Posted originally on the Archive_of_Our_Own at https://archiveofourown.org/
works/6119263.
  Rating:
      Explicit
  Archive Warning:
      Graphic_Depictions_Of_Violence, Major_Character_Death, Rape/Non-Con,
      Underage
  Category:
      Multi, Other
  Fandom:
      Transformers_-_All_Media_Types
  Character:
      Optimus_Prime, Ratchet, Prowl, Ironhide, Megatron, Shockwave, Soundwave,
      Lugnut, Barricade, diverse_OCs
  Additional Tags:
      human-turned-Transformer, Rape/Non-con_Elements, Transformer_Sparklings,
      Extreme_violence/torture, Abuse, Tragedy, Horror, AU, Unconventional
      Relationship, OC-centric, very_dark, Explicit_Sexual_Content, Underage
      Sex, Emotional/Psychological_Abuse, Existential_Crisis, Mind_Control,
      Implied_Cannibalism
  Series:
      Part 1 of Dark_Chronicles
  Stats:
      Published: 2016-02-27 Updated: 2016-12-01 Chapters: 7/43 Words: 26760
****** The Dark Horizon ******
by Valora
Summary
     "You know you can't run. And you know you can't hide. You are mine.
     You will be for the rest of eternity."
     First of a series.
***** If only *****
First off, this is not a story for the faint of heart. This is a story about
doubt, lies, violence and war. It contains very detailed gore, graphic language
and sex. It might mess with your head, it might even make you cry. It will
probably have you on the edge of your seat.
Some of the first chapters are still a bit rough around the edges, but I'm
constantly reviewing and correcting them.
Anyway, should you decide to keep reading, you might find this story to be
unlike anything you've encountered. In that sense, have fun reading ;)
Transformers belongs to Hasbro/ Takara.
 
 
If only I had known what I was getting myself into. If only I hadn't been so
naïve. If only I hadn't listened to him, to this deep baritone telling me to
trust him. If only I hadn't gotten into the car.
Now I was sitting here on a cold metal table, alien fingers probing and
examining a body that wasn't mine. A cage, I was living in one. A big, cold
cage, with only one single exit: death. I closed my optics and sobbed. The
fingers stopped.
"What's the matter, kid?" the voice of my friend, my only friend, inquired. I
shook my head, looking down.
"It's nothing." That wasn't true. It was everything. I knew it. He knew it, but
said nothing. He squeezed my shoulder lightly, resuming his work. I thought
back. Back to a time when I had admired those warriors of metal, had looked up
to them, had believed them. Those times, short and blissful as they had been,
were gone. Forever.
It was on a December morning that it all started I think, it must have been
winter- it was cold outside, cold and windy. Autumn leaves had long since
collected in wet heaps in the outside corners of the school building, yet there
was no snow. It was the second class of the day I think and I was sitting
there, bored, letting my physics teacher blabber away while letting my mind
wander, looking out of the window. The time just didn't seem to pass and every
second I was spending in this facility just seemed so very pointless. Just two
more years. Two more years and I'd be out of here. No more physics, no more
math, no more anything I didn't like or need. Only me and my gift, what I
wanted to do, what I was meant to do. And even if studying art meant I had to
pass the hardest entrance examination in the world, I knew that if I couldn't
do it, no one could. I desperately longed for a bigger world than the one my
parents lived in, the only one they knew. I wanted adventure, no day would be
like the next. I would be traveling to foreign countries, meeting new people
every day, excitement waiting for me at every turn... I was certain that,
should I lead a normal life, working in an office maybe, I would suffocate. I
wanted unexpected things to happen.
And so, when I heard the sound of screeching tires, of roaring engines and
missiles hitting the building, it was a mix of horror and curiosity that I
felt. This was most unexpected. My friend Malissa, who was sitting beside me
grabbed my arm anxiously, she was scared, as anyone in their right mind would
have been. My classmates started screaming, the girls' high pitched voices
making my eardrums ache. Suddenly a huge pair of metallic feet crunched down in
front of the classroom's windows and only seconds later the window side of the
room was being torn off by the biggest pair of silver hands that I had ever
seen. In a daze I realized that the other pupils had already stood up and were
storming out of the room, retreating further into the building, I started to
follow them hastily- but then he called my name.
"Joelle Dahl?" I turned around, shocked. This wasn't possible. I had heard
about him. Seen him in comics, cartoons, movies. But this was real. I couldn't
believe it. There he was, Optimus Prime, leader of the Autobots, kneeling in
front of my school, calling my name. Not even in my wildest dreams had I
imagined that this creature, this part of, well, mainstream entertainment would
come into my life, but there he was right in front of me. About 30 feet tall,
moving and talking. Talking to me, at that. For a moment I wondered if this
creature might have been man- made after all and if this was nothing but the
most expensive trick in the world, but no. I was certain humans couldn't build
something like this. This was no machine. It was alive.
"Y...yes?" He blinked the covers over his blue optics, eyeballing me with these
glowing visual sensors. Malissa, who had already fled the room now returned,
grabbing me by the arm once again, trying to pull me out of there. I wouldn't
let her. My feet were firmly planted onto the linoleum on the floor, my body
not moving a single inch, no matter how hard she tried.
"Come on, Joelle! We gotta get out of here!" She screamed at me. I didn't
listen. All of my attention belonged to the giant red, blue and silver robot in
front of me.
"Joelle Dahl, you are in great danger. There is no time to explain now. Please
come with me." he said, that beautiful deep voice lulling me into some kind of
trance. The next words were the ones that I should have never believed.
"Trust me." He extended his hand. I looked past his massive thigh, where other,
somehow familiar robots were fighting, demolishing the whole parking lot and
the surrounding buildings. I smelled smoke. The school was burning. Machine
guns were rattling, glass was being shattered, cars were being crunched down to
mere metal heaps, shredded beyond recognition. He promised safety. In a weird
way. 'I'd probably be safer if I kept away from him', I thought, 'but that was
what I wanted, wasn't it? An exiting, special life? And what would be a greater
chance for such a life than him?' Besides... was it actually an option to
refuse him? His hand was still outstretched to me. He was waiting for me. After
taking a deep breath, I approached the hand, to the shock of my friend.
"JOELLE!"Malissa screamed. I climbed onto his flat palm, clinging to his thick
fingers. I turned around one last time. While Optimus was standing up, I caught
a last glimpse of my friend, who was trying to reach out for me, tears in her
eyes and terror written all over her face, shouting for me to come back. Once
he had reached his full height, I could see the complete extent of the battle
for the first time. Four huge mechs, two of them winged, were trying to
approach the large bot who was holding me in his hand safely, but a whole bunch
of others (I counted at least nine of them) were keeping them at a safe
distance. A sturdy black mech, big, but not as big as Optimus, ran towards us,
panting.
"Got her?" he asked his leader, gazing into his hand curiously and scanning me.
"Yes. Hold them back a little longer, then retreat." The other robot nodded.
"Yes sir!"
xxxxxxxxxx
The soft leather seats were warm, somewhat snuggling into the curves of my
body, holding me in place securely and comfortably while Optimus' motor was
roaring, pushing his huge, transformed body forward at top speed untiringly. He
had told me where we were going: their base. We had been driving for over an
hour now, the other Transformers I had seen fighting at my school were
following closely, a few others had even joined the convoy on the way. I looked
to my left, where a holographic, tall man with a short brown beard was sitting
in the drivers' seat, pretending to steer the vehicle. I cleared my throat. I
wanted some answers and I wanted them now.
"So it's true. You guys are real."
"We are." He said, frowning at me. I then realized I had been tracing patterns
on the inside of the passenger door absent- mindedly. I stopped immediately.
Maybe I should try to keep my hands to myself, I thought, I was sitting inside
someone and not something after all.
"Just like... in the movies and all? How come there are movies about you?"
"Sideways."
"Sideways?"
"An Autobot deserter. He had been hiding on earth for quite a while. At some
point, he revealed himself to some humans, did business with them. He told them
stories about our kind, about the war. They sold it as fiction and made a
fortune."
"What happened to Sideways?" His expression tightened.
"What happens to all traitors when they finally get caught. He is dead."
"So... everything from the stories is reality? All the characters, your
planet... all of that is true?" The hologram looked straight into my eyes,
nodding. It unnerved me how he wasn't watching the road ahead anymore, but I
had to remind myself that the hologram certainly didn't need to.
"Mostly, yes. Cybertron, the war, a lot of the Cybertronians involved, Autobots
and Decepticons, good versus evil. There are some things that the humans don't
know about us, and some things that they just dreamed up, but still." I shook
my head. This was crazy.
"But what do I have to do with this? I mean, I'm just an ordinary human. I'm
not a military person, I don't know about any top secret stuff... I can't be of
any importance to you, can I?"
"Tell me, miss Dahl, in the past years, did you ever break a bone? Did you ever
fall sick? Did it ever occur that you were not 100% healthy?" I looked at my
lap, thinking.
"Now that you mention it, no." The hologram nodded.
"And what do you think, why could that be?" I shrugged.
"Good immune system and a careful lifestyle?" He chuckled and shook his head,
his brown strands moving almost naturally.
