Alien: Not Over Yet 1 part 2
Continued from here.
oOo
Keats jumped as his cell phone rang. He didn’t get regular calls on it-mostly it was there in case of emergency.
“Hello?” he said, answering.
“Keats,” said Irene, voice sounding uncharacteristically strained. “I’m-oh shit!” There were the noises of a loud explosion in the background. The Autobots-and Decepticons-in the clearing turned, almost as one, to look at him with a sudden intensity. Clearly they could hear the conversation.
“Irene? Irene?” he said, frantically.
“I’m okay, but-Coldfront’s hurt. I don’t think it’s good. Oh, hell, I think it’s really, really bad-Coldfront? ’Front! Are you-Is there anything I can do?”
There was a tortured metallic scraping. Keats winced.
“Where is she?” OP prompted him, leaning down. “Bumblebee, see if you can contact Coldfront.”
“Irene? Where are you?”
“Fringes of that town we passed through-on the road-oh god, I think they killed them-”
“Who killed who?” Mikaela asked, calmly and clearly, taking the phone from Keats’ unresisting hands. “You’re on the road?”
There was another explosion. Irene shrieked, the volume making the speakers on the phone blur a little with static, before she responded. “-Decepticons, don’t know how many-at least five-I don’t know them, but the other cars-rush hour traffic-they have to be dead-”
“Autobots, move out,” said Optimus Prime, voice urgent but calm, composed.
“Bluestreak, you’re not cleared for active duty,” Ratchet said shortly. “Stay here. If anything in Prowl’s condition changes, message me if you can, but it’s unlikely to happen.”
Before he could argue, the Autobots were gone, speeding down the road towards the scene of the battle. Bumblebee was the last in the clearing: he knelt, leaning in close to Sam and Mikaela.
“Be careful, okay?” he told them, gently. Sam whispered something in reply, Mikaela nodding, and then the robot was a Camaro again, speeding off down the road.
“…Should we have followed them?” asked Skywarp rhetorically, cocking his head to look up at Thundercracker.
Bluestreak snarled. “You better not.”
oOo
It was unnervingly quiet in the clearing. The Decepticons’ eyes kept on flickering: they were talking with each other, Sam guessed. At least, if they worked the same way Autobot optics did when the bot-or con-wasn’t concentrating fully on the outside world.
“Let’s go for a walk,” Mikaela said, suddenly.
“Okay,” Miles said immediately.
Sam shrugged, and stood. He did want to burn off some of his nervous energy. What was going on with the battle?
oOo
“So, uh-” started Thundercracker.
“What?” snapped Bluestreak, absolutely bristling.
“The, um, personal frequency you’ve been using-”
Bluestreak stiffened.
“-to talk to yourself is actually mine.”
“What?”
Keats ears were ringing. The volume angry Autobots could apparently reach was… Impressive. Damn. He was partially deaf already.
But maybe it didn’t matter if his hearing deteriorated. Bluestreak had a gun braced, aimed at the Decepticons, both of whom had moved to their feet and produced weapons as well, their positions just as defensive. Keats tried to swallow, but his mouth had gone dry. From the looks of things, he wouldn’t live long enough for worsening hearing to become a problem.
The silence dragged on, until Keats found his voice.
“Bluestreak. Please-please-calm down, don’t start anything now-bring it up when the others get back or something, but wait just a little while, please, or at least keep this verbal-at the very least-I’m kind of fragile compared to you, and probably harder to fix-good things don’t happen when and I know this from experience, back in Brazil, and it was an accident back then, too, but I still ended up almost dead-very, very closely, enough so that thinking about it still freaks me out now and it was a year ago that it happened, now-and that was just one of you, he wasn’t in a fight or distracted, if he had been I’d be moldering dead jelly right now, or a pile of ash-or maybe less than that, just a charred spot in the floor, I don’t know but I’m willing to bet it wouldn’t be good and if one of you misses a shot with those really, really big guns you’ve got pointing out each other and I happen to be a little too close, or if you misstep before I’ve made it out of here, I will die-”
Bluestreak wasn’t reacting. Keats started backing up, ready to turn and run, ready to try and get as far away as he could from the almost inevitable brawl, at a moment’s notice.
Amazingly, to Keats’ huge relief, Thundercracker backed up a step, canons half-transforming back into hands-although not completely.
“I don’t want to fight,” said the Decepticon warily. “And the squi-organi-human is right. We’re a threat to him, and the other humans, even if they’re not in the immediate area. A fight could also draw unwanted attention here.”
“Not to mention, we just kind of ended up as slagging Autobots. And if the Decepticons frown on fighting in the ranks, I bet the good-two-shoes team does too,” cut in Skywarp-who, Keats noticed, still had clearly visible guns. Bluestreak still hadn’t dropped his, either.
“You didn’t tell me,” Bluestreak hissed-the mechanical quality to his voice had increased with his anger, Keats realized. The undertones sounded like a boiling tea kettle just before it whistled-or like steam about to blow a valve. “I-You-I never blocked my own comm. signature, you could have responded whenever-”
“Glitch,” Thundercracker said. “My comm. system’s… sporadic. It’s been a long time since the Decepticons had reliable medics. Especially us grunts.”
“Thundercracker’s always been kind of glitchy, though,” Skywarp sniggered.
“Convenient,” spat Bluestreak, but he wasn’t as fixated on the others, as close to snapping, as he had been. He started pacing quickly, giant feet plowing furrows into the soft, damp soil, and Keats moved away a little more, regardless that it put him closer to the Decepticons. He had his doubts about them, but Nimbus had been one, after all, and he was fine, and it wasn’t like he had any real reason to distrust them. They were also sitting and stationary.
…The smaller one, Skywarp, was eying him kind of unnervingly, though. And Thundercracker was just plain huge, head and shoulders above the (very tall) trees, even sitting. Maybe more. It was hard to tell from where he as, and because the mech was slumped, clearly trying to keep as hidden as possible.
“What did you hear,” Bluestreak said suddenly, stopping his pacing and snapping around to face the others. He didn’t phrase it like a question.
“Nothing sensitive,” Thundercracker said, referring to military secrets. “And I didn’t always pick it up-like I said, glitched comm. system. I… A lot of personal stuff.” He paused, sounding uncomfortable.
“Did you ever hear me talking about… Home?” Bluestreak asked, suddenly sounding more hurt, more like his private thoughts had been badly invaded, than angry.
“Not really,” Thundercracker said. “You compared Cybertron-before things got bad-to other planets.”
Bluestreak didn’t say anything, but relaxed visibly. Keats let himself relax a little with him.
“…I heard you talk about Prowl a lot,” Thundercracker said, unprompted. Then, suddenly, “I’m sorry I couldn’t tell you we’d found him.”
Bluestreak turned and walked off down the rough road, without saying a word-unnervingly-and leaving Keats and the two Decepticons behind.
“Are you going to leave with him?” asked Thundercracker, testing the waters.
“It’s not like I would be able of catching up,” said Keats matter-of-factly. “Anyways, the only Decepticon I’ve ever had any contact with is Nimbus; so I don’t have any real phobia, because I’ve never had a traumatic experience like that-well, the figs, but that only means I’m paranoid when it comes to eating syconiums. I can’t say it’s had all that much of an impact on my life. But, I mean, I’m scared, yes, you’d have to be stupid not to be-and maybe I am kind of stupid (1) in some ways, but I am nervous-but I’m also afraid of flying, and I do that, and I’m afraid of snakes, but I worked on that one experiment with them-It’s something you can deal with, right? And like I said, no real traumatic experiences, and I don’t have any reason to doubt you when you say you want to do this whole getting-along-with-humans-and-Autobots thing, so then it’s only fair-”
“You talk even more than he does,” Skywarp smirked, gesturing in the direction Bluestreak had left.
“-even if you do remind me of Irene at her worst crossed with this jock I knew. He gave me hell all through high school,” Keats finished sourly. Skywarp laughed outright at that.
“Interesting,” said Thundercracker slowly. “You said that this Nimbus almost killed you?”
“Nah, that was Coldfront,” Keats said, looking up from where he’d been poking dubiously at the ground-he wanted to sit, but everything was wet, and nothing was unpleasant like wet pants. Even the rocks and fallen logs were covered with moss, which seemed to be acting like a sponge. On top of that, the shadows were beginning to lengthen; it was getting chillier, which would make being wet even more unpleasant. “I was really skittish for a while, while I was still getting used to the idea of you guys existing at all. Then I fell asleep when I was in the lab one night, Coldfront ended up blocking me in, I got panicky, he woke up when I was trying to climb over him and he freaked out or something, then later Irene forced us-well, tricked us-into meeting up again, and eventually I got over my problem and calmed down and saved the world. That was a year ago… My world view’s finally had time to settle. I’m getting better at accepting the apparently unbelievable-or at least the highly unlikely. Twelve impossible things before breakfast, and all that.”
“What?” asked Skywarp, suddenly looking confused.
Thundercracker made a noise that sounded unnervingly like a sigh, or how a sigh would sound if machines sighed. “It’s a quote,” he said.
“Reference, actually,” Keats said. “Or at least I’d consider it one.”
“Oh. I get it,” Skywarp added. Then, after a minute, “…Humans are weird.”
Having read the Alice books, Keats was inclined to agree with him. Still, something made him defend his species-probably the patriot-while-abroad factor (2) on a grander scale. “Well, they were apparently inspired by rampant drug use…”
“But they’re considered classic children’s books and gone through multiple adaptations and reprints, and that can only be caused by the general culture,” Thundercracker pointed out.
“Point,” Keats admitted. “But-” and then he paused, because he didn’t know what to say. “But literature’s never been my strong point,” he finished with a slightly self-deprecating grin.
“So, what is your strong point?” Thundercracker asked.
Keats shifted a little before he spoke-the tree trunk he was leaning against wasn’t very comfy, and with such a long jaunt in the car on top of everything, he was feeling kind of stiff. “Biology,” he said. “I’ve always liked microorganisms, but I never bothered specializing-I think it’s all fascinating. At the very beginning-what got me into bio at all-there was entomology. Or maybe dinosaurs, at the very root of it all-when I was five or so. But I think everyone gets a dinosaur phase.”
“You seem very calm,” said Thundercracker, a little hesitantly, as if pointing that fact out would send Keats off into some sort of cascading mental breakdown.
“I’ve discovered untapped depths of not freaking out.” Keats paused reflectively. “Or I’m going to do it about fifteen minutes after I finally get some time alone to reflect.” The biologist turned away from the tree trunk he’d been studying-there were ferns growing out of it, kind of a novelty for him, still, after so much time in New Mexico-to look quickly at the Transformer he was talking to.
Jesus he was big. And he’d thought Optimus Prime had been bad, or Ironhide. The other Decepticon has leant back down again, clearly uninterested-Keats was kind of glad about that.
That repressive silence had returned.
“I wish Irene had thought to leave her guides,” he said, just to break the silence. It was putting him on edge.
“She did,” said Skywarp, apparently not as uninterested as he’d seemed to be. “It’s over there.” He pointed to a rock, and sure enough, the book was there. Keats began to wander in its general direction, poking at interesting bits of greenery as he went; he didn’t take the most direct route, which would have led him very close to the Decepticons. At the same time, he avoided the path that would keep him as far away from them as possible. He wondered if they’d noticed his avoidance.
