Collision chapt. 2: Technical Difficulties
The only thing that is ever certain in this life is the passage of time. Earth is not certain. Cybertron is not certain. Whether each human being that wakes up in the morning will survive to do so the next is not certain.
Barricade wasn’t certain just how much time had passed, though it was, of course, the only true inevitable. He returned to awareness to a quiet garage; no drilling, no sawing, no air-compression devices at the works. Only a heavy, drowning silence served as his company. The Ford had succumbed to unconsciousness some hours ago after sitting in the garage all morning, listening to the deafening noise of the machines and the irritating accented squawking of the humans who ran them. All of the white noise in the background hadn’t been helping the perpetual headache that Barricade had been suffering from, so he’d merely…slipped off and slept.
Or as close to sleeping as a robot could get.
Normally, the Decepticon was far more aware of himself and his surroundings during his version of sleep. Under ordinary circumstances Barricade’s entire array of radar would have been at work, ready to alert him and reboot any slumbering systems at a moments notice if anything awry came up. These were far from typical times, however. The collision with the garbage truck had damaged far more internally than the thick-skinned warrior preferred to admit; namely, his internal repair and diagnostics programs. Those were knocked completely cold from the sheer force of impact, as well as directional telemetry and navigation. Everything else computer-wise had been cold cocked and rendered solidly bass ackwards. A slow chirp emanated from the Mustang as he rejoined the land of the living with a sense of partial completion - Barricade was as awake as he was going to get at that point.
Michael turned around, putting his back to the workbench. “Awake again, finally.”
Barricade bit back a groan. No figment. It’s still here.
“How long ya gonna hide from me, eh? I’ve got you figgered out, man,” Romano continued, leaning back against the bench.
And I’ll continue to allow you to believe so, the Mustang grumbled sourly to himself. His optic grid scanned over his surroundings again, getting a feel for what was different. The red Honda was gone. All of the other humans had presumably gone home. The place was relatively neat and tidy as opposed to workday at the shop in which if you found it on the floor, you could use it. Parts were where they needed to be, machines put to bed for the night, his engine and radiator were sitting on the work bench behind the human…
Barricade, in every practical sense, had a heart attack.
His engine was sitting on the work bench.
Oh, was it ever difficult for the police cruiser to keep his vocalizer off now. He all but vibrated with anger, resentment, and a feeling that was usually very foreign to the battle-hardened mech. At just past sixteen feet tall, Barricade was never considered one of the larger Decepticons in the ranks, but that never daunted him. He matched strength with Blackout, whom was twice his size, and in this earthen body he could out-accelerate nearly anything. Zero-to-sixty in just under three seconds was not the kind of power that was easily overlooked. Suffice it was to say that there was very little that discouraged or frightened Barricade, but there was no denying the sharp, unfamiliar pang of dread that shouldered its way into his circuitry at that moment. There was no quick getaway now. Add on to all of that the realization that his energy converter was in the mess of metal parts and wires on the wooden bench and the Mustang came to a swift and obvious conclusion:
In terran lingo: Barricade was screwed.
He had power, but not for long. Not without the converter. Drawing in a minor breath of air through his grill to cool off rapidly heating up wiring, the Ford finally let his true voice rasp out in the form of a single question: “What is it that you want?”
Michael Romano had never heard anything so terrifying and fixating before in his life. Neither purring engine nor boisterous roar had gotten the adrenaline to rush through his veins faster than the soft, malignant tones of the sleek Ford Mustang before him. Barricade was almost amused as the grease monkey seemed to grapple for a hand-hold, knees weak, as if after all that Romano had been saying he hadn’t expected some sort of reaction. Now that he’d gotten it, the brown-headed insect seemed two seconds away from wetting himself.
“I, I knew it, man!” he cried, astounded. “I knew I wasn’t just boozed up! Y-you talked, man!”
“Congratulations, fleshbag, you’ve found me out.” The police cruiser sounded far less than giddy at the revelation. “Answer my question.”
Question. What question? Oh! “I don’ want nothin’, I swear it. I just wanted to know I wasn’t crazy when I saw you driving around all wall-eyed ‘n chatterin’ about who knows what in Queens.”