"No. Let me tell you another story. Three years ago a 13 year old girl was
killed in a car accident. Only a few hours after that unfortunate incident,
someone must have contacted your parents, making them an offer. The next day,
the girl was back home, alive and happy. The only ones who ever remembered the
accident were the parents and the stranger. This stranger, who had brought back
the beloved daughter, was one of us. The girl she brought back that day was her
child. The child which she wanted to hide from the Decepticons. The child that
would decide over our species' fate one day. Joelle, you're the child." Now I
could see what he was getting at. It was just hard to believe. The fact that I
was not my parents' daughter made me cringe. They'd never said a word about it.
My stomach felt like it would wander up into my throat, cutting off my breath.
My whole life, all my memories, were a lie?
"This can't be. I remember a time before I was 13 and I remember being human.
You must have kidnapped the wrong girl." Again, he shook his head.
"It's all a matter of programming. Believe me, you're the one." I still wasn't
sure if I wanted to believe this.
"So everything I remember... actually didn't happen?"
"It did happen, just not to you." He looked out of the windshield and up into
the sky. I knew what he was most likely looking for.
"Okay. Let's say I'm this uhm... child you're looking for. And you want me to
help you. How?" He sighed.
"You see, the war has been raging for quite a while and truth be told, our race
is going extinct. We haven't seen or heard about a functional femme in
centuries. You're our last hope." I blushed. That was what he was after.
"You want me to help you save your species. In other words, you want me to have
children."
"Yes." Yes. Just yes. Forgotten were the adventures, forgotten were glory and
excitement.
"I'm sorry to say that, although your hologram is quite handsome, you're not my
type." Said hologram tightened its grip on the steering wheel, shifting
uncomfortably in its seat.
"You're not even fertile yet." I laughed sarcastically.
"Excuse me? I'm 16 years old, I got my period for the first time at the age of
14 and you're telling me I'm not fertile?" He rolled his bright blue eyes.
"What a detailed fake."
"FAKE?!"
"Yes, fake!" He let go of the steering wheel, left his seat and shoved his face
into mine. He was so close I could see every one of the little blue accents
that seemed to explode over his iris, emanating from the pupil, that seemed to
narrow, seizing me up. He poked my arm, I slapped his hand away. "Listen. This
skin, the hair, the muscle, the human organs, it's all a fake. A perfect
disguise, no earthling would ever suspect you of being something else. This was
exactly your mother's intention. And somehow she managed to stop your growth,
otherwise you would be way too big by now to pass for a human. So you're still
in your sparkling body, but your CPU has developed normally. And if you don't
stop being so damn recalcitrant I'm feeling tempted to just tie you up and
leave you in the back!" I felt his hot breath on my skin, felt his hands being
braced on the seat on either side of my hips. Intimidated, I leaned back as far
as possible, away from this relatively big artificial human male. He even
smelled real. It was a somewhat musky, but decent scent. I held up my hands in
a defeated manner.
"I'll be a good girl. Just... get off me, please?" He retreated back to his
seat.
"When we arrive I'll have Ratchet examine you. I think we'll have to remove all
that... flesh to allow your body to reach its full size." The next minutes
passed in silence. I was starting to get a very bad feeling about this. Still,
I tried not to show it.
"You know, you're a pretty detailed fake yourself. Your hologram, I mean." He
looked at me, smiling again.
"Thank you." I sat back, wrapping my arms around my body.
xxxxxxxxxx
As expected, the base was really big. Of course, since those guys were simply
huge, they needed a shelter that equaled their size. I had to admit I didn't
know where we were exactly for I had fallen asleep for a few hours, but it was
located in the desert, a sealed military area. Area 51 maybe? Couldn't be sure.
Nervously, I looked over to the hologram again. I wondered if, in case I had to
stay here for a longer time, I would be allowed to visit my family and my
friends. After all, even if I had left them in a rush without really thinking
about it, I still cared about them.
"Uh...how long...do I have to stay here? I mean, before I can go home and visit
my family?" He didn't respond while pulling up into a huge hangar.
"Optimus...?"
The hologram disappeared, the door on my side of his cab opened. Slowly, I
stepped out. When I had left the vehicle, Optimus transformed. I watched him,
stunned. I had never seen anything this fascinating. This shifting of body
parts, creation of new connections, the bombastic metallic sounds accompanying
it. When he was finished I took in my surroundings. Thirteen Autobots, of which
I could identify some, were standing around me, next to a bunch of human
soldiers. They were all staring at me. The green mech to my left stepped
forward and lifted me up by the back of my jacket, ignoring my shouts of
protest. Ratchet, the chief medical officer. He eyed me up and down, obviously
running scans as I struggled. He would most likely not intend to harm me, but
still the position I was in was highly uncomfortable. Finally he lay me down on
his palm and stroked my back with his other hand like I was some sort of pet
one could just pick up to play with. I didn't want to be treated like an
animal. I kicked his finger. He shook his head.
"A fascinating creation", he said, "probably one of the most advanced disguises
I've come across. And you even managed to bring her here undamaged. I'm
impressed."
Optimus nodded. "Retrieving her was rather uncomplicated. I'm leaving her in
your care. She is to be examined and treated so she can be of use to us. I
trust you to find a way to get her development restarted."
"I'm confident I'll figure it out, sir.", he responded.
"You may leave and start your work."
"Yes, sir."
Ratchet started making his way out of the hangar, securely holding me in place
between his hands. The other mechs were still staring at me, not daring to say
a word. It was strange, having all those familiar yet unknown aliens watch me
so intently. After we had left, I could hear them talking quietly in the
distance.
***** Fear *****
The metal table I was sat on was cold, unlike the warm robotic hand that had
been cradling me previously. The room was by far smaller than the hangar, far
underground, but still huge for my standards with a few doors and big shelves
stuffed with all kinds of metal parts, equipped with all kinds of alien tools
and devices. Some small enough I was sure I could handle them, some so huge I
would even have trouble climbing on top of them. Some I could identify, things
like wrenches, screwdrivers and welding equipment, but the majority looked
completely foreign to me. Ratchet had pulled a chair up to the slab I was
sitting on, something like a huge pair of scissors in his hand. I backed away
from him nervously.
"What… keep those away from me?" I asked shakily.
He frowned, looking at me then at the scissors. "It's not my intention to
damage you." Still, those sharp blades somewhat scared me. "Anyway", he
continued, "I need to remove that cloth to get a proper look at you."
I looked down at myself. Was he planning on doing what I thought he was? "You
want to strip me. I know you're the... doctor here, but... that's kind of
awkward. I'd like to keep my clothes on."
He looked at me, confused. He probably didn't quite understand why I obviously
did not want him to see me naked, considering that Autobots might have been
strangers to the concept of wearing clothes. "You can talk all you like, but
that won't change the fact that I have to examine you thoroughly, Miss Dahl. So
please remove your clothing or I'll have to do that myself. It's your
decision."
I cringed. 'fuck it', I thought, 'he's a doctor, he's probably not thinking
anything inappropriate. He's just doing his job. Maybe he'll realize they got
the wrong person and leave me alone.' Removing my jacked and starting to open
the buttons of my blouse, I spoke. "It's cold in here. Could you please turn up
the heater or something?" He reached under the table, most likely pushing some
buttons hidden underneath, and it started to warm up immediately. When I was
standing in front of him in my underwear, I stopped. He motioned for me to
continue. "Go on. All of it." I wrapped my arms around myself. "Is this really
necessary?"
"Yes." Right to the spot. Rude.
Hesitantly, I removed my white bra and panties, covering my private areas with
my hands as soon as they were gone. Ratchet scanned me again, now without
interference from my clothes. He then retrieved a tool from another table and
switched it on. It hummed, the small blades at its head moving at a frantic
pace.
"Hold still..." Before I could even realize what that thing was, he had already
grabbed a strand of my long hair between two fingers and was happily cutting it
off. I gasped, shocked, and scrambled away, causing him to accidentally pull
out some of my hair. It hurt like hell but I didn't care at the moment.
"What the fuck! You ruined my hair!" I yelled at him, running to the corner of
the table where I had put my clothes. Things were going downhill way too quick,
I hastily slipped into my jeans, not caring about underwear, just wanting to
get redressed and out of there. "That's it, I'm leaving. Stay away from me, you
psycho!"
He just sat there, confused. "Hair is unhygienic. I need you to be clean."
In a hurry I put my blouse back on. "I must have been crazy. I should never
have let you guys take me here. You're nuts. Stay away from me!" I said again
as I closed my belt. Before I could put the rest of my clothes back on, he
grabbed me, bringing me up to eye-level although I was struggling.
"You cannot just leave. Resistance is futile. I have my orders."
"Well, fuck those orders! Put me down!" I yelled. He shook his head.
"The Prime's word is law. No exceptions." I growled.
"Put. Me. Down."
"No."
"AAARGH!" I started pounding his metal fingers with my fists until my knuckles
bled. He seemed unimpressed. Tears of anger and fear started to flow down my
cheeks.
"Put me down! Weren't you taught to respect others? You're an Autobot, dammit!"
He seemed to cringe at the mention of his faction.
"Stop it." He murmured. "You're hurting yourself." Again, I brought my fist
down hard on his thumb.
"This is my body! I can do whatever I want with it!" He made a strange noise,
blowing air out between his 'teeth'.
"Do you have any idea how much trouble we went through just to find out where
you were? Do you know how many years we had to search for every tiny bit of
information just to find you? We need you. You're one of us. Stop fussing." I
sagged a little in his grasp, growing exhausted from all the struggling.
"As if it's my fault. You want me to feel guilty, but that's not gonna work,
you hear me?" He rubbed his forehead with his free hand, sighing.
