Conceptions - 8
Title: Conceptions of the Self - Home - Mei's Fanfic Master List
FIC Summary: [2007, AU] Sore throats, nightmares, and the differences between organics and Cybertronians - something is terribly wrong with Sam. To live is to evolve, and shape alone is not enough; think of it as a mutual learning experience. (Bot!Sam, PTSD, Mech/mech)
1, 2, 2.b, 3, 4, 4.b, 5, 6, 7, 7.b, 8, 8.b
Plz to be remembering to read 7.b if not yet consumed.
Chapter Eight: Tempest- Or the Chapter in which Giant Robots say "ONOES!"
After nights and nights and nights, he was getting somewhere. The end of the road was closer than ever, and Sam breathed deeply, hands trembling on the All Spark. It was dark, and there seemed to be fewer lights, but the moon still shown above and the pavement still glistened wetly like a thousand shattered stars. The houses slept, the vehicles remained unmoved, but when he listened closely -- The reassuring whirl-click of gears was not alone. He had the sense that there was the small Cybertronian behind him, matching him move for move as always, and just on the edge of his awareness, another. This did not disturb him, as he was more focused on the nearing end of the street. He had two ways to go when he got there, and he didn't know which one to chose. Not yet, he knew, he still had a ways to go ... but which road would he take when he got there? It was growing nearer, and he still didn't know.
"What now?" he demanded, clutching the small cube close to his chest.
Small steel hands gently pushed him onward. "Don't stop walking," the Autobot encouraged.
Progress is procession. It is in motion. Persisting is the only option.
"Things haven't been in movement for a long time," he accused.
"That will change." -- said intently, like a promise.
Change is ... in motion.
"You've never done this before," he said slyly.
"It is ... new," the Autobot agreed.
A suitable template has been located.
"Are you sure?"
"Don't worry, it's working."
The Prototype is secure. Copies will be made. Procedures are applied.
Then he stumbled, the All Spark was gone, and he was off searching for that elusive Cybertronian who mustn't see him again.
-+-
There was something that was bothering Sam. It bothered him deeply, a bad taste on his tongue. Nothing could get rid of it, it seemed. A sharp unpleasant bite of wrongness, and an aftertaste of unpalatable falseness. Miles and Mikaela were the first that he spoke of this to, when he said: "Does it ever disturb you that fast food is normally so saturated with chemicals that it couldn't decay if it wanted to?" While the other two blinked at him, he frowned at his chicken sandwich thoughtfully, then took another bite.
Getting Mikaela away from Ratchet wasn't nearly as hard as he had thought it was going to be. Really, all he had to do was ask her and she put her evil feminine wiles to work. Well, he thought she probably put her evil feminine wiles to work; it was possible she threatened to hot wire Ratchet. If Sam was a giant alien robot, that would be a good way to get him to do something, after all. He had also intentionally chosen the day that Miles had off work. It had been a while since they had all gotten together to hang out, after all, and he rather missed them sitting at Sonic and chowing down.
Naturally, he had them all go to the Mall. It was a nice compromise between the distance that Mikaela would have to travel to move from base to the town, and the least they could do was meet her half way. After all, Bumblebee was needed back at the base for a few hours at least, so they were under Arcee's watch. Well, Arcee was too small to carry three people, being a Miata, so really it was technically only Mikaela under Arcee's watch while Miles and Sam had caught a ride with Miles' mother, who wanted to run errands anyway. Of course, Sam was always ravenous, which explained how they had ended up at the food court. The noisy, grease-smelling food court with it's re-re-refried food.
Of course, upon hearing Sam's issue, Miles bit into his sandwich with over-played gusto. "Mmm!" he said loudly. "Chemicals! Radioactively good."
"This?" Mikaela said, gesturing between the two of them. "This is why I don't eat with you guys. When Sam isn't being gross and analyzing the food, you're encouraging him."
"Hey, that's not fair," the blond protested with a scowling pout. "That's what guys do. Be gross and egg each other into doing stupid stuff."
"I'll have you know I do plenty of stupid stuff on my own, without egging," Sam objected. Waiting a beat, he added, "hey, wait a minute ..."
"Why am I even here?"
"Because your engineering class is slowly turning you into an science zombie?"
"You're just jealous that I could work your car over and you can't."
Sam rolled his eyes. "You're just jealous my car likes me better than you."
"God, guys," Miles cut in. "Stop arguing over the Camaro like it's the kid of your marriage gone badly."
"It's a bit more complicated than that," Mikaela said, looking at him doubtfully.
"Because it honestly sounds complicated. It's a car, Mika."
"Bee is not just any car," Sam objected.
Miles groaned. "I get it, man. You love your car. You attack giant jocks for the sake of your car. Everyone loves your car, except people who hate yellow, and then they just wear colored shades. Dogs love your car, and birds fear it. We get it already."
"I don't think you do," Sam said mildly, calmly sucking down a smoothie he didn't think he'd normally ever touch but had a strange craving for, "but that's okay. We're all mad here."
"So," Mikaela said, "speaking of fast cars, I might be able to get my hands on an oh-two Mazda. I've been doing some work on it recently, and I've been offered a nice deal."
Sam made a questioning noise, a little baffled and wondering if she meant what he thought she meant. "The -- 'owner' is offering?"
She gave him a meaningful look. "Yup. She got in contact with the friends who are looking after it while she's out of the country, said that if things work out with me and I want, I can be the shiny new driver of a blue Miata."
"That's -- awesome," he said, and really meant it. Sort of. It also meant that Arcee would be in town a lot more often. Which in turn meant that Bumblebee would be gone more often. And while he was thrilled that Mikaela was getting a guardian, even for just a short while, he was still somewhat jealous since her life seemed to include them a lot more than his own, and he could never be completely pleased with something that ... well, he was just so used to thinking about it being Bumblebee and him. Bumblebee was the only one who'd been there fore the entirety of the escapade -- the meeting, battle, and aftermath. Sam hadn't felt the need to inflict his stupid nightmares on Mikaela -- hadn't been intending to reveal them to Bumblebee, either, but after the episode of the Transforming-squish ... well, he didn't explain them like he did that one, but it was still nice to have someone around that could guess what the nightmares were about. It was ... just all around nice to have someone to talk to like that.
They had even discussed the difference between human dreams and the robotic equivalent. Humans were largely symbolic, working off things that meant something to them; imagery and auditory hallucinations that were often nonsensical, sometimes mundane and sometimes something bad enough to wreck Stephan King's sleep. For Cybertronians, 'sleep' was actually an act of energy conservation that had little to do with exhaustion, even if they termed it 'recharge'. It was more like 'hibernating' to Sam -- most of their programs shut down and power stopped coursing through them. It allowed the ambient 'waste' energy produced by their Spark to flood the inert wires and trigger certain subprograms that sorted and filed information gathered during the active times ... sort of like a 'defrag'. It wasn't necessary, but it was undeniable that they functioned better afterwards.
Unfortunately, spark energy did more than just power specialized software or realign the alloy molecules in their wires. If their personality matrix was unbalanced, either through a severe upset of certain software programs or due to just the right external impact, then it made their spark react with instability itself. In which case it would trigger what Bumblebee called 'video feed recall' -- the silent flashbacks. Not only did having instable energy in their systems not help, but 'dreaming' also required normal power, therefore disrupting the recharge and negating most of the benefit. That was 'dreaming', which by common sense wasn't pleasant -- and then they had nightmares.
What Cybertronians equated as nightmares was when they dug into their history files and set their probability calculator to work. They came up with perfectly logical and cold reasons why some things had happened, or should have, or shouldn't. When and how many times and ways they should have died when. When their rate of survival had been less than one percent and how many times. Different ways things could have turned out worse, played out to the 0.001 percent probability.
Sam had asked why they didn't find a way to stop it. Bee explained that in order to stop it, they either had to lock their history files, or manually shut down their probability calculator. 'Bad idea' didn't even begin to cover it; with a history file locked, there was essentially no way to unlock them unless someone hacked them ... and if done without consent, it was comparable to rape. A locked history file was like amnesia.
Manually shutting down the probability calculator was equally bad. It was part of their core logic circuit, and with a part of the core offline, their logic circuit couldn't function properly, and it was hard to convince a bot to turn it back on so that they could be reasonable.
So, considering that they couldn't stop themselves from dreaming or having nightmares, Bumblebee was fairly tolerant about nightmares. Sam ... liked Bumblebee, liked having him around -- and he liked it when they were 'Sam and Bee', not ... 'Sam and when he had to be present, Bee'. Miles could make him forget the restless hiding horror deep in his chest (the fear and self-disgust he didn't know why he had), Mikaela could sooth it away and was simply so understanding that it was hard to be dejected about sharing a species with her. But it was -- different, it was better with Bumblebee. It seemed that only Bumblebee could say something that kept Chernobyl from burning, or eased the super-nova heat into the pleasant radiance of the sun from Earth's surface.
Considering his latest state of apathy, anger, and inexplicable terror of his own body ... any spot of brightness (any spot of yellow) was something to be guarded jealously.
"Yeah," Mikaela confirmed in a pleased voice before turning serious. "It seems like the owner's friend got hurt, so the deals going through the guys having me look at it. I've been seriously considering it since I've moved out."
Sam sighed, because in the end ... "I think it's a good idea," he said sincerely. "Better to keep a motor warm than let it collect dust, right?"
"Yeah," she said with a pleased smile.
"Man," Miles groaned pitifully. "My best bud has a freakin' Camaro, and you're getting a Miata -- yeah, okay, it's a girly Barbie car, but it's a lot better than a junker! This is going to suck!"
Mikaela and Sam exchanged looks. They had an advantage over poor Miles, being ... well, friends with giant alien robots that required protection or at least entertainment. That is, the humans required protection and the Autobots required entertainment. It worked out fairly well, so long as no one transformed on anyone's lawn, or pushed girls through their windows.
Once they finished with lunch, they investigated the novelty shops, and then Sam's day went to hell when they left to go home. Actually, it sort of went to hell the moment they stepped into the parking lot and Sam realized that Bumblebee had returned. Mostly because he grinned automatically at the way the clean lines were practically lit white under the sun from having such a highly glossy paint. It looked like Bumblebee was covered with a thick liquid coating like those pictures of concept cars (that he'd never looked at before he had one of his own), and he thought with fierce sincerity: 'that is one sexy car'.
Then he choked on air. This naturally lead to some violent coughing. Then he couldn't even breathe period, even with the wrenching in his throat, simply because he remembered the dreams he'd been having (cables and blue optics and the purring whirl of gears shifting).
Later, according to Miles, his face had been priceless. That caused a bit of awkwardness, because he couldn't share what had made him make the face. Miles wouldn't understand why realizing what an attractive car the Camaro was would make him look like he'd swallowed his tongue, and Mikaela ... might understand a little too well. Then she'd get all freaked out and Sam was freaking out well enough on his own, thank anyway. He'd sooner be shot than admit that instead of being normal and having a normal sort of wet dream --
Well, to be perfectly honestly, he'd rather be doubting his sanity and sexuality and things than having the usual sort of nightmare. Having that mysterious miniature protoform in his bed was a lot less horrifying that the nightmares in which he couldn't control his left arm and it went looking for his spine the hard way. Or when cables burst from his skin (or mostly his chest, like Alien), or the times his skeleton got a mind of it's own and peeled him off like a banana skin and walked away while he was left unable to move on the ground.
Ah, well. Was it any wonder why he was apathetic, angry, and terrified by his own body?
After their three-way farewell and parting, Sam made a (slightly eager) beeline toward his ride. Personal sanity and sexuality aside, damn. Shiny. The sleazy Camaro leer wasn't really helping matters any, either. Bumblebee helpfully popped open the door when Sam reached about his bumper, and he wasted little time in reaching for it.
"Jesus," he murmured, sliding into the leather seat. Even the interior was glossy and smelled ... well, it wasn't leather. After a moment, it made sense, because Bumblebee was made of metal. Why would he have genuine leather seats? He probably didn't like the smell much, either. But the black and yellow seats were glossy and soft, and the interior smelled ... really good. The only thing he could recognize was the under scent of grease, and while all the completely alien smells should alarm him, it didn't. "What happened to you? I mean, not that I'm complaining --"
"Obviously not," Bee rumbled, sounding partially amused and a little baffled. "Ratchet took the opportunity to demand some repairs and a physical, as I've been separated from a medic for several years. An extensive cleaning was part of that."