“Evidently not,” the Decepticon hissed lowly, deliberately. “Do yourself a wise choice and put my engine back together so that we can both get on with our lives.”
Romano ran his fingers through his hair out of nervous habit, still leaning against the workbench supporting the chrome bits and pieces that made up the majority of Barricade’s engine block. Fan fragments, radiator, and several other pieces that Michael had never seen in a car before lay gutted and half-repaired on the flat surface. He’d ensured to take those apart very, very carefully. It was a miracle the Mustang hadn’t just died on the spot from having his innards taken apart by someone who didn’t know what they were doing.
“Ya oughtta see how ya look, dude,” the New Yorker replied. “Not getting’ nowhere fast without a new radiator at the very least.”
Barricade was getting severely annoyed. “Put a new one in, then, fleshling!” he snarled portentously. The sooner he could get out of the damned garage and get back to laying low the better. He was not an advocate for hiding from his enemies, but being the last Decepticon on the face of a planet who hated him and his kind tended to rearrange even the toughest of mechs priorities.
The New York native was still floored, that much was obvious. It took him several seconds to come up with a decent response.
“It don’ go dat, way, man!” Mike exclaimed defensively, holding both oiled-up hands in the air. A ratchet lay fisted in his right hand. “I-I gotta order a new one first, an’ then it’d take maybe, yannow, three days to even git here.”
Days. Days. Barricade knew that for all of the advancements his race had made, given his earth-spawned vehicle mode, he could not run without a radiator. Not unless he wanted the contents of his engine compartment to go ‘poof’ in a furious ball of blazing vengeance and flame. Killing himself via his own idiocy was not the way he planned to go out.
“And the radiator is gone. Completely.”
“Oh yeah, check it out,” Mike replied to the aggravated vehicle, quickly holding the crumpled metal piece up. “The coolin’ core’s all outta whack ‘n shit, and I dunno how much you know about engines but you gotta have a workin’ radiator in order for an internal combustion engine to work right. Otherwise it overheats ‘n if you push it, it’ll-“
“Explode. I know. These primitive systems you flesh wads have come up with are not that difficult to figure out,” the Ford rumbled.
“R-Right. So you know what I’m talking about.” Michael dropped the bent piece and wiped his hands on his trousers. “Your fan’s trashed, but that’s easy to replace. I gotta get ahold of a new bumper ‘n rammin’ bars, but I will say that ya got lucky, man.”
Lucky. Dare I even ask him what he considers lucky about my position?
Michael continued anyway, dauntless. “Whatever ya hit with your front end, which I’d take an educated guess and say it was either a tree or a post of some kind, the force of it sheared off your motor mounts.” Pause for effect ‘n all. “Know what those are?”
Begrudgingly, Barricade blipped.
“An’ I’ll take that as a ‘no’.” The human turned he ball cap on his head around so that the visor pointed backwards, gearing up for some educational words. “Motor mounts, or engine mounts, are the six or so bolts that hold the engine to your frame,” Romano explained matter-of-factly. “Ya broke those bolts in th’ impact ‘n your real lucky that ya didn’t wind up with your engine sittin’ in the pass’ger seat.”
The Mustang growled to himself. “Repairable?” he questioned dubiously.
“Well, for you, I’d sure ‘ope so.” Mike leaned back against the bench. “Any car here that don’, yannow, talk ‘n shit would be considered totaled after that point.”
It seemed like a stupid thing to give up on a car for. Waste the thing on account of a few broken bolts. Barricade went silent, considering his options, which were regrettably few and none were favorable. There was no getting out of the garage without his engine, at the very least, put back in as it was and if he chose that mode of escape, he wouldn’t get very far before the damage that his internal repairs couldn’t catch up with would render him offline for good. The cruisers second choice was to stay there and let the human fix him, but at the risk of his life as well. All it took was a single hard jerk by an unknowing hand to a sensitive piece of machinery. Fighting Autobots was safe and simple: let the armor take the damage, Barricade’s was a tough hide. But this was a foreign situation entirely. This involved his internals, usually fiercely guarded by thick armament, being wide open to prying eyes and twitchy fingers.