"You know what? I don't care if you're feeling guilty or not. I just want you
to cooperate so I can do my job. I'd sedate you if I could, but as of yet I
cannot tell how your systems will react to it. So I can't."
I opened my mouth to talk back at him but he interrupted me before I could say
anything. "And in case you're considering crying for help, I can tell you right
away it will get you nowhere. Is that understood?"
Finally, I raised my hands in a somewhat defeated manner, seeing that this was
pointless.
"And what", I inquired with an unsteady voice, "are you gonna do in case I
don't cooperate?"
His optics darkened. "I'll have to restrain you and go through with the
examination anyway. But that would hurt you and that's not something I'm
looking forward to. If I put you down now, will you be a good girl?"
"Yes. I'll be good." I ground out between clenched teeth. He kept his word and
sat me down on the table again. And once again, I was forced to undress.
I had to admit I was scared to death when I was instructed to sit down and keep
still, but I tried not to show it. My previous crying had already been more
than enough humiliation for today. I hugged my legs to my chest. Yes, my
dignity had actually always been important for me. Just like my hair. My long,
silky hair I had always been proud of. Not in my wildest dreams had I imagined
cutting it. And now Ratchet's tool was happily humming over my head, removing
every shiny, glorious strand of pride I had.
I had a real bad feeling about all of this. I kept quiet, the only sign of my
distress being the salty water pouring down from my eyes and over my
emotionless face. He removed every hair on my body that was longer than three
millimeters, then sprayed me with some heady stinking liquid that made me
cough, probably disinfectant. Then he started the examination.
He mainly felt my body with his huge digits, bent all of my joints, moved my
spine carefully, scanned me over and over and over again. To his credit I had
to admit he was as gentle as a two story tall robot could be.
When he was finished, the big metal doors opposite from the shelf opened and
the imposing commander, Optimus Prime, stepped in (I was sure Ratchet had
called him via some internal communicator), causing me to blush and immediately
try and cover my nakedness. He didn't greet me, not even really paying me any
attention.
They started talking in their native tongue. Of course I didn't understand a
single word. After all, their language was so different from all languages of
earth. Clicks, rattling, purring, clanging and cooing noises, mechanical sounds
spoken in a pace my ears couldn't quite take in.
Suddenly the room darkened and beams of light emanated from Ratchet's optics,
forming a three dimensional hologram showing my insides as they chattered on.
Ratchet, although he was most likely pointing something out with the help of
the hologram, seemed to be very submissive in the conversation, reluctant and
rather quiet. The hologram was a fascinating sight, yet it was highly
disturbing. It was the final blow to my identity, every belief that they had
made a mistake completely destroyed. Anybody could have told this was not a
human body. It seemed to depict some kind of x-ray image so the skeleton was
clearly visible.
Never before had I seen such an image of my myself (since it had never been
necessary to make one), but while its outer, nearly transparent "shell"
resembled my body as I knew it, I could clearly see that the hologram did not
only have an absolutely non-human skull, but the breastbone was covering the
whole chest and the limbs' "bones" were way too numerous and thick. The hipbone
had a totally abnormal form and above it, where a human skeleton consisted only
of a spine, there was a slim, but completely shaped waist and stomach. This
creature was no human- but it did bear a strong resemblance to the
Cybertronians. So I was a machine in a human body. That was too much. I hit the
table I had been standing on hard as I fainted.
xxxxxxxxxx
I felt around me, not daring to open my eyes yet. Maybe it had just been a
dream. I know, everyone would have hoped that in my situation, but for a split
second I really had some hope to wake up in my bed at home and realize it had
all just been a nightmare spawned by my internet- and TV-spoiled mind. For a
split second I believed, that if I opened my eyes now, I would see the orange
ceiling of my room and the messy heaps of clothes on the floor.
But reality hit me hard when I did open my eyes. I was not in my room, not in
my parents' house in the little town I grew up in, not anywhere I wanted to be.
I was still in that room. That room where the Autobots' chief medical officer
had revealed my whole existence to be a lie.
At least I wasn't on that metal table anymore. Actually, I was in a box. A
square glass box, just big enough for me to lay down somewhat comfortably. Its
bottom was covered with soft white cloth and large pillows while a big
infrared-lamp was shining on me from the top. I stared at it. What did they
think I was? A piglet?
Sitting up, I noticed I had been clad in something one could have called a
bathrobe. It was also white. On full alert now, I looked around. Ratchet wasn't
there, nor was any other Autobot or human. I got up, just to cringe back down
in an instant. I pulled the bathrobe from my stomach to expose a huge black
effusion with a dried, bloody stain in the middle of it, right above my right
hip. It hurt terribly. The flesh around it didn't look good. It was greenish
black and the skin covering it seemed to be starting to rot. I clutched the
fabric to my body, trying to make the pain go away. It subsided just enough to
allow me to stand and see if there was some way to open the box. No such luck.
I could see how it had been closed, yes, but I couldn't reach the lever from
the inside. I hit the glass with my flat palm, but that didn't earn me anything
but a dull sound and an aching hand.
"You're awake." I spun around, seeing Ratchet carrying a small lattice box
filled with various metal devices into the room. "You got me worried. Something
seems to be wrong with your stabilizing systems." He took a seat in front of me
and leaned forward. "How do you feel?"
I glared up at him, my moss green eyes darkening to mere black spots. "How do
you thinkI feel?" I hissed, pressing my hand onto the black spot over my hip to
lessen the reawakening pain. The fabric over the wound was already getting
soaked.
"Oh that. Yes, I thought the injection would harm the organic matter. But at
least it rose your protoform's energy level. That should restart your growth in
about a week.
My stomach grumbled loudly, demanding to be filled, my mouth was terribly dry.
"Speaking of energy levels. I'm thirsty. And I'm dying of hunger. You see, I
haven't had anything since before you guys kidnapped me, so..."
He shook his head. "Oh no, no, no. No human food for you, missy. We don't want
that... grime in you for your surgery."
I raised my hand to my head to brush through my hair, just to be reminded that
it was gone. Tears stung my eyes, but I bit them back. "You do realize humans
die if they have nothing to eat and drink, right? And- wait, what was that
about surgery?"
He had pulled his chair over to his workbench, sorting out the metal pieces
from the box he had brought in earlier, neatly stacking them in front of
himself. "Come on, use that little processor of yours. How do you think I'm
supposed to get all that organic tissue off of you?"
I fell silent, sitting down between the pillows. I remembered Prime mentioning
something about "removing flesh" when we came here, but I had thought it had
been a joke. Forget about the whole robot-inside-me-story, this was my body he
was talking about and obviously he was planning on ripping the flesh off my
bones. He was going to kill me, I was sure of that. And he was talking about it
like it was the most natural thing in the world. I had to get away from there,
and fast. But how? If I could somehow reach the surface, I would still be in
the middle of a desert, miles from the next settlement, this place was crawling
with Autobots and military personnel. A plan started to form in my head. But
I'd have to wait until evening.
Clearing my dry throat I knocked against the glass wall in front of me. "Uh,
Ratchet?"
"Hm?" He didn't even look up from his work.
"What time is it?"
Again, without looking up, he answered. "It's 4:52 pm, on December the 18th.
Why?"
"Curiosity." He shrugged, lifting two weirdly shaped small metal parts and
getting a close look at them.
4:52 pm. So I had been here for a whole day already. Had I been out cold for so
long? I estimated it would take until about 6:00 pm until it was completely
dark outside. That were 68 minutes, or in other terms 4080 seconds. I started
counting.
Ratchet was sitting there the whole time, completely focused on his work. Now
and then he would reach into his toolbox and make a little noise altering some
part's form, but most of the time the only sounds that could be heard were the
soft clicking of him putting the parts together. I wondered what exactly he was
doing, but I didn't dare to ask so I wouldn't lose my count.
3795 seconds. I was getting nervous.
3950 seconds. What if my plan didn't work out and I didn't even get out of the
box?
4080 seconds. "I need to go to the bathroom." I squeaked, pressing my legs
together uncomfortably.
"Forget it.", Ratchet all but grumbled.
"If you won't let me go, I'm gonna wet myself. I thought you wanted me to be
clean." I said, turning his own words against him. He turned around to look at
me with a somewhat disgusted expression on his face, then sighed.
"I will call someone to escort you." I stood up, stepping from one foot to the
other. "Please hurry."
Of course I did not need to go to the bathroom, but it was the only way to get
out of the room I could think of right now. Only about four minutes later the
door opened and a rather short yellow robot stepped in. 'That might be
Bumblebee', I thought, watching as Ratchet stood up to take off my prison's
cover and reaching inside to pick me up. I tried my best to remain calm when he
handed me over to his fellow Autobot and told him something in Cybertronian.
Bumblebee clutched me to his chest so I couldn't get away and carried me out.
While he was carrying me, I tried to take in and remember my surroundings the
best I could since I thought it might come in handy in case my plan didn't
work. The hallways all looked the same to me, so it was extremely hard to find
any characteristic attributes about them to help me remember.
After turning right once and left twice we entered an elevator, which brought
us three floors higher. We left into the hallways again, turned right once. In
this hallway I noticed something promising. An installation duct- opened for
repairs. It would certainly be a tight fit but I was sure I'd be able to
manage. About 35 meters onward Bumblebee stopped, leaning down to open a human-
sized door. He then put me on the floor.
"There. Hurry up!" I did as I was told and closed the door behind me.
