Conceptions - 9

[meicailya]

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, 9

Chapter Nine: Jacked Up

(There was a monster under his skin.)

His breaths were harsh and loud and echoing in the porcelain and cement-concrete bathroom, acoustics grasping the sound of his own hissing air and the flat rubber snap of his shoes on the floor. The fluorescent light was old and flickering, white-white-gray-flicker-crackle-snap-white. He was pale and haunted in the mirror, stark in the colorless monochrome and the light flicker-crackle-snapped overhead. Dim-bright-dim-bright-dim-bright. He set trembling hands to the cold-cold white painted sink and they looked so frail and bony (but he knew the truth because there was a monster beneath).

His eyes were too dark and his tanned skin was flour-powder-pale under the burnt shades and he had dark green-kissed shadows around his too-dark eyes. His cheeks were hollow and his face was sharp and his breath hissed and quickened as he searched (for what was underneath what was taking him over) but there was nothing but him in the mirror (and it was a damn fucking lie).

The room twirled teasingly and the echo was a dull roar and his head swam so he shut his mouth and bent over the sink to press his forehead (ever so gently) against the cold ceramic sink for a while, fingers pressing into the unyielding structure and he shut himself up so that there was only the bright-crackle-white beneath the night of the sky in his eyes and no other noise at all. (No other noise but the snap-crackle and he strove to be as empty as the empty echoing cement room hollow cold lifeless and still and he tried to be notthere don't breathe don't move notthere empty lifeless not -- until he felt as still and lifeless and cold as the synthetic gray and white cold dead matter all around him like a cocoon made of ashes of burnt people burnt bones his own body cremated in Chernobyl's fires.)

When he finally (slowly) straightened, he was disappointed he couldn't (see through the lie see optics instead of brown lie liar lie and where does that get you fake monster mask?) brush his hair, make himself look a little more presentable (but what did it matter, really?). With a swift move, he pulled his sweater off over his head, following it with his shirts, tossing them carelessly about (because it didn't matter who felt the heat boiling off of the thing in his chest because it was him). Then he turned on the faucet, picked up the jar next to the sink up, and began to fill it. The water was cold, but he didn't care.

He bent over the sink, pouring another jar of water over the back of his head, shivering and tense and gasping as it rain down around his ears and poured off his face, running over his eyes and dribbling off the tip of his nose.

(freak)
-+-
Three days. (One-two-three, one-two-three ... waltz ... waltz ... step-step-pause.) It took three days before Sam was truly lucid again -- or so Bumblebee had informed him when he had asked. (three days in the dark but for the polite headlights on Bumblebee's chest and two glowing blue optics in the dark.) Staying in a hanger with no one but Bumblebee and little light (and burning with fever from a Chernobyl that was not so fictional as he'd thought). Bumblebee was helpful, though, even as Sam was living one of his nightmares, and was trying to claw off his own skin on occasion, trying to get rid of the monster inside of him before it could peel off him (body horror, Ratchet explained, was a fairly normal human psychological response. It was both a primal fear, and a natural response to a body-invader, which was how Sam unconsciously perceived his own altered organs). He didn't associate it with the Autobots, though ... not as Ratchet had feared. (Foolish thought why would he blame them they only lead him to it and made him hold it and then he killed Megatron with it.)

Three days of being isolated in a room but for a talking Camaro, and Sam couldn't decide if he'd actually became lucid, or if the thing living in his spine was simply controlling his responses again. But he liked to rest against Bumblebee's yellow hood, ears tickling with the subsonic vibrations that was the Cybertronian equivalent of a calming hand on the shoulder, feeling the worry and insecurity and concern in the magnetic field that the Autobot produced uncontrollably. Apparently, the field could be compared to human pheromones in that respect.

(He was such an idiot.)

Of course, he spent the first day he was lucid talking to Bumblebee and trying to reassure the Autobot that it wasn't his fault for failing to notice that Sam was putting on weight that wasn't equal to his body mass, or that he was hearing the Cybertronian inflections a little too well, or that humans weren't that capable of communicating through the energy fields. Though Ratchet confirmed that while the changes were comparatively sudden, it would have been just as equally hard to sense them without looking for them. It was a sensory flaw, and even if they had caught it earlier, Sam's kidnapping by Sector Seven had sealed his fate. Ratchet had managed to pin down the exact time it was too late to evacuate the energy in Sam's spine, which was five hours after the battle. At that point, the cells in Sam's spine were essentially irreversibly corrupted and to deprive the cells of the energy would have killed Sam.

Therefore, Sam explained reasonably, it was entirely Sector Seven's fault, and while he already had a personal vendetta against them, it had just gotten really personal.

(It was only in the quiet when he's alone that Sam was a little shaky about it. The monster beneath his flesh. He hated it. itsgoingtopeelhimoffandleavehimbehindandnonewillknowthedifference.)

"Ratchet wants to see you in the med bay," Bumblebee said softly.

"Tough on him," Sam said, still studying the inflamed gouges on his skin from where his nails had bit deeply before he'd been stopped. He sighed and tugged his shirt back into place, leaning back against the warm alloy. Four days of being around one another nonstop, and yet ... he didn't particularly want Bumblebee to go away. Not even if it were to trade places with Mikaela or anything. A part of him was still self-conscious enough to hope that Bumblebee wasn't feeling burdened by having spent so much time with him with only breaks for Sam to wonder off and have psychotic fits in the restroom.

(Ha! He still had a sense of humor. That was a relief.)

Other than yesterday, they hadn't spoken a word to one another. For his part, he hadn't been lucid enough to talk, and Bumblebee informed him that he was remaining 'in the loop' through radio communications with the others. Once Sam had come around (through denial; it was an effective coping mechanism, he discovered -- denying, of course, that he had used the same method often in the past), there was damage control to be done. Bumblebee had somehow convinced himself that it was his fault and that just wouldn't do.

(Sam or the humans, Sam or the humans -- that's what it came down to and Sam knew that the victory of his motto was not always his victory.)

Ratchet had taken care of his parents and Mikaela, who took care of Miles, it seemed. His parents had been informed that Sam had some very important things to do with the Autobots, and since he was their ward, his parents really had no claim to him (Sam hoped desperately that Ratchet had not actually said that, but considering what he knew of the medic, he had said worse than that). Mikaela had been informed that it was Sam's business whether or not to tell her, and that he was going through a hard time and to have patience (which was such a Bumblebee thing to say that Sam knew he must have called the girl himself).

