[fic][Transformers '09 movie] Summer Job 4/?
Summer Job: Bridge to Nowhere
by K. Stonham
released 13th June 2010
June 9th, 2010
Sam rambled. It was occasionally annoying, but mostly reassuring as the one-sided conversation let Bumblebee know his charge was all right. It was when Sam shut up that things tended to go south. It was also quite reminiscent of his friend Bluestreak (and oh how he hoped Blue was alive and well somewhere in the universe), a thought which pleased Bumblebee. He hoped Sam would someday get to meet Bluestreak. He suspected they would get along well. Though to be fair, he had seldom seen Sam not end up getting along well with another... high school bullies and Decepticons were the only examples that came to mind.
Sam's rambling was interesting to listen to. Particularly when he let his analytical thought processes run aloud, working through why something did or didn't work for him, and once in a while tossing off a tantalizing idea regarding such things as how to safely produce certain unstable alloys here on Earth, or a possible method of converting passive solar energy to energon. Such processes were unfortunately beyond Bumblebee's scientific ability to follow and so he wasn't able to offer his friend much advice other than to perhaps approach Jolt or Ratchet with his ideas.
More enlightening were descriptions of how Sam's telekinesis worked. "I can't fly," he expounded, probably as much to himself as to Bumblebee. "I can pick other things up, just not myself. So the problem has to be that it's all from my point of view, right?"
Bumblebee made an encouraging noise and nodded.
"So, if I pick up something I'm standing on..." Sam guessed aloud.
Ah. That explained why this morning he'd come out of his parents' home carrying a skateboard, which he'd tucked into Bumblebee's back seat as they'd gone to pick up Mikaela. Bumblebee watched as Sam set his board on the ground and stood on it, knees carefully flexed, weight low, arms spread to help his balance.
Slowly, the board rose into the air, Sam atop it, seemingly drifting weightless over the blue stunt cushion.
"Excellent," Sam said with a grin. Bumblebee played a clip of applause.
Unfortunately, Sam also had a bad habit of letting himself get distracted.
"Sam!" Mikaela called, walking up to where Bumblebee was spotting the young Prime.
"Hey, Mikaela," Sam called back. "Whoa--whoa!"
His fall from the hovering skateboard was spectacular. Fortunately NEST had long since invested in the same type of inflatable cushion used by professional stuntmen, and Bumblebee managed to snag the skateboard as it fell on top of its owner.
"I told you so~" a young girl's voice chided through his speakers as Sam thrashed his way toward the edge of the cushion.
"Thanks, 'Bee. Lots," Sam said sarcastically as he rolled off the last bit of blue.
"Are you okay?" Mikaela asked, taking hold of one arm and peering at Sam's face.
"Yeah, I'm fine. You know, pride goeth before a fall and all that."
"If you're sure...."
"I'm fine," Sam repeated himself. "What's up?"
"It's lunchtime."
*
/Hey babe where r u?/
Mirage blinked, pausing to check her messaging system again, then vented a near-inaudible sigh, recognizing the source of the message.
/Tropical island,/ she responded, stealthing from one tree to another, keeping her optical and audial receptors wide open the whole time. IR, unfortunately, was completely useless in this humid heat. /Where are you, Leo?/
/Club in Miami,/ he replied a few moments later. She checked her chronometer. At just past noon on Diego Garcia, it was after two in the morning in Florida. Did Leo not have a curfew? Did the city not have a curfew? /Bored,/ he added.
She never would have guessed, Mirage thought sardonically. She spied a target and silently levelled her weapon. Aiming, she shot and immediately vanished to the sound of a pain-filled yelp.
/What r u up 2?/ Leo sent next, and she wondered if the underage human had managed to cadge drinks off someone.
/Paintball,/ she sent back.
/Winning?/
/At the moment, yes./
/Awsum./
She waited, still in the foliage as a NEST member stalked past her, his equipment failing to detect the Pretender.
/Miss u,/ Leo sent, and now she was sure he'd been drinking. He wasn't normally prone toward maudlin. /Haven't found any fotos of u on the web./
Mirage bit back on her response that she should certainly hope not. For either type of photographs that came to mind given Leo's proclivities. /Go home,/ she told him as she started stalking after her would-be hunter. /Take some aspirin and water. Go to sleep./
/Call me in the morning?/ he texted hopefully.