Frantically, I started looking around, finally letting my panic surface, now
that I was alone. There were a few ventilation shafts over the eleven toilet
booths, but they were way too small to fit through. Besides, they were bolted
shut. So what I had seen before really was the only way so far. After sending a
quick prayer to the heavens I pressed the flush and used the tab to wash my
hands to make my stay in the bathroom sound authentic. I looked up into the
mirror and halted. A stranger looked back at me. Pale skin, dark rings beneath
the eyes and a bare skull. I looked terrible. I opened the bathrobe to inspect
my injury. It had become bigger, the black coloring of the skin had spread. It
was now too big for my whole hand to cover. I winced. One day and I barely
recognized myself.
A sharp knock on the door ripped me out of my thoughts. "Are you finished yet?"
Bumblebee inquired, his voice much rougher and harsher than those of his many
bubbly, friendly incarnations in the media.
"I...yes." I took a few deep breaths to prepare myself for the task ahead. I
had to be quick. My heart was pounding 180 times a minute minimum when I opened
the door.
The yellow Autobot was standing in front of me, arms crossed, tapping his foot
impatiently. When he approached me, time began to blur. All I could hear was my
heart beating in my chest and my blood rushing in my ears as he bowed down to
grab me. My feet seemed to be glued to the floor, I wanted to run so
desperately. Eventually I could rip them loose and run for it. It didn't take
the Autobot long to come running after me, but still my surprising move had
earned me a little head start. The 35 meters to the installation duct seemed to
pass excruciatingly slow as I ran as fast as my legs would allow me.
I didn't even notice my dress flying open or the blood seeping from my side. I
didn't notice the robot behind me closing in with long strides. My whole
attention belonged to the hole in the wall. I jumped- and reached the shaft
right before the metal fingers could grasp me, hitting my shoulder in the
process but managing to scramble down the vertical shaft quickly. Alarms
sounded. Behind me, I could hear Bumblebee cursing both in English and
Cybertronian.
xxxxxxxxxx
I knew I had to go upward. Ahead of me, further into the ground, was a dead
end. But I couldn't turn around in the tight tunnel I sometimes had trouble
even squeezing through, and I couldn't climb upwards upside down. So, holding
my weight by my arms only, I climbed and slithered down. The blood should have
been going to my head by now, but it wasn't. After just a few minutes I reached
a vertical grid cover big enough for me to fit through. I arched my back
against it to get it opened. After a few energetic hits it gave in and I
tumbled out. Quickly I got up, panting and with burning muscles. I was in a
small and grubby room, pipes and fuse boxes everywhere. In one corner there was
a small wardrobe. I opened it and found a blue overall. I lifted it for
inspection, seeing that a bathrobe probably wasn't the best dress to wear for
an escape. It was way too big for me, it smelled repulsive and it was dirty,
but if I rolled the sleeves and pants up, it would do. I changed quickly,
noticing how the effusion on my side had become bigger and more painful again.
The alarms were still sounding. I was certain both human and Autobot forces
where already looking for me. I made my stomach knot uncomfortably.
With extreme caution I opened the door, relieved at finding the hallway empty.
I jogged along, a crower I had also found in the previous room in my hand. If
I'd go down, I'd go down fighting, I thought. I was outnumbered, outgunned and
outskilled hopelessly, still my instinct to survive urged me on. I heard voices
down the corridor. They were closing in on me. There was nowhere to hide, so I
ran into the other direction. When I turned a corner, I was confronted by a
small group of human soldiers, armed with rifles. Everything went so fast after
that. I heard them shouting at me, but I didn't listen, didn't even realize
what they were trying to tell me. Turning another corner, I took off running
again, but this time I was being followed. Believe it or not, in my mortal fear
I was able to run a bit faster than the uniformed men, but not faster than
their bullets.
I saw blood spraying in front of me. The air was pressed out of my lungs. After
that, I heard the shots. I fell, clashing face first into the floor, my speed
making a hard crash out of it, everything was getting black for a moment. Then
I screamed. Pools of blood were forming on my left shoulder and thigh, running
down my body as I writhed on the floor in agony. Next I knew the humans were
carrying me somewhere, but I had long lost orientation in the monotonous
tunnels. The world around me was blurry. An eerily familiar shape entered my
vision. Ratchet. I lost consciousness.
xxxxxxxxxx
I opened my eyes slowly. I still couldn't see properly, couldn't move. My whole
body was aching, cold sweat pouring down my body. Like from afar, I could hear
those clicking noises again, but faster than before, hasty. I was staring up
into a terribly bright light when a shadow fell over me. A huge shadow, edgy,
humanoid with antennae emanating from the head. Optimus. I could only see his
silhouette as he spoke. His voice sounded muffled to me, but I could understand
what he was saying.
"Finally. You're awake." He sounded angry. Very, very angry. "I swear to
Primus, should you ever pull another stunt like that, I -"
"It's no use, Prime." another voice interrupted. It was Ratchet. "The dirty
rags she was wearing contaminated the entry wounds and caused an inflammation.
She has a bad fever. I don't believe she is fully aware at the moment." I
wondered why he was speaking English and not Cybertronian, but either way I was
glad no one was yelling into my aching ears anymore.
Optimus growled, obviously still staring at me. "Fine. Anyway, I want the
surgery done ASAP. Is that understood?"
"Yes, sir. The preparations shall only take a few cycles longer."
"Very good. Let me know when you're finished." The shadow disappeared, leaving
me staring into the light again. So at this very moment Ratchet was preparing
the surgery, in other terms, my early death. Burst were the dreams of an
eventful life. This was it. I had been predestined to die as a mere child, at
the age of sixteen. I was helpless. I would never see any of my friends or
family again, would never again feel the wind caressing my face, would never
see the sparkling stars of the night sky again, would never be able to achieve
anything in my life. My life was over. A single tear rolled down the side of my
motionless face.
 
***** Pain *****
I wanted to die then and there. Out of exhaustion. Peacefully. To just fall
asleep and never wake up. Indeed, I was tired. But I was also scared. More than
ever. Being awake, aware of what was happening around me, but not being able to
move was absolute horror. I couldn't live. I couldn't die. Had I been able to
move, I would have probably killed myself. With a ballpen if necessary.
Anything to avoid what was to happen to me now. But I was too weak to even lift
a finger.
I nearly got a heart attack when I was picked up by the huge alien robot who
would be my executor.
He seemed to notice my shock, though not visible to the outside, but very well
recognizable with his scanners and sensitive hands. He lay me down on his
surgery table. I couldn't tell whether it was warm or cold, it just felt
painful to be moved as he took off the bandages which had been wrapped tightly
around my body earlier to keep me from bleeding to death.
"Sshhh. Don't worry; you won't feel a thing." His words, which were meant to
calm me down, had the opposite effect on me. I was placed on my stomach before
he pinned me down with one of his huge fingers on my back. Whether my breath
was quickening or I stopped breathing completely I didn't know. My senses were
betraying me. I didn't hear well, didn't see well.
But I did feel. I felt it when he pressed something to the back of my neck,
when he sliced through my skin and my nerves with it. I felt the warm blood
gushing out. I wanted to scream so desperately, to scream until my voice gave
out, to beg for mercy, anything. I got dizzy, and sick. I would have thrown up,
but there wasn't anything left in my stomach to puke out. My spit started to
foam, clinging to my lips.
Assuming I was paraplegic from the neck down, Ratchet forgot all gentleness and
started to slice my back open with deadly precision. He was wrong. Obviously
even super-advanced robots from outer space made mistakes. I felt everything, I
just couldn't move. I couldn't even cry anymore because I was so dehydrated.
The world around me was spinning. My body moved passively as a reaction to the
dance of Ratchet's scalpel. The blood was already forming a huge puddle under
me and I was lying in it, face down. I hated the stench of blood, I hated it
profoundly. The red, sticky fluid got into my nose, mouth and eyes. It was like
acid, burning me mercilessly.
He opened my skin along the spine, from top to bottom, then moved his blade
across my sides; the vibrations it caused when it made contact with my bones
were screeching through my whole physique, torturing me into a state of mind
where I didn't know what was worse: feeling my body being truncated or just
knowing what was being done to me. He grabbed the open edges of my skin and
started to pull it from my ribs. It made a ripping noise, like fabric being
torn apart. Only more muffled.
Why did god, or whoever was up there in heaven, let this monster from another
world make me suffer so much? Why did no one stop him when he let his scalpel
cut through the flesh on the back of my arm and pull it off like a long glove?
Why didn't he let me die? How could I just still be alive?
Ratchet turned me around to work at my front. I could see his face hovering
above me as he sliced, pulled and hollowed out my innards. I saw no mercy in
his optics, no sympathy, only plain and sterile concentration. To me, it was
the face of a cold killer. A machine. I should have been dead by now, I really
should have been. I would have been glad if I had been just unconscious, but I
wasn't. Why had I fainted repeatedly before, but now I couldn't? I was still
there, on this goddamn surgery table, in that room created by Satan himself,
where I had entered as a relatively happy girl and where I was now being taken
apart, muscle fiber by muscle fiber. What I would have given for salvation. I
could hear a distinct smack when he threw a big piece of my skin, which he had
removed, to the side. Then he took another, smaller tool and neared my face.
Slowly, he scraped out my eyes, let the liquid captured inside escape, ripped
out my tongue, cut out my vocal chords. I could still see though. But still, I
couldn't die. I could still hear after he had cut off my ears. I could still
feelafter he had skinned me. I smelled my blood mixing with other body fluids,
pouring out of my frazzled organs. It hurt. It hurt so much.