They had, of course.
oOo
He had found the guide and leafed through it a little, walking around the clearing to look at some plants-he ascertained that one tree was a grand fir instead of the more common Douglas fir, and looked at the mouse tails in the cones he found. It was starting to get dark, the heavy tree cover of the forest surrounding the clearing hastening the process. At some point, Bluestreak had returned; he’d muttered something about running into the others, but they hadn’t been ready to come back yet, and then sat silently.
He was significantly damp, and freezing cold by the time it was too dark out to see the flowers he’d been looking at. He was tired beyond belief: this time, he didn’t bother with fussing about sitting down somewhere dry-he just took a seat on the rock. He regretted it a minute later.
Now he had wet underwear.
At least there wouldn’t be many mosquitoes: the acidic quality of the ground leached into any standing water, and the high pH was apparently prohibitive to the larval stages. Of course, he thought, as he heard a familiar whine in one year, that didn’t mean there were no mosquitoes.
Bluestreak moved suddenly, Keats jerking to attention: he’d only caught an impression of complicated metal limbs moving in the gloom above him.
“Keats, your external temperature is dropping, is everything okay? Something’s not wrong, is it? I wish one of the others were here, they have more experience-well, Prowl doesn’t, but he’s kind of here. I wish he was awake, I wish he wasn’t injured-but he at least would know what to do-I don’t know but he’s good at keeping calm and thinking up plans and making important decisions, he’s terribly smart-”
“I’m fine,” said Keats, trying to keep from shivering, which would probably just freak the robot out more: he had this vague feeling that they didn’t have any equivalent to involuntary muscle spasms.
“You can find out this sort of information more easily and faster online,” Skywarp said pointedly, tone rune.
Bluestreak didn’t answer. It was tense silence.
“I mean, it’s not all that pleasant and I suppose I’ll go hypothermic eventually, if I’m out here long enough, but it’s pretty normal to feel cold, and to get cold-I mean, there’s varying levels of danger and it’s different for everyone: just look at, oh, Lynne Cox (3) for example, but everyone’s going to start developing hypothermia eventually. We’re built to deal with it, though, the cold: more or less, I mean. Not like any number of cetaceans, or Antarctic ice-fish, but we are warm-blooded. There are safety measures: increased metabolism, restricted blood vessels, shivering. That sort of thing.”
“Here,” said Bluestreak abruptly, standing to take a few steps, until he was closer to Keats and then kneeling, one hand held out to him. “I have an idea.”
“Some humans are afraid of heights.” Keats was surprised by the comment-not that it was an unusual thing to say, or that it wasn’t true or didn’t make sense, but that Skywarp had said it. It was… Thoughtful.
“Are you?” asked Bluestreak, although he didn’t recognize the comment in any other way. It looked like they had a truce of sorts, but an uneasy one. “I can put you near an active part of my systems or something-it should be warmer. I don’t know if you’ll be warm enough, you’re supposed to be-36 or 37 degrees? But I don’t know what it figures out to in our system-”
There was what sounded like a brief rumble-crackle of static from Thundercracker, but Bluestreak seemed to get something out of it.
“-alright. Yeah, it should help, if you want it. I just don’t want you to be in an endangered physical state, or even uncomfortable-” He broke off for a second. “What’s hypothermia, anyways?”
oOo
It was very cold out, now, but Keats was actually pretty warm. He’d dug out an extra shirt and the light jacket that was all he’d thought to bring, and then Bluestreak really was warm. The seat wasn’t too comfortable, but he was dry and off the ground and it could have been a lot worse. Plus, there was a low humming, one he was picking up almost subconsciously, coming off of the robot-their version of breathing and a heartbeat, he thought sleepily. And he wasn’t the only one who felt tired: it looked like Skywarp had already curled up and gone to ‘sleep,’ and Thundercracker looked remarkably close to copying him, although he was still watching Bluestreak warily, obviously hesitant to put himself in such a position of vulnerability in front of an enemy-even though he was technically an ally, now.
He looked up as he caught a sudden noise: there were twin beams of light cutting through the trees, headlights, and he panicked slightly, before Bluestreak identified the unknown car as Ratchet for him.
The medic pulled up and opened his doors, letting out Sam, Mikaela, Miles and a worse-for-the-wear Irene, before he transformed.
“We brought food,” announced Mikaela. Keats didn’t hesitate to slip onto the hand Bluestreak offered to him, stomach roaring with hunger.
“What’s going on?” asked Skywarp out of the dark, red eyes flickering on to stare at them out of the dark. It was an eerie effect.
“Temporary standoff,” Ratchet said promptly. “They’re holed up in a warehouse-we can’t fire on them without a lot of caution until we get the buildings around it evacuated. The others are still there, watching and waiting, and making themselves useful wherever they can. I fixed Coldfront up and repaired a few minor injuries, and I shuttled humans for a while before I was told to get Irene to a safe zone-Coldfront was insistent.” Keats was sure he had been.
“He ran into us on the way back,” added in Sam. “Thankfully, he had food with him.” Keats nodded fervently, mouth full of sandwich.
Ratchet eyed the small group of humans for a minute; Keats got the feeling that he was seeing more than he was. After a second, he turned a little to face Bluestreak.
“Was sticking Keats next to a hot spot in your armor your idea?” he asked.
“Yes-I’m really sorry if-”
“Don’t worry about it: it was a good idea. You!”
His change of tone was enough to make Keats and Miles jump; Mikaela and Sam just looked startled, and Irene looked too tired to react, almost weaving on her feet and eyelids drooping.
“Me?” asked Thundercracker, looking just as startled as Keats, if distinctly more imposing in his startlement.
“No, the other,” Ratchet snapped out. “You-Skywarp. Were you in recharge?”
“Yessir,” muttered Skywarp. Thundercracker’s surprised expression melted into a disbelieving one-Skywarp was only respectful when he absolutely had to be. Bluestreak looked bewildered, and even Ratchet paused for a second. Irene managed a tired giggle.
Ratchet didn’t skip a beat in his questioning. “Why?”
“We’ve been traveling a long-” Ratchet switched his attention away from the rest of Thundercracker’s explanation, flapping a hand at him as an unvoiced order to wait, as he received a message from Optimus.
Switch on your external speakers, read the burst of data. Ratchet didn’t think to question him. Just a split second later, a voiced message came through.
The Decepticon had fallen silent, waiting for Ratchet. “Message from Optimus Prime,” the medic said into the silence, and let it play.
“Decepticon reinforcements arrived; we’re close to being overrun. Endangered humans are hindering us. Ratchet, can you see that the humans over there get to safety before you join us?”
“Yes, sir,” Ratchet said, echoing the spoken message with a text one to Optimus.
“I can do it faster,” cut in Skywarp. “I can teleport.”
“You’re far too low on energy to risk that!” spat out Ratchet. “Absolutely not. It’s likely you’ve got a slow leak in a system line.”
“Fine,” cut in Thundercracker. “I’ll fly them.”
“…Is anyone going to ask us what we want?” asked Miles faintly. Sam was eyeing the Decepticon who’d just offered to carry them.
“This is a bad idea,” said Mikaela softly. “Can we trust them?”
“Oh, just get in,” growled Irene, stalking past them towards Thundercracker, now in his alt mode.
oOo
Coldfront almost shot the Decepticon who landed next to him and transformed, until he recognized their new ‘ally.’ He didn’t like it, though. Nimbus had revoked his status as a Decepticon entirely, something these two had refused to do. On top of that, they’d showed up just before a battle had broken out, even if they had saved the life of an important Autobot officer.
The Decepticon loosed a shot at a sudden hint of movement, cursing when it missed, his target diving back behind the pile of rubble he was using as a shelter. “Soundwave,” he growled. “Who else is back there?”
“Barricade. Bonecrusher. Soundwave and his dependents, of course. The humans tried to bring in jets, but they were waylaid by ‘multicolored’ fliers of some sort-I don’t think they have Earth alt forms, but they’re not Cybertronian, either.” Bumblebee didn’t look at the ’con as he talked, still methodically scanning for enemy combatants.
A soldier ran up, stopping a short distance away from them and saluting sharply. “Area cleared of civilians, sirs!” he called, saluting them sharply. He looked half frightened and half exhilarated, part of a sci-fi movie become real.
“Thank you,” Bumblebee called back. Then, to, Skywarp, “Prime’s ordered us to hold our positions for now,” he said. “He-”
A strangled scream behind him made him whip around in time to see Scorponok carefully shake the body of the soldier who’d reported to them off his tail, blood splattering wildly. The man was dead, Bee realized, so there was nothing to keep him from shooting. Skywarp joined him, Coldfront watching for approaching threats from behind.
There was an earth-shaking thud as Thundercracker transformed in midair, landing on his feet. “The organics are a safe distance away!” he bellowed over the shooting. Distractedly, Bumblebee thought that they need to trade comm. links with the newcomers, and set them up with a modified cell phone line-Soundwave was blocking their usual contact links, but the Autobots had installed a slightly more advanced version of a personal cell, something he hadn’t thought to block.
The shooting continued for a few minutes longer, until Bumblebee realized the battlefield was suddenly quieting. That was unnatural. He turned to look.
Starscream.
When he judged things were quiet enough, the new Decepticon leader spoke. “So it comes to this,” he sneered. “Autobots, fighting for their lives, just as hindered by their pathetic love for squishy life forms as they are by their own ineptitude.” He paused for a minute, gazing around the frozen tableau. “My faithful followers-” he allowed himself to savor the phrase “-all true Decepticons. And two, the most faithful of all: my own wingmates…”
Bumblebee froze, suddenly aware of the Decepticon next to him.
“My own wingmates, who have successfully infiltrated the Autobot ranks!”
Bumblebee reacted before Starscream had finished the sentence, but he was too late: before he could fire on the snickering Skywarp, Thundercracker had Ratchet held bodily, dangling helplessly above the ground with his arms pinned and the Decepticon’s cannon pointed pointblank at his spark.
Not a single Autobot moved. The Decepticons fanned out a little, slowly, surrounding them.
“Come,” said Starscream, almost delirious with glee. “Join me, my brothers! Don’t shoot, Prime, and order your pathetic rabble to stay still-unless you want to see your medic dead, that is. You do seem to lose soldiers quickly... What was the name of that little silver ’bot, the one who was torn apart the last time we fought?”
“Stay still,” Optimus Prime ordered his men, voice blank of emotions.
Thundercracker and Skywarp started forward, Skywarp walking more quickly: Thundercracker was hampered by Ratchet’s dead weight. Starscream greeted him as he drew close.
“It’s been too long,” he said, “since I’ve had my most trusted companions-my wingmates-”
“Like slag you’re my wingmate,” grunted Skywarp, brining a cannon up to fire. Starscream fell.
The two groups flinched as one as he fell, then froze again.
“You abandoned us to play politics,” he continued, shooting again. Starscream jerked. The explosion was deafening in the silence. “You-” he broke off into Cybertronian.
Carefully, Thundercracker set Ratchet down.
“Die,” spat Skywarp, and fired one last time.
Barricade broke the stillness even before the last echoes of the final explosion had faded: he fled, tires squealing as he sped off.
Soundwave followed him, and most of the other Decepticons. The three jets didn’t leave immediately, standing their ground for a minute, hissing and weaving from side to side, like snakes about to strike. It was only a soldier, nervous to the point of breaking, who loosed a sabot round and hit one on the side of the face that sent them into retreat, leaving behind the two traitors.
“Sorry,” said Thundercracker guiltily to Ratchet, who was tense with pain as he attempted to investigate the leaking dent on his shoulder, where the Decepticon had held him.
Skywarp fell over.
