Fic: 2051 chapt. 2: Maples
2051
Chapter Two: Maples
By Dreaming of Everything/dream_it_all/dreams_of_all
Series: Transformers (2007 movie)
Characters/Pairings: Gen as of right now, eventual SamxMikaela. Current characters: Sam, the canon Autobots. Eventual ensemble, movie-canon only.
Rating/Warnings: T for various things, not really pushing the rating. Kind of dark, AU.
Summary: AU, 2007 movie. In the post-apocalyptic world of 2051, the Autobots land. They are alone. The remains of humanity are scattered and marginalized, struggling. There are no leads on the location of the Allspark. And what happens when the Decepticons arrive?
Prologue
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
FFnet link
2051, Chapter Two: Maples
“...dreading broken trees, and bones, and cities.”
--from “Maples” by Donald Hall
oOoOoOo
They seared out of the sky like comets, arcing over the world, deceptively calm, the sheer force of their passage only becoming apparent when they slammed into the surface of the earth, throwing up clouds of dust and plowing furrows in the earth, forcing trees out of their path, splintering them, destroying.
oOo
The sudden brightness made them look up, as one. There was only firelight, moonlight and starlight at night, now: and flashlights, sometimes, on special occasions or when it was too dark to get a fire lit. But the flashlights were breaking down, and the batteries were running out, so that didn't happen very often anymore.
There was a whimper, a cry. The last time the sky had caught fire like that, their world had shattered. Was God come to punish the unfaithful? For a handful of seconds, they could almost believe it.
Then they turned back to the fire. It was late, they were tired. Staying alive was an endless task. Survival was more important than the end of the world.
They'd lived through that once already.
oOo
Nobody went to look at the meteors, or where they would have been if they hadn't gotten up. They remembered what had happened, the last time, and it was a dark night. The fires that had seemed like fierce, blazing things when they'd been nine, toasting marshmallows with their dads and moms and brothers and sisters, their scout troop or their best friends, the other kids at camp, had faded with time. They were an unsure comfort against the threatening night: it was darker than it had been before, now that the lights had been extinguished, every one of them put out.
They shivered when the coyotes called-or worse, the wolves-and pressed closer together. They didn't want to leave the circle of light. The night was cold and lonely, and it could swallow you up. No, it was better to stay.
And they didn't want to know what had fallen from the sky. They knew: nothing good. Nothing that mattered.
They remembered.
oOo
Sam woke up tired. It had been a loud night, and it had kept him awake, nervous. He'd heard a pack of coyotes, and the chickens had been nervous-they'd heard them, too.
At least he didn't think he'd lost one. Protein was important.
He was tired, but he forced himself out of bed anyway. There was work to be done, because there was always work to be done: the garden, the chickens, salvaging what he could from the ruins of the town. Today was a harvest day: winter was coming. The last December he'd lived through... He didn't want to go through that again. After he got things canned-hope to God he remembered something from helping his mom-he'd need to hike into town, to try and find stuff to help him through, this time. Blankets, sleeping bags, warm clothes-what he had was starting to fall apart.
Maybe he could move the chickens inside. It would stink like birds, and there would be chicken shit everywhere, but it would be warmer. Wouldn't it? They were kind of like little heaters...
Sam realized that he was standing by the bed, staring blankly at the far wall. He shook his head to clear it, and quickly pulled on clothes and a jacket. There was work to do. There was always work to do.
He went outside humming to himself. The noise was unexpectedly loud to his ears, in the utter silence of his street. He could remember when there had been noise...
It had been over a month since he'd seen another person.
oOo
Optimus Prime was stunned by the sheer scale of destruction. He'd been prepared, he'd thought, dreaded the possible destruction, but this was worst than what he'd imagined possible.
The whole planet was a wasteland; he had no guesses as to the other species, but the humans were clearly sentient, and for all he knew some of the others. He'd seen more humans in the past week, all struggling to survive even now, long past when whatever had devastated their homes and lives had passed, than he'd seen Autobots in the past century. The fact that they were a far more populous species than Cybertronians had ever been didn't make it any less of a tragedy.
The practical side of him, the side that had kept the Autobot army a force to be reckoned with over eons of war, the side of him that had to make sacrifices, balance and weigh hard decisions, was grimly accepting. He calculated: they knew the Allspark was somewhere on the landmass. They'd need to find it, but there wasn't any information network he could find, not anymore-technology he'd found in ruined houses seemed to indicate that there had been one, once.