I thought he would probably crack my skull now, like a nut. I imagined the
sound it would make; the dry snap and the squish after that. I imagined my
battered, bloody brain falling on the table, imagined how I would still feel
what no one, be they human or not, should have to endure. He didn't crack it,
though. Instead, he started scraping another tool over my skeleton, removing
every last bit of what I had been once. Who I had been. And although he had
removed everything that had marked me as a living being, I was still there.
When he seemed content with his work, he took me off the surgery table. I
sensed the way I perceived the things around me had changed. The touch of his
hand was way more intense, more dolorous, but warmer, way more... existent. He
carried me somewhere, but in my pain and fear I didn't pay attention, bloody
witnesses of my torture dripping to the ground. Shock hit me when ice-cold
fluid enveloped my body. Again, I wanted to scream and struggle, but still I
couldn't. I hadn't bled to death in Ratchet's workshop, so I should be drowned
now? I couldn't breathe. On reflection, I didn't remember breathing for a
while. I noticed I didn't need to breathe. The Autobot lifted me out of the
cold tub just to put me into another one. He kept me in there longer. I was
freezing, but my body didn't shudder, devoid of all reflexes.
I thought another excruciatingly cold bath was to come when he lifted me back
out, but this time, to my surprise, the amber liquid I was plunged into was
warm and viscous. His hands let go of me. The room got dark, Ratchet left.
Slowly, very slowly I sank down into the tank, stunned to experience something
not painful.
The liquid wrapped around me, caressing my sore torso like a loving mother's
kiss, bringing welcomed numbness with it and spreading the warmth in my limbs.
My heart slowed. I couldn't think clearly, I only knew that, miraculously, I
had survived. Weak, scared and unable to move or communicate, but I had. My
fingers twitched. And finally, oblivion came over me, like a huge black cloud,
dazing me and lulling me into a dreamless, fitful sleep.
 
***** Born Anew *****
Blurred images entered my mind. Robotic faces hovering above me, mechanical
voices sounding. I didn't know whether I was dreaming or really seeing them,
whether I was asleep or awake. However, I was warm, I wasn't in pain and I was
getting some rest and that was all I cared about at the moment. I only wanted
to sleep. But the voices grew louder and louder around me, starting to sting my
ears. Not making a sound, I grabbed on to my head and turned to my side, trying
to doze off again. They wouldn't let me. Something warm touched my shoulder,
squeezing it gently. I opened my eyes, still half asleep. Armor parts of metal,
tires and joints of all sizes and colors were gathered in front of me. That was
when I woke with a start, sat up quickly and scuttled away from my dangerous
visitors immediately, almost falling off the table I had obviously been
sleeping on.
"I take it the surgery has been a success." I heard the enormous red, blue and
silver Autobot to my right say. I just sat there and stared, shivering with
fear.
"Yes, sir. It was relatively uncomplicated. The shell has been removed
completely."
Surgery? Shell? I put one and one together and assumed they were talking about
me and the humanity I had lost- I didn't even know when it had happened, or how
long I had been out. Before I could do anything the CMO grabbed me by the back
of my neck and lifted me about ten feet above the table just before dropping
me, my body reacting on its own, turning mid-air and landing on its hands and
feet.
"Her reflexes are just perfect. She'll also start consuming the raw materials
necessary for her growth soon and..." he looked at the floor gloomily "...and
soon she'll be full grown. Physically, that is." Ratchet started to forage
between some of his tools at the side of the table. Optimus frowned.
"But she's so...thin." Sideswipe grumbled, looking disappointed.
"Don't worry. She's got the right genes to become a lean, but strong and
healthy femme. She'll probably still won't be remarkably big, although that
shouldn't pose a problem in any way."
"Very well, then. You're to take care of her until then, keep her in top
condition and Ratchet," Optimus said threateningly, leaning closer to the medic
(and therefore over me, casting his huge shadow on my body, making me crawl
away from him a little) "I'm making you responsible should anything happen to
her, so watch her good. Do I make myself perfectly clear?" "...yes, sir..."
Ratchet said, his voice barely above a whisper. "What was that?" Optimus
snapped, his body tensing visibly. "Yes, sir!"
After a few seconds of Optimus staring down the medical officer, he left,
followed by his subordinates, all except one. While they were pooling out of
the room, I dared peel my eyes off them and look down at myself. I didn't like
what I was seeing. It was not my body, not what I'd been used to and certainly
not what I wanted to be. A thin, fragile looking... thing with a flat chest,
consisting of slightly curved, interlocking silver and copper colored metal
plates, hydraulics and black cables was where my body used to be, its thin
limbs beginning to shiver in the cool air. I slowly lifted my, now too, metal
hands in front of my face to inspect them. My wrists were framed with bracelet
-like plates and the fingers ended in sharp talons. This was the end, I
realized, the end of my previous life. Now, there truly was no going back.
Nothing would ever be the same.
I started sobbing quietly, hugging my metal limbs to my body. My forehead
thumped into my knees with a clang and my eyes- no, optics- started to itch
from being clamped shut so tightly.
How I cursed the day the Autobots had found me. Had I only stayed hidden, as my
mother had obviously intended… she had not wanted this for me, had made a
tremendous effort to conceal my true nature just to protect me. It was then
that something came to mind, something I was sure every orphan had, at some
point, dreamed of. I wanted someone to be here, to embrace me and tell me
everything would be alright and I wondered if my real mother was still out
there somewhere. If she would come to take me with her one day. And my father?
Was he with her? I could be sure it was none of the mechs I had encountered,
considering how they had treated me. I had fallen silent in the meantime. Yes,
I imagined my parents, my real parents coming back for me and getting me out of
here. A doubtlessly stupid and unlikely, childish fantasy, but still it gave me
an imaginary place to retreat to for the time being.
I looked over at Ratchet, who was busying himself with some kind of electronic
book. Autobots. Fighting for freedom and equality my ass. Those heaps of scrap
metal had turned out to be just as ruthless as... it made me wonder what the
Decepticons were like. If I was lucky, they'd turn out to be better than what I
had heard about them, but if I was not...
"You're so quiet." Ratchet stated, filling a small canister with a pink fluid.
I looked up at him and shot him a glare before returning to my cowering
position. I almost jumped when one of the blankets I had previously been
sleeping on was wrapped around my shoulders carefully. Feeling too tired to try
and run again, I wrapped the thick fabric around my body tighter, relishing the
warmth it spread over my metal skin.
"You know, you might try and get used to your vocal processor. Synthesizing
sounds with it is different from using human vocal chords." Actually I had
planned to tell him to shut the fuck up or equally friendly things whenever I
had the opportunity to do so, but although I wasn't too keen on following his
advice I tried to yell at him, just to experience that said vocal processor
didn't quite want to cooperate, releasing a static hiss when I tried to speak.
It was a terrible sound, and being in a situation where I couldn't express
myself again made me more than upset. I kept hissing like that for a while and
every time I tried to produce an acceptable sound and failed, I got angrier. I
was infuriated to say the least when that damn medic started laughing about me
like I was some infant doing something incredibly adoring and funny. Saluting
him with my middle finger I watched with dread as he attached something that
looked like a pacifier to the little container. It was a baby bottle. I was
nota baby!
The Prime's words returned to my mind. Ratchet was supposed to take care of me,
to protect me. His leader would certainly rip him a new one if anything
happened to me, including Ratchet himself harming me. That little fact formed a
plan in my head. A stupid plan that probably wouldn't get me anywhere but it
would probably be some kind of entertainment for the period of my imprisonment
(which I feared would be quite a while).
Hissing and spitting didn't do any good as he came over to me and grabbed me by
the back of my neck again, leaving me dangling from his fingers for a moment
like a kitten would from its mother's jaw before cradling me in his palm. I
didn't know how he did it but suddenly he managed to put the suckle into my
mouth and start to feed me, but I wouldn't let him do his job that easily. I
squirmed, kicked his hand with my feet, bucked against the bottle, hissing all
the time. He wanted a baby? He'd get a nightmare! Changing my strategy; I
sucked some of the bottle' fluid into my mouth and squirmed long enough to get
that humiliating piece of rubber out. My mouth full of energon I glared up at
Ratchet, who looked kind of content...yet. It didn't taste bad; strange, but
not bad, nevertheless I'd teach that damn robot a lesson.
"Come on, swallow it. You need more energy, kid." My mouth curled into an evil
smile over my now hamster-like cheeks before releasing all of the energon onto
his face, chest and arms. I'd understate if I said he looked stunned. He looked
hilarious. Lime green and silver armor with pink spots all over his torso, what
a combination of colors! Of course I was aware of my own body also being full
of the liquid, but at the moment there was nothing I could have cared less
about. And to my relief my vocal processor finally started releasing
understandable sounds. Static grew into shrieking and shrieking into a metallic
cackle. I laughed so hard I started to cough, then continued laughing at the
medic's perplexed expression. Ratchet was just standing there, frozen, energon
dripping off his frame.