"Well, whatever he used or however he did it ... damn," Sam said. "So, anything worrisome?"
Bumblebee turned on the radio and engine. After a moment, he admitted, "No, but ..."
"But? Is there something wrong?"
"There's nothing wrong with my systems." Sam shot an incredulous look at the dashboard, and Bumblebee reluctantly admitted: "But that's the thing -- there isn't anything wrong with any part of me. Any Cybertronian over a few centuries of age always has some quirk in their gears. I'm running like a newly made protoform."
"I ... I don't get it," Sam said slowly. "Is that bad?"
"Not bad," Bee swiftly assured him. "Just ... inexplicable. A mech of my age shouldn't be running this well. It hasn't happened since Cybertron ..."
"I thought you were young for a mech?"
The engine rumbled too lowly for Sam to hear, but he felt it. "Comparatively. I'm still far past the stage of running cleanly."
"Weird," Sam commented. Cybertronian age and growth were one of those things he had to just grin and nod on. Bumblebee had tried to explain once that technically, Cybertronians don't grow, but then it came with a bunch of qualifiers that just hurt his head. It was part of the reason Ironhide was so bemused by young children. "So ... then nothing is wrong? I mean, all this sudden healthy running isn't going to crash and burn?"
"Unlike organics, we don't 'get better' just before dying," Bumblebee reassured him. "My body is in top shape, but it hasn't affected my processors, so there is little to worry about."
"Except for why, am I right?"
"Yes."
Sam relaxed at that. His mother liked to watch that House show, so Sam was a little paranoid about things seeming to be better ... or changing at all, really. It seemed like the patients on that show always just suddenly crashed and spent the entire episode appearing better only to get even worse. It was enough to get anyone freaked out. Peering out the window, he noticed that they were headed back to the same place they'd met Arcee. His chest tightened slightly, and he quickly coughed into his fist.
"Mikaela's told me that Arcee was thinking about running guardian duty for a little bit."
"She's bored," Bumblebee explained. "She enjoys fighting." He hesitated. "A lot of us do."
He wasn't sure what to do with that information. Sam wasn't much of a fighter -- he was witty and ran away. That was pretty much his job. Occasionally, he got a little too much fire and decided to delete giant evil alien robots from the Matrix like a bad virus, but that was only when he fell too far deep down the rabbit hole, thanks anyway. "Well," he said, feeling he had to make some sort of response, "I'll just have to keep that in mind, so that if any crazy fights in the city break out, I know to run like hell."
"You won't be in the middle of one of those fights again," Bee said seriously, like a promise.
"Yeah, well, you can't say that," Sam said, knowing it like he knew who his mother was. "For one -- a lot of crazy stuff happens." And for another, Bumblebee would be in it, and Sam couldn't shake the memory of the mech crawling.
"And for another?"
"A lot of crazy stuff happens," he repeated guilelessly. "So, you guys have been in contact with Elita-One?"
There was only enough of a pause to be noticeable. "Yes," Bee confirmed. "She is on Earth's moon with Chromia, who has been injured too badly to make it through Earth's atmosphere without injury. With the Decepticons still loose, Elita-One won't leave Chromia behind, but there is no way to safely get Ratchet there to repair her."
"Isn't there some way we can help? The U.S., I mean," Sam said.
"Possibly. However, Ratchet and Chromia both confirm that the injuries are minor and will heal given time. It would be more conservative to wait."
"Yeah, but what if the 'Con's find them first?"
"Chromia's injury is a simple dent that won't stop her from fighting. It would hurt to enter the atmosphere, but it would only damage her a little."
Sort of like the ice hurt Bumblebee, though it did no real appreciable damage to his body. "What about any other stragglers?"
"Elita-One is never found far from Optimus Prime," Bumblebee said, "though they rarely speak. The others are much more wide spread, trying to round up the Decepticons. Starscream might have sent out a similar message, though, so ... Earth might get rather busy pretty soon." There was a pensive tense silence. "Perhaps it would be better if we left."
"No!" Sam yelped, then flushed. "That is -- I mean, the Decepticons already know about Earth, right? Even if you left, who's to say that will mean we're safe?"
"While a valid point," Bumblebee said slowly, "You're rationalizing your own desires."
Sam grimaced at the accurate observation, and was further uncertain what to make of the neutral tone. He could almost hear some noise, feel it prickling his skin -- Bumblebee had forgotten to use human inflection. He did it so rarely that it was always a surprise when he switched back to Cybertronian inflection. "Well, sorry," he grumbled. When in doubt, act defensively. "I just -- I mean, my life's been turned upside down by everything that's happened ... but if I had to do it again, knowing what I know, I'd still want the Camaro with the custom faded paint job."
That sparked a vibration through the car frame that Sam recognized as amusement. Humor literally shook a Cybertronian's frame. "You didn't really have much of a choice by that point, Sam," Bumblebee said.
"Yeah -- well, if time travel were ever an option, I wouldn't stop old Captain Archibald from finding Megatron," he joked.
Bumblebee was quiet a moment. "That would have been a bad idea," he finally said.
It took Sam a moment to realize that Bumblebee meant that things could have probably worked out a lot worse, that he'd probably had nightmares about it. "So ... as badly as things went," he said, "it was still for the best, huh?"
"From the point of Megatron crash landing on Earth, yes. But really, there isn't any use in thinking backward like that."
Sam didn't really get it, and knew he couldn't ... but he had thought, sometimes, that maybe if he had gotten up the nerve to talk to Mikaela in junior high, or if he had taken the time that day she looked really down to ask her how she was, or -- so, he sorta understood, even if he didn't get it on the scale he has the suspicion Bumblebee was speaking on. The uselessness of backward thinking, that is. The 'what if's and 'could have been's.
They eventually arrived at the wide grassy stretch, and Sam got out to let Bumblebee transform -- which he did, strangely with the protective mask down that Sam had only seen once.
"Whoa," he said, holding up his hands flippantly, "what's up with the face guard?"
Bumblebee shifted on his feet. This in itself wasn't unusual. Bumblebee was a rather active mech, after all, nearly always in the middle of some sort of movement. The chirp that almost sounded embarrassed, and how he lifted one hand to the back of his hand? Now, that was unusual. It took less than half a second for Bumblebee to regain his moxie, so to speak, and he took a more casual pose as both halves of the mask slid back up.
"Oh," Sam said intelligently. Apparently, Bumblebee had changed his mind about upgrades and his need for them, because instead of the familiar dark metal that formed a skeletal frame and brought to mind insects, he bore intricate dull gray plates that created a very human face. Unlike Optimus Prime's it was less of a generalized mockery and even ... well. "Wow," he added, uncertain what to make of it. "That's some upgrade. Is that -- like, mask version four point oh? Because -- I mean, it looks really good."
He only now recognized the apprehensive expression because it relaxed into a more neutral look. "I'll tell Ratchet you approve," he said wryly, and wow, but Ratchet must have made improvements. The mockup moved perfectly in sync with vocalizer, nearly seamless enough for it to look ... natural, though Sam knew it had been added, not grown.
"It's a huge improvement over Optimus' prototype," Sam said as Bumblebee settled down to sit. He leaned on the Autobot's folded leg and grinned. "Much more human, less monkey."
The fact that they could construct a mask of flexible metal plates that could smile that way was amazing. "You'll have to talk to Ratchet about that. The prototype was made with only what images that could be hacked from the satellites and what I could sneak out while being watched. That was before much research was actually put into human psychology." A pensive look (this was fascinating) crossed the features, and then Bumblebee snapped back to the present. "The term he used for the mathematical construction on the new expression masks is 'Golden Ratio', which is apparently an accurate measure for human aesthetics. It made it much more simple."
"I'll take your word for it," he said with amusement. The bad thing about being friends with a centuries-or-more old robot that was connected to the Internet was that they could use all sorts of words that the average person simply didn't. "It looks good, anyway." It was new and hypnotizing, and ... well, it did change his view of Bumblebee. Not really in a good way, but not in a terribly bad way, either. It was just ... well, obviously it made the Autobot more human, which was stupid, because he wasn't. They had spent months talking about the differences between the species, both having their own trouble understand the other's culture and psychology. The human shaped mask would make it very easy to start thinking of Bumblebee as a giant human in a metal box. "So -- uh, tell me about it," he requested. "Is it strange?"
"Not as strange as it will be for Ratchet," Bumblebee said, with another one of those smiles. "Optimus and I are the best subjects for this project -- Optimus Prime has already been stripped for it, and when I was created, there were only the barest facial structures available. Ratchet, on the other hand, has a very difficult structure, and being the medic ..." He shrugged. "It's a bit different," he added, raising his hands and touching the gray plates lightly. "But I am the most familiar with humans. Your expressions and movements come to me much more easily. It was cake to write up a program to run it ... though that was also when I realized to the full extent of just how alien our cultures are to each other ..." That seemed to depress Bumblebee, the brilliant blue light in his optics dimming and his shoulders sinking.
Sam pressed his palms against the yellow plate he was resting against. He was ... good with words when trying to mock someone, but that ... mushy stuff wasn't in his repertoire. Then again, according to Mikaela, he didn't need to be as long as he could touch the bot. "Not that different," he said. "You guys feel sadness and loss -- I know that for sure. And you think things are funny, and you enjoy things like getting washed and I'm pretty sure you like music, you play it often enough. I mean, you played tricks on me, remember? That must have been fun. So -- yeah, maybe we're not completely alike, but wouldn't that just be weird anyway?"
"It would be impossible," Bumblebee acknowledged, but he didn't seem too cheered.
"Yeah, well --" Sam pushed hard on the plating out of frustration, leaning his weight into it. Bumblebee looked a little startled and fixed his attention on the relatively small human. "I don't care, okay?" he demanded. "So we're different -- I'm a short lived organic, and you're basically an immortal sentient robot alien. It's sort of expected, isn't it? But you're still my friend. We'll just ... have to make sure there aren't any miscommunications. Alright?"
The plates that formed Bumblebee's face shifted (liquid smooth) into what was an almost patronizingly indulgent look. "Alright."
"Starting," Sam said, arching his eyebrows high and pointing, "with that look right there. That one? Don't do that one." When Bumblebee looked taken aback, Sam explained. "That one is the one your parents give you when they know you're being idiotically idealistic and childish. So ... don't."
"This may end up being harder than I thought," Bumblebee said uncertainly.
"Don't worry about it," he said, leaning forward to rest his chest against the mech's leg and crossing his arms on top of it. He lowered his head to the pillow his arms made and smirked. "It's hard for a lot of people, too, and we've been doing this throughout evolution."
The fine scratched pattern on the pale gray plates caught the sunlight, but didn't throw it back in broken blinding flashes. It was kinda ... frosted, or brushed. It was ... well, Cybertronians themselves were just so fascinating. All of humanity's robots and gears were so jerky and slow and ... awkward. Unnatural. A person could think that robotic organisms would be the same -- but that wasn't true at all. Somehow, they were as fluid as water, or oil, or oil on water for that matter. Who knew that dozens of little metal plates stuck together and overlapping could form curves into a rather organic shaped face?
"Would you like to touch it?" Bumblebee asked, almost quietly, expression unreadable.
"What?" Sam asked in surprise.
Gears whispered into motion as the sixteen foot robot shifted slightly. "I have noticed that humans are a rather tactile species ..." he said, "and you've been studying this new construct. Would you like to touch it?"
That was -- okay, wow, that was weird. Very, very weird. So weird his stomach was doing weird things. Weird. But yes, he did really want to touch it. Oh, boy, did he want to touch it ... which was exactly why he wasn't. "I dunno, Bee," he said doubtfully. "That looks a little dangerous."
"I can be very still," Bumblebee promised.
Well, who could argue with logic like that? Goddamn it, he had no self-control ... which -- considering his brief courtship of Mikaela and his attack on Megatron, should have been obvious enough that he didn't realize it only now. "Hey!" he yelped as Bumblebee's metal fingers wrapped around him before he quite realized that he was even moving. "Hey! Watch that! Whoa!"
"You can't reach it from down there," Bumblebee said reasonably, and a person would think that being machine, the grip would be rough. It wasn't -- the hand was not quite enough to wrap around his waist totally, but it closed as firmly and gently as a roller coast ride's harness. After his first startled squirming, he stopped and relaxed, only grasping the thumb across his lap with both hands as he was lifted the short distance to Bumblebee's face. Up close, the frosted matte appearance was even more obvious, and from that point the only obvious question was: what would it feel like?