“Energy exhaustion,” identified Ratchet distractedly after a brief glimpse to the side. His voice was staticky with pain. “Someone get the idiot back to base.”
“Where’d you leave Sam and Mikaela?” Bumblebee asked, his voice not that much better than Ratchet’s, although that was fairly normal, for him: his voice still fluctuated, not completely healed by the Allspark.
Bumblebee sped off as Thundercracker shouted out the coordinates for their location, Coldfront just behind him. Nimbus left to help transport human wounded: he trusted Bumblebee and Coldfront to take care of his charge. Optimus had moved to investigate Starscream’s deactivated shell, and he shifted Skywarp’s unconscious body off of it, supporting the limp frame as he looked.
Bluestreak seemed to be in shock, or something like it, standing motionless.
“Holy shit,” managed one of the soldiers.
“Bluestreak,” said Optimus, turning around again. “See if you can help Ratchet with his shoulder. Thundercracker, I think I can get Skywarp back to the base; go-” belatedly, remembering that Thundercracker wasn’t his soldier to command, he changed his wording. “-would you be willing to help the government with their rescue attempts?”
The Decepticon nodded swiftly, and headed towards where the officer in command of the situation was. He was careful of his feet; regardless, most of the soldiers were clearly afraid: they had all thought that he was going to be the death of them, along of Skywarp. On top of that, he was the largest Transformer there, and the fact that he’d betrayed the Decepticons, helped kill Starscream and played a vital role in winning the battle would only help a little, when it came to managing their fear.
Ratchet was feeling pretty ambivalent about the situation, himself. On one hand, he was alive, as were all the other Autobots, and there had been minimal human fatalities. Starscream was dead. On the other hand, he had severely dented armor plating on his shoulder, pinching several wires-and a few pain receptors-and breaking a tertiary energon line, causing the slow leak that was making everything slippery and even harder to try and fix than it would have been otherwise.
He also could still remembering being held, dangling, off of the ground like that. He’d been very convinced that he was about to die.
Bluestreak would be some help with the injury, though. If nothing else, he had a good pair of hands-steady, like a sniper needed. It was part of the reason why Optimus had assigned him to help Ratchet with his shoulder, doubtlessly: Bumblebee and Coldfront had left, although one of them could have been called back if Optimus had insisted; Skywarp was down for the count, and Ratchet wouldn’t trust him in his internals anyways; Thundercracker was-not a good choice, even if his hands hadn’t been far too big; Optimus himself also had hands that were a little too large, as well as needing to be free to deal with the general situation: to start with, with this many witnesses, there was no way that the government could cover it up. And that left Nimbus and Bluestreak. Of the two, Bluestreak was better-suited to the job.
It was just Ratchet’s luck, though, that the mech ‘helping’ him was highly distracted, and seemed to be going through some kind of personal revelation or internal struggle.
“The other wire, that one’s still connected,” Ratchet said, for the third time.
“-Oh.” Bluestreak looked blankly at what he’d been doing. “This one?”
Ratchet sighed. This wasn’t getting either of them anywhere. “Look, Bluestreak, if you’re too distracted to do this, I understand. You can go drive around in circles or whatever it is you need to do to calm down.” He’d known other mechs who got post-battle jitters, and that was a medical issue, putting them under his jurisdiction: if Optimus had problems with Bluestreak leaving instead of staying to be helpful, he could talk to Ratchet about it.
“Oh, no, I’m fine,” Bluestreak said, immediately and extremely unconvincingly.
“Riiight.”
“It’s-I-They,” he glanced over at Thundercracker, who was holding up the roof of a damaged building up and apparently bitching at Nimbus for not moving fast enough as he carefully moved rubble. “-I don’t get it! They’re Decepticons.”
“I-It’s hard for me, too,” Ratchet said, looking over at the young ’bot. “And that’s just thinking about whether or not we should give them a chance. But… Let me put it this way. I knew an Autobot, a devoted Autobot, one who would never betray our cause and believed in it fully, who hacked a bloody trail for himself leading up the chain of command, until he was caught poisoning his commander’s energy ration-and all because he thought he thought he could do a better job so he was, through that, helping the Autobots. There have been traitorous Autobots, too. Autobots have killed innocents. One of the most unpleasant mechs I’ve ever had the misfortune of dealing with? (4) An Autobot.”
“Yeah,” said Bluestreak, thinking: well, of course. Sunstreaker and Sideswipe were at the front of his mind.
“It’s possible-I’d say probable-the same’s true of the Decepticons, you know. No, don’t look at me like that, I’m not saying we embrace every Decepticon who comes knocking with blind trust and a hug, I’m saying that once someone’s proved themselves-and I think killing Starscream counts-then it’s only fair to be open to the idea of accepting them. Even if Skywarp is a menace and Thundercracker crushed in my shoulder.”
Bluestreak didn’t answer, looking doubtfully at the medic, but when he focused his attention back on the repairs, he got the wires right the first time.
oOo
The Autobots had been ready to head back to the base, and the teens were with them, but Irene had put her foot down. She and Keats had each gotten hotel rooms for the night, with Coldfront and, surprisingly, Bluestreak, who had asked, staying behind to get them home the next day.
Keats slept over twelve hours straight, and then had a hot breakfast. It was his idea of heaven.
Irene slept until five in the morning before tossing herself awake, still exhausted but unable to do anything but doze restlessly because of the painful bruising she’d gotten when Coldfront had run into the Decepticons. The hot bath she had at seven when she gave up on trying to fall back asleep was her idea of heaven.
The drive back was uneventful. Mostly, Keats chatted with Bluestreak, not about anything in particular, or anything important. They talked some about earth, and about the planets Bluestreak had seen-that in particular fascinated Keats. Keats also did a little work playing with the preliminary results of an experiment he was working on, did a little reading when his stomach was steady enough. The time passed surprisingly quickly.
Bluestreak dropped Keats off outside his apartment, and he decided he didn’t care what the neighbors did or didn’t find suspicious. He didn’t even unpacking before he went to bed, only pausing to eat some leftovers he’d had in the fridge. After all, he needed to be at the lab by four tomorrow morning. His shift had come up again, after all.
It was over.
oOo
It had been five weeks since Keats had returned home. He’d finished the life-consuming project three weeks ago, and reveled in waking up at 7:30 every day for a week.
The past two weeks had just been unpleasant.
He always got this way after a big project finished, but it usually didn’t last long. It had been pretty bad after the Brazil incident had finished: that was more what he felt like now. It was hard to go from ‘saving the world with the Autobots’ to ‘eight-to-five existence as cog-in-the-machine working stiff.’”
And then today he’d been laid off.
If he had been honest with himself, earlier, he wouldn’t have been so surprised. The company had been having trouble, and the biological sciences had never been their primary focus. And it wasn’t like it was just him: everyone except for Jaime, who was getting moved to management, and Linda, who had a double degree and was getting shunted off to a different department, was in the same boat.
It still sucked.
The phone started ringing as he turned the key to his apartment door. Keats thought about ignoring it, but didn’t, mostly because the noise was obnoxious.
“Hello?” he asked, trying to juggle the phone one-handed as he shrugged off his wet coat. It figured that today was one of the (very) few rainy ones.
“Hey, Keats, you’re home!”
“Hi, Kristine.”
“Great-you’re always working late, so I was afraid I was going to miss you-my evenings are reserved for jellies, so I couldn’t just call a bit later. And you never answer your phone messages.”
“Well, I’ll be free more evenings, now,” Keats said, ignoring the jab about his answering machine-it was only partly true, after all. “I’m losing my job.”
“Ohhh, I’m so sorry! Was… Was it your fault?”
“Kristine!”
“Fine, fine, I’m sorry.” She paused a minute. “…Well, was it?”
“No! The business is in trouble, that’s all. My whole department got the boot. Except for Jaime, lucky bastard he is, and Linda-I’d say she’s a lucky bastard, too, but she got moved to engineering, which makes up for it.”
“Tough luck... Listen, you want me to ask around to see if there’s an interesting position open right now? I can’t promise you that you’ll get to stay in that hellpit you call your home state, but there’s probably something out there.”
‘No, but thank you, really. I’ll look by myself for a while, at least-it sounds like you’re busy. I might take a little time off, since I’ve got some savings-you know, get things figured out and get my life in order. Maybe I’ll deliver pizza.”
Kristine laughed. “The only problem with that idea is that you’re too far away for me to get you as my delivery boy. Seriously, though, if you need anything-even a place to crash for a while. I’ve got an empty room, now that the kid’s moved out.”
“Thanks,” Keats said, really meaning it.
“Of course, you get to help me with the jellyfish if you’re taking up my spare room.”
“-I think.”
“Cute. Just for that, you’re cooking too.”
“Having tasted your cooking, I’d do that anyways.”
“Hey! I’ve improved, I’ll have you know. I’ve mastered any number of dishes, from scrambled eggs to, uh, fried eggs. If you don’t mind broken yolks. Oh, I can do salad too.”
“Impressive. And, uh, not that I’m hinting that I really want to get some food and take a shower before I crash or anything like that, but is there a reason you called?”
“Oh, right, that. Would you look over some of the work I’ve done relating to the useless bioflourescent bags of goo? I’d like your opinion on a few parts-”
“Really? Sure-I’ll certainly have the time, like I said, and I’m curious about what it is you’re actually doing with these things. You’re being remarkably closemouthed about the specifics.”
“Yeah, ’cause it’s embarrassing. And, of course, I’ll pay you the going rate for consultations-”
“What? Kristine!”
“Don’t argue, whiner. I’m still your government-appointed mentor. So, you found a new girlfriend yet?”
Keats sighed. “Oh, like you’re one to talk-”
“Yeah, but I’m old…”
oOo
It was well past eleven when Keats dragged himself out of bed, but he didn’t feel too guilty about it. After all, he didn’t have anywhere he needed to be, and he’d stayed up late the night before, trying to puzzle his way through Kristine’s shorthand-it had taken her two weeks, but she’d finally gotten him the documents he was supposed to be poking through.
Keats poured himself his customary cup of black-as-the-pits-of-hell coffee with a sigh. (“That stuff’s going to give you cancer someday,” his mom had told him the last time she’d visited, tongue firmly in cheek. His mother bore an unnerving resemblance-when it came to personality-to Kristine. And Irene, for that matter, although thankfully less of one. Keats didn’t want to imagine someone who’d been raised by the botanist.)
Half-heartedly, he poked through the fridge. It was too late for breakfast, and early for lunch. Maybe he’d make French toast and just combine the two meals into one. He sniffed gingerly at the milk, and almost gagged at the stench.
Okay, maybe he’d have eggs.
…Eggs which he would float first, to see if they were still good, before he cracked.
Damn but his fridge was a mess. Maybe he’d clean it out tomorrow. Or this weekend. Unlike other household chores-which he was usually pretty good about getting to at least somewhat regularly, even when he was bogged down with work-he really hated cleaning out the refrigerator.
Maybe he could get a dog or something. Not that a pet would help keep moldering leftovers out of his fridge, but it would be nice to have some company. Or a cat instead-they were supposed to be lower-maintenance, right?
Hell, what he needed was a social life. It was a pity his best conversational topics all had to do with biology. Weird biology, most of the time-although admittedly not as weird as what Irene came up with. And Kristine was right, the jellyfish project was embarrassing. Evan was good at social stuff outside of the lab, though, and Toni, at least when it wasn’t Irene he was socializing.