"You've got a strange sense of humor, sparkling." said the mech while lowering
me to the table and starting to clean himself roughly with a rag. I managed to
squeak out a decent 'fuck you' with a still very strange sounding voice between
my laughs and rolled around on my back. His confusion had turned into an oh-
shit-how-am-I-supposed-to-put-up-with-that-expression when he tried to clean me
and I successfully kicked his hands away. I wondered how many stunts I could
pull before he snapped? I decided that, if I had to stay here I'd make it worth
the while and find out. I hand suffered through his hands, now he would suffer
through mine. Through my hands, feet, mouth and anything within my reach that I
could throw or spit at him. I wanted revenge and as long as this mech had to
take care of me, I would make his life a living hell.
He picked me back up and tried to insert the feeding appliance into my mouth
again, but I managed to dig my razor sharp teeth into its side and cause it to
gush energon all over my shoulder. I growled and tightened my bite on the
suckle, throwing my head from side to side like a predator trying to rip a
piece of flesh out of its prey, breaking the soft material. Sighing, Ratchet
managed to pull the bottle away, shaking his head as he took in the damage I
had done to it. It also was half empty by now, but its contents were obviously
not where Ratchet had intended for them to end up.
Additionally I decided I'd empty my now full mouth on him again, adding a new
layer of color to my artwork before falling into another fit of evil giggling.
Again, he sighed.
"Kid, you're making this harder for both of us. Look, I have to see to your
health and you need to-"
"I don't need to do anything!" I screamed, throwing my now energon-soaked
blanket at him for emphasis. Ratchet was looking kind of desperate by now.
"No matter what you do, you can't make me obey! I'll be no one's slave, you
hear me?! If I choose to starve before taking anything from you, THEN I WILL!
And don't you dare thinking I'd pass any opportunity to cause YOU problems!
Watch your back, medic! WATCH YOUR BACK!" I kept screaming the last sentence
over and over again while he picked me up and put me into the glass box where I
started punching and kicking the walls of my prison.
After shaking his head one last time he left. I kept screaming and thrashing,
but as soon as the med bay doors closed behind him I collapsed into the
pillows, staining them with the pink fluid. I supposed he knew I was indeed
very hungry and weakened, but I'd put on this act until either he gave up or I
dropped dead. I thanked god for my acting experience. It may sound strange, but
I tended to stage my whole day, even when I was by myself. To me, it was a form
of art to almost never do anything imprudently, always analyzing the current
situation, thinking of possible scenes, choosing the best one and acting it
out, all in a split second. I wondered if my grades in school would have been
better (okay, they'd never been thatbad, but still) if I had used more of my
brain capacity for my lessons rather than for creating scenes, worrying about a
thousand things and doodling everywhere I shouldn't be at the same time.
My fingers twitched as I lay in the box, staring up at the infrared lamp. What
I would have given for a sheet of paper and a couple of pens! How I longed to
draw something, anything, no matter what... but it was unlikely that I'd get my
hands on anything of that kind in the foreseeable future (not counting my food
being spit onto the medic's armor).
Slowly, actually wanting to go back to sleep but deciding against it, I sat up
and looked at the small cracks in the glass I had obviously caused earlier,
tracing one of them with my clawed index finger, creating a screeching sound of
metal on glass. If my hands were made of metal, then maybe...My right hand
curled into a fist and I pulled it back to gain momentum, but hesitated. Robot
or not, this would hurt. I clamped my optics shut and collided my fist with the
glass, using every bit of strength I had left- and felt my fingers shatter, the
joints pop, the cables snap. I cried out, clutching my hand to myself in an
instant. Whimpering, I sunk back down into the pillows and closed my optics. I
would probably never be able to escape, would I? My sob resounded in the glass
box. Maybe I would never see my friends again, or my family. Another sob. Maybe
I would never be free again. But I sure would try, again and again.
By now I was shaking as one sob rattled my body after the other, but no tears
were leaving my optics. I couldn't even cry properly. It sucked not to be able
to shed tears. What would happen to me now? To them, I was an infant. But what
when I was grown up? I remembered what Prime and Ratchet had talked about.
Reproduction. I was a female Transformer among what? 20 or 30 males? Maybe
more? The thought made me feel sick. Hadn't Prime told me they were going
extinct? That was why they had brought me here. Male Autobots. Fucking huge
Autobots. I shuddered. While I knew nothing about their matters of
reproduction, I was pretty sure it would hurt. What if it resembled the way
humans did it? If the Autobots intimate parts were just remotely proportional
to their bodies... they would tear me apart, without doubt. Clenching my thighs
together closely, I whimpered. If I didn't want them to do those things to me,
they would probably use force. Which wouldn't be too hard for them considering
their size and strength. I was now wailing loudly. I didn't want to be here and
I didn't want to be used by them. I needed to get out.
But even if I did make it, where was I supposed to go? Off planet? Impossible.
I knew next to nothing about space travel and even if I had a ship I wouldn't
even know how to get the engine started. Go back to my family? Nope. Even if
they believed that the alien robot standing in front of them was their
daughter, what were they supposed to do? Hide me? The Autobots would have me
back before I could say "Surrealism". Running from them would be
difficult...very, very difficult...
My hand still hurt. After a while my brain, or processor, or whatever was there
in my head, got tired over thinking about a solution to my problem. I was
running out of ideas and I was running out of energy to think about them, for
now... finally I lost the ability to think straight and my optic covers got
heavy...
XXXXXXXXXX
I awoke to the sound of doors being opened with a bang and bots storming in.
Ratchet at the front, followed by Ironhide carrying Sideswipe, who was pressing
his hand to his midsection, groaning in pain. Energon was bleeding from his
wound, forming puddles on the ground below. Prime and Jazz came into med bay
after them. The heavily injured mech was placed on a repair berth where Ratchet
began with his work immediately. Sideswipe screamed in agony, struggling, but
being held down by Optimus and Ironhide. I noticed the other mechs were covered
in wounds and blast marks themselves, their blackened armor full of dents and
scratches.
"Main energon line severed. Pressure decreasing drastically. Acidic spill under
the main pump." The CMO said tonelessly, already buried in Sideswipes heaving
chassis up to the elbows. Ironhide growled.
"Fragging Decepticreeps."
Prime nodded sternly, holding the smaller Autobots shoulders down. "They know
the child's here. They're getting nervous."
Ironhide looked from the squirming robot over to me. I was half hiding behind
one of the pillows, clutching my broken hand. "She hurt or wha?"
Ratchet sighed. "Not that I know of. Still, the kid decided to make a mess of
her food. Looks like she's more of the defiant type."
I curled up in a tight ball, shivering and sobbing quietly. Something tapped
against the glass box. I faintly recognized the informal language of the other
silver mech in the room, Jazz. "Ya sure it's only da food, doc? Looks like it's
becomin' more. It's tricklin' down her arm."
Ratchet looked up quickly, but resumed his work after a second or two. "I don't
have time to take a look at her now. If I don't repair Sideswipe now, there's
no telling what the acid might do to the rest of his systems. Just leave her
be. If her vitals were critical, I would have been informed." After a few
minutes or so Sideswipe had stopped moving completely. If he had fainted or if
Ratchet had sedated him I didn't know, nor did I care. The other three mechs
had left since their assistance was no longer required.
I didn't remember falling asleep again, but I woke up when I was lifted out of
the box and onto a slab. I groaned in protest, not even fully awake again. I
had slept for at least a few hours, but it felt like I was even more tired than
before. "Oh dear. Kid, what did you do?" Ratchet took hold of my injured hand
carefully, turning it over slowly. I tried to pull it away from his big
fingers, but found little to no strength residing in my limbs. I tried to fight
off sleep desperately, but I felt weaker every minute. My stomach hurt. I was
hungry. I wanted to eat. Anything. But I wouldn't since anything edible would
be offered by the accused medic. I sat, swaying back and forth tiredly while my
hand was being reassembled with surprising gentleness. When Ratchet was
finished with my hand, he cleaned me with a wet cloth and tried to offer me a
bottle of energon again, but I refused to let him feed me.
"Come on. You need to refuel. Don't be so damn stubborn." Groaning once again,
I turned my head away, optics half closed. He sighed, like so often. "Fine. If
you don't want it that way..." He filled a needle-less syringe with the pink
stuff and half shoved the short tube at its end down my throat. I tried to
struggle, but the huge metal fingers of his kept me in place as the energon was
pressed out of the syringe and directly into my stomach. I was full quickly,
but that didn't mean I liked it. I had let him feed me. Okay I was half asleep
and weakened but still... for now, I had lost. He once again cradled me in his
hand, massaging my belly with one finger slowly. I wanted to yell at him, to
fight him off or do anything against this unwanted affections, but the food had
only helped in making me more tired. Undoubtedly its digestion was taking even
more energy from me right now. I squirmed weakly before the warmth of Ratchets
hand around me induced a deep sleep.
 
***** Cybertronian *****
I felt much better when I woke up, although I was hungry again. I rubbed my
optics with my fists, stretched and yawned. What time was it? No one there to
ask. I grumbled. I was still angry about what Ratchet had done. Exploited my
weakness to force me to eat. Well. I'd get back at him. I remembered my secret
oath from when he had first tried to feed me: making him wish he had never been
burdened with the task of having to take care of me. Starting with the only
things I could reach; the pillows in my glass box. While they hadn't done
anything wrong (well, how could they? They were just pillows after all) I was
sure Ratchet wouldn't like it at all if I turned them to shreds, would he? So I
did what I thought Ratchet wouldn't like. Tore them to shreds. When I had
ripped the first one open I was a little stunned to see it was not filled with
feathers, but with tiny, fluffy, white balls. I smiled. They were more fun than
feathers anyway, although I couldn't quite tell what they were made of. Not
that I cared much.