A few tons of machinery was as still as a statue under his hands, even though there were a dozen subtle sounds as other things continued to run. It was slightly distracting, but Sam was able to block it out, as well as the optics carefully studying him while he puzzled out the maze of metal plates. On the broad parts on the face were the wider bands, and on the more moveable parts of the face -- the mouth, and the area around there -- were constructed of many much smaller plates.
"It's gonna be hard to get used to this," he finally decided, casting a look up into the empty Arctic blue optics. He took his hands off of the intricate dull gray mask and wrapped his hands around the slick silver alloy of Bumblebee's thumb.
"For both of us," Bumblebee acknowledged, bringing up his other hand just to cup it around Sam's back. He leaned back into the hand automatically, without thought, trying to take in the whole difference in the Autobot's appearance.
"And everyone will be getting one?" he asked.
"I'm sure Ironhide will complain," Bee said, the sunlight hitting glowing lines in his sly smile. "Optimus Prime may have to order him into compliance ..."
Sam snickered at the image that gave him. He savored it until something Arcee said came to mind, and he frowned slightly. "And all of this is being done so we'll ... relate to you?"
Two of his fingers pressed a little into his back, sliding slightly. "You've noticed how skilled we are at shape shifting, right?"
"Well -- yeah. I mean, you put all of these little pieces of armor together and make a car."
Bumblebee nodded. "Transforming is a very basic code within us. It pervades every line of data in our processors. It's what we do, like ... breathing to us."
"Like it's in your DNA," Sam said, "or -- or whatever it is you have. Deoxo -- well, anyway, I think I get it."
"It's a psychological need for us to blend in. Since we clearly can't blend in very well due to our size, it was fairly inevitable that we would attempt to change our shape. Ironhide is stubborn, of course ... and it will take time to reconfigure our hasty arrangement of armor into something more agile, but it would be possible within a few decades."
"Decades? I thought you were excellent mimics," he teased, smiling.
"Even a dedicated mimic needs time," Bumblebee said tolerantly. Sam inhaled sharply in surprise when he began moving, but he was only being lowered to the ground. Bumblebee's thumb withdrew from across his lap, and he slid off the Autobot's palm, landing a little unsteadily on his feet.
"It's getting dark," he observed, both from the low position of the sun and his own nearing exhaustion. Around six, he became tired, and with every passing hour, it increased exponentially.
"Do you wish to return?"
He reflected dryly on the turn his dreams had taken. The All Spark dreams used to be an oasis, but recently they were always interrupted with either the nightmare of something inside of him tearing out, or he ended up chasing a Cybertronian who didn't exist only to find a protoform in his bed. "No, not really," he decided grimly.
" ... but you must."
Sam glanced over his shoulder at Bumblebee, who was studying him. After a moment, he decided that his sentence was being finished, not that he was being given a command. "Well, yeah," he agreed. If he didn't, he'd fall asleep anyway. "I'm just not eager to, that's all."
"Because you've been sleeping restlessly."
He turned around to look at Bee closer. Though the nightmares were a constant, he hadn't realized that he'd been behaving in ways that made it obvious. "I guess not. How'd you know?"
Bumblebee shrugged. "Sometimes I don't recharge at night -- there are ... things that keep my processors too busy, sometimes. I hear you toss and turn in your bed."
Cheeks warming with humiliation -- the revelation that the secret horrors that visited his sleep weren't as secret as he thought -- he looked away, squinting at the hot fiery colors of the sun. "Sorry. I -- ah, didn't know I was bothering you."
Bumblebee made an absentminded electrical croon as he shifted a little. "Samuel --" at the look Sam cast over his shoulder, Bee amended it: "Sam. I understand that there are things that you wish to keep private -- I have many of these things myself, but if you want to share them, I am willing to listen."
"You're kidding, right?" Sam sighed, physical exhaustion catching up to his mental and emotional fatigue. "Bee -- you already play a chauffeur, you don't want to be my therapist. You really don't. Trust me, I should know. I live in here," he said, tapping his head.
"My offer is sincere," Bumblebee said, refusing to take the out, or let Sam have it for that matter. Sam would have pouted, but his nightmares were serious business and no mocking matter.
"It's just stupid nightmares," he said dismissively. "They've gotten better." Which was sadly truthful. He had gone from Silent Hill type horror to only Matrix level horror (he winced every time they brought up that whole 'plugging into the back of the head' thing).
"Alright," he said reluctantly. As Sam yawned, he stumbled back to make room for the shifting Autobot who merely rolled over, breaking into a thousand pieces that finally settled with a snap and a slight rocking on his wheels as a Camaro. The driver's door popped open and he reluctantly approached the car, sliding into the familiar interior.
While he had always planned on keeping his stupid nightmares to himself (just as he kept everything that wasn't all that obvious to himself), Bumblebee just admitted to knowing that he'd been having trouble sleeping. And if he already knew, then why was Sam still keeping his half-secrets? That plagued him for several silent moments while Bumblebee drove (careful as ever) down the steadily darkening road. Why would a giant alien robot care what he dreamed about?
Then he wondered if he was asking himself the wrong question. A giant alien robot wouldn't care about what he dreamed about -- but a friend would.
"Do you," he blurted out, only just remembering not to touch the windows, "I mean ... well, if you really want to know --?"
"I do," Bee interrupted him, voice intent.
Oh. Well. In that case ... "Okay," he said, clearing his throat and ignoring that familiar warmth, "I've been having these nightmares lately ..."
-+-
Sam stumbled into the dark bathroom, having woken from that stupid wet-dream-gone-wrong. Only, it had gone really wrong that time, because it was the start of the dream and he still went walking with the All Spark and the Autobot only it turned into the falling dream after which Optimus Prime asked him what had he done. Sam did not need a combination dream, thanks anyway. He was already on his way to a break down.
He didn't bother turning on the light in the bathroom, since that would only blind him and make it harder to get back to sleep. He stumbled around for a moment in the darkness, then cast a wary look at the mirror, still remembering all of those junior high ghost stories about Bloody Mary and doppelgangers trapped in glass --
and his heart thundered painful under his chest and his skin prickled so suddenly it hurt and he had been dunked in the Antarctic ocean because in the mirror was more than just the black shadow of himself -- a pair of blue optics were staring at him.
Sam threw himself violently at the light switch, thinking of nightmares and Frenzy-who-couldn't-die and slammed it on so hard that the switch broke off, spinning around as he strained to hear the whirl-click of moving 'bot.
But the bathroom was empty, so he looked where he saw it but only he was looking back, hazel eyes wide and pupils barely pinpricks of terrified black.
-+-
He had sat on the edge of his bed all night, feeling odd tingles shoot up and down his arms and through his body. It felt kind of like he had pulled a whole network of muscles when he had gotten terrified in the bathroom, a whole webbing of pain that jerked and tingled and made his fingers twitch slightly. For long hours, he had just sat there, staring at his blank computer, thinking ... thinking. What could be wrong with him?
Seeing optics in the mirror -- that was the last straw. He could handle nightmares and Chernobyl and sleeping and eating and all of that. He could handle strange All Spark dreams and Arcee and mustering his courage to remind Bumblebee that he was only human and whatever else came his way. He could handle all of that, but when he started ... seeing things, not just catching movements out of the corner of his eye ...
Well, that was too much. He had two possible answers to what was wrong with him, and he wasn't very excited by either of them.
The first possibility was that there was something terribly wrong with him -- more than just Chernobyl in his chest, which was not unlike having a heart attack. That ... there was something ... that his brain ... that he might even be dying. Now. Not later, not due to a knife in the back, but that he was somehow dying already.
The second possibility was that he really was going mad, and should be put down like a rabid dog. Well, he'd rather be put down and not put into an insane asylum. One Witwicky had already been wrongly imprisoned and died in one. He didn't want to be the second ... even if his term was more just.
Either way, he had to ... he had to tell someone. They were both loathsome options -- and ... and he had to tell someone. It just .. made sense to make that someone Bumblebee. Bumblebee would be able to put the situation in perspective (hopefully), and tell him whether or not he was dying or going mad (or both).
In either case, that was why he left the house slouching and was reluctantly approaching the yellow robot parked in the drive. He reached out for reassurance, running his fingers along the seam of the hood. It was amusing the few times he managed to sneak up on the Autobot. Apparently, Bumblebee set up his scanners and then proceeded to check out the Internet human style sometimes, and Sam (being human for one and familiar for another) had surprised the bot once or twice.
This wasn't one of those times, the metal warm beneath his fingers and vibrating just enough that he could feel it. It zinged up his arm like bottled lightning and his pinky and a muscle in his arm twitched, even though it didn't hurt. He pulled the open door wide and slipped inside uncomfortably. For a bit of reassurance, he gripped the steering wheel and pretended to check out the speedometer. Bumblebee allowed him to get away with that for nearly ten minutes before he spoke up.
"Is there somewhere you wish to go?"
"Er, not exactly," Sam said tentatively. "I -- um, this is one of those things that I'd rather not speak about ... but first, who should I talk to about ... weird side effects of alien radiation?"
Bumblebee was silent for a moment. Then he turned on the engine abruptly and jerked out of the driveway, going fast enough that for a panicked moment, Sam thought there were Decepticons after them. The fancy electric seatbelt trapped him to the seat, and Sam was left gripping at it in alarm.
"Bumblebee?" he demanded, checking the outside and trying to judge whether or not they were going to be caught by cops.
"Please hold on, Sam," Bumblebee said tensely as they took another corner. "Ratchet's going to offline me as it is, and Optimus Prime will ban me from life."
"I'm holding on!" he yelped as they didn't managed to quiet stay on the road, then repeated the sentence to make sure it got through to the Autobot, even as he hysterically contemplated that it was possible Bumblebee was entertaining himself with the Internet way too much if he was worried Optimus Prime would 'ban' him from life. "Where are we going and why are we getting there so quickly?" he shrieked.
Bumblebee didn't answer for a moment, which was a good warning that Sam wouldn't like the answer. "One week after Mission City, the amount of radiation you had was negligible. The sort of radiation we and the All Spark produce is completely harmless to organics, it doesn't even induce nausea or raise chances for cancer, there was no reason to be concerned ..." He seemed to be trying to reason with himself. "It must have increased so slowly --"
"Increased? What? Where?" Sam demanded, somewhat hysterically. He felt he had the right, considering that Bumblebee was hardly staying calm.
"Please remain calm," Bumblebee said tensely. "The radiation should have faded. You are currently producing enough radiation to make Sector Seven -- were it still in existence -- seizure with joy."
Sam let that sink in for about three streets, then swallowed hard. "I think I'm going to throw up," he informed the talking car.
"This is likely a reaction to stress," Bee informed him, the grinding of metal just barely discernable and promising that he was just as strung out over the entire thing as Sam. Therefore, Sam politely swallowed again and practiced the ancient human martial art of denial.
The rest of the trip was spent alternately staring blankly and trying to figure out what could possibly be wrong with him. Maybe the radiation had seriously impacted his brain ... it would certainly explain all of the weird dreams and his problems in general. Sure, All Spark radiation might not cause nausea (obviously not, he'd been eating like a bottomless pit) or instigate cancer, but that didn't mean it wouldn't seriously affect how a person's brain worked. That could easily explain great grandfather Archibald, and maybe it was just his turn to spend some time in an insane asylum.
Upon arriving at the Autobots' hideout, Sam slid calmly out of the car and waved jauntily at the green-yellow mech waiting for them. Before Bumblebee had even finished transforming back to his more natural form, Ratchet had picked Sam up and was stalking off toward the medical bay, scanning him the entire time.
"Wow, okay, this is rude," he said conversationally.
"He's in shock," Bumblebee chimed in fretfully from some feet below. As Ratchet was holding Sam up at head-level, the ground was a long way down and Bee wasn't nearly as tall as Ratchet.
"He's nearly doubled his weight, Bumblebee!" Ratchet apparently found something he didn't like and sighed heavily. "This is definitely going to have to be brought before Prime ... sooner, rather than later."
"It's not Bumblebee's fault," Sam objected, frowning.