What she had told Miles was so far unknown, but Sam had a shiver of apprehension every time he thought about it. She had learned well from being around them how to be so utterly serious when saying something outlandish ...

"Sam," Bumblebee said reluctantly, drawing his attention from trying to feel the difference in his hands. "I know what Ratchet wants to talk to you about."

He craned his head around to study Bee's expression before he returned to bending his hands. "I don't want to know," he said flatly.

Metal fingers settled gently on his shoulder, the palm against his back. No pressure, just the massive precision of processors calculating the exact distance and holding the position effortlessly. "You don't need to do this, yet." Bumblebee withdrew his hand again.

Yet. (What was he -- metalmonsterhuman? His brain was metal, what he thought with -- his body not his own. What made a human human, because he certainly didn't feelthinklive any differently. "... do you think they have souls?" his mother asked, and echo from his memory, and he remembered with such surety saying: "Of course.") His breath was steady, but he felt the web of apprehension trembling under his skin (next to his bones) like a spider plucking at silk inquisitively. He watched his fingers twitch, the fluid-as-ever(like liquidwateroil) movement of his joints as he clenched a fist. (It doesn't work any differently, it still tastes like salt and smells like flesh and it prickles into gooseflesh under icy cold water but his body isn't his anymore and he didn't know when he lost it and that makes it worse.)

(Who was Sam Witwicky anymore?)

He wiggled his toes inside his sneakers, then asked, "what is it that Ratchet wants to talk about?" His voice sounded hollow and flat to his ears, as if he were wrapped in cloth and there was nothing for it to echo off of to give it character.

" ... Sooner or later, Ratchet must tap into your network," Bumblebee said. "The theory is that you must have software running the conversion. To do that ... will require a human doctor, to physically connect you to a transmitter and receiver."

Sam stilled, listening to his breathing (in. Out. In. Out.) and the rush-rush of blood through his ears. In. Out. In. Out. His fingertips left his temple, where he had been tracking the beating of his heart. "Well," he said briskly, standing. (A quiet unseen tremble through his body as he remembered it was not his. And if it wasn't his then what did it matter if someone cut it open and attached things to not-his-body or took him away and took him apart just to see what made him tick. It was nothisbody.) "If it's gotta be sooner or later, we might as well start talking now ... I mean, it's sped up, right? It's not like I have much of a choice."

That earned him one of Bumblebee's odd little sympathetic noises, and then the two of them began to navigate their way to Ratchet's building. Outside seemed too harsh, suddenly -- the sun too bright, the air too dry, too wide too empty and the sky stretched overhead in a blank blue imitation of the night time vacuum that heralded we are not alone -- they are here, the enemy.

(Time was fluid, as the mechanical aliens he walked with -- immortal, but everything changes in a matter of seconds. An expedition become an alien discovery became a teenage boy buying a car that was really a robot became a fight for survival and the right of his planet to live became a scream of defiance and falling -- becomes the loss of self. Timeless things that changed in an instant --

Don't blink or you'll miss it.

Four days. Everything had changed.)

(It's 'Witwicky' he used to say and what did it matter but that Witwicky changed everything and everything changed him.)

"I'm surprised to see you today, truthfully," Ratchet grumbled as they entered the room. He carelessly plucked Sam up and set him on the table, then cast Bumblebee an evil ugly look when the yellow mech dared to make a disagreeably noise. "And you keep your mouth shut," he threatened. "One word out of you and I block up your vocals so tightly you'll spend another thousand years mute!"

"What was that?" Sam asked sharply, a familiar flicker of Chernobyl kindling in his chest. He felt tense and hollow and empty (and mechanical and he understood Chernobyl better than ever before -- the blood tried to cool it, but it was a closed circuit and while it burned a meltdown was inevitable); this was what he was (a mechanical man, like a superhero but heroes are fake). A flicker of cold terror froze Chernobyl in his chest, and he finished wry, no power to keep his venom: "All due respect, doc, but you shouldn't poke the things with cannons."

Ratchet scoffed at him. "You shouldn't poke Megatron, either."

(His ears ringing, the room too-too empty, and the awkward silence as the words sunk into his brain.) "I know that." Voice a little too loud, too bright. (Nothing to know but that; it's because of that --)"Com'n, look where it got me."

All three nodded sagely at that before moving on with business. "The simplest way to do this would to be a quick and clean implant. With both the central nervous system and the implant in question being alloy, it shouldn't take much invasive work. We have to do it soon, as well, as at the conversion's current sped, your spinal bones will fully converted into alloy, and that would make things ... difficult. You might not respond to anesthesia, and there isn't any telling when you might develop a manner of entering stasis, so it would be painful."

Sam thought this over for a bit, then blinked at Ratchet. "You want to implant a jack in my spine."

"Actually," Ratchet said, "I'll be implanting a socket for a jack in your spine."

More staring. Still more staring. Sam continued to stare and didn't have any plan to stop staring. He was pretty much singularly unimpressed with the proposal, needless to say. While Ratchet and Sam seized each other up, Bumblebee looked back and forth between them as if there was some sort of actual activity to observe. Finally, Sam's left eyebrow slid ever-so-slowly up his forehead until it was arched very prominently. "Ratchet," he said slowly, "no offense, but this thing has converted my body like crazy using normal Earth minerals. I didn't even know Earth minerals could be converted into Cybertronian alloy!" His point made (he had a point? Other than Hell No?), he crossed his arms and glowered.

"Only a Cybertronian could do so," Ratchet huffed. "Otherwise, the humans would have been using it and creating little Frankenstein monsters along with the stolen technology."

"Yeah, about that ... sorry, and gross. Though, technically this means that it would be ... Simmonstein monsters."

" ... human humor ... anyway, Sam, I don't need to remind you that since we've discovered it, it's picked up the pace even more? I don't think the implant will really affect much. I made them myself, and I've found a surgeon. Not only will you be awake for the procedure, there won't be any pain, and it would be fairly easy to break down and relocate the alloy, should the energy signature decide. You won't be walking around with sockets permanently there, if that is what bothers you."

"No, poking the energy signature is what bothers me. You poked it enough with your scanners, and got it a little anxious. I don't even want to know what would happen if you try talking to it. What if you insult it?" Bumblebee made an agreeable chirp, which was apparently not a noise and therefore not a violation of the agreement. Was there any reason to wonder why Sam just grinned and nodded most of the time when they started talking?

