tell-which kills him and destroys the Allspark. But Jazz was killed in the battle.”
“Good god.”
“I’ll have to tell you the full version later-I left out all the bits with the glasses and my grandfather and meeting Mikaela. She’s my girlfriend.”
“Right. That was… the cliff notes, essentially?”
“Yeah.”
“That’s ridiculous. What’s that noise?”
“I think it’s probably Ratchet and Ironhide. I can’t really hear it. They should be just over this hill. The ground’s going to get harder to maneuver, though-it’s all torn up from the battle.”
Amanda promptly gave a short scream as she tripped over a large rut in the ground, clutching at Sam as she started to fall.
“Hyah! Agh. Um, sorry, Sam.”
“No problem. See what I mean, though?”
“See? Well, not really. No, don’t react, I’m joking. Joking!”
“Your sense of humor is seriously messed up.”
“Yeah, that’s what my therapist told me. That’s a joke as well, for the record.”
“You sure?”
“Reasonably. I-”
“Damn it, Ratchet!” bellowed a voice, startlingly close to the two humans. Amanda started, nearly losing her balance again.
“Need to stop doing that,” she muttered.
“Hey, Ironhide, Ratchet!” Sam called out. “This is Amanda. And since you told me to make sure you check everyone over when they wake up, Ratchet…”
“Good, good. Ironhide, stay where you are. Amanda, hm? Right.”
There was a brief, intense silence. “You’re being scanned,” Sam explained. Amanda stood still, fighting the urge to wrap her arms around her defensively. “Ratchet, Amanda’s blind.”
“Hello, nice to meet you, too,” muttered the girl.
“Ah, that would explain the anomaly I was reading in the report… How severely did you hit your head, Amanda? Do you remember?”
“Um. I think it was mostly my body that got hit, and that’s mostly just bruises. The blindness has kind of been a thing of mine for a while…”
There was a rush of air, and the slight mechanical noises she had come to interpret as Autobot movement were suddenly a lot closer. She took an instinctive step back, then another, shying away.
“Huh. Odd. Did you choose this, or…?”
“Not much choosing to do. It’s just something I have to live with. I think there’s some research into a few things that might help, eventually, but it’s all highly experimental and mostly just theories and conjecture, at this point.” She shrugged. “It’s really not all that bad.” There was another brief pause. “At least, it’s really not all that bad until you’re plunged into a bad science fiction movie in the middle of the woods. I’m sorry, it’s been a long day, despite the fact that I haven’t been awake an hour.”
“Ratchet? Would you fix me? You know, like you’re supposed to be doing…?”
“Just stay still. Nothing’s going to happen to Sarah in the middle of an Autobot camp with no threat of attacks. I give you full permission to dismember anyone who lets her come to harm while you’re waiting a while.”
There were a few more minutes of silence. Amanda shifted uncomfortably. The Autobots were incredibly imposing-especially this one, Ratchet, with his intense focus. And she kept on wondering if specialized robot vision and ‘scanning’ meant that he could see through her clothes.
“It seems like there should be something to reverse the irregularities,” muttered Ratchet finally. “Maybe… I’ll need to talk to Wheeljack.”
“No,” said Sam firmly.
“What?” said Amanda. She must have missed a connecting sentence in the conversation, or something, because she was utterly lost.
“Whenever Wheeljack and Ratchet start cooperating, things stop exploding and start going wrong in worse ways. Wheeljack by himself just means that things blow up, but I have no idea what would end up happening if they decide to come up with a cure for blindness…”
Amanda gulped audibly.
“We’re not that bad,” said Ratchet mildly.
“Yes, you are,” said Sam with an air of finality.
“Not,” said Ratchet.
“Gonna have to agree with the kid on this one, Ratchet,” said Ironhide.
“Shut up, Ironhide,” said Ratchet loftily. “May I remind you that your leg is not attached at the moment?”
“I like how I am totally not a part of this decision in any way, shape or form,” said Amanda loudly.
“It’ll be fine for the moment, at least,” said Sam comfortingly. He patted her shoulder briefly. “Without an actual lab, they’re pretty limited in what they can do.”
“Oh, you really know how to comfort a girl. Tell me, was it that sort of sweet talk that won you that girlfriend you were talking about?”
“No, I’m pretty sure that it was saving the world. Or possibly my car.”
“…Ah. I get it now,” said Amanda. “Because of the whole… Right. Now that I’ve been fully checked out, can I have something to eat?”
“Yes,” said Ratchet-his voice had retreated, closer to where ‘Ironhide’ was, Amanda thought. It was hard to tell, though-those harmonics. They kept on messing her up.
“Don’t listen to him, you don’t need his permission to eat.”
“Keep in mind, Sam, that I am in a position to cut off your food ration altogether.”
“Not if Bee has anything to say about it.”
“Bumblebee is lower than me in rank, Sam.”
“Damn.”
“Damn you and your earth logic,” Amanda muttered quietly to herself.
“What?” said Sam, turning to her.
“Ah, pay me no mind. Quoting to myself, more or less. It seemed appropriate. Food, please?”
“Sure. Okay, now we need to go back the way we came…”
“Argh. That hill.”
“Yeah, back up the hill.”
“And through the woods, to Grandmother’s house, I suppose.” Amanda’s voice was resigned.
“Well, to the place we’ve got food stored, really, but Grandmother’s house works just as well. Okay, there’s a large hole slightly behind you and to your right, so be careful when you turn around-I’m going to have to go around it, it’s up to my waist with a few inches of water in the bottom. Not fun. Okay, that’s fine-you’ve got plenty of room before you run into it-Why do you keep on sticking your foot out?”
“To feel what’s there, doofus.”
“Doofus?”
“Yes. Doofus.” Amanda giggled.
“Were you dropped on your head as a child, or something?”
“Yes. It’s why I’m blind.”
There was a stunned silence. Ratchet made a slight noise neither of the two humans could fully interpret.
“Oh my God I’m so sorry-” Sam began.
“Joking, remember?”
Ironhide laughed out loud.
--End Chapter 3--