The last time he’d really had a social life had been in the eleventh grade with the Dungeons and Dragons crew at his high school, and even then he’d kind of been the outsider. Really, he’d only been invited because he’d been in advanced math with them. Keats got along with people, but he really didn’t-It was very rarely anything more than a casual friendship, more an acquaintanceship than anything else.
Maybe there was a lecture series at the local university he could attend, although that might turn out to just be college students. He was a little old for most of that group, by now-which was hard to admit. He was getting old. He might find a lecture series anyways-it could be interesting. He also needed something to occupy himself with.
Maybe he’d just have a months-long internal debate over all of the above and some extra until he got a job again and no longer had 17 empty hours to fill each day. Surfing the Internet could only occupy him for so long, after all.
That sounded like the most likely option, really.
In the meantime, he was going to walk to the corner store down the road for milk and a newspaper, because French toast really did sound good, and you needed milk for that. He’d also probably get some kind of cereal that would cause a diabetic coma an hour or so after consumption and cancer a few years down the road while he was at it, the kind of thing his mom never let him eat.
One of the cars he saw on the short walk there looked vaguely familiar, but he dismissed the feeling as a product of his bored imagination until he found it waiting for him in the apartment complex parking lot. One door popped open as he approached it-although the car (maybe “the ‘car’” was more appropriate, his mind whispered) although it was apparently empty.
“Bluestreak?” he hissed, disbelieving, as he ducked inside.
“Yeah! Don’t you recognize me?”
“No, you’re a different color-”
“But it’s the same model and everything! Same modifications-and it’s hardly something you’re likely to see on the roads around here, unmodified or otherwise-”
“Bluestreak, I have a genetically inherent ability to distinguish and recognize the subtleties of the human face. All people do, like emperor penguins when it comes to penguin noises. It doesn’t work with cars.”
“Oh, fine. But how are you? It’s been a long time, huh? Well, I mean, comparatively speaking, and since you’re human and everything so you live such a short while-that must be weird-and then you don’t have a comm. system so we couldn’t even talk after I got cleared to use internal communications systems again by Ratchet-that’s a long story, I’ll have to explain everything later-although I suppose I could have tracked down your cell phone number and used that even though it’s apparently kind of illegal and Optimus Prime told me to only use it if it’s important ’cause relations with the human government are kind of tense right now-even though I think Bumblebee calls Sam and Mikaela all the time, but it might be different ’cause he’s gotten the modified attachment installed-”
“Whoa, wait a minute!” Keats laughed. “First of all, is Prowl okay?” Did you ever run into the other team you were looking for? Why are you a different color? What’s up with the other Autobots? And the kind-of-Decepticons, I guess, although you aren’t all that hot on them, I know.”
“Oh! Prowl’s fine. Great. He wants to know if he can meet you some time… That would be alright, right? And don’t worry if he seems kind of cold, he’s just like that-I mean, he’s Prowl. We still don’t know where Wheeljack and the twins are, though-I’m kind of worried. They’ve had a lot of time to get here, since they were in about the same place me and Prowl were, and they must have gotten Optimus Prime’s message-and yeah, Sunstreaker and Sideswipe are kind of weird Autobots but they’re Autobots, right? So I’m worried they’re in trouble and can’t come to earth or something. Although I think the twins could probably fight their out of anything-or through anything-and Wheeljack could probably figure his way out of anything, he’s really smart and he’s kind of destructive even when he’s trying not to be-”
“I’m sure they’re fine. They sound like they can take care of themselves-maybe something just held them up.”
“-thanks. Anyways, I changed my color because after we went public people kept on recognizing me. Do you like it? I thought it looked good. Sunstreaker’ll probably tease the hell out of me when he gets here, though…”
“Yeah, it looks good.” It was true, too-the warm burgundy color fit, even if Keats thought he preferred the less-flashy gray. Bluestreak had also gotten rid of the striping, he noticed.
“Thank you-But how are you? Oh. Do you mind me showing up like this? I guess some humans just kind of want to pretend we don’t exist, and after all the trouble I put you through-I wanted to see how you were doing, though, you know, and maybe talk a little-I didn’t think about how you might not want to-”
“Don’t worry about it! It’s always nice to spend some time with a friend.” Friend-Bluestreak was oddly happy with that. After all, he’d caused the man nothing but trouble, and really, Keats had done him a huge favor. And he was the first human he’d ever had contact with. The only human he’d ever really had a lot of contact with, or gotten to know. He’d been nice. He’d liked talking to him.
Keats continued. “I’m doing… Well, not all that great, since I lost my job, but not too badly, considering the circumstances. I have a friend who might let me housesit for him out in the mountains when he leaves in a week or so-it’s not quite definite yet, he’s one of the worst people I’ve ever met for planning ahead.”
“Ohhh. I’m sorry. It’s not because you were gone those days, when we drove up to Washington? I-”
“Just bad luck,” said Keats, with a crooked smile. “It’s not anyone’s fault, let alone yours-I didn’t even have to call in sick, I didn’t have my shift any of those days we were gone, thankfully.”
“Good… Still, though, I’m sorry. Is… Is there anything you can do to help?”
“It’s nice just to have someone to talk to, really. I hadn’t realized how little time I spent socializing outside of work… And you’re good conversationalist.”
“I… It doesn’t bother you that I talk so much?” Bluestreak sounded surprised, almost hopeful. “I do, I know-Ironhide threatened to shoot me the next time I started my vocalizer around him the second day we were both stationed at the Autobot base together.”
“No,” Keats said, bemused. “I mean, I can talk a fair bit, myself. …Usually only when I’m close to panicking, but I’m still capable of it. And you usually have good sense, and make a fair amount of sense. Like I said, good conversation.”
“Thank you, it’s nice to talk to you too-you always have interesting things to say.”
Keats smiled. “Thanks to you, too. Anyways, what have you been up to?”
“Not a lot,” Bluestreak confessed. “I spent a while running a deep systems check-that took a while. I don’t really know what happened, I was really out of it, but now Bumblebee keeps on snickering whenever he sees me. It turned out that I had some real problems-Wheeljack hadn’t really noticed since he’s not a trained medic and everything, and I didn’t notice until I got to earth and my downloads were all weird. Prowl had problems too, and the Decepticons. Especially them.” He paused a minute, and then continued, abruptly. “I hadn’t realized they didn’t really have trained medics, especially not after the beginning of the war-it made them kind of weird around Ratchet, kind of respectful and almost-worried? Or afraid-but-that doesn’t make sense, Ratchet’s no threat to either of them… Thundercracker’s worst about it, I think it’s because of what happened in the battle-”
“What ended up happening with that?” Keats asked, interrupting. “I mean, with the Decepticon attacks-I haven’t seen anything in the news, but that doesn’t mean much…”
“Not much, thankfully-just, y’know, skirmishes now and then. Though I’m worried about those three ugly jets, do you remember them? The ones with the ridiculous paintjob-they looked kind of crazy. It happens.
“Barricade’s mostly lying low, Bumblebee says he won’t risk another attack until there’s a big force built up again because he’s mostly looking out for himself, not the Decepticon ideals-I guess they’ve got some kind of history-Bumblebee and Barricade, I mean. I don’t know about Soundwave, nobody really does-he’s always been really high-up in the ranks but Thundercracker said he’s never fought for his place or tried to overthrow anyone else, which is weird when you’re a Decepticon apparently, which sounds like it would suck-so Soundwave might just be waiting to attack or he might not be planning to at all.”
“At least things have been quiet, then?”
“Well, kind of-there are still all kinds of calls and diplomatic visits and things like that, it’s all really complicated since we went public and all. I try to avoid all that, since I’m not too good at politics, but Prowl’s been really involved in it, he’s always busy-which is how he likes it, he starts getting really twitchy when he’s not working more than any other mech could manage, because he feels like he should be doing as absolutely much as he’s capable of, even when there’s nothing to do-he was like that even when it was just the two of us drifting along in the middle of space-I don’t really get it, honestly.”
“I’ve never had much of an interest in politics either. I follow the news, of course, but I’ve got no taste for the analysis and strategy-and, in a lot of cases, the manipulation, I get the feeling. But I noticed none of the reports talked about Skywarp and Thundercracker, even when they talked about the Decepticons-what’s up with that?”
“Oh, right. Well, I think a lot of governments know about them, but it’s kind of being kept a secret-I think they’re afraid it would freak people out. Even more than this all has already-Us, I mean. Some of the news coverage-it’s not very nice, and the letters are worse-well, not all of them, but a lot and the demonstrations… It’s kind of lonely, sometimes. It’s-This is an alien planet, you know? It’s not home, which is kind of a crazy thing for me to think, I know, I haven’t been home in-who knows how long, there isn’t a home for me to go home to at all-But anyways, that’s the reaction to just the Autobots, so it would be worse-”
“Have you met many people? Humans, I mean.”
“No… Mostly, it’s just politicians and journalists who show up, and soldiers, and I don’t want to accidentally say something stupid, which happens a lot with me-and they’re kind of intimidating, so I stay out of the way: so does Ironhide. Ratchet would like to, I think, but he doesn’t, and Gyro’s under orders to act ‘normal’ when he’s under the public eye; Solarity gets interviewed a lot, probably because he’s friendly and reasonable-he likes asking the journalists questions, and I think they like talking to him, too. Coldfront does some, too. Bumblebee never talks much-he’s got a good excuse-but he gets filmed a lot with Sam and Mikaela-the three of them are favorites, I think, but I also think that none of them really like it. I haven’t met Landslide, he’s staying far away from the base entirely. And Nimbus avoids most humans-he makes them nervous, ’cause of the Decepticon design, even though he’s got the Autobot sigil and took the oath and everything, and I don’t think anyone really understands what all the spikes and things mean, so I guess it doesn’t make much sense that they’re afraid of him at all. Anyways, I don’t know, but I guess Skywarp and Thundercracker are the same-but they haven’t met many humans at all, especially face-to-face. I don’t know if they just don’t want to, or if they don’t want to because of the reaction they’d cause, or because they’re under actual orders to stay away or what, but they do. I wouldn’t like it. …Well, really, it’s not like my life’s been much different recently. Now I’m a little different, I guess, because of meeting with you-they seem to just spend a lot of time with each other. It’s a Seeker thing-it’s kind of like a family? Where they’re all really close and there’s rules and expectations, and they all support each other, and what happened back at the battlefield was that Starscream had broken some agreement, or something like that, and that’s why they were so angry. I think it would be nice, to have someone you could rely on like that-well, I guess it’s like me and prowl. For me, at least, Prowl doesn’t really need to rely on me-but it’s weird thinking that Decepticons, even just a subset of them, have some sort of custom like that, where it’s all about trust and love and faithfulness…”
Bluestreak trailed off. Keats didn’t know what to say.
He had the feeling, though, that Bluestreak was more-at peace, now. He was certainly calmer.
The silence stretched a minute longer.
“Hey, Bluestreak-want to go for a drive out in the desert, or something like that?”
“Yeah… Yeah, I would.”
Life went on. Things really weren’t so horrible, after all. Maybe there’d be bats out-he was pretty sure the cactus would be blooming tonight. And he had a lot of catching-up to do, with Bluestreak. He wasn’t planning on being back soon.
--END--
(1) Keats differentiates between intelligence and smartness.
(2) It’s one thing for a citizen to complain about their home country. It’s another thing entirely for a foreigner-especially when you’re traveling in a foreign country.
(3) Lynne Cox swam across the Bering Strait in only a bathing suit. Later, she swam a mile in 32-degree water in the Antarctic, and lived.