He'd found an alt form, but it wasn't going to do much good. There was nothing to power the original vehicles, now, so it was stationary camouflage at best: he could hide among the hulking forms of the slowly rotting cars and trucks, left abandoned along streets or by the side of the road, in parking lots and driveways.
Optimus knew that they could do this. His team had faced down impossible odds before, and they'd always overcome. This was a setback, but it was one they could manage.
oOo
The air smelt of fall and dirt, and Sam let himself be happy. Digging up potatoes, Jerusalem artichokes and the remaining carrots was good work: hard labor, but nothing that needed too much thinking. Sometimes, it was nice just to concentrate on the present, and not worry about what he was going to do tomorrow, in a month, in a year.
He'd finished the row, and Sam turned to start on the next one, nudging a chicken out of the way with one foot. He'd let them out to scratch in the dirt he'd dug up, but there wasn't a one of them that had the sense God gave a rock, and they kept on getting in the way. Oh, well. It was kind of nice to have the noise, so it wasn't so deathly silent: the scratching, burbling coos and the occasional squawk, when one bird found something tasty and another went after it.
He missed music. Now...
...Sam was lonely. Some days, he sang to himself, just to hear another voice, which was just pathetic. Especially considering his singing voice, which sounded bad even to him. He missed the days of radio and CDs, TV. He missed other people.
He missed his parents most of all. He missed Miles. He missed conversation, and having someone to talk to. He missed seeing someone walking down the street and not needing to worry about whether or not they'd try to steal a chicken, or strip his garden for vegetables. Hell, he even missed school-the way it had been before the beginning of the end, without the gangs and when it was still the teachers in control. Even though he hadn't liked all of them, he wanted that back...
No use crying over spilt milk. And he'd already cried for his parents, and even for Miles, when he'd moved. He didn't even know if he was alive, now. He didn't know if his mother was alive. His father, of course, but his mother...
He'd stopped digging, but he didn't have time for that now. No, he had to keep on harvesting...
What on earth could you do with fifty pounds of zucchini? How long would they keep without pickling them? Could you pickle them? They were kinda like cucumbers... Sam had no idea.
oOo
Ratchet was quick to pull himself into the alternate form he'd chosen at the approaching energy signals. Secrecy was key. And, too, the destruction that was written across the landscape was suspicious: it made him...uneasy.
They were on foot, he noted, running scans as quickly as he could, trying to gather data about this complete unknown. They appeared to be a total nonthreat, to Autobots or Decepticons. Tiny, organic, weak, no visible defenses or hints at them. No, nothing to worry about, unless they were even better at hiding their physiological secrets than Transformers were-and that seemed unlikely.
The sheer variety of life on the planet was somewhat astounding. The adaptability-and the sheer numbers!
He was ignored by the first human to pass him, and then by three following him, or her, or something else-he'd heard of genders, before, and there did seem to be some kind of disparity in the physical forms of the different humans, but for all he knew that was an age difference or simply given variation within the species, not sexual dimorphism. Certainly Transformers varied more than that, and they were ungendered.
He wished there was some sort of information network, or something similar. But the way things were...he didn't think the odds were good that he'd find a medical database he could try to decipher, or something he could try and learn the language from.
Ratchet tried not to think about how they were going to find the Allspark like this. They'd split up to try and make it easier, but all their scanners had been able to find were trace remains of Allspark energy over the landmass they'd landed on.
In a way, they'd been lucky. Most of the rest of the world looked like it was even worse shape than this landmass they were on.
oOo
Sam watched the man walking past his window with suspicion, careful not to reveal his presence.
Could he risk it? He wanted to talk to someone, and he thought he recognized him. Had they gone to school together? Maybe. That didn't mean he could trust him. But he wanted to try...
It had been too long. He was going to try!
He stood and ran, bursting through his front door. “Hey, wait!” he called after the retreating figure.
The stranger turned, tense with suspicion. “Hello? What do want-I don't have anything with me!”
“No, no!” Sam said, slowing as he drew closer, not sure how to react. He reached the man, held out his hand-surprised, he shook it. Had his name been Michael? Maybe... Jeff? “I wanted to know if you wanted dinner. Did we go to school together?”