It was either die for certain, or have a high chance of death.
Some choice.
Barricade wasn’t certain just how much time had passed, though it was, of course, the only true inevitable. He returned to awareness to a quiet garage; no drilling, no sawing, no air-compression devices at the works. Only a heavy, drowning silence served as his company. The Ford had succumbed to unconsciousness some hours ago after sitting in the garage all morning, listening to the deafening noise of the machines and the irritating accented squawking of the humans who ran them. All of the white noise in the background hadn’t been helping the perpetual headache that Barricade had been suffering from, so he’d merely…slipped off and slept.
Or as close to sleeping as a robot could get.
Normally, the Decepticon was far more aware of himself and his surroundings during his version of sleep. Under ordinary circumstances Barricade’s entire array of radar would have been at work, ready to alert him and reboot any slumbering systems at a moments notice if anything awry came up. These were far from typical times, however. The collision with the garbage truck had damaged far more internally than the thick-skinned warrior preferred to admit; namely, his internal repair and diagnostics programs. Those were knocked completely cold from the sheer force of impact, as well as directional telemetry and navigation. Everything else computer-wise had been cold cocked and rendered solidly bass ackwards. A slow chirp emanated from the Mustang as he rejoined the land of the living with a sense of partial completion - Barricade was as awake as he was going to get at that point.
Michael turned around, putting his back to the workbench. “Awake again, finally.”
Barricade bit back a groan. No figment. It’s still here.
“How long ya gonna hide from me, eh? I’ve got you figgered out, man,” Romano continued, leaning back against the bench.
And I’ll continue to allow you to believe so, the Mustang grumbled sourly to himself. His optic grid scanned over his surroundings again, getting a feel for what was different. The red Honda was gone. All of the other humans had presumably gone home. The place was relatively neat and tidy as opposed to workday at the shop in which if you found it on the floor, you could use it. Parts were where they needed to be, machines put to bed for the night, his engine and radiator were sitting on the work bench behind the human…
Barricade, in every practical sense, had a heart attack.
His engine was sitting on the work bench.
Oh, was it ever difficult for the police cruiser to keep his vocalizer off now. He all but vibrated with anger, resentment, and a feeling that was usually very foreign to the battle-hardened mech. At just past sixteen feet tall, Barricade was never considered one of the larger Decepticons in the ranks, but that never daunted him. He matched strength with Blackout, whom was twice his size, and in this earthen body he could out-accelerate nearly anything. Zero-to-sixty in just under three seconds was not the kind of power that was easily overlooked. Suffice it was to say that there was very little that discouraged or frightened Barricade, but there was no denying the sharp, unfamiliar pang of dread that shouldered its way into his circuitry at that moment. There was no quick getaway now. Add on to all of that the realization that his energy converter was in the mess of metal parts and wires on the wooden bench and the Mustang came to a swift and obvious conclusion:
In terran lingo: Barricade was screwed.
He had power, but not for long. Not without the converter. Drawing in a minor breath of air through his grill to cool off rapidly heating up wiring, the Ford finally let his true voice rasp out in the form of a single question: “What is it that you want?”
Michael Romano had never heard anything so terrifying and fixating before in his life. Neither purring engine nor boisterous roar had gotten the adrenaline to rush through his veins faster than the soft, malignant tones of the sleek Ford Mustang before him. Barricade was almost amused as the grease monkey seemed to grapple for a hand-hold, knees weak, as if after all that Romano had been saying he hadn’t expected some sort of reaction. Now that he’d gotten it, the brown-headed insect seemed two seconds away from wetting himself.
“I, I knew it, man!” he cried, astounded. “I knew I wasn’t just boozed up! Y-you talked, man!”
“Congratulations, fleshbag, you’ve found me out.” The police cruiser sounded far less than giddy at the revelation. “Answer my question.”
Question. What question? Oh! “I don’ want nothin’, I swear it. I just wanted to know I wasn’t crazy when I saw you driving around all wall-eyed ‘n chatterin’ about who knows what in Queens.”