Ratchet huffed, and Sam watched in mild fascination. While Ratchet had managed to affix a (much paler) expression mask to his face -- having to reconfigure not only his facial structure but his overall helmet as well -- and it was still neat to watch, it was just ... less so. Bumblebee had such a dynamic face ... perhaps from being more familiar with humans than the others, but Sam didn't think that completely explained his fascination and okay, he wasn't going to think about that anymore, no matter how shiny it (and Bumblebee) was.

He did notice that Bumblebee's mask was constructed in a way that gave the illusion of wider eyes and Ratchet's tended to frown a lot. Or maybe Sam just made Ratchet frown a lot. Right now, that was fine with him, as he wasn't too pleased and doing plenty of frowning himself.

"If I put a jack in," Ratchet said, scowling at Bee before turning back to Sam, "It's possible I could download some information from it. In other words, I might be able to find out the intentions of the conversions, perhaps even schematics for the changes. It could be predicted what the end result would be."

"Oh." Sam bit his lip and thought that over. On one hand was Frankenstein, on the other, maybe there was even a way to stop and reverse it! "So, um ... tell me about this surgeon?"

Bumblebee made an alarmed squealing noise (metal against metal) at that, sitting up and shooting Sam an incredulous look. He was pretty good at that expression.

"Listen," Sam said tensely, "Right now we don't know what is happening to me, only that I have some ... strange ... spark-like thing in my spine that's turning me to metal. What if it's not nice? What if it's really taking me over and we don't know because I won't let anyone touch it, and by the time we find out it's bad, it's too late and it hurts someone?"

"No need to frighten the kid," Ratchet said sternly, and it startled Sam to realize he was talking about Bumblebee. Sam had been so wrapped up in the fact that something was in his body, possibly taking him over that he hadn't even thought about how others might be taking it. Now that he looked, though, he could tell that Bumblebee was royally upset over the entire thing.

It was only then that he began to wonder about how Mikaela might take it, or his parents, or what he was going to do about Miles. "Jesus Christ," he muttered, bending over his seat on the platform to rest his head on his hands. With the sort of patience of soldiers accustomed to waiting for an enemy to strike, and beings that lived until they were killed, the two Autobots let him have a moment. "Well," he said finally, "I want to get the socket put in. I want to know what the hell it's doing to me. So, if you think this surgeon can be trusted ..."

"It would be for the best," Ratchet said wryly. "While I am no stranger to precision work ... I've never worked on a bot that would be comparable to your size."

"You have bots my size? Wait -- God, that was a stupid question, after all, I've seen Frenzy."

Ratchet made a scoffing noise. "That little glitch does have a spark of his own, but he's not a proper mech. He's ..." The large mech seemed to be searching for a way to say it. "Well, a lot was sacrificed for his ability to get back up and keep moving, despite damage to his body."

Sam made the connection pretty quickly -- but he had dealt with Frenzy before. "You mean he's missing a few circuits."

"That sums it up, "Ratchet confirmed. "He's dependant on a partner to take care of him. In the short run, he can take care of himself, which means he can do special operative work, but in the long run, he still needs a real mech to take refuge in. Otherwise his core suffers instability. Well, more instability ..."

That was an awful lot of information for them to have. Tentatively, he looked questioningly at Ratchet, and then Bumblebee. It was the latter who spoke, reluctantly.

"Frenzy had a counterpart -- named Rumble. They were virtually identical except for a few superficial differences."

Had a counterpart. Sam nodded grimly.

"But that has nothing to do with this," Ratchet said, casting Bumblebee a warning look. "There is a function class of comparable size to you."

"Great," he said mildly. Then a thought occurred to him: "Wait, do you mean models like Arcee, because if I'm not just turning into a robot but a girl robot --"

"Oh, no, no," Ratchet said, waving his hands as if he thought Sam would attack him. He was pretty wrong about what Sam would take offense at, since Sam had only seriously considered attacking Ratchet way back when they first came in. "Each function class has exactly that -- a function. Some models are outdated, some even before the war started ... something as small as what I am speaking of wouldn't fulfil Arcee's function. Her model style is built to be agile and must faster than the larger, bulkier models, and she communicates on a higher frequency. We can't hear the higher frequencies she can, and she can't hear the lower ones that we can."

"Then ... if I turn into one of these models, and not just ... into some mutated ... freak thing, what are they specialized for?"

"They aren't," Ratchet said bluntly. "They do what ever they can wherever they can. They're ... a bit like a Swiss army knife, whereas a bot like Ironhide is a machete and Arcee is a switchblade, understand?"

Sam stared at the bot for a moment, trying to comprehend if he actually just heard the medic compare Autobots to knives. "Y-yeah, I think so. Ironhide does a hell of a lot of damage, Arcee does it quick, and the small 'bots have a corkscrew, because opening a bottle of wine on the battlefield is of utmost importance."

Bumblebee's radio sputtered and his battle mask flipped down, possibly to hide whatever expression he was making ... as if the radio sputter hadn't given it away that he was amused.

Ratchet shook his head at the bot and turned back to Sam. "If you must think of model in terms of gender, it's more of a third gender than it is male or female."

"Sounds like ... transsexual or hermaphrodite to me. Oh my God, I might turn into a hermaphroditic alien robot!"

Ratchet sighed, shaking his head some more. Sam had the thought that maybe he wanted to grease those gears a bit more if he were going to do that so often. "Technically, you're turning into a nothing, a null, or a neuter, as we don't have any reproductive systems, but if you wish to see it in such a manner ..."

"Oh my God!"

Once Sam got himself back into control, business continued on as usual.

"There aren't many minibots around anymore. While very versatile, they aren't exactly made for surviving a fight, no matter how much additional armor they come with. It doesn't help that they try to plead neutrality, either; Megatron slaughtered many of them, just as he slaughtered the Chasebots before they sided with Optimus Prime. Not all function classes have a set up like the Chasebots, however, and largely all minibots continued to argue neutrality.

"It's a long history, and possibly irrelevant. We won't know until I tap in and try to find out if there are any codes of information I can decipher."

Sam made a noncommittal noise, trying to wrap his mind around that. "So ... um, when am I gonna ... go cyborg, then?"

"Well," Ratchet said with a bemused expression. "The surgeon I spoke to seemed thrilled with the idea, and I could probably get her down here within the hour."

"Fun times," Sam said dryly. "Don't I have to not be eating, or something? Like, twenty four hours before surgery?"