(4) He’s thinking of Landslide here, actually.
oOo
Keats jumped as his cell phone rang. He didn’t get regular calls on it-mostly it was there in case of emergency.
“Hello?” he said, answering.
“Keats,” said Irene, voice sounding uncharacteristically strained. “I’m-oh shit!” There were the noises of a loud explosion in the background. The Autobots-and Decepticons-in the clearing turned, almost as one, to look at him with a sudden intensity. Clearly they could hear the conversation.
“Irene? Irene?” he said, frantically.
“I’m okay, but-Coldfront’s hurt. I don’t think it’s good. Oh, hell, I think it’s really, really bad-Coldfront? ’Front! Are you-Is there anything I can do?”
There was a tortured metallic scraping. Keats winced.
“Where is she?” OP prompted him, leaning down. “Bumblebee, see if you can contact Coldfront.”
“Irene? Where are you?”
“Fringes of that town we passed through-on the road-oh god, I think they killed them-”
“Who killed who?” Mikaela asked, calmly and clearly, taking the phone from Keats’ unresisting hands. “You’re on the road?”
There was another explosion. Irene shrieked, the volume making the speakers on the phone blur a little with static, before she responded. “-Decepticons, don’t know how many-at least five-I don’t know them, but the other cars-rush hour traffic-they have to be dead-”
“Autobots, move out,” said Optimus Prime, voice urgent but calm, composed.
“Bluestreak, you’re not cleared for active duty,” Ratchet said shortly. “Stay here. If anything in Prowl’s condition changes, message me if you can, but it’s unlikely to happen.”
Before he could argue, the Autobots were gone, speeding down the road towards the scene of the battle. Bumblebee was the last in the clearing: he knelt, leaning in close to Sam and Mikaela.
“Be careful, okay?” he told them, gently. Sam whispered something in reply, Mikaela nodding, and then the robot was a Camaro again, speeding off down the road.
“…Should we have followed them?” asked Skywarp rhetorically, cocking his head to look up at Thundercracker.
Bluestreak snarled. “You better not.”
oOo
It was unnervingly quiet in the clearing. The Decepticons’ eyes kept on flickering: they were talking with each other, Sam guessed. At least, if they worked the same way Autobot optics did when the bot-or con-wasn’t concentrating fully on the outside world.
“Let’s go for a walk,” Mikaela said, suddenly.
“Okay,” Miles said immediately.
Sam shrugged, and stood. He did want to burn off some of his nervous energy. What was going on with the battle?
oOo
“So, uh-” started Thundercracker.
“What?” snapped Bluestreak, absolutely bristling.
“The, um, personal frequency you’ve been using-”
Bluestreak stiffened.
“-to talk to yourself is actually mine.”
“What?”
Keats ears were ringing. The volume angry Autobots could apparently reach was… Impressive. Damn. He was partially deaf already.
But maybe it didn’t matter if his hearing deteriorated. Bluestreak had a gun braced, aimed at the Decepticons, both of whom had moved to their feet and produced weapons as well, their positions just as defensive. Keats tried to swallow, but his mouth had gone dry. From the looks of things, he wouldn’t live long enough for worsening hearing to become a problem.
The silence dragged on, until Keats found his voice.
“Bluestreak. Please-please-calm down, don’t start anything now-bring it up when the others get back or something, but wait just a little while, please, or at least keep this verbal-at the very least-I’m kind of fragile compared to you, and probably harder to fix-good things don’t happen when and I know this from experience, back in Brazil, and it was an accident back then, too, but I still ended up almost dead-very, very closely, enough so that thinking about it still freaks me out now and it was a year ago that it happened, now-and that was just one of you, he wasn’t in a fight or distracted, if he had been I’d be moldering dead jelly right now, or a pile of ash-or maybe less than that, just a charred spot in the floor, I don’t know but I’m willing to bet it wouldn’t be good and if one of you misses a shot with those really, really big guns you’ve got pointing out each other and I happen to be a little too close, or if you misstep before I’ve made it out of here, I will die-”
Bluestreak wasn’t reacting. Keats started backing up, ready to turn and run, ready to try and get as far away as he could from the almost inevitable brawl, at a moment’s notice.
Amazingly, to Keats’ huge relief, Thundercracker backed up a step, canons half-transforming back into hands-although not completely.
“I don’t want to fight,” said the Decepticon warily. “And the squi-organi-human is right. We’re a threat to him, and the other humans, even if they’re not in the immediate area. A fight could also draw unwanted attention here.”
“Not to mention, we just kind of ended up as slagging Autobots. And if the Decepticons frown on fighting in the ranks, I bet the good-two-shoes team does too,” cut in Skywarp-who, Keats noticed, still had clearly visible guns. Bluestreak still hadn’t dropped his, either.
“You didn’t tell me,” Bluestreak hissed-the mechanical quality to his voice had increased with his anger, Keats realized. The undertones sounded like a boiling tea kettle just before it whistled-or like steam about to blow a valve. “I-You-I never blocked my own comm. signature, you could have responded whenever-”
“Glitch,” Thundercracker said. “My comm. system’s… sporadic. It’s been a long time since the Decepticons had reliable medics. Especially us grunts.”
“Thundercracker’s always been kind of glitchy, though,” Skywarp sniggered.
“Convenient,” spat Bluestreak, but he wasn’t as fixated on the others, as close to snapping, as he had been. He started pacing quickly, giant feet plowing furrows into the soft, damp soil, and Keats moved away a little more, regardless that it put him closer to the Decepticons. He had his doubts about them, but Nimbus had been one, after all, and he was fine, and it wasn’t like he had any real reason to distrust them. They were also sitting and stationary.
…The smaller one, Skywarp, was eying him kind of unnervingly, though. And Thundercracker was just plain huge, head and shoulders above the (very tall) trees, even sitting. Maybe more. It was hard to tell from where he as, and because the mech was slumped, clearly trying to keep as hidden as possible.
“What did you hear,” Bluestreak said suddenly, stopping his pacing and snapping around to face the others. He didn’t phrase it like a question.
“Nothing sensitive,” Thundercracker said, referring to military secrets. “And I didn’t always pick it up-like I said, glitched comm. system. I… A lot of personal stuff.” He paused, sounding uncomfortable.
“Did you ever hear me talking about… Home?” Bluestreak asked, suddenly sounding more hurt, more like his private thoughts had been badly invaded, than angry.
“Not really,” Thundercracker said. “You compared Cybertron-before things got bad-to other planets.”
Bluestreak didn’t say anything, but relaxed visibly. Keats let himself relax a little with him.
“…I heard you talk about Prowl a lot,” Thundercracker said, unprompted. Then, suddenly, “I’m sorry I couldn’t tell you we’d found him.”
Bluestreak turned and walked off down the rough road, without saying a word-unnervingly-and leaving Keats and the two Decepticons behind.
“Are you going to leave with him?” asked Thundercracker, testing the waters.
“It’s not like I would be able of catching up,” said Keats matter-of-factly. “Anyways, the only Decepticon I’ve ever had any contact with is Nimbus; so I don’t have any real phobia, because I’ve never had a traumatic experience like that-well, the figs, but that only means I’m paranoid when it comes to eating syconiums. I can’t say it’s had all that much of an impact on my life. But, I mean, I’m scared, yes, you’d have to be stupid not to be-and maybe I am kind of stupid (1) in some ways, but I am nervous-but I’m also afraid of flying, and I do that, and I’m afraid of snakes, but I worked on that one experiment with them-It’s something you can deal with, right? And like I said, no real traumatic experiences, and I don’t have any reason to doubt you when you say you want to do this whole getting-along-with-humans-and-Autobots thing, so then it’s only fair-”
“You talk even more than he does,” Skywarp smirked, gesturing in the direction Bluestreak had left.
“-even if you do remind me of Irene at her worst crossed with this jock I knew. He gave me hell all through high school,” Keats finished sourly. Skywarp laughed outright at that.
“Interesting,” said Thundercracker slowly. “You said that this Nimbus almost killed you?”
“Nah, that was Coldfront,” Keats said, looking up from where he’d been poking dubiously at the ground-he wanted to sit, but everything was wet, and nothing was unpleasant like wet pants. Even the rocks and fallen logs were covered with moss, which seemed to be acting like a sponge. On top of that, the shadows were beginning to lengthen; it was getting chillier, which would make being wet even more unpleasant. “I was really skittish for a while, while I was still getting used to the idea of you guys existing at all. Then I fell asleep when I was in the lab one night, Coldfront ended up blocking me in, I got panicky, he woke up when I was trying to climb over him and he freaked out or something, then later Irene forced us-well, tricked us-into meeting up again, and eventually I got over my problem and calmed down and saved the world. That was a year ago… My world view’s finally had time to settle. I’m getting better at accepting the apparently unbelievable-or at least the highly unlikely. Twelve impossible things before breakfast, and all that.”
“What?” asked Skywarp, suddenly looking confused.
Thundercracker made a noise that sounded unnervingly like a sigh, or how a sigh would sound if machines sighed. “It’s a quote,” he said.
“Reference, actually,” Keats said. “Or at least I’d consider it one.”
“Oh. I get it,” Skywarp added. Then, after a minute, “…Humans are weird.”
Having read the Alice books, Keats was inclined to agree with him. Still, something made him defend his species-probably the patriot-while-abroad factor (2) on a grander scale. “Well, they were apparently inspired by rampant drug use…”
“But they’re considered classic children’s books and gone through multiple adaptations and reprints, and that can only be caused by the general culture,” Thundercracker pointed out.
“Point,” Keats admitted. “But-” and then he paused, because he didn’t know what to say. “But literature’s never been my strong point,” he finished with a slightly self-deprecating grin.
“So, what is your strong point?” Thundercracker asked.
Keats shifted a little before he spoke-the tree trunk he was leaning against wasn’t very comfy, and with such a long jaunt in the car on top of everything, he was feeling kind of stiff. “Biology,” he said. “I’ve always liked microorganisms, but I never bothered specializing-I think it’s all fascinating. At the very beginning-what got me into bio at all-there was entomology. Or maybe dinosaurs, at the very root of it all-when I was five or so. But I think everyone gets a dinosaur phase.”
“You seem very calm,” said Thundercracker, a little hesitantly, as if pointing that fact out would send Keats off into some sort of cascading mental breakdown.
“I’ve discovered untapped depths of not freaking out.” Keats paused reflectively. “Or I’m going to do it about fifteen minutes after I finally get some time alone to reflect.” The biologist turned away from the tree trunk he’d been studying-there were ferns growing out of it, kind of a novelty for him, still, after so much time in New Mexico-to look quickly at the Transformer he was talking to.
Jesus he was big. And he’d thought Optimus Prime had been bad, or Ironhide. The other Decepticon has leant back down again, clearly uninterested-Keats was kind of glad about that.
That repressive silence had returned.
“I wish Irene had thought to leave her guides,” he said, just to break the silence. It was putting him on edge.
“She did,” said Skywarp, apparently not as uninterested as he’d seemed to be. “It’s over there.” He pointed to a rock, and sure enough, the book was there. Keats began to wander in its general direction, poking at interesting bits of greenery as he went; he didn’t take the most direct route, which would have led him very close to the Decepticons. At the same time, he avoided the path that would keep him as far away from them as possible. He wondered if they’d noticed his avoidance.