"Sam, you've doubled your weight," Ratchet repeated, as if he were being slow. "Granted, some allowance could be made for strength, an increase like that is hardly noticeable to our higher processors -- if you put it on slow enough, it's perfectly logical that it could go unnoticed -- but when Bumblebee asked to guard you, I thought I could rely on him!" Bumblebee made a whining grinding noise while Ratchet's optics did strange things as he scanned Sam. "It looks as though it's nearly all mineral deposits ... your bones have altered remarkably in structure ... uh oh."
"That doesn't sound good," Sam said reasonably.
"What's 'uh oh'?" Bumblebee demanded, an undercurrent of straining metal trembling up from below Sam.
Ratchet sighed, both audibly and by blowing air across his complex inner components, where all the vital things were. "You aren't going to like this, but it appears that Sam's entire digestive track, as well as his respiratory system has been altered ... significantly. It appears these changes are old ... "
"Sam had a sore throat for nearly a week after I got him home," Bumblebee offered as they stepped inside the medical bay. It was fairly obvious that it had been reworked ... normal automatic parts lay everywhere, as well as cables and wires (he shivered). There was a platform as well, large enough for even Optimus Prime to lay on.
"I think that for now it would be safe to say that these ... alterations have been for the purpose of collecting materials to rework his entire structure; there are heavy mineral deposits in your bones and organs. There appear to be special organs grown solely for storing them, but there also appears to be a metal ... his skin is well on it's way to developing similar structures ... Sam, Cybertronians regularly grow in such a manner, collecting elements from the air and altering it's composition into something we can add to our frame, or use it to heal our armor."
Sam remained quiet for a moment while he absorbed all of that information. "What?" he inquired, thinking he had perhaps heard that wrong. Just to make certain, he repeated himself: "What was that?" Then he realized that there was no way that sentence could have made sense if he heard it wrong -- so he must have heard right. "No! No, no, no, it doesn't work like that!" he shrieked. Both Autobots winced, and Ratchet gently tumbled Sam out of his palm and onto the table. It was terribly rude, and he didn't much care for the way Bumblebee immediately plucked him up and set him on his feet, either.
"Can't you do something, Ratchet?" Bumblebee demanded hovering over Sam while Ratchet moved away to find something. "You know this isn't good!"
"I don't know," Ratchet said heavily. "I'm trying to figure that out."
"Bumblebee," Sam hissed. "I thought I was going insane, not -- being taken over by alien technology!"
The car alarm squeaked several times, as if it kept trying to go off but Bumblebee kept stopping it. Ratchet turned quickly, optics narrowed in clear agitation. It was only at this point that Sam realized that Ratchet must have been working on stripping the outer structure on his face to attach the expression mask. Of course, no Cybertronian really needed to use his face to get his emotion across, because the loud and rapid clicking and whirling was a clear indication of agitation.
"You!" Ratchet shouted, pointing at Bumblebee. "Get out of my med bay!"
"But Sam --"
Ratchet picked up the largest piece of automotive miscellany at hand and lifted it threateningly. It was a bit fascinating to watch two relatively large 'bots move so quickly. Sam had seen them often enough that he was accustomed to the graceful dancer like moves -- but they usually had an air of ... well, heft and weight, like several tons of large creature moving. Not so in a fight, but Sam had forgotten since Mission city, so the sudden scuffle that broke out when Ratchet set to the task of chasing Bumblebee from the room, possibly after bashing his head in, was very fascinating. They moved so quick!
Bumblebee did manage to escape without injury, but not without playing the part of the car alarm that Sam was sure still meant 'up yours'. He didn't know if he should laugh or run for his life.
Ratchet huffed, lowering his 'club' and turning back to the sorta-human in the room. "Now, then," he said, setting it lightly aside and approaching him. "I'll have to perform several tests on you, Sam. Don't worry; with Mikaela here, I've had plenty of opportunity to learn more about your species, so none of this should be ... weird. Bumblebee said that you had a sore throat after Mission City?"
"Er, yeah," Sam said, rubbing his arm and giving it doubtful looks. If his bones were metal, that meant they were struts, and if they were struts -- would they peel him off and walk away? "Actually, I pretty much had one shortly after the battle -- but I don't know, I thought it was because I inhaled a lot of dust."
"It's possible that was part of it, Sam," Ratchet assured him.
"Ratchet," he said tensely, "I thought I was going insane like my great grandfather. What does this mean? Is it going to -- to kill me, or take me over, or what? Am I going to be a ... a cyborg?"
The distant aspect to Ratchet's optics disappeared as he visibly stopped scanning Sam for a moment. He hesitated, then said, "Sam, I don't know ... nothing like this has ever happened before. Cybertron's wildlife was as metal as we are, but organics such as yourself have been in contact with the All Spark ... all those years at Sector Seven ... there were no abnormalities in their bodies or their brains. Whatever is happening to you is singular ... but on the other hand, I am a rather good medic, so if anyone could figure it out, that should be me. I will do my best to help you, Sam. It'll help if you tell me everything that has changed."
"A ... alright," he said slowly. "Well, I've been sleeping a lot, and eating way more than I should -- I guess that was part of the whole collecting mineral process, huh?"
"It's very likely," Ratchet confirmed. "It appears that the structures in your lungs that allow oxygen to attach to the hemoglobin in your blood has been duplicated -- and altered -- in your digestive track. I hypothesize that very little of the nutrients you've consumed have gone to waste. Normally the human body isn't very efficient ... it appears that does not hold to yours."
Sam grimaced with discomfort. His 'digestive track' was not exactly something he wanted to discuss with a giant robot, doctor or not. "I don't know if it's related, but I've had a lot of nightmares -- and they all feature the All Spark. I mean, it made sense, you know? It's this amazing ... giant cube. It was the Cybertronian ... mother, of everyone. It made sense to be a little focused on it, so I didn't think it was that weird. I mean, it's not always nightmares, this last month, but ... anyway. That, and sometimes I get really angry, and it feels like ... well, I think of it as Chernobyl. It doesn't happen all the time, but I ... definitely never felt like that before."
Ratchet made a thoughtful sound, and Sam winced and decided not to ask. He wasn't sure he could hear it right now.
"That, and ... the food I eat ... I don't think I really taste it anymore. I'm ... too busy thinking about how old the food is and how much of it is really organic or not. That could just be psychosomatic --"
"It's not," Ratchet said.
"Oh," he said blankly. "Um, okay." He bit his lip for a moment. "That's pretty much the only things I've noticed. You said I doubled in weight?" At the affirmative he received, he was quick to object. "That's impossible!" Sam said, shaking his head and waving his arms as if to chase the thought away. "I would have noticed --"
"Not necessarily," Ratchet said, and it wasn't quiet obvious if he was hedging or just being off-hand and distracted.
"Yes, necessarily!" he said a little hysterically, waving his arms some more for good measure. One of these times, it would work, he was sure. "I should be sore as hell, if moving at all!" Well, yes, he had been a little achy, but it was not a strange 'achy'. All teenagers were used to feeling achy, especially if there had been any growth spurts recently -- but he should have noticed all that weight!
"Only approximately one hundred pounds of the weight is in mineral and metallic substance," Ratchet said, giving him a sever look before he returned to scanning. "The extra weight that makes it double is in muscle mass."
Sam gave him an incredulous look.
"Hmm, nice expression, I'll have to add that one," Ratchet said absently while Sam was distracted with molesting himself to find this supposed muscle mass he had put on. Ratchet continued on the subject at hand, possibly with the incredibly ill-conceived idea that more information would make it better. "Simply put, your healing has been accelerated. As quickly as the strain from carrying the weight tears the muscle, it's healed."
Halting his self-examination, he ogled the giant robot. "Oh god," he said faintly. "I'm Wolverine?"
Ratchet cross-referenced that and scoffed. "I seriously doubt it'll stay that way. You don't have 'mutant powers'." A few thoughtful clicks, and then Ratchet continued. "You know about cloning, correct? Then you've heard about Dolly the Sheep?"
"Of course," he confirmed, a little hysterically. What, was he going to pull some ... weird mirror thingy and split in half and then there'd be two of him?! He wasn't ready to begin living a twisted version of some scifi sitcom!
"Then you should know about cell age."
Well, that wasn't a 'you're going to give fission to a clone'. "Cell what?" he inquired, a little calmer.
Ratchet sighed. "Organics, such as yourself, have cells that divide. Alloys don't, that's why Cybertronians live until we're deactivated. Cell age is how many times a cell can divide -- the more times it has, the weaker and less sturdy the structure is. That's what aging is -- the cells have divided as much as they can while remaining stable enough to support life. Healing requires an elevated cell division rate. The more cells split, the quicker they age ... that's why there is so much problem with clones. They are created with cells that already have an age. Therefore, the 'new' animal is prematurely aged."
" ... so you're saying that because I'm regenerating so quickly to be able to haul around this extra weight, I'm also aging prematurely."
"Precisely."
Sam swooned for a moment, but didn't actually black out or throw up, though either one of those sounded like a good idea to him. He couldn't even cry.
" ... perhaps you should rest?"
"There's more, isn't there?" he demanded weakly.
"Sam, your life signs are becoming more erratic than I think is strictly safe."
"But you don't know, do you!" he snapped. "Because -- I'm a -- a freak, something's taking over my body, there's something wrong with me!"
"We don't know that for certain," Ratchet said tensely. "Just because you are no longer human, doesn't mean you're a 'freak'. We don't know if something is 'taking over your body', and until I do more, I don't know if there is something wrong with you."
"I'm growing metal," he shrieked, "I think it's pretty obvious that isn't right!"
Ratchet stepped back and put his hands on his hips, looking something like an angry mother, which wasn't the sort of visual Sam exactly needed. "If you can't control yourself, I'll put you in stasis until I figure this out!"
And as weirded out, freaked out, and frightened as Sam was, Chernobyl wasn't burning and he could control himself to a certain extent. With a groan, he rubbed his face, sighing and generally making a production of despair. "Alright, alright," he said, "can I even be put in stasis? Wait. Don't answer that. Whatever. There's more, isn't there?"
" ... yes," Ratchet said grudgingly. "There's more. Your body is riddled with ... energy patterns. Nothing is conducting it besides your own water-filled cells ... so it shouldn't have such a steady or intricate structure. It's definitely following a pathway ... which means that the energy is flowing in such a pattern for a reason. The point is, it all originates from your central nervous system."
Central nervous system -- it had been two years since biology, as he took it his freshman year, but -- oh crap, wasn't that his spinal cord? "What the hell is it doing there?" he demanded, sucking desperately for air.
"It's been there, Sam," Ratchet said. "Since Mission City. The human nervous system communicates through it's own electrical impulses. It's ... it should have shorted you out, or put you in a coma. You should be ... brain dead from over stimulation. An organic brain isn't meant to handle that level of input."
"Then why haven't I?" he demanded. It was possible he wasn't actually accepting any of this information. He was much too calm to be hearing that he was a zombie.
"It's managing that as well," Ratchet said stiffly. "I don't think you've been sensing the world in a human matter for well over two months now. You've been running entirely off of this energy. On the bright side, it's fully converted your central nervous system into alloy, so there isn't any concern about it destroying the cells it's inhabiting."
And -- well, that was pretty much all Sam really remembered.
-- To Be Continued --
- SURPRISE, MOTHERS! We finally have "OMG WTF IM METAL"!Sam. R U HAPPAI NAO? (BTW, lots of lying in this chapter. Both from Sam and Ratchet.) I may be as happy about having reached this point as you guys! (a lot of you were very impatient)
- Sam's episode in the bathroom was just his mind playing tricks on him. That was NOT Gateway, Frenzy, or even Sam's own eyes.
- Thought I'd explain that while Bumblebee's got some really good scanners and sensors, they aren't good enough to pick up pheromones. He's a scout, not a 'healer'. As a matter of fact, I'm not too sure of the logic behind Ratchet even knowing the meaning behind the pheromones Sam was emitting. Technically, Ratchet's a mechanic, not a doctor (dammit, Jim!). It doesn't make much sense for him to know or even learn anything about organics, since HAVE YOU SEEN THE SIZE OF HIM? Even OUR doctors sometimes go, "This work is too delicate for our tools, Jim!"
That said, Ratchet does have scanners that 'x-ray' through Cybertronian alloy. If it can go through metal, it can go through humans. Re Cell Growth: being a mechanic, I'm sure he researched our technological advances so he knew what he could borrow to help fix up his people. We're so cell-happy that I don't see how he could research our technology without learning about cells.
- See, Sam and Bee would have gotten there even without Sam turning into an Autobot! Actually, Sam turning into an Autobot really slowed their progress down.