"Doctor Peturi assured me that the process could be done without that by using local anesthesia." Ratchet fiddled with his armor for a moment and then his fingers ... rearranged in a disturbing manner and a small robotic arm that wouldn't have been out of place on Frenzy protruded from around his wrist, dipping into some hidden compartment. Sam winced when he brought his arm around to show what the small arm held. "This is the jack socket we'll be attaching to you," he explained, then maneuvered the entire structure so that he could point to the comparatively tiny thing. "We won't be splicing the wires in, that could be dangerous, but they will be attached with a simple adherent to the alloy. All Cybertronians have a structure like this, so there should be no complications with the data transfer."

Perhaps noticing just how pale and sweaty Sam had become, he made a 'clearing his throat' noise and tucked the socket away. It looked a little like the reverse love-child of a flash drive and a phone line, honestly, with a few wires hanging free. "I reworked a PC for this," he explained, gesturing to the reconstructed tower nearby. "It will wirelessly transfer the information to me."

"Why not just ... hook up directly?" Sam asked, not entirely certain he wanted to be directly linked to something that was Megatron's bastard retarded child, possibly also fathered by Agent Simmons or the ancestor thereof.

"Cybertronians avoid doing those things, though it is possible," Ratchet explained. "It puts both at risk of the other hacking them. Only in dangerous situations do we connect like that."

Sam blinked. "But I couldn't possibly hack you," he objected.

Ratchet shook his head. "It would be nice to think that, but naive at best. You are a complete unknown, Sam -- it is better to be safe than sorry."

"Besides the communication jack that Ratchet's installing," Bumblebee chimed in, breaking his temporary vow of silence, "we also have a power cable."

Ratchet shot him an annoyed look. "That's true," he agreed reluctantly. "But if things go wrong while linked that way, memory wipes, burned out diodes, and melted processors are the least of your worries."

Sam stared. "But then why have one at all?" Wouldn't dangerous or superfluous parts just be ... not included in the construction?

"It's possible to online someone who is otherwise incapable of onlining themselves using one," Ratchet explained. "Which is exactly why it's dangerous. That's a full shot of energy directly into the unprotected circuits. It bypasses the safety measures provided by our alloy."

"Of course, those can be overwhelmed -- no matter how polarized a mech makes their plates, it's still alloy," Bumblebee said, then smiled with a startlingly evil look. "Remember that I lead Barricade to the power plant to fight him? That knocked him offline for a few hours." Then, clearly disgruntled, he added, "even that much power didn't do much permanent damage, though. He was probably online by the time you met with Optimus Prime."

And Cybertronians could wipe memory and melt processors? Good God, what kind of voltage did they have? "How is this not killing me, again?" he demanded.

"The spark-like energy is exceptionally weak," Ratchet said. "If you were Cybertronian, you'd probably be registered as dead under any but the most invasive scans of a laser core ... that you lack right now, by the way. As far as I can tell, it's exhausting itself in the conversion of your body ... and as I said, it converted where it was staying at first opportunity so that you could survive it resting. Changing Earth minerals and flesh or bone into alloy is hardly easy."

"I ... see," Sam said slowly. "And what does Optimus Prime have to say about all of this?"

"Optimus Prime wishes to have all the information before he acts," Ratchet answered. "Which means that he may speak to you depending on what we find."

"Ah." He chewed on his lip. "So ... this surgeon. She's going to know about you guys?"

Ratchet made an uncomfortable noise. Bumblebee apparently took this as his cue to chime in. "After the battle, Ratchet was accidentally commandeered by her during the effort to help injured people, as he apparently took the form of a rescue truck. Long story short, humans are remarkably excited by the idea of 'giant alien robots'."

Sam cleared his throat with embarrassment, studying the ceiling with some interest. "Yeah, well, it's all worked out fine." Both Autobots simultaneously made identical noises signifying that they did not agree with that. He shot them a strange look. "Then what are you not telling me?" he demanded.

"There is nothing very disagreeable going on that you don't know about, Sam," Ratchet said, "I assume both Bumblebee and myself are not pleased with the current situation."

"Yeah! Well, I'm not thrilled with it either," he said, throwing his hands up. "But by the sound of it, I either ... turn all mentally, or I'm dangerous. Or I don't survive the transition. Which ever -- there's nothing I can do about that, and you know what? I've gotten rather used to the idea that there isn't a lot I can do about the things in my life, but whatever. There isn't a whole lot that can be done -- but to see if I need to be ... blown up because I have a glitch." He shuddered violently. "I might even go -- insane! It took me three days before I could speak rationally about this!"

"Sam," Ratchet said firmly, bending over so that he could bring his face down to eye level. "Think about what you just said. It took you three days. It could have taken you years."

"I could be in shock, o-or denial," he said defensively.

"That is possible," Ratchet said thoughtfully, "in which case we should take full advantage of your false calm."

Sam stared. With friends like the Autobots, who needed Megatron?
-+-
Doctor Carolyn Peturi was not, as her last name implied, an implant from India. She was in fact a brunette and fairly pale and a bit of a babe, who promptly informed him that her last name was actually due to her ex-husband. Sam didn't know what he was thinking was so obvious, though it wouldn't be the first time he somehow managed to betray himself.

"So you're our cyborg?" was the second thing she said to him, to which he replied, "Er, ah," while Bumblebee clicked his disapproval in the background. He was apparently shy and was pretending to be a car at the moment, which was bizarre for an Autobot who had done a shadowboxing routine when introduced formally to two teens while playing a bragging tune. The more Sam saw of Bumblebee, the more he got that maybe so many eons of fighting made Bumblebee slightly awkward around people he didn't know well who weren't enemies. He was a bit like the hyperactive guy that wanted to be everyone's friend and didn't know how to do it ... which Sam empathized with.

"Sorry," she said, flushing a little, "Usually my patients aren't ... um, conscious."

He made a noncommittal noise and looked to Ratchet a little desperately for help.

About a half an hour later, Sam was laying on his stomach without a shirt. There had been a bit of difficulty trying to rig up a small table for the surgeon to work around him on, since they needed him to keep his spine as straight and relaxed as possible, but luckily Ratchet had already prepared a room ahead of time, sterilizing it and having already filtered the air for particles. No one liked particles in their inner parts, not even Autobots.

Which left Sam with the dubious pleasure of taking a decontaminating shower, then getting some weird blue sheet that was supposed to prevent particles from the rest of him from dislodging and contaminating the area draped over him (or, at least that was the excuse). At least he didn't have to dress up the way Doctor Peturi did, who was doing a good impression of a blue mummy.

"Why is all this ... surgical paper ... cloth ... material thing blue?" he wondered as he tried to ignore her swabbing down a wide section of his back, between his shoulder blades. He was a little nervous, since he only had Ratchet and his doctor friend in the room. Bumblebee hadn't been allowed in, although why ...