They had, of course.
oOo
He had found the guide and leafed through it a little, walking around the clearing to look at some plants-he ascertained that one tree was a grand fir instead of the more common Douglas fir, and looked at the mouse tails in the cones he found. It was starting to get dark, the heavy tree cover of the forest surrounding the clearing hastening the process. At some point, Bluestreak had returned; he’d muttered something about running into the others, but they hadn’t been ready to come back yet, and then sat silently.
He was significantly damp, and freezing cold by the time it was too dark out to see the flowers he’d been looking at. He was tired beyond belief: this time, he didn’t bother with fussing about sitting down somewhere dry-he just took a seat on the rock. He regretted it a minute later.
Now he had wet underwear.
At least there wouldn’t be many mosquitoes: the acidic quality of the ground leached into any standing water, and the high pH was apparently prohibitive to the larval stages. Of course, he thought, as he heard a familiar whine in one year, that didn’t mean there were no mosquitoes.
Bluestreak moved suddenly, Keats jerking to attention: he’d only caught an impression of complicated metal limbs moving in the gloom above him.
“Keats, your external temperature is dropping, is everything okay? Something’s not wrong, is it? I wish one of the others were here, they have more experience-well, Prowl doesn’t, but he’s kind of here. I wish he was awake, I wish he wasn’t injured-but he at least would know what to do-I don’t know but he’s good at keeping calm and thinking up plans and making important decisions, he’s terribly smart-”
“I’m fine,” said Keats, trying to keep from shivering, which would probably just freak the robot out more: he had this vague feeling that they didn’t have any equivalent to involuntary muscle spasms.
“You can find out this sort of information more easily and faster online,” Skywarp said pointedly, tone rune.
Bluestreak didn’t answer. It was tense silence.
“I mean, it’s not all that pleasant and I suppose I’ll go hypothermic eventually, if I’m out here long enough, but it’s pretty normal to feel cold, and to get cold-I mean, there’s varying levels of danger and it’s different for everyone: just look at, oh, Lynne Cox (3) for example, but everyone’s going to start developing hypothermia eventually. We’re built to deal with it, though, the cold: more or less, I mean. Not like any number of cetaceans, or Antarctic ice-fish, but we are warm-blooded. There are safety measures: increased metabolism, restricted blood vessels, shivering. That sort of thing.”
“Here,” said Bluestreak abruptly, standing to take a few steps, until he was closer to Keats and then kneeling, one hand held out to him. “I have an idea.”
“Some humans are afraid of heights.” Keats was surprised by the comment-not that it was an unusual thing to say, or that it wasn’t true or didn’t make sense, but that Skywarp had said it. It was… Thoughtful.
“Are you?” asked Bluestreak, although he didn’t recognize the comment in any other way. It looked like they had a truce of sorts, but an uneasy one. “I can put you near an active part of my systems or something-it should be warmer. I don’t know if you’ll be warm enough, you’re supposed to be-36 or 37 degrees? But I don’t know what it figures out to in our system-”
There was what sounded like a brief rumble-crackle of static from Thundercracker, but Bluestreak seemed to get something out of it.
“-alright. Yeah, it should help, if you want it. I just don’t want you to be in an endangered physical state, or even uncomfortable-” He broke off for a second. “What’s hypothermia, anyways?”
oOo
It was very cold out, now, but Keats was actually pretty warm. He’d dug out an extra shirt and the light jacket that was all he’d thought to bring, and then Bluestreak really was warm. The seat wasn’t too comfortable, but he was dry and off the ground and it could have been a lot worse. Plus, there was a low humming, one he was picking up almost subconsciously, coming off of the robot-their version of breathing and a heartbeat, he thought sleepily. And he wasn’t the only one who felt tired: it looked like Skywarp had already curled up and gone to ‘sleep,’ and Thundercracker looked remarkably close to copying him, although he was still watching Bluestreak warily, obviously hesitant to put himself in such a position of vulnerability in front of an enemy-even though he was technically an ally, now.
He looked up as he caught a sudden noise: there were twin beams of light cutting through the trees, headlights, and he panicked slightly, before Bluestreak identified the unknown car as Ratchet for him.
The medic pulled up and opened his doors, letting out Sam, Mikaela, Miles and a worse-for-the-wear Irene, before he transformed.
“We brought food,” announced Mikaela. Keats didn’t hesitate to slip onto the hand Bluestreak offered to him, stomach roaring with hunger.
“What’s going on?” asked Skywarp out of the dark, red eyes flickering on to stare at them out of the dark. It was an eerie effect.
“Temporary standoff,” Ratchet said promptly. “They’re holed up in a warehouse-we can’t fire on them without a lot of caution until we get the buildings around it evacuated. The others are still there, watching and waiting, and making themselves useful wherever they can. I fixed Coldfront up and repaired a few minor injuries, and I shuttled humans for a while before I was told to get Irene to a safe zone-Coldfront was insistent.” Keats was sure he had been.
“He ran into us on the way back,” added in Sam. “Thankfully, he had food with him.” Keats nodded fervently, mouth full of sandwich.
Ratchet eyed the small group of humans for a minute; Keats got the feeling that he was seeing more than he was. After a second, he turned a little to face Bluestreak.
“Was sticking Keats next to a hot spot in your armor your idea?” he asked.
“Yes-I’m really sorry if-”
“Don’t worry about it: it was a good idea. You!”
His change of tone was enough to make Keats and Miles jump; Mikaela and Sam just looked startled, and Irene looked too tired to react, almost weaving on her feet and eyelids drooping.
“Me?” asked Thundercracker, looking just as startled as Keats, if distinctly more imposing in his startlement.
“No, the other,” Ratchet snapped out. “You-Skywarp. Were you in recharge?”
“Yessir,” muttered Skywarp. Thundercracker’s surprised expression melted into a disbelieving one-Skywarp was only respectful when he absolutely had to be. Bluestreak looked bewildered, and even Ratchet paused for a second. Irene managed a tired giggle.
Ratchet didn’t skip a beat in his questioning. “Why?”
“We’ve been traveling a long-” Ratchet switched his attention away from the rest of Thundercracker’s explanation, flapping a hand at him as an unvoiced order to wait, as he received a message from Optimus.
Switch on your external speakers, read the burst of data. Ratchet didn’t think to question him. Just a split second later, a voiced message came through.
The Decepticon had fallen silent, waiting for Ratchet. “Message from Optimus Prime,” the medic said into the silence, and let it play.
“Decepticon reinforcements arrived; we’re close to being overrun. Endangered humans are hindering us. Ratchet, can you see that the humans over there get to safety before you join us?”
“Yes, sir,” Ratchet said, echoing the spoken message with a text one to Optimus.
“I can do it faster,” cut in Skywarp. “I can teleport.”
“You’re far too low on energy to risk that!” spat out Ratchet. “Absolutely not. It’s likely you’ve got a slow leak in a system line.”
“Fine,” cut in Thundercracker. “I’ll fly them.”
“…Is anyone going to ask us what we want?” asked Miles faintly. Sam was eyeing the Decepticon who’d just offered to carry them.
“This is a bad idea,” said Mikaela softly. “Can we trust them?”
“Oh, just get in,” growled Irene, stalking past them towards Thundercracker, now in his alt mode.
oOo
Coldfront almost shot the Decepticon who landed next to him and transformed, until he recognized their new ‘ally.’ He didn’t like it, though. Nimbus had revoked his status as a Decepticon entirely, something these two had refused to do. On top of that, they’d showed up just before a battle had broken out, even if they had saved the life of an important Autobot officer.
The Decepticon loosed a shot at a sudden hint of movement, cursing when it missed, his target diving back behind the pile of rubble he was using as a shelter. “Soundwave,” he growled. “Who else is back there?”
“Barricade. Bonecrusher. Soundwave and his dependents, of course. The humans tried to bring in jets, but they were waylaid by ‘multicolored’ fliers of some sort-I don’t think they have Earth alt forms, but they’re not Cybertronian, either.” Bumblebee didn’t look at the ’con as he talked, still methodically scanning for enemy combatants.
A soldier ran up, stopping a short distance away from them and saluting sharply. “Area cleared of civilians, sirs!” he called, saluting them sharply. He looked half frightened and half exhilarated, part of a sci-fi movie become real.
“Thank you,” Bumblebee called back. Then, to, Skywarp, “Prime’s ordered us to hold our positions for now,” he said. “He-”
A strangled scream behind him made him whip around in time to see Scorponok carefully shake the body of the soldier who’d reported to them off his tail, blood splattering wildly. The man was dead, Bee realized, so there was nothing to keep him from shooting. Skywarp joined him, Coldfront watching for approaching threats from behind.
There was an earth-shaking thud as Thundercracker transformed in midair, landing on his feet. “The organics are a safe distance away!” he bellowed over the shooting. Distractedly, Bumblebee thought that they need to trade comm. links with the newcomers, and set them up with a modified cell phone line-Soundwave was blocking their usual contact links, but the Autobots had installed a slightly more advanced version of a personal cell, something he hadn’t thought to block.
The shooting continued for a few minutes longer, until Bumblebee realized the battlefield was suddenly quieting. That was unnatural. He turned to look.
Starscream.
When he judged things were quiet enough, the new Decepticon leader spoke. “So it comes to this,” he sneered. “Autobots, fighting for their lives, just as hindered by their pathetic love for squishy life forms as they are by their own ineptitude.” He paused for a minute, gazing around the frozen tableau. “My faithful followers-” he allowed himself to savor the phrase “-all true Decepticons. And two, the most faithful of all: my own wingmates…”
Bumblebee froze, suddenly aware of the Decepticon next to him.
“My own wingmates, who have successfully infiltrated the Autobot ranks!”
Bumblebee reacted before Starscream had finished the sentence, but he was too late: before he could fire on the snickering Skywarp, Thundercracker had Ratchet held bodily, dangling helplessly above the ground with his arms pinned and the Decepticon’s cannon pointed pointblank at his spark.
Not a single Autobot moved. The Decepticons fanned out a little, slowly, surrounding them.
“Come,” said Starscream, almost delirious with glee. “Join me, my brothers! Don’t shoot, Prime, and order your pathetic rabble to stay still-unless you want to see your medic dead, that is. You do seem to lose soldiers quickly... What was the name of that little silver ’bot, the one who was torn apart the last time we fought?”
“Stay still,” Optimus Prime ordered his men, voice blank of emotions.
Thundercracker and Skywarp started forward, Skywarp walking more quickly: Thundercracker was hampered by Ratchet’s dead weight. Starscream greeted him as he drew close.
“It’s been too long,” he said, “since I’ve had my most trusted companions-my wingmates-”
“Like slag you’re my wingmate,” grunted Skywarp, brining a cannon up to fire. Starscream fell.
The two groups flinched as one as he fell, then froze again.
“You abandoned us to play politics,” he continued, shooting again. Starscream jerked. The explosion was deafening in the silence. “You-” he broke off into Cybertronian.
Carefully, Thundercracker set Ratchet down.
“Die,” spat Skywarp, and fired one last time.
Barricade broke the stillness even before the last echoes of the final explosion had faded: he fled, tires squealing as he sped off.
Soundwave followed him, and most of the other Decepticons. The three jets didn’t leave immediately, standing their ground for a minute, hissing and weaving from side to side, like snakes about to strike. It was only a soldier, nervous to the point of breaking, who loosed a sabot round and hit one on the side of the face that sent them into retreat, leaving behind the two traitors.
“Sorry,” said Thundercracker guiltily to Ratchet, who was tense with pain as he attempted to investigate the leaking dent on his shoulder, where the Decepticon had held him.
Skywarp fell over.