FIC Summary: [2007, AU] Sore throats, nightmares, and the differences between organics and Cybertronians - something is terribly wrong with Sam. To live is to evolve, and shape alone is not enough; think of it as a mutual learning experience. (Bot!Sam, PTSD, Mech/mech)
1, 2, 2.b, 3, 4, 4.b, 5, 6, 7, 7.b, 8, 8.b
Plz to be remembering to read 7.b if not yet consumed.
Chapter Eight: Tempest- Or the Chapter in which Giant Robots say "ONOES!"
After nights and nights and nights, he was getting somewhere. The end of the road was closer than ever, and Sam breathed deeply, hands trembling on the All Spark. It was dark, and there seemed to be fewer lights, but the moon still shown above and the pavement still glistened wetly like a thousand shattered stars. The houses slept, the vehicles remained unmoved, but when he listened closely -- The reassuring whirl-click of gears was not alone. He had the sense that there was the small Cybertronian behind him, matching him move for move as always, and just on the edge of his awareness, another. This did not disturb him, as he was more focused on the nearing end of the street. He had two ways to go when he got there, and he didn't know which one to chose. Not yet, he knew, he still had a ways to go ... but which road would he take when he got there? It was growing nearer, and he still didn't know.
"What now?" he demanded, clutching the small cube close to his chest.
Small steel hands gently pushed him onward. "Don't stop walking," the Autobot encouraged.
Progress is procession. It is in motion. Persisting is the only option.
"Things haven't been in movement for a long time," he accused.
"That will change." -- said intently, like a promise.
Change is ... in motion.
"You've never done this before," he said slyly.
"It is ... new," the Autobot agreed.
A suitable template has been located.
"Are you sure?"
"Don't worry, it's working."
The Prototype is secure. Copies will be made. Procedures are applied.
Then he stumbled, the All Spark was gone, and he was off searching for that elusive Cybertronian who mustn't see him again.
-+-
There was something that was bothering Sam. It bothered him deeply, a bad taste on his tongue. Nothing could get rid of it, it seemed. A sharp unpleasant bite of wrongness, and an aftertaste of unpalatable falseness. Miles and Mikaela were the first that he spoke of this to, when he said: "Does it ever disturb you that fast food is normally so saturated with chemicals that it couldn't decay if it wanted to?" While the other two blinked at him, he frowned at his chicken sandwich thoughtfully, then took another bite.
Getting Mikaela away from Ratchet wasn't nearly as hard as he had thought it was going to be. Really, all he had to do was ask her and she put her evil feminine wiles to work. Well, he thought she probably put her evil feminine wiles to work; it was possible she threatened to hot wire Ratchet. If Sam was a giant alien robot, that would be a good way to get him to do something, after all. He had also intentionally chosen the day that Miles had off work. It had been a while since they had all gotten together to hang out, after all, and he rather missed them sitting at Sonic and chowing down.
Naturally, he had them all go to the Mall. It was a nice compromise between the distance that Mikaela would have to travel to move from base to the town, and the least they could do was meet her half way. After all, Bumblebee was needed back at the base for a few hours at least, so they were under Arcee's watch. Well, Arcee was too small to carry three people, being a Miata, so really it was technically only Mikaela under Arcee's watch while Miles and Sam had caught a ride with Miles' mother, who wanted to run errands anyway. Of course, Sam was always ravenous, which explained how they had ended up at the food court. The noisy, grease-smelling food court with it's re-re-refried food.
Of course, upon hearing Sam's issue, Miles bit into his sandwich with over-played gusto. "Mmm!" he said loudly. "Chemicals! Radioactively good."
"This?" Mikaela said, gesturing between the two of them. "This is why I don't eat with you guys. When Sam isn't being gross and analyzing the food, you're encouraging him."
"Hey, that's not fair," the blond protested with a scowling pout. "That's what guys do. Be gross and egg each other into doing stupid stuff."
"I'll have you know I do plenty of stupid stuff on my own, without egging," Sam objected. Waiting a beat, he added, "hey, wait a minute ..."
"Why am I even here?"
"Because your engineering class is slowly turning you into an science zombie?"
"You're just jealous that I could work your car over and you can't."
Sam rolled his eyes. "You're just jealous my car likes me better than you."
"God, guys," Miles cut in. "Stop arguing over the Camaro like it's the kid of your marriage gone badly."
"It's a bit more complicated than that," Mikaela said, looking at him doubtfully.
"Because it honestly sounds complicated. It's a car, Mika."
"Bee is not just any car," Sam objected.
Miles groaned. "I get it, man. You love your car. You attack giant jocks for the sake of your car. Everyone loves your car, except people who hate yellow, and then they just wear colored shades. Dogs love your car, and birds fear it. We get it already."
"I don't think you do," Sam said mildly, calmly sucking down a smoothie he didn't think he'd normally ever touch but had a strange craving for, "but that's okay. We're all mad here."
"So," Mikaela said, "speaking of fast cars, I might be able to get my hands on an oh-two Mazda. I've been doing some work on it recently, and I've been offered a nice deal."
Sam made a questioning noise, a little baffled and wondering if she meant what he thought she meant. "The -- 'owner' is offering?"
She gave him a meaningful look. "Yup. She got in contact with the friends who are looking after it while she's out of the country, said that if things work out with me and I want, I can be the shiny new driver of a blue Miata."
"That's -- awesome," he said, and really meant it. Sort of. It also meant that Arcee would be in town a lot more often. Which in turn meant that Bumblebee would be gone more often. And while he was thrilled that Mikaela was getting a guardian, even for just a short while, he was still somewhat jealous since her life seemed to include them a lot more than his own, and he could never be completely pleased with something that ... well, he was just so used to thinking about it being Bumblebee and him. Bumblebee was the only one who'd been there fore the entirety of the escapade -- the meeting, battle, and aftermath. Sam hadn't felt the need to inflict his stupid nightmares on Mikaela -- hadn't been intending to reveal them to Bumblebee, either, but after the episode of the Transforming-squish ... well, he didn't explain them like he did that one, but it was still nice to have someone around that could guess what the nightmares were about. It was ... just all around nice to have someone to talk to like that.
They had even discussed the difference between human dreams and the robotic equivalent. Humans were largely symbolic, working off things that meant something to them; imagery and auditory hallucinations that were often nonsensical, sometimes mundane and sometimes something bad enough to wreck Stephan King's sleep. For Cybertronians, 'sleep' was actually an act of energy conservation that had little to do with exhaustion, even if they termed it 'recharge'. It was more like 'hibernating' to Sam -- most of their programs shut down and power stopped coursing through them. It allowed the ambient 'waste' energy produced by their Spark to flood the inert wires and trigger certain subprograms that sorted and filed information gathered during the active times ... sort of like a 'defrag'. It wasn't necessary, but it was undeniable that they functioned better afterwards.
Unfortunately, spark energy did more than just power specialized software or realign the alloy molecules in their wires. If their personality matrix was unbalanced, either through a severe upset of certain software programs or due to just the right external impact, then it made their spark react with instability itself. In which case it would trigger what Bumblebee called 'video feed recall' -- the silent flashbacks. Not only did having instable energy in their systems not help, but 'dreaming' also required normal power, therefore disrupting the recharge and negating most of the benefit. That was 'dreaming', which by common sense wasn't pleasant -- and then they had nightmares.
What Cybertronians equated as nightmares was when they dug into their history files and set their probability calculator to work. They came up with perfectly logical and cold reasons why some things had happened, or should have, or shouldn't. When and how many times and ways they should have died when. When their rate of survival had been less than one percent and how many times. Different ways things could have turned out worse, played out to the 0.001 percent probability.
Sam had asked why they didn't find a way to stop it. Bee explained that in order to stop it, they either had to lock their history files, or manually shut down their probability calculator. 'Bad idea' didn't even begin to cover it; with a history file locked, there was essentially no way to unlock them unless someone hacked them ... and if done without consent, it was comparable to rape. A locked history file was like amnesia.
Manually shutting down the probability calculator was equally bad. It was part of their core logic circuit, and with a part of the core offline, their logic circuit couldn't function properly, and it was hard to convince a bot to turn it back on so that they could be reasonable.
So, considering that they couldn't stop themselves from dreaming or having nightmares, Bumblebee was fairly tolerant about nightmares. Sam ... liked Bumblebee, liked having him around -- and he liked it when they were 'Sam and Bee', not ... 'Sam and when he had to be present, Bee'. Miles could make him forget the restless hiding horror deep in his chest (the fear and self-disgust he didn't know why he had), Mikaela could sooth it away and was simply so understanding that it was hard to be dejected about sharing a species with her. But it was -- different, it was better with Bumblebee. It seemed that only Bumblebee could say something that kept Chernobyl from burning, or eased the super-nova heat into the pleasant radiance of the sun from Earth's surface.
Considering his latest state of apathy, anger, and inexplicable terror of his own body ... any spot of brightness (any spot of yellow) was something to be guarded jealously.
"Yeah," Mikaela confirmed in a pleased voice before turning serious. "It seems like the owner's friend got hurt, so the deals going through the guys having me look at it. I've been seriously considering it since I've moved out."
Sam sighed, because in the end ... "I think it's a good idea," he said sincerely. "Better to keep a motor warm than let it collect dust, right?"
"Yeah," she said with a pleased smile.
"Man," Miles groaned pitifully. "My best bud has a freakin' Camaro, and you're getting a Miata -- yeah, okay, it's a girly Barbie car, but it's a lot better than a junker! This is going to suck!"
Mikaela and Sam exchanged looks. They had an advantage over poor Miles, being ... well, friends with giant alien robots that required protection or at least entertainment. That is, the humans required protection and the Autobots required entertainment. It worked out fairly well, so long as no one transformed on anyone's lawn, or pushed girls through their windows.
Once they finished with lunch, they investigated the novelty shops, and then Sam's day went to hell when they left to go home. Actually, it sort of went to hell the moment they stepped into the parking lot and Sam realized that Bumblebee had returned. Mostly because he grinned automatically at the way the clean lines were practically lit white under the sun from having such a highly glossy paint. It looked like Bumblebee was covered with a thick liquid coating like those pictures of concept cars (that he'd never looked at before he had one of his own), and he thought with fierce sincerity: 'that is one sexy car'.
Then he choked on air. This naturally lead to some violent coughing. Then he couldn't even breathe period, even with the wrenching in his throat, simply because he remembered the dreams he'd been having (cables and blue optics and the purring whirl of gears shifting).
Later, according to Miles, his face had been priceless. That caused a bit of awkwardness, because he couldn't share what had made him make the face. Miles wouldn't understand why realizing what an attractive car the Camaro was would make him look like he'd swallowed his tongue, and Mikaela ... might understand a little too well. Then she'd get all freaked out and Sam was freaking out well enough on his own, thank anyway. He'd sooner be shot than admit that instead of being normal and having a normal sort of wet dream --
Well, to be perfectly honestly, he'd rather be doubting his sanity and sexuality and things than having the usual sort of nightmare. Having that mysterious miniature protoform in his bed was a lot less horrifying that the nightmares in which he couldn't control his left arm and it went looking for his spine the hard way. Or when cables burst from his skin (or mostly his chest, like Alien), or the times his skeleton got a mind of it's own and peeled him off like a banana skin and walked away while he was left unable to move on the ground.
Ah, well. Was it any wonder why he was apathetic, angry, and terrified by his own body?
After their three-way farewell and parting, Sam made a (slightly eager) beeline toward his ride. Personal sanity and sexuality aside, damn. Shiny. The sleazy Camaro leer wasn't really helping matters any, either. Bumblebee helpfully popped open the door when Sam reached about his bumper, and he wasted little time in reaching for it.
"Jesus," he murmured, sliding into the leather seat. Even the interior was glossy and smelled ... well, it wasn't leather. After a moment, it made sense, because Bumblebee was made of metal. Why would he have genuine leather seats? He probably didn't like the smell much, either. But the black and yellow seats were glossy and soft, and the interior smelled ... really good. The only thing he could recognize was the under scent of grease, and while all the completely alien smells should alarm him, it didn't. "What happened to you? I mean, not that I'm complaining --"
"Obviously not," Bee rumbled, sounding partially amused and a little baffled. "Ratchet took the opportunity to demand some repairs and a physical, as I've been separated from a medic for several years. An extensive cleaning was part of that."