Simmering, Mirage shot the NEST operative in the back.
If this was what Leo was getting up to during his summer break, she was so going to sic Simmons on his protege.
*
"It's not like... like just reaching out and picking something up with your hand," Sam explained to Ratchet and Bumblebee and Mikaela and Lennox and Epps and any number of other NEST operatives over lunch, demonstrating by picking up the salt shaker in one hand then setting it back down. "It's more marionettish. Reaching out with my energy and using that to manipulate the cosmic strings to pick it up for me." He looked at the salt shaker again, fingers splayed over it and wiggling as if to demonstrate his puppetry metaphor. As his eyes narrowed just a little in concentration, it rose a wobbly foot into the air then set itself back down on the table.
"The way your energy field flares when you do that..." Ratchet muttered, processors whirring in cross-reference. "I've not seen anything like it, even among Cybertronians."
"What, you've never run into Force users anywhere else in the galaxy?" Lieutenant Casey asked him straight-faced.
"No," Ratchet returned flatly.
"To be fair, this is a Cybertronian trait Sam's developed, Ratchet," Major Lennox pointed out, grinning across his sandwich.
"So you got an upper limit, kid?" Epps asked.
Sam looked considering, then shrugged. "Haven't hit it yet," he replied.
"Samuel," Ratchet gritted out, his flux receptors not failing to notice the continual quantum charge Sam was putting forth.
Captain Graham raised an inquiring eyebrow. Smirking, Sam pointed down.
Out of reflex Bumblebee glanced down and jolted in startlement just as Graham yelped "Bloody Christ!", grabbing onto the edge of the table and causing everyone else at the picnic table to look at the ground.
The ground that was six feet of air below the table and benches. And Bumblebee. And Ratchet.
"Sam..." said Mikaela nervously.
"Just a sec," he replied and focused inward. Table and benches and mechs floated back down, touching down on the ground again as smooth as silk, whatever that human phrase meant.
And Sam was on the receiving end of stares from nearly all of NEST until Lennox said pensively "You know, I can think of an awful lot of situations where that could come in handy." Expressions went considering all the way down the table with nods shortly following.
"It's not the doing," Sam replied. "That I've got a handle on--"
"Riiiight," Bumblebee chimed using a clip from the comedian Bill Cosby.
"Mostly," Sam continued, glaring at the yellow scout. "It's the doing without thinking that I've gotta work on."
"What do you mean?" Mikaela asked.
"Well, walking. Walking's easy, right? Pick up one foot, move it forward, put it down. Repeat with the other side."
"Yeah. So?"
"How long's it take to learn to walk? How long until running becomes instinctive?"
"Years," Epps, the father of five, replied.
"I'd rather have it ready before I need it," Sam said flatly. And that was something none of them could rebutt.
Mikaela nodded thoughtfully and picked at the chips on her plate. Then a sudden brilliant grin lit her expression. "So, are you gonna get your mom to whip you up some Jedi robes?"
*
June 14th, 2010
It was with some surprise that Sam stumbled on the small graveyard during his early morning exploration of the island. Bumblebee had let him wander off unescorted for a change, figuring that if he couldn't be safe on NEST's island, there was no safe place on Earth to be had. Mind, that was AFTER Sam had agreed to carry a tracking device and a phone that even Decepticons-in-orbit were supposed to be unable to hack....
It was even more surprising to find Optimus in the graveyard, carefully cleaning the headstones with hands that seemed way too big for how delicately they went about the task. On the other hand, Sam supposed he should be used to meeting up with Optimus in these kind of places by now. Mainland, they were one of the few places that an Autobot would be assured of enough solitude to risk transforming.
"Hey," he said, walking forward.
"Sam," Optimus greeted him, nodding in acknowledgement as he briefly stopped his work.
Sam watched for a few more minutes as sand was brushed away and greenery removed, before it occured to him to ask, "Wait, why's there a graveyard here?"