"Because it's calming?" she theorized, obviously distracted with what she was doing. "Alright, now I'm going apply the numbing agent, so this might feel a little weird. You may feel your skin tingling a little, but that should stop. Since we can't do an epidural, I'm going to prick you lightly with a needle to make sure that the numbing effect has taken hold. Your --" a humored tone entered her voice, "-- butt may go numb, possibly accompanied by peripheral pins-and-needles ... that is, your ears, fingers, or toes may feel like they're just getting blood flow back. We're not sure, considering the degree of conversion done to your circulatory system and the molecular composition of your dermal organ and nerve receptors."

"... what with the which now?" he asked weakly. He recognized the words ... sort of, but biology had never been his favorite subject. What was the circulatory system again?

She paused. "Don't worry about it," she said with a soothing voice, deepening it just slightly. "Everything's going to go just fine, Sam. You know, I have a son of my own. He's going to be nine pretty soon, I've been planning a Hot Wheels theme party for him."

"Isn't he a little old for that?" Sam asked, a little bewildered by the non sequitur. His skin was tingling all right. He wished she had warmed up the pain killing gel, honestly.

"Is he?" she murmured. "Well -- I guess. What do you suggest?"

"That you -- I don't know, ask him?" he suggested. " ... my lower back is going numb."

"It's supposed to be," Peturi reassured him. "Have you ever tried asking a nine-year-old what he wants? It's impossible."

"Then ... give him a few choices," he said. "Tell him he has to chose one or the other."

"Maybe that's true," she agreed. "How do you feel?"

"Er ... numb?"

"Good. What do you think of this? I offer him a choice between a Hot Wheels party, or Pokemon."

"Ah ... you know, I don't know a lot about ... nine year olds, but I don't think either of those are a good idea. Maybe ... Harry Potter or something. I don't know, what video games does he like to play? That'd probably be a big hit, as long as his friends know he likes it. You know, a young boy's ego is fragile, you must treat it with care. For that matter ... always treat your son's dreams with care, too. Did you know my dad promised me a car if I got two thousand dollars and three A's, and then he made me think I was getting a Porsche? That's just cruel and unusual. Never do that, or ... like, the old Camaro you buy him will turn out to be a robot."

She laughed. "You, too, huh? Poor kid." Making a thoughtful noise, she moved around a bit. "Harry Potter, huh? You know, I read those books. I'm not sure I want my son reading past the third book."

"Well, I wouldn't know," he said, "I mean ... Harry Potter. That's a little weird."

"To each their own," she advised. "Don't get on the nerves of the woman with a knife in her hand."

"Don't remind me. You could try Spongebob Squarepants. Well, anything he really watches religiously. Video games are a little different -- I hated Final Fantasy Seven, but I played that thing to the ground just trying to get all of the extra side quests done. That and the damned gold chocobo ..."

"And I thought my fandom had strange terms."

" ... what?"

"Never mind, Sam," she advised. "Never mind. How does that feel?"

He was about to ask how what felt when something ... really, really weird happened. Yelping, his hands jerked spastically as he felt -- something. "Ah -- ah -- stop touching that!" he yowled, and she recoiled a few steps back. He wiggling on the table for a moment, craning his head around in an effort to see what was on his back -- but it was kinda hard to look between his shoulder blades. Obviously. So he settled for eyeballing the surgeon warily.

"Wow, he wasn't kidding about the healing ..." she arched an eyebrow and said, "was it good for you?"

"That's not funny," he said seriously. "And it tickled. In a really weird 'hands off' and not 'ha ha ha' way."

Ratchet clicked a little as he shifted. "Well, then your brain is definitely capable of picking up it's cues from the alloy ... though it sounds like it may be hypersensitive. If you object that strongly to Doctor Peturi touching the outside, you really aren't going to like it when this tower gets plugged in."

"Oh, no, no, no, no," he protested, trying to sit up until Peturi forced him down by the shoulder, mentioning stitches. "No," he insisted, scowling at Ratchet. "I don't want anyone touching that."

Ratchet scoffed. "If you think a human touching that is sensitive, you really won't like an Autobot touching it. Our alloy is meant to communicate that way, though such energies, not like humans. If I were to touch it, you might rip it out on accident, trying to get away. No, the location and frail nature of the implant will require a human to do it."

"Fun times," he said sarcastically, flinching when Peturi got too close to the socket. It was ... really weird. His back was numb, skin and muscle completely, but he could also ... sense her hands moving about as she closed up whatever wound she had created. It was like feeling the body heat of another person, only ... well, obviously, it wasn't heat he was feeling. Obviously, his human flesh wasn't able to receive whatever energy it was that the alloy could.

Through the entire short process of having Peturi handle the socket to plug into the PC tower, his face was a brilliant glowing red. It was three parts embarrassment, and two parts the sensations itself, because 'hands off' sort of tickling wasn't exactly the way his human body translated it. While the general idea of 'hands off' persisted, human body apparently had only one way of responding to something like that.

All in all, Sam was not a happy teenage boy.

He was even less pleased when the cold Earth-metal jack was plugged into his back. It was -- utterly unnatural. That was really the only way of describing it he could think of ... that there was just something wrong. At least the distaste his Cybertronian part felt for it utterly killed any unwanted response his organic side felt ... and wow, that was the most messed up thought ever. He really was some freak cyborg thing. Any moment now, he should be staggering around with ... okay, blue optics, apparently, and droning about resistance and futility thereof.

Twitching slight at the really weird sensation tickling at the edge of his brain (like a draft up his spine, or an ice cube down a shirt), just under the unpleasant cold bite of the cold unliving-metal of the jack (which was a stupid thought, really, of course the metal was cold), he just focused on ... other things. It didn't really matter what was happening to him (now or later or inside) because pretty soon he would be done with it and leave and maybe he could even go on a drive with Bumblebee because they honestly had no where to go and nothing holding them back. All he had to do was sit through this bit of unpleasantness first. It was a little like going to the dentist -- he settled back kept his mouth open, and tried not to freak out too badly when the people poking around made interested noises.

Kinda like the one that Ratchet was making.

"What does that mean?" Sam demanded.

"It means ..." he said slowly, "that it's very interesting."

"Well, no duh!" he said a little hysterically. "Why is it interesting?"

"It appears that the program that is running your conversion is fairly complex. Enough that it has a sort of ... artificial intelligence."

"Oh my God, I'm going to die!"