"Well, whatever he used or however he did it ... damn," Sam said. "So, anything worrisome?"
Bumblebee turned on the radio and engine. After a moment, he admitted, "No, but ..."
"But? Is there something wrong?"
"There's nothing wrong with my systems." Sam shot an incredulous look at the dashboard, and Bumblebee reluctantly admitted: "But that's the thing -- there isn't anything wrong with any part of me. Any Cybertronian over a few centuries of age always has some quirk in their gears. I'm running like a newly made protoform."
"I ... I don't get it," Sam said slowly. "Is that bad?"
"Not bad," Bee swiftly assured him. "Just ... inexplicable. A mech of my age shouldn't be running this well. It hasn't happened since Cybertron ..."
"I thought you were young for a mech?"
The engine rumbled too lowly for Sam to hear, but he felt it. "Comparatively. I'm still far past the stage of running cleanly."
"Weird," Sam commented. Cybertronian age and growth were one of those things he had to just grin and nod on. Bumblebee had tried to explain once that technically, Cybertronians don't grow, but then it came with a bunch of qualifiers that just hurt his head. It was part of the reason Ironhide was so bemused by young children. "So ... then nothing is wrong? I mean, all this sudden healthy running isn't going to crash and burn?"
"Unlike organics, we don't 'get better' just before dying," Bumblebee reassured him. "My body is in top shape, but it hasn't affected my processors, so there is little to worry about."
"Except for why, am I right?"
"Yes."
Sam relaxed at that. His mother liked to watch that House show, so Sam was a little paranoid about things seeming to be better ... or changing at all, really. It seemed like the patients on that show always just suddenly crashed and spent the entire episode appearing better only to get even worse. It was enough to get anyone freaked out. Peering out the window, he noticed that they were headed back to the same place they'd met Arcee. His chest tightened slightly, and he quickly coughed into his fist.
"Mikaela's told me that Arcee was thinking about running guardian duty for a little bit."
"She's bored," Bumblebee explained. "She enjoys fighting." He hesitated. "A lot of us do."
He wasn't sure what to do with that information. Sam wasn't much of a fighter -- he was witty and ran away. That was pretty much his job. Occasionally, he got a little too much fire and decided to delete giant evil alien robots from the Matrix like a bad virus, but that was only when he fell too far deep down the rabbit hole, thanks anyway. "Well," he said, feeling he had to make some sort of response, "I'll just have to keep that in mind, so that if any crazy fights in the city break out, I know to run like hell."
"You won't be in the middle of one of those fights again," Bee said seriously, like a promise.
"Yeah, well, you can't say that," Sam said, knowing it like he knew who his mother was. "For one -- a lot of crazy stuff happens." And for another, Bumblebee would be in it, and Sam couldn't shake the memory of the mech crawling.
"And for another?"
"A lot of crazy stuff happens," he repeated guilelessly. "So, you guys have been in contact with Elita-One?"
There was only enough of a pause to be noticeable. "Yes," Bee confirmed. "She is on Earth's moon with Chromia, who has been injured too badly to make it through Earth's atmosphere without injury. With the Decepticons still loose, Elita-One won't leave Chromia behind, but there is no way to safely get Ratchet there to repair her."
"Isn't there some way we can help? The U.S., I mean," Sam said.
"Possibly. However, Ratchet and Chromia both confirm that the injuries are minor and will heal given time. It would be more conservative to wait."
"Yeah, but what if the 'Con's find them first?"
"Chromia's injury is a simple dent that won't stop her from fighting. It would hurt to enter the atmosphere, but it would only damage her a little."
Sort of like the ice hurt Bumblebee, though it did no real appreciable damage to his body. "What about any other stragglers?"
"Elita-One is never found far from Optimus Prime," Bumblebee said, "though they rarely speak. The others are much more wide spread, trying to round up the Decepticons. Starscream might have sent out a similar message, though, so ... Earth might get rather busy pretty soon." There was a pensive tense silence. "Perhaps it would be better if we left."
"No!" Sam yelped, then flushed. "That is -- I mean, the Decepticons already know about Earth, right? Even if you left, who's to say that will mean we're safe?"
"While a valid point," Bumblebee said slowly, "You're rationalizing your own desires."
Sam grimaced at the accurate observation, and was further uncertain what to make of the neutral tone. He could almost hear some noise, feel it prickling his skin -- Bumblebee had forgotten to use human inflection. He did it so rarely that it was always a surprise when he switched back to Cybertronian inflection. "Well, sorry," he grumbled. When in doubt, act defensively. "I just -- I mean, my life's been turned upside down by everything that's happened ... but if I had to do it again, knowing what I know, I'd still want the Camaro with the custom faded paint job."
That sparked a vibration through the car frame that Sam recognized as amusement. Humor literally shook a Cybertronian's frame. "You didn't really have much of a choice by that point, Sam," Bumblebee said.
"Yeah -- well, if time travel were ever an option, I wouldn't stop old Captain Archibald from finding Megatron," he joked.
Bumblebee was quiet a moment. "That would have been a bad idea," he finally said.
It took Sam a moment to realize that Bumblebee meant that things could have probably worked out a lot worse, that he'd probably had nightmares about it. "So ... as badly as things went," he said, "it was still for the best, huh?"
"From the point of Megatron crash landing on Earth, yes. But really, there isn't any use in thinking backward like that."
Sam didn't really get it, and knew he couldn't ... but he had thought, sometimes, that maybe if he had gotten up the nerve to talk to Mikaela in junior high, or if he had taken the time that day she looked really down to ask her how she was, or -- so, he sorta understood, even if he didn't get it on the scale he has the suspicion Bumblebee was speaking on. The uselessness of backward thinking, that is. The 'what if's and 'could have been's.
They eventually arrived at the wide grassy stretch, and Sam got out to let Bumblebee transform -- which he did, strangely with the protective mask down that Sam had only seen once.
"Whoa," he said, holding up his hands flippantly, "what's up with the face guard?"
Bumblebee shifted on his feet. This in itself wasn't unusual. Bumblebee was a rather active mech, after all, nearly always in the middle of some sort of movement. The chirp that almost sounded embarrassed, and how he lifted one hand to the back of his hand? Now, that was unusual. It took less than half a second for Bumblebee to regain his moxie, so to speak, and he took a more casual pose as both halves of the mask slid back up.
"Oh," Sam said intelligently. Apparently, Bumblebee had changed his mind about upgrades and his need for them, because instead of the familiar dark metal that formed a skeletal frame and brought to mind insects, he bore intricate dull gray plates that created a very human face. Unlike Optimus Prime's it was less of a generalized mockery and even ... well. "Wow," he added, uncertain what to make of it. "That's some upgrade. Is that -- like, mask version four point oh? Because -- I mean, it looks really good."
He only now recognized the apprehensive expression because it relaxed into a more neutral look. "I'll tell Ratchet you approve," he said wryly, and wow, but Ratchet must have made improvements. The mockup moved perfectly in sync with vocalizer, nearly seamless enough for it to look ... natural, though Sam knew it had been added, not grown.
"It's a huge improvement over Optimus' prototype," Sam said as Bumblebee settled down to sit. He leaned on the Autobot's folded leg and grinned. "Much more human, less monkey."
The fact that they could construct a mask of flexible metal plates that could smile that way was amazing. "You'll have to talk to Ratchet about that. The prototype was made with only what images that could be hacked from the satellites and what I could sneak out while being watched. That was before much research was actually put into human psychology." A pensive look (this was fascinating) crossed the features, and then Bumblebee snapped back to the present. "The term he used for the mathematical construction on the new expression masks is 'Golden Ratio', which is apparently an accurate measure for human aesthetics. It made it much more simple."
"I'll take your word for it," he said with amusement. The bad thing about being friends with a centuries-or-more old robot that was connected to the Internet was that they could use all sorts of words that the average person simply didn't. "It looks good, anyway." It was new and hypnotizing, and ... well, it did change his view of Bumblebee. Not really in a good way, but not in a terribly bad way, either. It was just ... well, obviously it made the Autobot more human, which was stupid, because he wasn't. They had spent months talking about the differences between the species, both having their own trouble understand the other's culture and psychology. The human shaped mask would make it very easy to start thinking of Bumblebee as a giant human in a metal box. "So -- uh, tell me about it," he requested. "Is it strange?"
"Not as strange as it will be for Ratchet," Bumblebee said, with another one of those smiles. "Optimus and I are the best subjects for this project -- Optimus Prime has already been stripped for it, and when I was created, there were only the barest facial structures available. Ratchet, on the other hand, has a very difficult structure, and being the medic ..." He shrugged. "It's a bit different," he added, raising his hands and touching the gray plates lightly. "But I am the most familiar with humans. Your expressions and movements come to me much more easily. It was cake to write up a program to run it ... though that was also when I realized to the full extent of just how alien our cultures are to each other ..." That seemed to depress Bumblebee, the brilliant blue light in his optics dimming and his shoulders sinking.
Sam pressed his palms against the yellow plate he was resting against. He was ... good with words when trying to mock someone, but that ... mushy stuff wasn't in his repertoire. Then again, according to Mikaela, he didn't need to be as long as he could touch the bot. "Not that different," he said. "You guys feel sadness and loss -- I know that for sure. And you think things are funny, and you enjoy things like getting washed and I'm pretty sure you like music, you play it often enough. I mean, you played tricks on me, remember? That must have been fun. So -- yeah, maybe we're not completely alike, but wouldn't that just be weird anyway?"
"It would be impossible," Bumblebee acknowledged, but he didn't seem too cheered.
"Yeah, well --" Sam pushed hard on the plating out of frustration, leaning his weight into it. Bumblebee looked a little startled and fixed his attention on the relatively small human. "I don't care, okay?" he demanded. "So we're different -- I'm a short lived organic, and you're basically an immortal sentient robot alien. It's sort of expected, isn't it? But you're still my friend. We'll just ... have to make sure there aren't any miscommunications. Alright?"
The plates that formed Bumblebee's face shifted (liquid smooth) into what was an almost patronizingly indulgent look. "Alright."
"Starting," Sam said, arching his eyebrows high and pointing, "with that look right there. That one? Don't do that one." When Bumblebee looked taken aback, Sam explained. "That one is the one your parents give you when they know you're being idiotically idealistic and childish. So ... don't."
"This may end up being harder than I thought," Bumblebee said uncertainly.
"Don't worry about it," he said, leaning forward to rest his chest against the mech's leg and crossing his arms on top of it. He lowered his head to the pillow his arms made and smirked. "It's hard for a lot of people, too, and we've been doing this throughout evolution."
The fine scratched pattern on the pale gray plates caught the sunlight, but didn't throw it back in broken blinding flashes. It was kinda ... frosted, or brushed. It was ... well, Cybertronians themselves were just so fascinating. All of humanity's robots and gears were so jerky and slow and ... awkward. Unnatural. A person could think that robotic organisms would be the same -- but that wasn't true at all. Somehow, they were as fluid as water, or oil, or oil on water for that matter. Who knew that dozens of little metal plates stuck together and overlapping could form curves into a rather organic shaped face?
"Would you like to touch it?" Bumblebee asked, almost quietly, expression unreadable.
"What?" Sam asked in surprise.
Gears whispered into motion as the sixteen foot robot shifted slightly. "I have noticed that humans are a rather tactile species ..." he said, "and you've been studying this new construct. Would you like to touch it?"
That was -- okay, wow, that was weird. Very, very weird. So weird his stomach was doing weird things. Weird. But yes, he did really want to touch it. Oh, boy, did he want to touch it ... which was exactly why he wasn't. "I dunno, Bee," he said doubtfully. "That looks a little dangerous."
"I can be very still," Bumblebee promised.
Well, who could argue with logic like that? Goddamn it, he had no self-control ... which -- considering his brief courtship of Mikaela and his attack on Megatron, should have been obvious enough that he didn't realize it only now. "Hey!" he yelped as Bumblebee's metal fingers wrapped around him before he quite realized that he was even moving. "Hey! Watch that! Whoa!"
"You can't reach it from down there," Bumblebee said reasonably, and a person would think that being machine, the grip would be rough. It wasn't -- the hand was not quite enough to wrap around his waist totally, but it closed as firmly and gently as a roller coast ride's harness. After his first startled squirming, he stopped and relaxed, only grasping the thumb across his lap with both hands as he was lifted the short distance to Bumblebee's face. Up close, the frosted matte appearance was even more obvious, and from that point the only obvious question was: what would it feel like?