“Energy exhaustion,” identified Ratchet distractedly after a brief glimpse to the side. His voice was staticky with pain. “Someone get the idiot back to base.”
“Where’d you leave Sam and Mikaela?” Bumblebee asked, his voice not that much better than Ratchet’s, although that was fairly normal, for him: his voice still fluctuated, not completely healed by the Allspark.
Bumblebee sped off as Thundercracker shouted out the coordinates for their location, Coldfront just behind him. Nimbus left to help transport human wounded: he trusted Bumblebee and Coldfront to take care of his charge. Optimus had moved to investigate Starscream’s deactivated shell, and he shifted Skywarp’s unconscious body off of it, supporting the limp frame as he looked.
Bluestreak seemed to be in shock, or something like it, standing motionless.
“Holy shit,” managed one of the soldiers.
“Bluestreak,” said Optimus, turning around again. “See if you can help Ratchet with his shoulder. Thundercracker, I think I can get Skywarp back to the base; go-” belatedly, remembering that Thundercracker wasn’t his soldier to command, he changed his wording. “-would you be willing to help the government with their rescue attempts?”
The Decepticon nodded swiftly, and headed towards where the officer in command of the situation was. He was careful of his feet; regardless, most of the soldiers were clearly afraid: they had all thought that he was going to be the death of them, along of Skywarp. On top of that, he was the largest Transformer there, and the fact that he’d betrayed the Decepticons, helped kill Starscream and played a vital role in winning the battle would only help a little, when it came to managing their fear.
Ratchet was feeling pretty ambivalent about the situation, himself. On one hand, he was alive, as were all the other Autobots, and there had been minimal human fatalities. Starscream was dead. On the other hand, he had severely dented armor plating on his shoulder, pinching several wires-and a few pain receptors-and breaking a tertiary energon line, causing the slow leak that was making everything slippery and even harder to try and fix than it would have been otherwise.
He also could still remembering being held, dangling, off of the ground like that. He’d been very convinced that he was about to die.
Bluestreak would be some help with the injury, though. If nothing else, he had a good pair of hands-steady, like a sniper needed. It was part of the reason why Optimus had assigned him to help Ratchet with his shoulder, doubtlessly: Bumblebee and Coldfront had left, although one of them could have been called back if Optimus had insisted; Skywarp was down for the count, and Ratchet wouldn’t trust him in his internals anyways; Thundercracker was-not a good choice, even if his hands hadn’t been far too big; Optimus himself also had hands that were a little too large, as well as needing to be free to deal with the general situation: to start with, with this many witnesses, there was no way that the government could cover it up. And that left Nimbus and Bluestreak. Of the two, Bluestreak was better-suited to the job.
It was just Ratchet’s luck, though, that the mech ‘helping’ him was highly distracted, and seemed to be going through some kind of personal revelation or internal struggle.
“The other wire, that one’s still connected,” Ratchet said, for the third time.
“-Oh.” Bluestreak looked blankly at what he’d been doing. “This one?”
Ratchet sighed. This wasn’t getting either of them anywhere. “Look, Bluestreak, if you’re too distracted to do this, I understand. You can go drive around in circles or whatever it is you need to do to calm down.” He’d known other mechs who got post-battle jitters, and that was a medical issue, putting them under his jurisdiction: if Optimus had problems with Bluestreak leaving instead of staying to be helpful, he could talk to Ratchet about it.
“Oh, no, I’m fine,” Bluestreak said, immediately and extremely unconvincingly.
“Riiight.”
“It’s-I-They,” he glanced over at Thundercracker, who was holding up the roof of a damaged building up and apparently bitching at Nimbus for not moving fast enough as he carefully moved rubble. “-I don’t get it! They’re Decepticons.”
“I-It’s hard for me, too,” Ratchet said, looking over at the young ’bot. “And that’s just thinking about whether or not we should give them a chance. But… Let me put it this way. I knew an Autobot, a devoted Autobot, one who would never betray our cause and believed in it fully, who hacked a bloody trail for himself leading up the chain of command, until he was caught poisoning his commander’s energy ration-and all because he thought he thought he could do a better job so he was, through that, helping the Autobots. There have been traitorous Autobots, too. Autobots have killed innocents. One of the most unpleasant mechs I’ve ever had the misfortune of dealing with? (4) An Autobot.”
“Yeah,” said Bluestreak, thinking: well, of course. Sunstreaker and Sideswipe were at the front of his mind.
“It’s possible-I’d say probable-the same’s true of the Decepticons, you know. No, don’t look at me like that, I’m not saying we embrace every Decepticon who comes knocking with blind trust and a hug, I’m saying that once someone’s proved themselves-and I think killing Starscream counts-then it’s only fair to be open to the idea of accepting them. Even if Skywarp is a menace and Thundercracker crushed in my shoulder.”
Bluestreak didn’t answer, looking doubtfully at the medic, but when he focused his attention back on the repairs, he got the wires right the first time.
oOo
The Autobots had been ready to head back to the base, and the teens were with them, but Irene had put her foot down. She and Keats had each gotten hotel rooms for the night, with Coldfront and, surprisingly, Bluestreak, who had asked, staying behind to get them home the next day.
Keats slept over twelve hours straight, and then had a hot breakfast. It was his idea of heaven.
Irene slept until five in the morning before tossing herself awake, still exhausted but unable to do anything but doze restlessly because of the painful bruising she’d gotten when Coldfront had run into the Decepticons. The hot bath she had at seven when she gave up on trying to fall back asleep was her idea of heaven.
The drive back was uneventful. Mostly, Keats chatted with Bluestreak, not about anything in particular, or anything important. They talked some about earth, and about the planets Bluestreak had seen-that in particular fascinated Keats. Keats also did a little work playing with the preliminary results of an experiment he was working on, did a little reading when his stomach was steady enough. The time passed surprisingly quickly.
Bluestreak dropped Keats off outside his apartment, and he decided he didn’t care what the neighbors did or didn’t find suspicious. He didn’t even unpacking before he went to bed, only pausing to eat some leftovers he’d had in the fridge. After all, he needed to be at the lab by four tomorrow morning. His shift had come up again, after all.
It was over.
oOo
It had been five weeks since Keats had returned home. He’d finished the life-consuming project three weeks ago, and reveled in waking up at 7:30 every day for a week.
The past two weeks had just been unpleasant.
He always got this way after a big project finished, but it usually didn’t last long. It had been pretty bad after the Brazil incident had finished: that was more what he felt like now. It was hard to go from ‘saving the world with the Autobots’ to ‘eight-to-five existence as cog-in-the-machine working stiff.’”
And then today he’d been laid off.
If he had been honest with himself, earlier, he wouldn’t have been so surprised. The company had been having trouble, and the biological sciences had never been their primary focus. And it wasn’t like it was just him: everyone except for Jaime, who was getting moved to management, and Linda, who had a double degree and was getting shunted off to a different department, was in the same boat.
It still sucked.
The phone started ringing as he turned the key to his apartment door. Keats thought about ignoring it, but didn’t, mostly because the noise was obnoxious.
“Hello?” he asked, trying to juggle the phone one-handed as he shrugged off his wet coat. It figured that today was one of the (very) few rainy ones.
“Hey, Keats, you’re home!”
“Hi, Kristine.”
“Great-you’re always working late, so I was afraid I was going to miss you-my evenings are reserved for jellies, so I couldn’t just call a bit later. And you never answer your phone messages.”
“Well, I’ll be free more evenings, now,” Keats said, ignoring the jab about his answering machine-it was only partly true, after all. “I’m losing my job.”
“Ohhh, I’m so sorry! Was… Was it your fault?”
“Kristine!”
“Fine, fine, I’m sorry.” She paused a minute. “…Well, was it?”
“No! The business is in trouble, that’s all. My whole department got the boot. Except for Jaime, lucky bastard he is, and Linda-I’d say she’s a lucky bastard, too, but she got moved to engineering, which makes up for it.”
“Tough luck... Listen, you want me to ask around to see if there’s an interesting position open right now? I can’t promise you that you’ll get to stay in that hellpit you call your home state, but there’s probably something out there.”
‘No, but thank you, really. I’ll look by myself for a while, at least-it sounds like you’re busy. I might take a little time off, since I’ve got some savings-you know, get things figured out and get my life in order. Maybe I’ll deliver pizza.”
Kristine laughed. “The only problem with that idea is that you’re too far away for me to get you as my delivery boy. Seriously, though, if you need anything-even a place to crash for a while. I’ve got an empty room, now that the kid’s moved out.”
“Thanks,” Keats said, really meaning it.
“Of course, you get to help me with the jellyfish if you’re taking up my spare room.”
“-I think.”
“Cute. Just for that, you’re cooking too.”
“Having tasted your cooking, I’d do that anyways.”
“Hey! I’ve improved, I’ll have you know. I’ve mastered any number of dishes, from scrambled eggs to, uh, fried eggs. If you don’t mind broken yolks. Oh, I can do salad too.”
“Impressive. And, uh, not that I’m hinting that I really want to get some food and take a shower before I crash or anything like that, but is there a reason you called?”
“Oh, right, that. Would you look over some of the work I’ve done relating to the useless bioflourescent bags of goo? I’d like your opinion on a few parts-”
“Really? Sure-I’ll certainly have the time, like I said, and I’m curious about what it is you’re actually doing with these things. You’re being remarkably closemouthed about the specifics.”
“Yeah, ’cause it’s embarrassing. And, of course, I’ll pay you the going rate for consultations-”
“What? Kristine!”
“Don’t argue, whiner. I’m still your government-appointed mentor. So, you found a new girlfriend yet?”
Keats sighed. “Oh, like you’re one to talk-”
“Yeah, but I’m old…”
oOo
It was well past eleven when Keats dragged himself out of bed, but he didn’t feel too guilty about it. After all, he didn’t have anywhere he needed to be, and he’d stayed up late the night before, trying to puzzle his way through Kristine’s shorthand-it had taken her two weeks, but she’d finally gotten him the documents he was supposed to be poking through.
Keats poured himself his customary cup of black-as-the-pits-of-hell coffee with a sigh. (“That stuff’s going to give you cancer someday,” his mom had told him the last time she’d visited, tongue firmly in cheek. His mother bore an unnerving resemblance-when it came to personality-to Kristine. And Irene, for that matter, although thankfully less of one. Keats didn’t want to imagine someone who’d been raised by the botanist.)
Half-heartedly, he poked through the fridge. It was too late for breakfast, and early for lunch. Maybe he’d make French toast and just combine the two meals into one. He sniffed gingerly at the milk, and almost gagged at the stench.
Okay, maybe he’d have eggs.
…Eggs which he would float first, to see if they were still good, before he cracked.
Damn but his fridge was a mess. Maybe he’d clean it out tomorrow. Or this weekend. Unlike other household chores-which he was usually pretty good about getting to at least somewhat regularly, even when he was bogged down with work-he really hated cleaning out the refrigerator.
Maybe he could get a dog or something. Not that a pet would help keep moldering leftovers out of his fridge, but it would be nice to have some company. Or a cat instead-they were supposed to be lower-maintenance, right?
Hell, what he needed was a social life. It was a pity his best conversational topics all had to do with biology. Weird biology, most of the time-although admittedly not as weird as what Irene came up with. And Kristine was right, the jellyfish project was embarrassing. Evan was good at social stuff outside of the lab, though, and Toni, at least when it wasn’t Irene he was socializing.