Ratchet made a rude noise -- a scoff if Sam had ever heard one. After a little longer during which he made a few thoughtful clicks and Sam panicked some more, the medic decided to fill the humans in. "There will be no dying on my watch," he said. "I can't be certain whether or not this 'AI' is due to your brain or not ... Well, it's communicating, in either case. Unfortunately, it's using a very basic and archaic form of our language."

"So .. good? Bad?" he asked weakly.

"... not bad," Ratchet said. "All the inflections are easily recognizable. It's completely benign."

"... programs have an inflection?"

"Software is a branch of intelligence -- thought. You humans would call them 'thoughts', though it's not an accurate analogy."

"Wait -- so, I'm ... changing, or whatever, because of a thought?" Sam demanded. Why must Cybertronian concepts always hurt his head? Granted, the fact that they were aliens, with their own culture and a completely different view on life and way of functioning ... well, it made sense that most of their languages wouldn't even be comparable. But why must it hurt his head?

Ratchet's one-man-band performance continued. "I said it wasn't a good, nor an accurate analogy. You would have to couple the meaning of 'thought' and 'program' together in order to arrive at anything slightly comparable. In either case, the inflection is largely the only thing I can translate. I recognize a few of the words ... Sam, the language the program is using hasn't been documented except the barest of indications under layers of rust. It's ancient."

" ... oh."

Ratchet absently shifted on his feet, making a thoughtful whirling noise. "Ah ha, there we go. Oh, hmm."

Sam cringed. "I don't like the sound of that."

"You don't like the sound of much," Ratchet said sourly. "I have schematics, to put it simply. Fortunately, that doesn't require word-language. It seems that our original deduction was correct: you were to become a minibot of the type we were discussing ... however ..."

He lowered his head and bounced it off the table a few times. It would have been better if the table were hard, because he was pretty sure brain damage might help the situation. "However ...?"

"Well, it does have a rudimentary intelligence. When we 'poked it', so to speak, it not only registered that it was discovered, but it actually sped up the process -- stealth wasn't an issue anymore. Well, we've 'poked' it again; I have two sets of schematics, one to a much larger shell, along with a formula that would theoretically make it possible for such a body to be built."

As if his brain wasn't hurting enough as it was. "What? How is that even possible!"

With a sigh, he complied. "Our planet had a much thicker atmosphere than Earth. In the lower levels, the atmosphere is so thick that humans would be rendered blind -- this is why we not only have scanners, but such a diverse variety of scanners. There isn't much light, and most of it isn't in Earth spectrum. To heal, we pull the elements out of our atmosphere, alter them for use, and attach it to our armor. Earth's thin atmosphere, while ideal for organics ... well, anyway, suspending you in the formula provided would be like simulating a 'healing bath' for us. Of course, there are limits to even that. For example, you couldn't form into something as large as Prime -- or even myself. Converting that much Earth minerals into Cybertronian alloy would be inconceivable."

Sam loved how he could hear the 'but' in that whole explanation, and knew that it wasn't as simple as that. Yeah, that was sarcasm. "But?" he asked, looking up with trepidation and resting his head against his hand.

Ratchet hem-hawed a bit. "You won't like it," he said.

"Tell me."

"The model type is equivalent to Arcee."

"Hell no!"

"I told you, you wouldn't like it."

"What's wrong with this Arcee?" Peturi asked, since Sam was too busy groaning into his arms about how badly his life sucked.

"Sam has a hard time accepting that our specie doesn't have gender. On Earth in English, Arcee has a feminine pronoun, since she belongs to a model type that is more streamline than hand-to-hand bots. To be honest, the correct pronoun for us doesn't exist in English, unless 'it' is used, but the negative connotation is not exactly appreciated." Ratchet whirl-clicked in that way that betrayed his research on the Internet. "This seems to be a common problem in most languages, unless they are completely gender neutral. In our language, 'he', 'she', nor 'it' are ever used to refer to a mech -- just their function class and name."

"Well, he is a teenaged boy," Peturi said, which was the most beautiful thing Sam had heard in a while.

"Exactly," he said, lifting his head to level a glower at Ratchet. "I have a gender! I was raised to have a gender! Most people think boats and cars have genders! Usually female genders! Turning into a freaking robot is one thing, turning into a femmebot is another!"

" ... and by teenaged boy, I mean narrow-minded and too attached to his reproductive organs," Peturi finished, and never mind, Sam still hated her and her grabby hands.

"Femmebot?" Ratchet echoed, sounding scandalized. "Sam, you better not say that around Arcee or any other of her function class! Femmebot!"

Great. That must have been on aspect of their culture that Bumblebee never covered. "Is that like calling the steroid pumping body builder a little girl?"

"It is comparable," he confirmed. "Bumblebee never explained this to you?"

"No," he groaned.

"That useless ..." he grumbled a bit. "Never call one function class by another label. Ever. It's not a smart idea unless you like being reduced to your base components."

"I will never become fluent in giant alien robot at this rate," Sam muttered into the table. He was not looking forward to the unplugging process, even if it would get that cold metal out of his socket.

"You're turning into a giant alien robot thanks to a program download," Peturi said, arching an eyebrow. "I don't think you can not become fluent."

"Sam will fit right in," Ratchet agreed blandly. "There are worse ones out there -- and many of my patients tend to be a lot less compliant than Sam has been."

"If you say so ..."

"Sam," Ratchet said, and handed a small plastic square over when he looked up. The teenager only took this reluctantly, then figured out that it was some kind of reworked Blackberry. "I've downloaded both set of schematics into this," he explained. "You do have a type of choice here. The program can only convert you into the Chase function class if we suspend you in the formula. Considering that you'll have to learn how to work a mechanical body, I strongly suggest that you choose the smaller. As it is, you're free to go and think about this. Bumblebee is outside the door ... I swear that nuisance can't keep his sensors out of other people's business ..."

Sam snorted, tentatively getting up. His back was still numb, but according to Peturi, he was healed about as much as he could be. The disconnect was as unpleasant as he predicted, and the bandage they taped over the socket so it wouldn't get caught on things itched like hell. On his still-feeling bits of skin, actually, because the Cybertronian metal only registered the sensation of movement.

Which was better than his other options, but he wasn't terribly pleased, anyway.

The taped bandage around his ribs (binding an uncomfortable line under his arms and over his nonexistent-pecs, thankfully missing more sensitive skin) itched a constant reminder of what was on his back, as if the constant scratch of movement wasn't enough. Slipping his shirt on and with the savaged Blackberry in hand, he left Peturi and Ratchet to their discussion ... apparently Peturi wasn't going to let Ratchet run away this time, and Ratchet would like nothing but. Anyway, the point remained that Bumblebee was waiting outside for Sam, looking rather expectant and anxious. Sam waved the Blackberry at him and sighed gesturing expansively in a manner meant to show just how fucked the entire thing was. Bumblebee appeared to be more alarmed than reassured by this.