“I went to Tranquility High,” he said, voice slightly hoarse with disuse. “Yeah, I might have seen you there-I'm James. Seriously, you'll give me something to eat?”
“I'm Sam. I can get you some dinner,” Sam said, thinking of what he had at home. Would it be too bad if James walked off with one of the chickens in his backpack, its neck wrung? Sam had enough food to live off of... He didn't think James did. “I'm set up over here.”
oOo
James hadn't eaten as much as Sam had expected him too, but he'd learned about shrinking stomachs when you starved, so he supposed that he shouldn't have been.
“Thank you,” James said again, looking relaxed. It made him look younger: his face had lost its pinched, sad look, at least temporarily.
“It was nothing.” The response was automatic. It was nice to see that some things were still the same. Sam still knew how to be polite. “Where are you going?” he asked, just to have something to say.
He just looked sad, now. “I'm looking for someone,” he said. “My dad. The-the old government got him. Not the freaky God one, but the old one. I think. A hospital took him. During the plague. They were going to test-so there's a chance he's not dead.” He looked desperate, afraid. “There's a chance. And I can't just let him...if he's...”
“It's easier to stay fed if you stay put,” Sam said. “I could give you chicks in the spring, and seeds. I'd teach you how to grow vegetables.”
“I can't,” James said, face pointed down, his features hidden by the dark. Shadows danced across him, tossed by the flickering candlelight. It was catching a draft from somewhere. “I can't.”
Sam didn't press it.
oOo
He'd left a dozen eggs, a few cans of vegetables, one precious can of tuna out on the table, a silent offer. It was all gone in the morning, and he didn't say anything. James ate breakfast with him; Sam pretended not to notice, too, when a few tears gathered, slipped down his face as he ate the scrambled eggs Sam had made. He left shortly after that, and Sam went back to work in the garden.
oOo
It was time to go into town, and the roads were falling apart. He hadn't noticed it so much, the year before, but now there were gaps and bulges, cracks from frost and swollen bumps where tree roots were growing up underneath the asphalt. There were eddies of leaves building up in spots, dust and dirt. Eventually, the roads would disappear...
He'd need to learn how to get around without a road map, by then. If he was still here... Could he leave? Right now, he was tied to his food, the garden, the chickens and the stream, and he couldn't carry enough food for a very long journey by himself. He couldn't take a flock of birds along with him on a journey.
And there was always the chance that his mom would come home. Right? Because she'd been-taken, but that didn't mean that she was dead... It was hard to get around. It could take a long time. Right? So he couldn't leave, because then she'd come home to an empty house, an abandoned garden, and raccoons in the chicken coop, sleeping in the remains of feathers and bones.
oOo
It had been Jazz's idea to split up, so that they could search more ground more quickly than they would in teams. He wouldn't say that it had been a bad idea, but he would have thought twice if he'd known the conditions they were going to find.
Had the Decepticons beaten them to Earth? That would explain the devastation. Jazz had been built to be a spy, and his mind worked the way it was supposed to-a little too much so, depending on who you asked. He thought in circles. And he didn't like this situation. Sure, there were any number of things that could have caused this kind of destruction, but base instinct told him that it was Decepticons, and that they could still be anywhere.
He didn't mind that he was alone-that was almost a given when you were in the field, when you were an intelligence officer-but he wasn't going to relax. No, far from it... He had every scanning program he had running hot.
oOo
Sam needed to remember to save seeds. Otherwise, he'd have nothing to plant the next year. That was easy for things like the beans and peas. Even the pumpkins and squash-he'd just let one or two of each ripen all the way, and then get them out. Did the same work for tomatoes, though? ...And he hadn't remembered to let some of the radishes go to seed. Or enough lettuces. Maybe he'd be able to find some more seeds, in town or in one of the abandoned houses down the street... And what about leeks? Did they just kind of split into more, like bulbs did? He thought bulbs did that. But his mother had been the gardener. He'd learned how to weed, and to plant to some things; how to do every-day things.
The first time he'd killed and plucked a chicken had been-horrifying. He'd thrown up behind the wood shed before he'd finished. But he'd done it, because he'd needed to. That was thing: he needed to learn how to do these things.
oOo
On one level, Ironhide was incensed by the conditions the humans were living in. Organic or not, they were clearly struggling, unhealthy and unhappy.