“Evidently not,” the Decepticon hissed lowly, deliberately. “Do yourself a wise choice and put my engine back together so that we can both get on with our lives.”
Romano ran his fingers through his hair out of nervous habit, still leaning against the workbench supporting the chrome bits and pieces that made up the majority of Barricade’s engine block. Fan fragments, radiator, and several other pieces that Michael had never seen in a car before lay gutted and half-repaired on the flat surface. He’d ensured to take those apart very, very carefully. It was a miracle the Mustang hadn’t just died on the spot from having his innards taken apart by someone who didn’t know what they were doing.
“Ya oughtta see how ya look, dude,” the New Yorker replied. “Not getting’ nowhere fast without a new radiator at the very least.”
Barricade was getting severely annoyed. “Put a new one in, then, fleshling!” he snarled portentously. The sooner he could get out of the damned garage and get back to laying low the better. He was not an advocate for hiding from his enemies, but being the last Decepticon on the face of a planet who hated him and his kind tended to rearrange even the toughest of mechs priorities.
The New York native was still floored, that much was obvious. It took him several seconds to come up with a decent response.
“It don’ go dat, way, man!” Mike exclaimed defensively, holding both oiled-up hands in the air. A ratchet lay fisted in his right hand. “I-I gotta order a new one first, an’ then it’d take maybe, yannow, three days to even git here.”
Days. Days. Barricade knew that for all of the advancements his race had made, given his earth-spawned vehicle mode, he could not run without a radiator. Not unless he wanted the contents of his engine compartment to go ‘poof’ in a furious ball of blazing vengeance and flame. Killing himself via his own idiocy was not the way he planned to go out.
“And the radiator is gone. Completely.”
“Oh yeah, check it out,” Mike replied to the aggravated vehicle, quickly holding the crumpled metal piece up. “The coolin’ core’s all outta whack ‘n shit, and I dunno how much you know about engines but you gotta have a workin’ radiator in order for an internal combustion engine to work right. Otherwise it overheats ‘n if you push it, it’ll-“
“Explode. I know. These primitive systems you flesh wads have come up with are not that difficult to figure out,” the Ford rumbled.
“R-Right. So you know what I’m talking about.” Michael dropped the bent piece and wiped his hands on his trousers. “Your fan’s trashed, but that’s easy to replace. I gotta get ahold of a new bumper ‘n rammin’ bars, but I will say that ya got lucky, man.”
Lucky. Dare I even ask him what he considers lucky about my position?
Michael continued anyway, dauntless. “Whatever ya hit with your front end, which I’d take an educated guess and say it was either a tree or a post of some kind, the force of it sheared off your motor mounts.” Pause for effect ‘n all. “Know what those are?”
Begrudgingly, Barricade blipped.
“An’ I’ll take that as a ‘no’.” The human turned he ball cap on his head around so that the visor pointed backwards, gearing up for some educational words. “Motor mounts, or engine mounts, are the six or so bolts that hold the engine to your frame,” Romano explained matter-of-factly. “Ya broke those bolts in th’ impact ‘n your real lucky that ya didn’t wind up with your engine sittin’ in the pass’ger seat.”
The Mustang growled to himself. “Repairable?” he questioned dubiously.
“Well, for you, I’d sure ‘ope so.” Mike leaned back against the bench. “Any car here that don’, yannow, talk ‘n shit would be considered totaled after that point.”
It seemed like a stupid thing to give up on a car for. Waste the thing on account of a few broken bolts. Barricade went silent, considering his options, which were regrettably few and none were favorable. There was no getting out of the garage without his engine, at the very least, put back in as it was and if he chose that mode of escape, he wouldn’t get very far before the damage that his internal repairs couldn’t catch up with would render him offline for good. The cruisers second choice was to stay there and let the human fix him, but at the risk of his life as well. All it took was a single hard jerk by an unknowing hand to a sensitive piece of machinery. Fighting Autobots was safe and simple: let the armor take the damage, Barricade’s was a tough hide. But this was a foreign situation entirely. This involved his internals, usually fiercely guarded by thick armament, being wide open to prying eyes and twitchy fingers.
It was either die for certain, or have a high chance of death.
Some choice.