Well, no duh, Sam. His stomach twisted a little (not like it wasn't doing that all the time, anyway) as he remembered Ratchet scolding him about 'scaring the kid', and he added, "It's fine. How much do you know?"

"I asked Ratchet not to tell me anything," Bumblebee said, extending his hand.

Sam stared at it a little baffled for a moment before he realized that he'd seen Optimus do the same thing and obligingly moved to be picked up. Normally, his ego would have gotten in the way of this, but ... Jesus Christ, he was tired. What did any of it mean anymore? Besides, he had swiftly discovered during the last few days that Bumblebee made a terrific placebo. He needed a placebo. "Alright," he said slowly. "Is there a reason you asked not to be told?"

"I thought it would be best to allow you to chose what to share with me," Bumblebee said, looking down at him with one of those strange ineffable expressions.

"Oh," Sam said intelligently. "Ah -- well ..." He glanced about and then shielded his face against the sunlight as they went outside. "How come you never told me about this ... 'function class' thing?" he demanded, glaring cockeyed at the yellow Autobot.

Bumblebee looked vaguely startled, and paused, supposedly so that he could search his memory banks. "Sorry," he apologized sheepishly. "It's such a given that I didn't think of it ... how did it come up?"

"Ratchet started lecturing me about ..." he wiggled his hand ineffectually, then breathed a sigh of relief when they were safely back in their ... home hanger. Home? That was -- anyway. "... I don't think I ever got a real name for it ... I called Arcee a 'femmebot'." Bumblebee made a loud grinding clank and his face looked horrified. Sam winced. "That bad?"

"Sam ... promise me," Bumblebee said, a little strained sounding, "that you will never call a mech by another function class."

"I promise!" he grumbled. "You know, this could all have been avoided if you had just given me a word for it instead of letting me make a fool of myself."

That earned a sassy chirp. Ass. Sam slid off his hand and glowered at the towering mech until he settled down where Sam took his rightful seat on a foot.

"Hmm," Bumblebee hummed. "Well, in Earth terms, you'd call Arcee's function class a 'Chasebot'."

"... " Sam looked up at him. "A what," he said flatly.

With a rumble of amusement, Bee obliged. "English is limiting. Arcee's function before the war would have been to deliver high priority messages -- she had to be quick enough to deliver them back and forth very swiftly, and nimble to avoid damage along the way. It takes specialized equipment to move at such a high rate of speed ... just like the flyers, their basic hardware is vastly different than the average Cybertronian, so their software is naturally different as well. Where as the Chasebots were satisfied with Elita-One negotiating peaceably with Optimus Prime, the flyers demanded a position of their own of equal power. Then they put Megatron in that position ..." he trailed off and Sam remained quiet while Bumblebee thought about it. "Anyway, since the war, it was found that Chasebots are some of the fastest mechs on land. They're very hard to escape, and very hard to catch. Therefore we can not call them 'pursuitbots', because truthfully, all of their functions are built for the chase -- whether they are doing the chasing, or are being chased."

Sam thought about that for a long time. That sounded kind of like him, really ... running all the time. (Running away, but he'd never admit it.)

"Of course," Bumblebee added with that slightly familiar bragging tone, "I can catch most Chasebots, one way or another. Dirty cheating tricks tend to work."

He sounded so very pleased with himself that Sam had to laugh. It was a lot like Miles saying he was smooth with the ladies. Belatedly, he checked to see if he had upset the mech, but Bumblebee just seemed serene with his little outburst of amusement. "Well," he said, turning over the Blackberry in his hands. "I have a ... socket now. Ratchet said that ... I have this, like, program running the scene in here." He thumped his head gently with one finger. "It's ... trying to make me into a minibot or something like Arcee. A Chasebot, I guess. Ratchet has the schematics in this," he explained, waving the palm-sized thing again. He shuddered hard. "I hope to never, never have to get plug into ever again. Ugh."

"Yeah, Earth metal is dead," Bumblebee said sympathetically. He reached out and curled a hand around Sam, and something that would have been so ... weird not a week ago just seemed so natural, now. Then again, several days of being carelessly handled could do that to a human ... or whatever the hell he was. His hands tightened dangerously on the electronic in his hand and he made himself let go, sighing slightly and staring at his palm morosely.

(Witwicky changed everything and everything changed him.)

In an instant.
-+-
"Can I see it?"

Sam looked up from the three dimensional display of what he thought of as 'V1', for 'version one' of the body he might end up in. It was the small one, and currently the one he was considering most ... though, to be honest, he couldn't completely disregard V2, either. Oh, sure, they kept trying to tell him it wasn't a 'femmebot', but he couldn't quite shake the thought ... but it was still large enough to turn into a car. How awesome was that? And if the other Cybertronians wouldn't think of him as female, then ... well, that wasn't really good enough, but it was better than nothing.

He and Bumblebee had gone outside into the sun while Sam tried to deal with one crisis after another. First he'd been worried about this ... whole ... life thing, then his GED, then all the weird crap that had been going on and now he found out he was turning into an alien! What the hell! And since he had figured out this whole ... weird ... empathetic thing he had going on (it was hard to ignore that he was feeling completely alien sensations from the socket, after all, that had nothing to do with what he was feeling ... contentment when he started having a panic attack, reassurance when he began to fear what was stealing his body, prideful pleasure when he was laughing).

Since then, he had taken to trying not to touch Bumblebee too much. It explained why he liked being around Bumblebee so much, especially when upset, but with the socket ... it led directly to his brain and completely overpowered him. Sam simply couldn't be upset and it drove him up a wall with discomfort.

"See what?" he asked.

Bumblebee shifted on his feet, but the curious humming far overpowered whatever discomfort noises he might be making. "The socket on your back."

Oh yeah, he was definitely a freak. "It's taped over," he said mildly, punching the scroll button so that he could see the additional pictures that Ratchet had made of V1, showing how the prototype would move and what parts would shift and what kind of weapons it'd have. Another plus for V2: it actually had weapons, instead of corkscrews. Yes, V1 had tons of neat little toys, and both came with a strange structure that Ratchet had yet to identify the purpose of in the arms and hand (apparently, like the similarities that showed both were the same 'bot, it was his 'signature weapon' ... though what it was ...).