Another part of him was impressed by the job that had been done getting them to that point.
The social isolation. Their shattered society. The sheer scale of destruction... It was impressive.
oOo
Sam missed milk. And cheese. Yogurt, butter, ice cream. But it wasn't like a cow was just going to wander into his yard. He wouldn't know what to do with one if it did.
oOo
It was...disturbing.
There had clearly been a thriving civilization here, and not long ago. Now, Bumblebee found himself standing in ruins just starting to disappear back into the strange, alien world, being overtaken by insentient native species.
He'd found a vehicle to scan, but he didn't think it would help. There was nothing here: the roads they'd used to travel were falling apart, crumbling to dust. And there was no sign of the creatures that had build the dwellings themselves: there were organic lifeforms, but they showed no signs of rational thought. And the buildings were built wrong for them.
It made Bumblebee uneasy. It was too much like Cybertron. But it looked like it had happened too quickly... What could have caused this?
oOo
One of the things Sam looked for in town, the days he took the long walk into the center of what had been Tranquility, Nevada-it was falling apart, and he didn't like to go too often, it was too creepy and even lonelier than his little forgotten fading-into-the-wild suburb-were vitamins. His mom had been big about nutrition, and he ate a lot of veggies, but not much meat, and no milk. He got some iron from things like spinach, but that was only for part of the year-he didn't think you could can spinach, and didn't really want to try. It sounded nasty.
He looked for other things, too. Any meat, even Spam, which was basically all there was left, tasted good now. Sometimes he found chocolate bars, or canned or powdered milk, things he couldn't grow. Bottled water meant less time spent boiling stuff he'd hauled from the stream. Clothes, batteries for flash lights-although there were almost none of them left. He wasn't the only one picking through the ruins of the cities. Although there were fewer people, each time he left... And fewer things. He still tried to brush his teeth, but he knew a lot of people didn't. There was always toothpaste. Things like alcohol had disappeared long ago. A lot of the medicine aisles had disappeared: painkillers, bandages, condoms.
A lot of the houses had been ransacked as well. Their doors gaped open, banging when the wind rushed through the empty streets. The lawns were a foot high and choked with weeds, yellowing with the oncoming winter and tangled over the sidewalks. Leaves lay in eddies where the wind blew them, undisturbed.
Sam saw a deer stepping delicately through the charred shell of the old library. It had been burned, when the government had been overthrown. Now, things were beginning to grow inside it.
oOo
Optimus didn't want to think about how it might have been the Decepticons that had done-everything that happened to the planet. It was torn apart.
That would make it, indirectly, his fault. He was the one protecting the universe from Decepticon rule. At least, he was supposed to be.
It was almost as bad to think that it might have been humanity that tore itself apart. It was what had happened to Cybertron, and the Transformers: they'd been a united whole, once. Optimus would never forget that, or his brother...
He didn't want to think that there was another race out there that had had that happen to it. He didn't want to think of another planet torn in a bloody civil war. He couldn't deny what had happened to the people he had once helped to rule, but he'd like the chance to believe that their situation was unique, that no other group had succumbed to violence on that scale...
oOo
It took him a while, but Sam found a grocery store. It was dark inside, the smoggy light from the dirt-splattered windows not penetrating all the way through the back. He made his way carefully, avoiding the spilled goods, the fallen shelves.
He moved carefully, poking around. You never knew what someone might have missed. That was the best part-he moved carefully, systematically, and sometimes he found something useful.
Turning over a shopping basket, he found a few jars of salt, and took them-they'd gotten wet, probably from a leaking roof, but that was okay. It was just salt. And he'd need it, to keep on pickling. He found a can of evaporated milk, and took that, thankful. A box of macaroni and cheese: he took that to look at once he got back outside, to decided whether or not it was still good. A forgotten bottle of water, he could always use another plastic bottle...
He screamed when he poked at a dark corner, trying to see if there was anything there, and was greeted by the eerie too-human growl of a raccoon; he beat a fast retreat. They could be nasty, and infection was a serious worry. Most of the neosporin, the antibiotic ointment, was long-gone by now.
Going back out into the dim, dusty sunshine of the day made him blink and squint, the light dazzling his eyes.