Ratchet half gasped when he entered the room, seeing me sitting in my glass box
in a heap of white fluff-balls. He put the pile of strangely shaped metal
sheets he had brought with him on his work bench and walked over to my box,
crossing his arms in front of his chest. I felt like throwing myself into the
next corner or hide beneath my cushioning to scream and cry until I passed out
but instead I stuck my tongue out at the medic. Ratchet ignored it and glared
at me, tapping his fingers on his forearm. I was getting him annoyed. Oh joy.
"Are we finished?"
"Not while your mind is still capable of coherent thought, no." I hurled some
of the fluff- balls up above my head for emphasis and grinned, though I was
feeling neither happy nor playful. Mostly, I was angry. The green mech sighed
and shook his head while collecting the metal objects he had brought in
earlier. He switched one of the devices on and showed it to me. It had a big
screen, looked kinda like an oversized, alien iPad. There were some glyphs
depicted on the screen and English words next to them.
"I guess you won't be very interested in your first lesson?" he said while I
crawled under the heap of white fluff, trying to hide from the medic's vigilant
optics.
"Depends. Is it about how to break out of an underground military base or on
how to annoy lime green Autobot medics?"
"No."
"Then you can shove it up your... tailpipe... or whatever your equivalent of an
ass is." I heard the latches of my glass prison being opened and the top being
pushed aside. The rustle of fluff- balls being roamed away and big metal
fingers embracing my torso tightly was followed by the sensation of being
lifted out of the box. I decided to remain calm for now until a better
opportunity presented itself to act differently.
"Don't be so stubborn. If you want to live with us as a member of our society,
you need to learn to speak our language, about our rules and customs." My face
scrunched into a grimace as he held me in one hand, sitting down on his
favorite chair.
"Who's saying I'm staying here? How do you get the idea that I want to live
with a bunch of antisocial aliens?"
"Firstly, not all of us are antisocial. Secondly, look at yourself. You're one
of us. Where else would you stay, if not with your own kind?" He had a point
there. Still, I refused to settle with the thought of staying with my
kidnappers, my punishers.
"I'll think of something. I'm very creative, you know?" His optics glinted with
amusement.
"Oh, I don't doubt that. After all, some of our agents have been watching you.
You've produced an impressive amount of pretty little pictures and trinkets, I
must admit that much."
Trinkets?! Pretty little pictures? He had some nerve to refer to my work in
such a way. I would have liked to snarl at him, to throw something at him, but
the time wasn't right yet.
His grip on me loosened as an effect of the light conversation. That was the
clue for my next attempt of escape. I quickly wriggled out of his grasp and
dropped to the floor, hitting my knee in the process but ignoring it, bolting
for the door as soon as my feet made contact with the cold metal surface. After
a short moment of shock Ratchet stood up and darted after me. Before he could
reach me though, I had found the doors were locked and I couldn't possibly push
them open, so I opted for 'just get out of his reach' and ran to the high
supply shelf instead. It was amazingly easy for me to climb it, considering it
had the size of a four- story house and I was still roughly human sized. After
only a few seconds I was up on the top and glaring down at Ratchet, who,
without climbing on a chair or ladder first, couldn't quite reach me on my high
perch. I found a nice (for me) big box I could pry open easily and threw the
lid at the medic's head. He managed to dodge it, if only narrowly. The metal
case's contents followed soon, raining down on him in the form of human- fist-
sized nuts and bolts.
"Stop that! Ouch! Would you- hey!"
"NO! Do you know you've ruined my life?" I threw more bolts at him in the hope
of shattering the glass of his optics in case they hit their target, which they
didn't, but still. At that moment, I felt so much grief and anger boiling up
inside. All those years of working, hoping, all those years of worry, for
nothing! It wasn't fair! "I had plans! I could have become a professional
artist or designer! I could have fulfilled my dreams! See the world! What am I
supposed to do now? WHAT?!"
"I DON'T KNOW!" I stopped throwing, surprised by the Autobot's sudden
desperation. He looked kinda sad, now that I looked at him.
"Look, I'm very sorry for your loss of perspective, but it wasn't my decision
that brought you here nor can I change anything about it." I drew back to the
wall behind the shelf where he couldn't see me, sitting down and hugging my
legs close.
"Shut up."
"You can't just sit there and hide from yourself. You should finally accept who
you are and make the best of it."
"I SAID SHUT UP!" I heard a soft metallic sound and since it made the metal I
was sitting on shudder for a split second I assumed he had put his hands on the
shelf.
"Alpha, please-" I looked up. What?
"What did you just call me?"
"..."
"What did you just call me?!"
"It is... your name. Alpha. The first. It is what your mother named you."
Alpha... that sounded familiar, but... no. My name was Joelle. Joelle, not
Alpha.
"My name is Joelle."
"Your name is Alpha, always has been. Joelle was the name of the human girl
whom you replaced. Your mother called you Alpha and that's what we're gonna
call you."
"What do you know about my mother?" Silence. I heard him shift below.
"She... loved you. And she's gone. That's all I'm gonna tell you." He knew
more, but wouldn't tell me. Was there something I wasn't supposed to know?
Maybe he had lied, she was still out there and he just wanted to prevent any
contact because she'd take me away from them? Maybe more would be revealed
soon... I chose to let it be for the moment and come back to it later.
"What about my father?" Transformers didn't reproduce self- sufficiently, did
they?
"I don't know nothing about him." No, they obviously didn't.
"Why won't you tell me?"
"I said I don't know who sired you." I don't believe you.
"You do know but you won't tell me, right?" He didn't answer. Instead, he
changed the topic.
"Please come down there." I curled up in a tight ball again, pressing my palms
to my audio receptors in a feeble attempt to block out my surroundings.
"Leave me alone."
"Alpha, please."
"No!" I stood up and shoved the next box available off the shelf. It fell to
the floor with a heavy thud, the clattering cacophony of smaller metal objects
on the floor telling of its contents spilling out. I leaned against the wall
heavily. "Go away..." Tiredness took over again and I closed my optics briefly.
My energy storage was almost depleted, my empty stomach making itself known
uncomfortably. Soft clicking noises resounded, followed by the sound of parts
being placed back in the box.
"Well, if you want to sit on that shelf for the rest of your life, I ain't got
a problem with that. But if you're hungry, which I know you are, I suppose
you'll have to come down here."
My knee was throbbing, I snorted in a distempered way. "I'd rather starve."
"I don't think so." I opened my optics with a start. I hadn't heard him coming
in. Turning around swiftly, I saw the huge and intimidating Autobot leader
standing in the doorway and glaring at both me and Ratchet. He looked a little
angry, his stance aggressive and tense. Now that I thought about it, the last
time I had seen him sporting a somewhat friendly expression had been on the way
here. The Prime made me feel uneasy whenever he was around, even more so than
the medic. "Ratchet. What is going on here?"
The smaller Autobot stood up hastily and bowed to his superior. "Prime, what
brings you here, sir?"
"I wanted to see how far you've come regarding the child's lessons, but it
looks like you haven't done anything. So. What is she doing up there? What's
that mess all about?" Oh here we go, I thought. Certainly Ratchet would now
start complaining about how misbehaved I was and hey, maybe I'd get a different
caretaker? One that would help me?
"I'm sorry. Things got a little out of hand for a moment, but everything's fine
now. It was my fault." I was surprised he took the blame for something I had
done, but in a way I still hoped he would be punished. However, his attempt of
distraction was quickly ignored, which meant the Prime's attention was now
focused on me.
"Come here. Now." I took a step back cautiously.
"No." the huge Autobot looked like he had just been slapped across the face. He
was now standing between Ratchet and me. The medic was shaking his head at me,
optics widened.
"Say that again." I took another step back.
"Uh... no?" While Ratchet was too small to reach me where I was standing right
now, Prime wasn't. Additionally, he was much faster than I had anticipated,
grabbing me with a quick sweep of his arm.
"No? Do you need a lesson concerning authority?" He held me up at his eye
level, scowling. "Listen now. And listen closely. You'll do what I tell you to.
You speak when I tell you to and you move when I tell you to. You will not
question me, you will obey. Is that understood?" I blinked.
"You're not my boss."
"You bet your scrawny little aft I am." The next word was only mumbled, yet he
seemed to have heard it clearly and I regretted saying it shortly after it had
slipped my mouth.
"Asshole."
"Why you little-" he tightened his grip on me, making me gasp in pain as my
body was being constricted to the point where I started seeing stars. In my
pain and fright, I almost didn't notice Ratchet stepping in and grabbing his
superior's arm.
"Prime, please! She's in a state of psychological shock and doesn't know what
she's saying. Please give her some time to adjust; she's not used to our
customs!" Prime glared daggers at the medic.
"'Not being used to our customs' is not an excuse for disrespectfulness and you
know it." Ratchet looked at me with an unreadable expression.
"Her whole life has been turned upside down within merely four days. Forgive
her if she's a little confused." The Autobot leader growled at his subordinate,
who made a wise decision in quickly removing his hand from the bigger mech's
arm. I did poorly on concealing my fear, shivering and wanting to hide. A
slight whirring resonated in my own body, I felt uncomfortably warm. Cooling
air started to circulate in my torso. Prime's expression softened, if only a
little bit.