Bumblebee considered that for a moment. "I think I can reapply it ... Please, Sam?"

Sam jerked his gaze away from the scene, staring out at the surrounding dry powdery land with his lips tight. "Yeah," he said finally, because Bumblebee asked for so little. "Yeah, okay." Setting the Blackberry down on the concrete beside it, he pulled his shirt up to his neck and bared his back to Bumblebee. "Careful," he warned. "I feel just like you guys, apparently ... the Doctor wasn't exactly high on my favorite people list because I'm not used to ... feeling through energy fields."

"I'll be careful," he promised.

While the sound of sliding metal -- vaguely like scissors, but much less frightening -- carried on behind his back as Bumblebee presumably produced the equivalent of a corkscrew, Sam bent his mind to figuring out the advantages of taking one form over the other, but it was a little hard when ...

Well, what did he expect? He was a short-lived organic, the equivalent of an intelligent mayfly. Why should the Autobots see him as anything but? Oh, sure, he saved the world and helped to protect their cube (or rather, ended up destroying it). It was a fun little trick for a smart dog, wasn't it? Really -- he was organic. Meat. He was talking meat. Talking violent meat. Why shouldn't it take turning into one of them --

Okay, no, that wasn't terribly productive. He really wasn't getting anything done by getting worked up.

The tape pulled against his skin, but unlike some people whose fathers he knew, he didn't have hair between his shoulder blades, so the discomfit wasn't as bad as he knew it could be. Bumblebee finally got the bandage free of his back and studied the socket from a few different angles.

"This is really attached to you?" he asked.

Which was a really stupid question. It was pretty obvious it was attached to him. "To my spine," he said. "You know how my nervous system is metal? I have a program hiding out there, apparently, and it only speaks ... like, your equivalent to Latin. Ratchet downloaded some schematics from the program."Well, okay, he was repeating things that he'd already told Bumblebee, but he felt oddly naked and ... just uncomfortable. Being ogled.

Later, Sam wouldn't be able to recall what happened next. It was extremely possible that it happened too quickly, or overloaded his brain, so he wasn't even aware when it happened. One moment, he was standing with his back to Bumblebee, shirt held up to his neck, and the next moment he was on the cement, the side of his head aching and his skin crawling while it felt like the inside of his head was one of those plasma lamps. Somehow, he knew that only a few seconds had lapsed, but he didn't know what happened.

"Sam! Sam, are you okay?" Bumblebee demanded, hovering over him.

"I ... think so," he said groggily, pushing himself up. "What the hell happened?"

Bumblebee vibrated with distress. "I ... touched it?" he said slowly. "I'm sorry, Sam, I thought it would only be sensitive, I didn't know it was going to do that to you."

... do what? He ran a hand over his head, combing through his curls. It was long pass time to cut his hair, but ... he'd simply been worried about other things. "What happened?" he asked, sighing. Wasn't that his luck? When it rained, it poured.

"That ... was a bit like a jumpstart," Bumblebee said, calming down a little since he was sitting on his own. "We've built up a lot of energy since nothing exciting has happened recently. Normally, that wouldn't have happened. I had ... I thought it would be like you, having a human reaction, that it would be only a fraction as sensitive as one of us -- I didn't know you were hypersensitive, Sam, I'm sorry."

"It's okay," he reassured the mech, wobbling a little but still coherent enough to hear the genuine distress. "So, it was a bit like static electricity to you, but a hell of a lot more powerful for me. My brain feel tingly."

"Now you know why Ratchet thought that Ironhide should try a mild power surge."

"That 'mild' power surge ate my neighborhood's power."

"Well, it does make us sort of 'high'."

Sam would believe it. Not that he'd ever tried any, because Miles was so Anti-Drug that he was likely to shoot someone who used drugs. He got to his feet, wobbled unsteadily, then made it back to his previous seat and picked up the Blackberry. The way his shirt kept hitting his socket was a bit like getting static blared into his ear periodically, but he didn't exactly trust Bumblebee near it anymore.

And -- he still had to figure out what was going to be his body for millennia to come. It was one thing being born into a body and dealing with that. Sam knew what that was like -- he was human, after all. As far as he knew, the Autobots had also been put together without any decision of their own. Sam, though, had a choice, and if he made the wrong one ...

Well, he had a while to figure it out. A few weeks, at least, because his body couldn't be largely organic before the major rework or he wouldn't survive it. Ratchet had included the most probable timeline for each body, and each called for most of his systems being self-sufficient so that he'd survive a few months of being in a coma.

"Whatever tomorrow brings, I'll be there ... I'll be there," the man crooned.

Sam looked over in mild surprise. Bumblebee had transformed without his notice, and now his door popped open, beaconing. "I don't know how good of an idea that is, Bee," he said tiredly.

"I say 'don't ya know', you say you don't know, I say ... take me out!"

"Right," he said dryly. He was pretty sure that a drive was not going to make him feel better. "Bumblebee, you do know that I'm producing a field like you do? This isn't going to be like having the human me riding around."

The door just swung a little wider, demandingly. Rather like a child stomping his foot in that manner.

Sam sighed. Perhaps that much hadn't changed with Bumblebee. He was still a well meaning if demanding giant alien robot, and he didn't like it when Sam was upset. It didn't seem to matter to Bumblebee how weird Sam's body was ... and perhaps he could tell if Sam was really himself or not. With that weird empathy field thing. Perhaps later, Sam would even find out what Bumblebee really thought of humans.

For now, though, they could drive.

-- To Be Continued --

- LOLZ, You see that Bee has taken pointers from humanity? "IT IS SHINY, I MUST TOUCH IT!"
- Dun worri gais! Peturi will disappear after this chapter. I just needed SUDDENLY SURGEON, so there she was. (She doesn't really have a kid, either, lolz).
- Sam's Denial -- IS EPIC. He comes around and acts normal by mentally relabeling his life 'The Twilight Zone' instead of 'Reality'. Instead of saying that "this is not happening", he says "everything is fake".
You may have noticed that Prime's concern about Sam's conversion, and part of Sam's reason for undergoing surgery are identical. 8D
- Mikaela seriously told Miles that Sam had gone on a sojourn to deal with a sudden sexual identity crisis. Miles decided he didn't want to know. (I am serious, this is canon to this story, no matter how lulzy it sounds.)
- As ALWAYS, lots of lying, gaiz! I'm sorry that life doesn't tell the truth, but there you go! (And if Sam's start-of-chapter psychotic episode was not to your liking, don't worry. He had a rough patch, he'll be better from now on. Still crazy, but not like THAT.)