--End chapter 2--
Chapter Two: Maples
By Dreaming of Everything/dream_it_all/dreams_of_all
Series: Transformers (2007 movie)
Characters/Pairings: Gen as of right now, eventual SamxMikaela. Current characters: Sam, the canon Autobots. Eventual ensemble, movie-canon only.
Rating/Warnings: T for various things, not really pushing the rating. Kind of dark, AU.
Summary: AU, 2007 movie. In the post-apocalyptic world of 2051, the Autobots land. They are alone. The remains of humanity are scattered and marginalized, struggling. There are no leads on the location of the Allspark. And what happens when the Decepticons arrive?
Prologue
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
FFnet link
2051, Chapter Two: Maples
“...dreading broken trees, and bones, and cities.”
--from “Maples” by Donald Hall
oOoOoOo
They seared out of the sky like comets, arcing over the world, deceptively calm, the sheer force of their passage only becoming apparent when they slammed into the surface of the earth, throwing up clouds of dust and plowing furrows in the earth, forcing trees out of their path, splintering them, destroying.
oOo
The sudden brightness made them look up, as one. There was only firelight, moonlight and starlight at night, now: and flashlights, sometimes, on special occasions or when it was too dark to get a fire lit. But the flashlights were breaking down, and the batteries were running out, so that didn't happen very often anymore.
There was a whimper, a cry. The last time the sky had caught fire like that, their world had shattered. Was God come to punish the unfaithful? For a handful of seconds, they could almost believe it.
Then they turned back to the fire. It was late, they were tired. Staying alive was an endless task. Survival was more important than the end of the world.
They'd lived through that once already.
oOo
Nobody went to look at the meteors, or where they would have been if they hadn't gotten up. They remembered what had happened, the last time, and it was a dark night. The fires that had seemed like fierce, blazing things when they'd been nine, toasting marshmallows with their dads and moms and brothers and sisters, their scout troop or their best friends, the other kids at camp, had faded with time. They were an unsure comfort against the threatening night: it was darker than it had been before, now that the lights had been extinguished, every one of them put out.
They shivered when the coyotes called-or worse, the wolves-and pressed closer together. They didn't want to leave the circle of light. The night was cold and lonely, and it could swallow you up. No, it was better to stay.
And they didn't want to know what had fallen from the sky. They knew: nothing good. Nothing that mattered.
They remembered.
oOo
Sam woke up tired. It had been a loud night, and it had kept him awake, nervous. He'd heard a pack of coyotes, and the chickens had been nervous-they'd heard them, too.
At least he didn't think he'd lost one. Protein was important.
He was tired, but he forced himself out of bed anyway. There was work to be done, because there was always work to be done: the garden, the chickens, salvaging what he could from the ruins of the town. Today was a harvest day: winter was coming. The last December he'd lived through... He didn't want to go through that again. After he got things canned-hope to God he remembered something from helping his mom-he'd need to hike into town, to try and find stuff to help him through, this time. Blankets, sleeping bags, warm clothes-what he had was starting to fall apart.
Maybe he could move the chickens inside. It would stink like birds, and there would be chicken shit everywhere, but it would be warmer. Wouldn't it? They were kind of like little heaters...
Sam realized that he was standing by the bed, staring blankly at the far wall. He shook his head to clear it, and quickly pulled on clothes and a jacket. There was work to do. There was always work to do.
He went outside humming to himself. The noise was unexpectedly loud to his ears, in the utter silence of his street. He could remember when there had been noise...
It had been over a month since he'd seen another person.
oOo
Optimus Prime was stunned by the sheer scale of destruction. He'd been prepared, he'd thought, dreaded the possible destruction, but this was worst than what he'd imagined possible.
The whole planet was a wasteland; he had no guesses as to the other species, but the humans were clearly sentient, and for all he knew some of the others. He'd seen more humans in the past week, all struggling to survive even now, long past when whatever had devastated their homes and lives had passed, than he'd seen Autobots in the past century. The fact that they were a far more populous species than Cybertronians had ever been didn't make it any less of a tragedy.
The practical side of him, the side that had kept the Autobot army a force to be reckoned with over eons of war, the side of him that had to make sacrifices, balance and weigh hard decisions, was grimly accepting. He calculated: they knew the Allspark was somewhere on the landmass. They'd need to find it, but there wasn't any information network he could find, not anymore-technology he'd found in ruined houses seemed to indicate that there had been one, once.