The last time he’d really had a social life had been in the eleventh grade with the Dungeons and Dragons crew at his high school, and even then he’d kind of been the outsider. Really, he’d only been invited because he’d been in advanced math with them. Keats got along with people, but he really didn’t-It was very rarely anything more than a casual friendship, more an acquaintanceship than anything else.
Maybe there was a lecture series at the local university he could attend, although that might turn out to just be college students. He was a little old for most of that group, by now-which was hard to admit. He was getting old. He might find a lecture series anyways-it could be interesting. He also needed something to occupy himself with.
Maybe he’d just have a months-long internal debate over all of the above and some extra until he got a job again and no longer had 17 empty hours to fill each day. Surfing the Internet could only occupy him for so long, after all.
That sounded like the most likely option, really.
In the meantime, he was going to walk to the corner store down the road for milk and a newspaper, because French toast really did sound good, and you needed milk for that. He’d also probably get some kind of cereal that would cause a diabetic coma an hour or so after consumption and cancer a few years down the road while he was at it, the kind of thing his mom never let him eat.
One of the cars he saw on the short walk there looked vaguely familiar, but he dismissed the feeling as a product of his bored imagination until he found it waiting for him in the apartment complex parking lot. One door popped open as he approached it-although the car (maybe “the ‘car’” was more appropriate, his mind whispered) although it was apparently empty.
“Bluestreak?” he hissed, disbelieving, as he ducked inside.
“Yeah! Don’t you recognize me?”
“No, you’re a different color-”
“But it’s the same model and everything! Same modifications-and it’s hardly something you’re likely to see on the roads around here, unmodified or otherwise-”
“Bluestreak, I have a genetically inherent ability to distinguish and recognize the subtleties of the human face. All people do, like emperor penguins when it comes to penguin noises. It doesn’t work with cars.”
“Oh, fine. But how are you? It’s been a long time, huh? Well, I mean, comparatively speaking, and since you’re human and everything so you live such a short while-that must be weird-and then you don’t have a comm. system so we couldn’t even talk after I got cleared to use internal communications systems again by Ratchet-that’s a long story, I’ll have to explain everything later-although I suppose I could have tracked down your cell phone number and used that even though it’s apparently kind of illegal and Optimus Prime told me to only use it if it’s important ’cause relations with the human government are kind of tense right now-even though I think Bumblebee calls Sam and Mikaela all the time, but it might be different ’cause he’s gotten the modified attachment installed-”
“Whoa, wait a minute!” Keats laughed. “First of all, is Prowl okay?” Did you ever run into the other team you were looking for? Why are you a different color? What’s up with the other Autobots? And the kind-of-Decepticons, I guess, although you aren’t all that hot on them, I know.”
“Oh! Prowl’s fine. Great. He wants to know if he can meet you some time… That would be alright, right? And don’t worry if he seems kind of cold, he’s just like that-I mean, he’s Prowl. We still don’t know where Wheeljack and the twins are, though-I’m kind of worried. They’ve had a lot of time to get here, since they were in about the same place me and Prowl were, and they must have gotten Optimus Prime’s message-and yeah, Sunstreaker and Sideswipe are kind of weird Autobots but they’re Autobots, right? So I’m worried they’re in trouble and can’t come to earth or something. Although I think the twins could probably fight their out of anything-or through anything-and Wheeljack could probably figure his way out of anything, he’s really smart and he’s kind of destructive even when he’s trying not to be-”
“I’m sure they’re fine. They sound like they can take care of themselves-maybe something just held them up.”
“-thanks. Anyways, I changed my color because after we went public people kept on recognizing me. Do you like it? I thought it looked good. Sunstreaker’ll probably tease the hell out of me when he gets here, though…”
“Yeah, it looks good.” It was true, too-the warm burgundy color fit, even if Keats thought he preferred the less-flashy gray. Bluestreak had also gotten rid of the striping, he noticed.
“Thank you-But how are you? Oh. Do you mind me showing up like this? I guess some humans just kind of want to pretend we don’t exist, and after all the trouble I put you through-I wanted to see how you were doing, though, you know, and maybe talk a little-I didn’t think about how you might not want to-”
“Don’t worry about it! It’s always nice to spend some time with a friend.” Friend-Bluestreak was oddly happy with that. After all, he’d caused the man nothing but trouble, and really, Keats had done him a huge favor. And he was the first human he’d ever had contact with. The only human he’d ever really had a lot of contact with, or gotten to know. He’d been nice. He’d liked talking to him.
Keats continued. “I’m doing… Well, not all that great, since I lost my job, but not too badly, considering the circumstances. I have a friend who might let me housesit for him out in the mountains when he leaves in a week or so-it’s not quite definite yet, he’s one of the worst people I’ve ever met for planning ahead.”
“Ohhh. I’m sorry. It’s not because you were gone those days, when we drove up to Washington? I-”
“Just bad luck,” said Keats, with a crooked smile. “It’s not anyone’s fault, let alone yours-I didn’t even have to call in sick, I didn’t have my shift any of those days we were gone, thankfully.”
“Good… Still, though, I’m sorry. Is… Is there anything you can do to help?”
“It’s nice just to have someone to talk to, really. I hadn’t realized how little time I spent socializing outside of work… And you’re good conversationalist.”
“I… It doesn’t bother you that I talk so much?” Bluestreak sounded surprised, almost hopeful. “I do, I know-Ironhide threatened to shoot me the next time I started my vocalizer around him the second day we were both stationed at the Autobot base together.”
“No,” Keats said, bemused. “I mean, I can talk a fair bit, myself. …Usually only when I’m close to panicking, but I’m still capable of it. And you usually have good sense, and make a fair amount of sense. Like I said, good conversation.”
“Thank you, it’s nice to talk to you too-you always have interesting things to say.”
Keats smiled. “Thanks to you, too. Anyways, what have you been up to?”
“Not a lot,” Bluestreak confessed. “I spent a while running a deep systems check-that took a while. I don’t really know what happened, I was really out of it, but now Bumblebee keeps on snickering whenever he sees me. It turned out that I had some real problems-Wheeljack hadn’t really noticed since he’s not a trained medic and everything, and I didn’t notice until I got to earth and my downloads were all weird. Prowl had problems too, and the Decepticons. Especially them.” He paused a minute, and then continued, abruptly. “I hadn’t realized they didn’t really have trained medics, especially not after the beginning of the war-it made them kind of weird around Ratchet, kind of respectful and almost-worried? Or afraid-but-that doesn’t make sense, Ratchet’s no threat to either of them… Thundercracker’s worst about it, I think it’s because of what happened in the battle-”
“What ended up happening with that?” Keats asked, interrupting. “I mean, with the Decepticon attacks-I haven’t seen anything in the news, but that doesn’t mean much…”
“Not much, thankfully-just, y’know, skirmishes now and then. Though I’m worried about those three ugly jets, do you remember them? The ones with the ridiculous paintjob-they looked kind of crazy. It happens.
“Barricade’s mostly lying low, Bumblebee says he won’t risk another attack until there’s a big force built up again because he’s mostly looking out for himself, not the Decepticon ideals-I guess they’ve got some kind of history-Bumblebee and Barricade, I mean. I don’t know about Soundwave, nobody really does-he’s always been really high-up in the ranks but Thundercracker said he’s never fought for his place or tried to overthrow anyone else, which is weird when you’re a Decepticon apparently, which sounds like it would suck-so Soundwave might just be waiting to attack or he might not be planning to at all.”
“At least things have been quiet, then?”
“Well, kind of-there are still all kinds of calls and diplomatic visits and things like that, it’s all really complicated since we went public and all. I try to avoid all that, since I’m not too good at politics, but Prowl’s been really involved in it, he’s always busy-which is how he likes it, he starts getting really twitchy when he’s not working more than any other mech could manage, because he feels like he should be doing as absolutely much as he’s capable of, even when there’s nothing to do-he was like that even when it was just the two of us drifting along in the middle of space-I don’t really get it, honestly.”
“I’ve never had much of an interest in politics either. I follow the news, of course, but I’ve got no taste for the analysis and strategy-and, in a lot of cases, the manipulation, I get the feeling. But I noticed none of the reports talked about Skywarp and Thundercracker, even when they talked about the Decepticons-what’s up with that?”
“Oh, right. Well, I think a lot of governments know about them, but it’s kind of being kept a secret-I think they’re afraid it would freak people out. Even more than this all has already-Us, I mean. Some of the news coverage-it’s not very nice, and the letters are worse-well, not all of them, but a lot and the demonstrations… It’s kind of lonely, sometimes. It’s-This is an alien planet, you know? It’s not home, which is kind of a crazy thing for me to think, I know, I haven’t been home in-who knows how long, there isn’t a home for me to go home to at all-But anyways, that’s the reaction to just the Autobots, so it would be worse-”
“Have you met many people? Humans, I mean.”
“No… Mostly, it’s just politicians and journalists who show up, and soldiers, and I don’t want to accidentally say something stupid, which happens a lot with me-and they’re kind of intimidating, so I stay out of the way: so does Ironhide. Ratchet would like to, I think, but he doesn’t, and Gyro’s under orders to act ‘normal’ when he’s under the public eye; Solarity gets interviewed a lot, probably because he’s friendly and reasonable-he likes asking the journalists questions, and I think they like talking to him, too. Coldfront does some, too. Bumblebee never talks much-he’s got a good excuse-but he gets filmed a lot with Sam and Mikaela-the three of them are favorites, I think, but I also think that none of them really like it. I haven’t met Landslide, he’s staying far away from the base entirely. And Nimbus avoids most humans-he makes them nervous, ’cause of the Decepticon design, even though he’s got the Autobot sigil and took the oath and everything, and I don’t think anyone really understands what all the spikes and things mean, so I guess it doesn’t make much sense that they’re afraid of him at all. Anyways, I don’t know, but I guess Skywarp and Thundercracker are the same-but they haven’t met many humans at all, especially face-to-face. I don’t know if they just don’t want to, or if they don’t want to because of the reaction they’d cause, or because they’re under actual orders to stay away or what, but they do. I wouldn’t like it. …Well, really, it’s not like my life’s been much different recently. Now I’m a little different, I guess, because of meeting with you-they seem to just spend a lot of time with each other. It’s a Seeker thing-it’s kind of like a family? Where they’re all really close and there’s rules and expectations, and they all support each other, and what happened back at the battlefield was that Starscream had broken some agreement, or something like that, and that’s why they were so angry. I think it would be nice, to have someone you could rely on like that-well, I guess it’s like me and prowl. For me, at least, Prowl doesn’t really need to rely on me-but it’s weird thinking that Decepticons, even just a subset of them, have some sort of custom like that, where it’s all about trust and love and faithfulness…”
Bluestreak trailed off. Keats didn’t know what to say.
He had the feeling, though, that Bluestreak was more-at peace, now. He was certainly calmer.
The silence stretched a minute longer.
“Hey, Bluestreak-want to go for a drive out in the desert, or something like that?”
“Yeah… Yeah, I would.”
Life went on. Things really weren’t so horrible, after all. Maybe there’d be bats out-he was pretty sure the cactus would be blooming tonight. And he had a lot of catching-up to do, with Bluestreak. He wasn’t planning on being back soon.
--END--
(1) Keats differentiates between intelligence and smartness.
(2) It’s one thing for a citizen to complain about their home country. It’s another thing entirely for a foreigner-especially when you’re traveling in a foreign country.
(3) Lynne Cox swam across the Bering Strait in only a bathing suit. Later, she swam a mile in 32-degree water in the Antarctic, and lived.
(4) He’s thinking of Landslide here, actually.