"This island was once populated, Sam," Optimus replied softly.
"What happened?" Probably atomic testing or something, Sam mused.
"The native population was forcibly relocated a few decades ago so that this island might be used as a military base by your government and the government of the United Kingdom."
It took a moment for that to sink in. "Wait, WHAT?" Sam demanded.
Optimus stopped at his task and turned to look at Sam.
"People don't do that anymore!" Sam said. "They can't! That's, it's illegal or something! Indians have protected rights and stuff these days! What?" he demanded at Optimus' expression.
"You're still very young, Sam," the elder Prime said, "and you place far more faith in justice than I fear the universe allows."
"Bullshit," Sam said flatly, crossing his arms. "Politics--and I'm sorry, 'cause I know you have to play the game, here or back on Cybertron--is a crock. I'm old enough to know that. But there are laws about this kind of thing. Governments can't just relocate people like that anymore."
"I'm afraid they can and have," Optimus told him. "Since they began to be evicted, the Chagossians have been denied their right to return to their homes here time and time again by the British government that owns this island."
"And you're okay with this?" Sam asked.
"Not in the least," Optimus replied. "But Earth's governments have limited use for the political opinions of aliens. Terrestrial or otherwise."
Sam snorted, able to picture all too easily the reception that Optimus bringing up native rights concerns would get in some political teleconference. "They only want you for your weapons, huh?" he asked quietly.
"It seems to be the human way," Optimus replied, and returned to his self-imposed task.
"Not all of us," Sam told him firmly, and walked to the gravestone nearest him. "Can I help?"
The Prime paused again, then gave a small smile. "I would be honored. And so, I think," he said, nodding at the graves, "would they."
Sam set to cleaning the graves of the indigenous dead.
*
June 15th, 2010
"So," Seymour Simmons had said with the infinite patience that was his trademark, "England?"
It got him a glare, which made him smile inside. He'd worn down politicians, bureaucrats, and the rock that was Tom Banacheck. His next challenge was giant alien robots older than dirt. It was good to have goals. Kept you active. Like the New York Times crossword section, but more fun.
His once-a-day pestering had won him twelve glares from Ratchet, three grunts of annoyance from Ironhide, four thrown pens and two paperclips from Major Lennox (Seymour had, of course, kept the office supplies: invaluable, those), four eye-rolls and walk-offs from Epps, ten polite agreements from Graham which nonetheless got him nowhere, and a total of five noble speeches from Optimus Prime. Seymour figured that if he kept it up and the Decepticons kept their shiny necks out of trouble, he'd have them all cracked in a week, ready to country-hop just to shut him up.
"Whatchu doin'?" the green idiot asked, appearing out of nowhere as subtly as an alien robot with all the vast intelligence of a chicken could. Which was to say not at all.
"Working on a master plan," Seymour replied jauntily, crossing the vast expanse of white sand and black tarmac that was the NEST base.
"What plan be dat, my homey?" the orange idiot, following the other half of his IQ, asked.
"Britain," Seymour replied from behind his dark glasses, hands tucked into his jacket pockets as he savored the word and the images it conjured. Ah, clandestine excursions into foreign countries. It always got the blood rushing, doing things you weren't supposed to do yet were entirely legally authorized to do. Plausible deniability, his old friend. "Home of The Beatles and Bond, Big Ben and beheadings, Shakespeare and greasy food. Wonderful place."
The twins exchanged a glance over his head. "You sure you up to somethin' chill?" Huey asked.
"As cold as salmon on ice," Seymour replied, unruffled.
The twins fell back a little bit. And oh how gratifying was it to hear a "Dat dude, he a little bit crazy," especially coming from Dewey. Talking to the idiot twins, he admitted, was almost as good as talking to himself. Better in some ways, because they were so easy to weird out.
Yes, he, Seymour Simmons, was a man with a plan, and he knew just the robots to help him make it happen.
He just had to make them want to get rid of him enough to make it happen.
Smiling and whistling, he went about his day.
*~*~*
A/N: Thanks to hoshikage for line help, and okami_myrrhibis for beta'ing. Also, yeah, Optimus' take on the relatively recent history of Diego Garcia....