He'd found an alt form, but it wasn't going to do much good. There was nothing to power the original vehicles, now, so it was stationary camouflage at best: he could hide among the hulking forms of the slowly rotting cars and trucks, left abandoned along streets or by the side of the road, in parking lots and driveways.
Optimus knew that they could do this. His team had faced down impossible odds before, and they'd always overcome. This was a setback, but it was one they could manage.
oOo
The air smelt of fall and dirt, and Sam let himself be happy. Digging up potatoes, Jerusalem artichokes and the remaining carrots was good work: hard labor, but nothing that needed too much thinking. Sometimes, it was nice just to concentrate on the present, and not worry about what he was going to do tomorrow, in a month, in a year.
He'd finished the row, and Sam turned to start on the next one, nudging a chicken out of the way with one foot. He'd let them out to scratch in the dirt he'd dug up, but there wasn't a one of them that had the sense God gave a rock, and they kept on getting in the way. Oh, well. It was kind of nice to have the noise, so it wasn't so deathly silent: the scratching, burbling coos and the occasional squawk, when one bird found something tasty and another went after it.
He missed music. Now...
...Sam was lonely. Some days, he sang to himself, just to hear another voice, which was just pathetic. Especially considering his singing voice, which sounded bad even to him. He missed the days of radio and CDs, TV. He missed other people.
He missed his parents most of all. He missed Miles. He missed conversation, and having someone to talk to. He missed seeing someone walking down the street and not needing to worry about whether or not they'd try to steal a chicken, or strip his garden for vegetables. Hell, he even missed school-the way it had been before the beginning of the end, without the gangs and when it was still the teachers in control. Even though he hadn't liked all of them, he wanted that back...
No use crying over spilt milk. And he'd already cried for his parents, and even for Miles, when he'd moved. He didn't even know if he was alive, now. He didn't know if his mother was alive. His father, of course, but his mother...
He'd stopped digging, but he didn't have time for that now. No, he had to keep on harvesting...
What on earth could you do with fifty pounds of zucchini? How long would they keep without pickling them? Could you pickle them? They were kinda like cucumbers... Sam had no idea.
oOo
Ratchet was quick to pull himself into the alternate form he'd chosen at the approaching energy signals. Secrecy was key. And, too, the destruction that was written across the landscape was suspicious: it made him...uneasy.
They were on foot, he noted, running scans as quickly as he could, trying to gather data about this complete unknown. They appeared to be a total nonthreat, to Autobots or Decepticons. Tiny, organic, weak, no visible defenses or hints at them. No, nothing to worry about, unless they were even better at hiding their physiological secrets than Transformers were-and that seemed unlikely.
The sheer variety of life on the planet was somewhat astounding. The adaptability-and the sheer numbers!
He was ignored by the first human to pass him, and then by three following him, or her, or something else-he'd heard of genders, before, and there did seem to be some kind of disparity in the physical forms of the different humans, but for all he knew that was an age difference or simply given variation within the species, not sexual dimorphism. Certainly Transformers varied more than that, and they were ungendered.
He wished there was some sort of information network, or something similar. But the way things were...he didn't think the odds were good that he'd find a medical database he could try to decipher, or something he could try and learn the language from.
Ratchet tried not to think about how they were going to find the Allspark like this. They'd split up to try and make it easier, but all their scanners had been able to find were trace remains of Allspark energy over the landmass they'd landed on.
In a way, they'd been lucky. Most of the rest of the world looked like it was even worse shape than this landmass they were on.
oOo
Sam watched the man walking past his window with suspicion, careful not to reveal his presence.
Could he risk it? He wanted to talk to someone, and he thought he recognized him. Had they gone to school together? Maybe. That didn't mean he could trust him. But he wanted to try...
It had been too long. He was going to try!
He stood and ran, bursting through his front door. “Hey, wait!” he called after the retreating figure.
The stranger turned, tense with suspicion. “Hello? What do want-I don't have anything with me!”
“No, no!” Sam said, slowing as he drew closer, not sure how to react. He reached the man, held out his hand-surprised, he shook it. Had his name been Michael? Maybe... Jeff? “I wanted to know if you wanted dinner. Did we go to school together?”