A few tons of machinery was as still as a statue under his hands, even though there were a dozen subtle sounds as other things continued to run. It was slightly distracting, but Sam was able to block it out, as well as the optics carefully studying him while he puzzled out the maze of metal plates. On the broad parts on the face were the wider bands, and on the more moveable parts of the face -- the mouth, and the area around there -- were constructed of many much smaller plates.
"It's gonna be hard to get used to this," he finally decided, casting a look up into the empty Arctic blue optics. He took his hands off of the intricate dull gray mask and wrapped his hands around the slick silver alloy of Bumblebee's thumb.
"For both of us," Bumblebee acknowledged, bringing up his other hand just to cup it around Sam's back. He leaned back into the hand automatically, without thought, trying to take in the whole difference in the Autobot's appearance.
"And everyone will be getting one?" he asked.
"I'm sure Ironhide will complain," Bee said, the sunlight hitting glowing lines in his sly smile. "Optimus Prime may have to order him into compliance ..."
Sam snickered at the image that gave him. He savored it until something Arcee said came to mind, and he frowned slightly. "And all of this is being done so we'll ... relate to you?"
Two of his fingers pressed a little into his back, sliding slightly. "You've noticed how skilled we are at shape shifting, right?"
"Well -- yeah. I mean, you put all of these little pieces of armor together and make a car."
Bumblebee nodded. "Transforming is a very basic code within us. It pervades every line of data in our processors. It's what we do, like ... breathing to us."
"Like it's in your DNA," Sam said, "or -- or whatever it is you have. Deoxo -- well, anyway, I think I get it."
"It's a psychological need for us to blend in. Since we clearly can't blend in very well due to our size, it was fairly inevitable that we would attempt to change our shape. Ironhide is stubborn, of course ... and it will take time to reconfigure our hasty arrangement of armor into something more agile, but it would be possible within a few decades."
"Decades? I thought you were excellent mimics," he teased, smiling.
"Even a dedicated mimic needs time," Bumblebee said tolerantly. Sam inhaled sharply in surprise when he began moving, but he was only being lowered to the ground. Bumblebee's thumb withdrew from across his lap, and he slid off the Autobot's palm, landing a little unsteadily on his feet.
"It's getting dark," he observed, both from the low position of the sun and his own nearing exhaustion. Around six, he became tired, and with every passing hour, it increased exponentially.
"Do you wish to return?"
He reflected dryly on the turn his dreams had taken. The All Spark dreams used to be an oasis, but recently they were always interrupted with either the nightmare of something inside of him tearing out, or he ended up chasing a Cybertronian who didn't exist only to find a protoform in his bed. "No, not really," he decided grimly.
" ... but you must."
Sam glanced over his shoulder at Bumblebee, who was studying him. After a moment, he decided that his sentence was being finished, not that he was being given a command. "Well, yeah," he agreed. If he didn't, he'd fall asleep anyway. "I'm just not eager to, that's all."
"Because you've been sleeping restlessly."
He turned around to look at Bee closer. Though the nightmares were a constant, he hadn't realized that he'd been behaving in ways that made it obvious. "I guess not. How'd you know?"
Bumblebee shrugged. "Sometimes I don't recharge at night -- there are ... things that keep my processors too busy, sometimes. I hear you toss and turn in your bed."
Cheeks warming with humiliation -- the revelation that the secret horrors that visited his sleep weren't as secret as he thought -- he looked away, squinting at the hot fiery colors of the sun. "Sorry. I -- ah, didn't know I was bothering you."
Bumblebee made an absentminded electrical croon as he shifted a little. "Samuel --" at the look Sam cast over his shoulder, Bee amended it: "Sam. I understand that there are things that you wish to keep private -- I have many of these things myself, but if you want to share them, I am willing to listen."
"You're kidding, right?" Sam sighed, physical exhaustion catching up to his mental and emotional fatigue. "Bee -- you already play a chauffeur, you don't want to be my therapist. You really don't. Trust me, I should know. I live in here," he said, tapping his head.
"My offer is sincere," Bumblebee said, refusing to take the out, or let Sam have it for that matter. Sam would have pouted, but his nightmares were serious business and no mocking matter.
"It's just stupid nightmares," he said dismissively. "They've gotten better." Which was sadly truthful. He had gone from Silent Hill type horror to only Matrix level horror (he winced every time they brought up that whole 'plugging into the back of the head' thing).
"Alright," he said reluctantly. As Sam yawned, he stumbled back to make room for the shifting Autobot who merely rolled over, breaking into a thousand pieces that finally settled with a snap and a slight rocking on his wheels as a Camaro. The driver's door popped open and he reluctantly approached the car, sliding into the familiar interior.
While he had always planned on keeping his stupid nightmares to himself (just as he kept everything that wasn't all that obvious to himself), Bumblebee just admitted to knowing that he'd been having trouble sleeping. And if he already knew, then why was Sam still keeping his half-secrets? That plagued him for several silent moments while Bumblebee drove (careful as ever) down the steadily darkening road. Why would a giant alien robot care what he dreamed about?
Then he wondered if he was asking himself the wrong question. A giant alien robot wouldn't care about what he dreamed about -- but a friend would.
"Do you," he blurted out, only just remembering not to touch the windows, "I mean ... well, if you really want to know --?"
"I do," Bee interrupted him, voice intent.
Oh. Well. In that case ... "Okay," he said, clearing his throat and ignoring that familiar warmth, "I've been having these nightmares lately ..."
-+-
Sam stumbled into the dark bathroom, having woken from that stupid wet-dream-gone-wrong. Only, it had gone really wrong that time, because it was the start of the dream and he still went walking with the All Spark and the Autobot only it turned into the falling dream after which Optimus Prime asked him what had he done. Sam did not need a combination dream, thanks anyway. He was already on his way to a break down.
He didn't bother turning on the light in the bathroom, since that would only blind him and make it harder to get back to sleep. He stumbled around for a moment in the darkness, then cast a wary look at the mirror, still remembering all of those junior high ghost stories about Bloody Mary and doppelgangers trapped in glass --
and his heart thundered painful under his chest and his skin prickled so suddenly it hurt and he had been dunked in the Antarctic ocean because in the mirror was more than just the black shadow of himself -- a pair of blue optics were staring at him.
Sam threw himself violently at the light switch, thinking of nightmares and Frenzy-who-couldn't-die and slammed it on so hard that the switch broke off, spinning around as he strained to hear the whirl-click of moving 'bot.
But the bathroom was empty, so he looked where he saw it but only he was looking back, hazel eyes wide and pupils barely pinpricks of terrified black.
-+-
He had sat on the edge of his bed all night, feeling odd tingles shoot up and down his arms and through his body. It felt kind of like he had pulled a whole network of muscles when he had gotten terrified in the bathroom, a whole webbing of pain that jerked and tingled and made his fingers twitch slightly. For long hours, he had just sat there, staring at his blank computer, thinking ... thinking. What could be wrong with him?
Seeing optics in the mirror -- that was the last straw. He could handle nightmares and Chernobyl and sleeping and eating and all of that. He could handle strange All Spark dreams and Arcee and mustering his courage to remind Bumblebee that he was only human and whatever else came his way. He could handle all of that, but when he started ... seeing things, not just catching movements out of the corner of his eye ...
Well, that was too much. He had two possible answers to what was wrong with him, and he wasn't very excited by either of them.
The first possibility was that there was something terribly wrong with him -- more than just Chernobyl in his chest, which was not unlike having a heart attack. That ... there was something ... that his brain ... that he might even be dying. Now. Not later, not due to a knife in the back, but that he was somehow dying already.
The second possibility was that he really was going mad, and should be put down like a rabid dog. Well, he'd rather be put down and not put into an insane asylum. One Witwicky had already been wrongly imprisoned and died in one. He didn't want to be the second ... even if his term was more just.
Either way, he had to ... he had to tell someone. They were both loathsome options -- and ... and he had to tell someone. It just .. made sense to make that someone Bumblebee. Bumblebee would be able to put the situation in perspective (hopefully), and tell him whether or not he was dying or going mad (or both).
In either case, that was why he left the house slouching and was reluctantly approaching the yellow robot parked in the drive. He reached out for reassurance, running his fingers along the seam of the hood. It was amusing the few times he managed to sneak up on the Autobot. Apparently, Bumblebee set up his scanners and then proceeded to check out the Internet human style sometimes, and Sam (being human for one and familiar for another) had surprised the bot once or twice.
This wasn't one of those times, the metal warm beneath his fingers and vibrating just enough that he could feel it. It zinged up his arm like bottled lightning and his pinky and a muscle in his arm twitched, even though it didn't hurt. He pulled the open door wide and slipped inside uncomfortably. For a bit of reassurance, he gripped the steering wheel and pretended to check out the speedometer. Bumblebee allowed him to get away with that for nearly ten minutes before he spoke up.
"Is there somewhere you wish to go?"
"Er, not exactly," Sam said tentatively. "I -- um, this is one of those things that I'd rather not speak about ... but first, who should I talk to about ... weird side effects of alien radiation?"
Bumblebee was silent for a moment. Then he turned on the engine abruptly and jerked out of the driveway, going fast enough that for a panicked moment, Sam thought there were Decepticons after them. The fancy electric seatbelt trapped him to the seat, and Sam was left gripping at it in alarm.
"Bumblebee?" he demanded, checking the outside and trying to judge whether or not they were going to be caught by cops.
"Please hold on, Sam," Bumblebee said tensely as they took another corner. "Ratchet's going to offline me as it is, and Optimus Prime will ban me from life."
"I'm holding on!" he yelped as they didn't managed to quiet stay on the road, then repeated the sentence to make sure it got through to the Autobot, even as he hysterically contemplated that it was possible Bumblebee was entertaining himself with the Internet way too much if he was worried Optimus Prime would 'ban' him from life. "Where are we going and why are we getting there so quickly?" he shrieked.
Bumblebee didn't answer for a moment, which was a good warning that Sam wouldn't like the answer. "One week after Mission City, the amount of radiation you had was negligible. The sort of radiation we and the All Spark produce is completely harmless to organics, it doesn't even induce nausea or raise chances for cancer, there was no reason to be concerned ..." He seemed to be trying to reason with himself. "It must have increased so slowly --"
"Increased? What? Where?" Sam demanded, somewhat hysterically. He felt he had the right, considering that Bumblebee was hardly staying calm.
"Please remain calm," Bumblebee said tensely. "The radiation should have faded. You are currently producing enough radiation to make Sector Seven -- were it still in existence -- seizure with joy."
Sam let that sink in for about three streets, then swallowed hard. "I think I'm going to throw up," he informed the talking car.
"This is likely a reaction to stress," Bee informed him, the grinding of metal just barely discernable and promising that he was just as strung out over the entire thing as Sam. Therefore, Sam politely swallowed again and practiced the ancient human martial art of denial.
The rest of the trip was spent alternately staring blankly and trying to figure out what could possibly be wrong with him. Maybe the radiation had seriously impacted his brain ... it would certainly explain all of the weird dreams and his problems in general. Sure, All Spark radiation might not cause nausea (obviously not, he'd been eating like a bottomless pit) or instigate cancer, but that didn't mean it wouldn't seriously affect how a person's brain worked. That could easily explain great grandfather Archibald, and maybe it was just his turn to spend some time in an insane asylum.
Upon arriving at the Autobots' hideout, Sam slid calmly out of the car and waved jauntily at the green-yellow mech waiting for them. Before Bumblebee had even finished transforming back to his more natural form, Ratchet had picked Sam up and was stalking off toward the medical bay, scanning him the entire time.
"Wow, okay, this is rude," he said conversationally.
"He's in shock," Bumblebee chimed in fretfully from some feet below. As Ratchet was holding Sam up at head-level, the ground was a long way down and Bee wasn't nearly as tall as Ratchet.
"He's nearly doubled his weight, Bumblebee!" Ratchet apparently found something he didn't like and sighed heavily. "This is definitely going to have to be brought before Prime ... sooner, rather than later."
"It's not Bumblebee's fault," Sam objected, frowning.
"Sam, you've doubled your weight," Ratchet repeated, as if he were being slow. "Granted, some allowance could be made for strength, an increase like that is hardly noticeable to our higher processors -- if you put it on slow enough, it's perfectly logical that it could go unnoticed -- but when Bumblebee asked to guard you, I thought I could rely on him!" Bumblebee made a whining grinding noise while Ratchet's optics did strange things as he scanned Sam. "It looks as though it's nearly all mineral deposits ... your bones have altered remarkably in structure ... uh oh."