“I went to Tranquility High,” he said, voice slightly hoarse with disuse. “Yeah, I might have seen you there-I'm James. Seriously, you'll give me something to eat?”
“I'm Sam. I can get you some dinner,” Sam said, thinking of what he had at home. Would it be too bad if James walked off with one of the chickens in his backpack, its neck wrung? Sam had enough food to live off of... He didn't think James did. “I'm set up over here.”
oOo
James hadn't eaten as much as Sam had expected him too, but he'd learned about shrinking stomachs when you starved, so he supposed that he shouldn't have been.
“Thank you,” James said again, looking relaxed. It made him look younger: his face had lost its pinched, sad look, at least temporarily.
“It was nothing.” The response was automatic. It was nice to see that some things were still the same. Sam still knew how to be polite. “Where are you going?” he asked, just to have something to say.
He just looked sad, now. “I'm looking for someone,” he said. “My dad. The-the old government got him. Not the freaky God one, but the old one. I think. A hospital took him. During the plague. They were going to test-so there's a chance he's not dead.” He looked desperate, afraid. “There's a chance. And I can't just let him...if he's...”
“It's easier to stay fed if you stay put,” Sam said. “I could give you chicks in the spring, and seeds. I'd teach you how to grow vegetables.”
“I can't,” James said, face pointed down, his features hidden by the dark. Shadows danced across him, tossed by the flickering candlelight. It was catching a draft from somewhere. “I can't.”
Sam didn't press it.
oOo
He'd left a dozen eggs, a few cans of vegetables, one precious can of tuna out on the table, a silent offer. It was all gone in the morning, and he didn't say anything. James ate breakfast with him; Sam pretended not to notice, too, when a few tears gathered, slipped down his face as he ate the scrambled eggs Sam had made. He left shortly after that, and Sam went back to work in the garden.
oOo
It was time to go into town, and the roads were falling apart. He hadn't noticed it so much, the year before, but now there were gaps and bulges, cracks from frost and swollen bumps where tree roots were growing up underneath the asphalt. There were eddies of leaves building up in spots, dust and dirt. Eventually, the roads would disappear...
He'd need to learn how to get around without a road map, by then. If he was still here... Could he leave? Right now, he was tied to his food, the garden, the chickens and the stream, and he couldn't carry enough food for a very long journey by himself. He couldn't take a flock of birds along with him on a journey.
And there was always the chance that his mom would come home. Right? Because she'd been-taken, but that didn't mean that she was dead... It was hard to get around. It could take a long time. Right? So he couldn't leave, because then she'd come home to an empty house, an abandoned garden, and raccoons in the chicken coop, sleeping in the remains of feathers and bones.
oOo
It had been Jazz's idea to split up, so that they could search more ground more quickly than they would in teams. He wouldn't say that it had been a bad idea, but he would have thought twice if he'd known the conditions they were going to find.
Had the Decepticons beaten them to Earth? That would explain the devastation. Jazz had been built to be a spy, and his mind worked the way it was supposed to-a little too much so, depending on who you asked. He thought in circles. And he didn't like this situation. Sure, there were any number of things that could have caused this kind of destruction, but base instinct told him that it was Decepticons, and that they could still be anywhere.
He didn't mind that he was alone-that was almost a given when you were in the field, when you were an intelligence officer-but he wasn't going to relax. No, far from it... He had every scanning program he had running hot.
oOo
Sam needed to remember to save seeds. Otherwise, he'd have nothing to plant the next year. That was easy for things like the beans and peas. Even the pumpkins and squash-he'd just let one or two of each ripen all the way, and then get them out. Did the same work for tomatoes, though? ...And he hadn't remembered to let some of the radishes go to seed. Or enough lettuces. Maybe he'd be able to find some more seeds, in town or in one of the abandoned houses down the street... And what about leeks? Did they just kind of split into more, like bulbs did? He thought bulbs did that. But his mother had been the gardener. He'd learned how to weed, and to plant to some things; how to do every-day things.
The first time he'd killed and plucked a chicken had been-horrifying. He'd thrown up behind the wood shed before he'd finished. But he'd done it, because he'd needed to. That was thing: he needed to learn how to do these things.
oOo
On one level, Ironhide was incensed by the conditions the humans were living in. Organic or not, they were clearly struggling, unhealthy and unhappy.