"That doesn't sound good," Sam said reasonably.
"What's 'uh oh'?" Bumblebee demanded, an undercurrent of straining metal trembling up from below Sam.
Ratchet sighed, both audibly and by blowing air across his complex inner components, where all the vital things were. "You aren't going to like this, but it appears that Sam's entire digestive track, as well as his respiratory system has been altered ... significantly. It appears these changes are old ... "
"Sam had a sore throat for nearly a week after I got him home," Bumblebee offered as they stepped inside the medical bay. It was fairly obvious that it had been reworked ... normal automatic parts lay everywhere, as well as cables and wires (he shivered). There was a platform as well, large enough for even Optimus Prime to lay on.
"I think that for now it would be safe to say that these ... alterations have been for the purpose of collecting materials to rework his entire structure; there are heavy mineral deposits in your bones and organs. There appear to be special organs grown solely for storing them, but there also appears to be a metal ... his skin is well on it's way to developing similar structures ... Sam, Cybertronians regularly grow in such a manner, collecting elements from the air and altering it's composition into something we can add to our frame, or use it to heal our armor."
Sam remained quiet for a moment while he absorbed all of that information. "What?" he inquired, thinking he had perhaps heard that wrong. Just to make certain, he repeated himself: "What was that?" Then he realized that there was no way that sentence could have made sense if he heard it wrong -- so he must have heard right. "No! No, no, no, it doesn't work like that!" he shrieked. Both Autobots winced, and Ratchet gently tumbled Sam out of his palm and onto the table. It was terribly rude, and he didn't much care for the way Bumblebee immediately plucked him up and set him on his feet, either.
"Can't you do something, Ratchet?" Bumblebee demanded hovering over Sam while Ratchet moved away to find something. "You know this isn't good!"
"I don't know," Ratchet said heavily. "I'm trying to figure that out."
"Bumblebee," Sam hissed. "I thought I was going insane, not -- being taken over by alien technology!"
The car alarm squeaked several times, as if it kept trying to go off but Bumblebee kept stopping it. Ratchet turned quickly, optics narrowed in clear agitation. It was only at this point that Sam realized that Ratchet must have been working on stripping the outer structure on his face to attach the expression mask. Of course, no Cybertronian really needed to use his face to get his emotion across, because the loud and rapid clicking and whirling was a clear indication of agitation.
"You!" Ratchet shouted, pointing at Bumblebee. "Get out of my med bay!"
"But Sam --"
Ratchet picked up the largest piece of automotive miscellany at hand and lifted it threateningly. It was a bit fascinating to watch two relatively large 'bots move so quickly. Sam had seen them often enough that he was accustomed to the graceful dancer like moves -- but they usually had an air of ... well, heft and weight, like several tons of large creature moving. Not so in a fight, but Sam had forgotten since Mission city, so the sudden scuffle that broke out when Ratchet set to the task of chasing Bumblebee from the room, possibly after bashing his head in, was very fascinating. They moved so quick!
Bumblebee did manage to escape without injury, but not without playing the part of the car alarm that Sam was sure still meant 'up yours'. He didn't know if he should laugh or run for his life.
Ratchet huffed, lowering his 'club' and turning back to the sorta-human in the room. "Now, then," he said, setting it lightly aside and approaching him. "I'll have to perform several tests on you, Sam. Don't worry; with Mikaela here, I've had plenty of opportunity to learn more about your species, so none of this should be ... weird. Bumblebee said that you had a sore throat after Mission City?"
"Er, yeah," Sam said, rubbing his arm and giving it doubtful looks. If his bones were metal, that meant they were struts, and if they were struts -- would they peel him off and walk away? "Actually, I pretty much had one shortly after the battle -- but I don't know, I thought it was because I inhaled a lot of dust."
"It's possible that was part of it, Sam," Ratchet assured him.
"Ratchet," he said tensely, "I thought I was going insane like my great grandfather. What does this mean? Is it going to -- to kill me, or take me over, or what? Am I going to be a ... a cyborg?"
The distant aspect to Ratchet's optics disappeared as he visibly stopped scanning Sam for a moment. He hesitated, then said, "Sam, I don't know ... nothing like this has ever happened before. Cybertron's wildlife was as metal as we are, but organics such as yourself have been in contact with the All Spark ... all those years at Sector Seven ... there were no abnormalities in their bodies or their brains. Whatever is happening to you is singular ... but on the other hand, I am a rather good medic, so if anyone could figure it out, that should be me. I will do my best to help you, Sam. It'll help if you tell me everything that has changed."
"A ... alright," he said slowly. "Well, I've been sleeping a lot, and eating way more than I should -- I guess that was part of the whole collecting mineral process, huh?"
"It's very likely," Ratchet confirmed. "It appears that the structures in your lungs that allow oxygen to attach to the hemoglobin in your blood has been duplicated -- and altered -- in your digestive track. I hypothesize that very little of the nutrients you've consumed have gone to waste. Normally the human body isn't very efficient ... it appears that does not hold to yours."
Sam grimaced with discomfort. His 'digestive track' was not exactly something he wanted to discuss with a giant robot, doctor or not. "I don't know if it's related, but I've had a lot of nightmares -- and they all feature the All Spark. I mean, it made sense, you know? It's this amazing ... giant cube. It was the Cybertronian ... mother, of everyone. It made sense to be a little focused on it, so I didn't think it was that weird. I mean, it's not always nightmares, this last month, but ... anyway. That, and sometimes I get really angry, and it feels like ... well, I think of it as Chernobyl. It doesn't happen all the time, but I ... definitely never felt like that before."
Ratchet made a thoughtful sound, and Sam winced and decided not to ask. He wasn't sure he could hear it right now.
"That, and ... the food I eat ... I don't think I really taste it anymore. I'm ... too busy thinking about how old the food is and how much of it is really organic or not. That could just be psychosomatic --"
"It's not," Ratchet said.
"Oh," he said blankly. "Um, okay." He bit his lip for a moment. "That's pretty much the only things I've noticed. You said I doubled in weight?" At the affirmative he received, he was quick to object. "That's impossible!" Sam said, shaking his head and waving his arms as if to chase the thought away. "I would have noticed --"
"Not necessarily," Ratchet said, and it wasn't quiet obvious if he was hedging or just being off-hand and distracted.
"Yes, necessarily!" he said a little hysterically, waving his arms some more for good measure. One of these times, it would work, he was sure. "I should be sore as hell, if moving at all!" Well, yes, he had been a little achy, but it was not a strange 'achy'. All teenagers were used to feeling achy, especially if there had been any growth spurts recently -- but he should have noticed all that weight!
"Only approximately one hundred pounds of the weight is in mineral and metallic substance," Ratchet said, giving him a sever look before he returned to scanning. "The extra weight that makes it double is in muscle mass."
Sam gave him an incredulous look.
"Hmm, nice expression, I'll have to add that one," Ratchet said absently while Sam was distracted with molesting himself to find this supposed muscle mass he had put on. Ratchet continued on the subject at hand, possibly with the incredibly ill-conceived idea that more information would make it better. "Simply put, your healing has been accelerated. As quickly as the strain from carrying the weight tears the muscle, it's healed."
Halting his self-examination, he ogled the giant robot. "Oh god," he said faintly. "I'm Wolverine?"
Ratchet cross-referenced that and scoffed. "I seriously doubt it'll stay that way. You don't have 'mutant powers'." A few thoughtful clicks, and then Ratchet continued. "You know about cloning, correct? Then you've heard about Dolly the Sheep?"
"Of course," he confirmed, a little hysterically. What, was he going to pull some ... weird mirror thingy and split in half and then there'd be two of him?! He wasn't ready to begin living a twisted version of some scifi sitcom!
"Then you should know about cell age."
Well, that wasn't a 'you're going to give fission to a clone'. "Cell what?" he inquired, a little calmer.
Ratchet sighed. "Organics, such as yourself, have cells that divide. Alloys don't, that's why Cybertronians live until we're deactivated. Cell age is how many times a cell can divide -- the more times it has, the weaker and less sturdy the structure is. That's what aging is -- the cells have divided as much as they can while remaining stable enough to support life. Healing requires an elevated cell division rate. The more cells split, the quicker they age ... that's why there is so much problem with clones. They are created with cells that already have an age. Therefore, the 'new' animal is prematurely aged."
" ... so you're saying that because I'm regenerating so quickly to be able to haul around this extra weight, I'm also aging prematurely."
"Precisely."
Sam swooned for a moment, but didn't actually black out or throw up, though either one of those sounded like a good idea to him. He couldn't even cry.
" ... perhaps you should rest?"
"There's more, isn't there?" he demanded weakly.
"Sam, your life signs are becoming more erratic than I think is strictly safe."
"But you don't know, do you!" he snapped. "Because -- I'm a -- a freak, something's taking over my body, there's something wrong with me!"
"We don't know that for certain," Ratchet said tensely. "Just because you are no longer human, doesn't mean you're a 'freak'. We don't know if something is 'taking over your body', and until I do more, I don't know if there is something wrong with you."
"I'm growing metal," he shrieked, "I think it's pretty obvious that isn't right!"
Ratchet stepped back and put his hands on his hips, looking something like an angry mother, which wasn't the sort of visual Sam exactly needed. "If you can't control yourself, I'll put you in stasis until I figure this out!"
And as weirded out, freaked out, and frightened as Sam was, Chernobyl wasn't burning and he could control himself to a certain extent. With a groan, he rubbed his face, sighing and generally making a production of despair. "Alright, alright," he said, "can I even be put in stasis? Wait. Don't answer that. Whatever. There's more, isn't there?"
" ... yes," Ratchet said grudgingly. "There's more. Your body is riddled with ... energy patterns. Nothing is conducting it besides your own water-filled cells ... so it shouldn't have such a steady or intricate structure. It's definitely following a pathway ... which means that the energy is flowing in such a pattern for a reason. The point is, it all originates from your central nervous system."
Central nervous system -- it had been two years since biology, as he took it his freshman year, but -- oh crap, wasn't that his spinal cord? "What the hell is it doing there?" he demanded, sucking desperately for air.
"It's been there, Sam," Ratchet said. "Since Mission City. The human nervous system communicates through it's own electrical impulses. It's ... it should have shorted you out, or put you in a coma. You should be ... brain dead from over stimulation. An organic brain isn't meant to handle that level of input."
"Then why haven't I?" he demanded. It was possible he wasn't actually accepting any of this information. He was much too calm to be hearing that he was a zombie.
"It's managing that as well," Ratchet said stiffly. "I don't think you've been sensing the world in a human matter for well over two months now. You've been running entirely off of this energy. On the bright side, it's fully converted your central nervous system into alloy, so there isn't any concern about it destroying the cells it's inhabiting."
And -- well, that was pretty much all Sam really remembered.
-- To Be Continued --
- SURPRISE, MOTHERS! We finally have "OMG WTF IM METAL"!Sam. R U HAPPAI NAO? (BTW, lots of lying in this chapter. Both from Sam and Ratchet.) I may be as happy about having reached this point as you guys! (a lot of you were very impatient)
- Sam's episode in the bathroom was just his mind playing tricks on him. That was NOT Gateway, Frenzy, or even Sam's own eyes.
- Thought I'd explain that while Bumblebee's got some really good scanners and sensors, they aren't good enough to pick up pheromones. He's a scout, not a 'healer'. As a matter of fact, I'm not too sure of the logic behind Ratchet even knowing the meaning behind the pheromones Sam was emitting. Technically, Ratchet's a mechanic, not a doctor (dammit, Jim!). It doesn't make much sense for him to know or even learn anything about organics, since HAVE YOU SEEN THE SIZE OF HIM? Even OUR doctors sometimes go, "This work is too delicate for our tools, Jim!"
That said, Ratchet does have scanners that 'x-ray' through Cybertronian alloy. If it can go through metal, it can go through humans. Re Cell Growth: being a mechanic, I'm sure he researched our technological advances so he knew what he could borrow to help fix up his people. We're so cell-happy that I don't see how he could research our technology without learning about cells.
- See, Sam and Bee would have gotten there even without Sam turning into an Autobot! Actually, Sam turning into an Autobot really slowed their progress down.