Another part of him was impressed by the job that had been done getting them to that point.
The social isolation. Their shattered society. The sheer scale of destruction... It was impressive.
oOo
Sam missed milk. And cheese. Yogurt, butter, ice cream. But it wasn't like a cow was just going to wander into his yard. He wouldn't know what to do with one if it did.
oOo
It was...disturbing.
There had clearly been a thriving civilization here, and not long ago. Now, Bumblebee found himself standing in ruins just starting to disappear back into the strange, alien world, being overtaken by insentient native species.
He'd found a vehicle to scan, but he didn't think it would help. There was nothing here: the roads they'd used to travel were falling apart, crumbling to dust. And there was no sign of the creatures that had build the dwellings themselves: there were organic lifeforms, but they showed no signs of rational thought. And the buildings were built wrong for them.
It made Bumblebee uneasy. It was too much like Cybertron. But it looked like it had happened too quickly... What could have caused this?
oOo
One of the things Sam looked for in town, the days he took the long walk into the center of what had been Tranquility, Nevada-it was falling apart, and he didn't like to go too often, it was too creepy and even lonelier than his little forgotten fading-into-the-wild suburb-were vitamins. His mom had been big about nutrition, and he ate a lot of veggies, but not much meat, and no milk. He got some iron from things like spinach, but that was only for part of the year-he didn't think you could can spinach, and didn't really want to try. It sounded nasty.
He looked for other things, too. Any meat, even Spam, which was basically all there was left, tasted good now. Sometimes he found chocolate bars, or canned or powdered milk, things he couldn't grow. Bottled water meant less time spent boiling stuff he'd hauled from the stream. Clothes, batteries for flash lights-although there were almost none of them left. He wasn't the only one picking through the ruins of the cities. Although there were fewer people, each time he left... And fewer things. He still tried to brush his teeth, but he knew a lot of people didn't. There was always toothpaste. Things like alcohol had disappeared long ago. A lot of the medicine aisles had disappeared: painkillers, bandages, condoms.
A lot of the houses had been ransacked as well. Their doors gaped open, banging when the wind rushed through the empty streets. The lawns were a foot high and choked with weeds, yellowing with the oncoming winter and tangled over the sidewalks. Leaves lay in eddies where the wind blew them, undisturbed.
Sam saw a deer stepping delicately through the charred shell of the old library. It had been burned, when the government had been overthrown. Now, things were beginning to grow inside it.
oOo
Optimus didn't want to think about how it might have been the Decepticons that had done-everything that happened to the planet. It was torn apart.
That would make it, indirectly, his fault. He was the one protecting the universe from Decepticon rule. At least, he was supposed to be.
It was almost as bad to think that it might have been humanity that tore itself apart. It was what had happened to Cybertron, and the Transformers: they'd been a united whole, once. Optimus would never forget that, or his brother...
He didn't want to think that there was another race out there that had had that happen to it. He didn't want to think of another planet torn in a bloody civil war. He couldn't deny what had happened to the people he had once helped to rule, but he'd like the chance to believe that their situation was unique, that no other group had succumbed to violence on that scale...
oOo
It took him a while, but Sam found a grocery store. It was dark inside, the smoggy light from the dirt-splattered windows not penetrating all the way through the back. He made his way carefully, avoiding the spilled goods, the fallen shelves.
He moved carefully, poking around. You never knew what someone might have missed. That was the best part-he moved carefully, systematically, and sometimes he found something useful.
Turning over a shopping basket, he found a few jars of salt, and took them-they'd gotten wet, probably from a leaking roof, but that was okay. It was just salt. And he'd need it, to keep on pickling. He found a can of evaporated milk, and took that, thankful. A box of macaroni and cheese: he took that to look at once he got back outside, to decided whether or not it was still good. A forgotten bottle of water, he could always use another plastic bottle...
He screamed when he poked at a dark corner, trying to see if there was anything there, and was greeted by the eerie too-human growl of a raccoon; he beat a fast retreat. They could be nasty, and infection was a serious worry. Most of the neosporin, the antibiotic ointment, was long-gone by now.
Going back out into the dim, dusty sunshine of the day made him blink and squint, the light dazzling his eyes.
--End chapter 2--