"Fine." he spat, putting me down on the next work bench nonchalantly. I fell
down on my butt, suddenly very exhausted and too scared to do much but sit
there. Ratchet twitched when his commander practically shoved his index finger
into his face. "I'll check on her progress tomorrow. And if you haven't taught
her the basics by then I wouldn't like being stuck in your hide." The medic
nodded stiffly.
"Yes, sir." The red and blue Autobot then turned around on his heel and marched
out. When he was gone, I noticed Ratchet relax visibly. He braced himself
against the repair berth and sighed.
"What was that all about?" I finally dared to speak again.
"Do you have any idea how close that was?" I shrugged, then shook my head.
"Why did you defend me? You had no reason to." Ratchet cast me a tired glance.
"It was the right thing to do. Still, you must be more careful around Optimus.
He's dangerous and I can't always protect you." I crossed my legs and looked
down at my clawed hands, turning them over. I didn't know what to think. First
Ratchet had forced me to humiliate myself, had hurt me, killed my humanity,
humiliated me again and now he had protected me. Why? What was the meaning of
all of this? Frustrated, I buried my face in my hands. I heard him move, but I
couldn't have cared less at the moment. The whirring in my body stopped before
he spoke up again.
"I had asked Prime to give you an own room where you could move about freely,
but I fear we can forget about that now. Here." I looked up, only to see the
refilled baby bottle in front of me again. I turned away.
"I won't let myself be fed like a baby. Especially not by you." He smiled.
"If you don't want to be treated like a sparkling, you should stop behaving
like one." I blew air through my teeth, creating an irritating sound.
"Oh spare me the lecture." My stomach stung with hunger, but I wouldn't beg. If
he didn't give me the bottle to drink myself, I wouldn't drink at all. "Just
give me the damn bottle."
"Language."
"I can swear as much as I like, you fucking bastard." Still smiling, but
shaking his head, he put the bottle down in front of me and went to work on
something else. Having reassured myself he had left me alone for now, I focused
my attention on the over- dimensional baby bottle. Its contents were, just like
the last time I had been fed, a shimmering pink. I remembered the rich, treacly
taste and its satiable effect. My stomach stung again. It was food. Pure and
simple. Me: hungry, food: in front of me, conclusion: eat. Or in this case,
drink. The bottle was about the size of my whole arm and so, not without some
difficulties, I pulled the cap with the suckle off. It was heavy when I lifted
it, but I found the sensation of the warm, sweet fluid trickling down my throat
to be highly pleasing. I hated to admit that, while I was drinking, I had to
wonder how I could have ever liked the taste of fruit, vegetables and meat. How
could I have eaten those things that, compared to energon, tasted like nothing?
Now that I thought about it the organic food kinda made me feel sick... no!
No, organic food was for humans and being a human was good. I wanted to be
human again, to just be one of billions... It was amazing how much of the pink
fuel fit into my stomach since only after what must have been almost two
gallons of energon, I felt full, relatively content and tired. I didn't want to
fall asleep on the work bench though, so I stood up and clumsily searched for a
safe place to sleep. I couldn't escape now, not in my weak condition and so I
hoped I'd feel better after a little nap. After all, they didn't want to kill
me, just keep me here, right? I'd find a way to get out, but it would be hard,
strenuous and dangerous.
So I would rest, at least for now. Ratchet didn't pay me much attention, being
caught up in whatever he was doing. When I had climbed off the slab, I
proceeded over to a cabinet the doors of which I thought could be opened
easily. I was right. And I was lucky, since when I climbed inside, I found a
large box full of rags. Some of them were grimy and blackened and they all
smelled like oil, dry energon or other things I couldn't quite identify, but
they were soft and so I made myself comfortable after pulling the cabinet's
doors closed behind me. I curled up between the layers of fabric before sleep
(or recharge...?) overtook me.
XXXXXXXXXX
I wasn't in the cabinet when I woke. Nor was I in some place I had ever been
before. I sat up quickly and looked around. I was alone and the room was almost
empty, except for a vacant Autobot- sized shelf, an equally huge desk and chair
plus the berth I was sitting on. The only light was coming from a dim lamp
above the door and from my optics. I rubbed my face with my hands, having to be
careful not to scratch myself with the claws. Ratchet must have brought me here
while I had been recharging, that jerk. My optics shot back to the top of the
shelf. There, almost out of sight, a small vent was embedded in the wall close
to the ceiling that might have been just big enough for me to fit through.
Quickly the shelf was climbed and I was tugging and tearing at the access
cover. It came off after a while and with quite some effort, I ripped the fan
out and threw it aside. The pipe ahead of me still looked small and dark, but
for now, it was the only way to escape, so I squeezed inside head first.
It was tight, but not impossible to crawl through, at least I thought so until
I was three feet in. Then I was stuck. I growled angrily while trying to go on
in vain. Okay, I had to go back out and find another way. Next problem, I
couldn't get out. Somehow my shoulders had wedged themselves in a way that
didn't allow me to go anywhere. Fuck.
I tried not to panic, but no matter how much I struggled, how I tried to get a
hold of anything and push or pull myself out again, my body wouldn't budge.
Finally, I surrendered to just lying in the pipe partially. Could it be that I
had grown already? Probably not. Nah. Or at least, I hoped not. If I didn't
grow, my chances of creeping through some tight places where the Autobots
couldn't follow and, if I did get out, hiding amongst the humans were much
better.
Sure I would have to find some kind of disguise, a Santa Clause costume if need
be, that wouldn't stick out at this time of year anyway. I wasn't so sure what
day it was today, but I knew it must have been close to Christmas and that
thought alone made me want to curl up and cry. It was the time when the whole
family came together to celebrate, when the scent of cookies would fill first
the kitchen in my parent's house, then the living room and finally the rest of
the building. It was the time when I'd decorate the Christmas tree in a way
that made my father flinch but also smile at the same time, since my ideas of
decoration had always been a little... strange.
I remembered a time when I had hung little plastic pumpkins, skeletons and bats
onto the small green branches and my father had thought I just didn't know
where we had put the Christmas decoration and that I should just admit that I
had been too lazy to search for it. My parents. What were they doing now, I
wondered? Searching for me? Worrying? Staring at the blank spot in front of the
chimney where I had usually been sitting on a large pillow, drawing or reading?
I felt sorry for them. I hadn't even had the chance to say goodbye. Then again,
I cursed myself for going with Optimus willingly and without thinking much
about it in the first place. That had been stupid, just so stupid... I had left
behind everything I loved and my future, for what? The promise of adventure?
Had I only known what I was getting myself into, I would never have gone with
him... I sighed. It was too late now and as much as I wished my life had a
button I could press and erase everything that had happened in the last week or
so, I knew it was impossible. There was only one way: onward. Okay, in this
case, considering I was stuck in a vent, probably not.
It seemed like hours passed while it couldn't have been more than a few minutes
before the door opened, someone stepped in and closed it again. I couldn't see
for my body was obscuring my view, but I heard him move through the room.
"Alpha. Where are you hiding?" It was Ratchet. Should I call for help? I
couldn't move...
"I'm... here. I'm stuck." I said, the sound waves bouncing off the metallic
walls of my temporary prison and creating an unpleasant echo.
"You're..." I heard him move "...oh. Oh. There you are." Though I couldn't see
it, it sounded like he was moving the shelf aside. His hands grasped my legs
gently, but he didn't pull. "It's your shoulders, right?"
"What?"
"Your shoulders are stuck."
"I think so." He paused, obviously thinking.
"You know I don't want to risk damaging you. I'll get some lubrication."
"Pig."
"I don't mean it thatway. Just... wait here."
"Oh really." He came back a short time later and sprayed me with what I assumed
to be oil, then tried to carefully pull me out of the ventilation system. It
took a few minutes and it was exhausting, but eventually Ratchet managed to
free me of this embarrassing situation. So now there I was sitting on his palm,
full of oil and with scratched shoulders. I stared at my hands in my lap. This
was awkward. His index finger brushed over my smeared cheek and I pushed him
away. He shook his head, a small smile flashing over his face for a split
second.
"Lets get you cleaned up, shall we? You'll be good or I won't help you next
time." He walked out the room and I realized the door led to the storage room
behind med bay. Ratchet entered another room with me; it was the one I had been
brought to after the surgery. Now that I looked at it, it seemed to be some
kind of alien bathroom. It held several tanks filled with various liquids, and
a huge shower in the corner. "So while we're at it" he said. He then put me
down on top of some machine reminding me of an over dimensioned dishwasher
before taking some small bottles out of a cabinet. "We could very well start
your lessons."
"No."
"Why are you making this so difficult?"
"Because I want to."
"Look." Ratchet rubbed some of the liquid from the first bottle into a soft rag
and handed it to me so I could clean myself. "There are some rules on this base
and in our society in general that you need to know. Some of our people, like
our Prime, are kind of strict concerning those and I wouldn't recommend for you
to clash with him. So please, for your own sake you should at least let me tell
you the basics."
"Just leave me alone." He stopped whatever he had been doing over at the
cabinet and looked at me.
"I know you don't want to be here and to be honest, neither do I. But sitting
around sulking won't help." He leaned in close, his voice barely above a
whisper. "Listen, I... I understand you want to leave. I really do. Don't get
me wrong, I want to help you, I just can't."
"If you understand it then why did you try to stop me? Why didn't you let me
leave?" He sighed.
"Simple. You're not ready to leave. Even if you made it out of base, what then?
You don't know enough of our world yet to survive alone. You need to learn
certain things first. About our people, about your possibilities, about the
dangers. About yourself. You can't just run out there without a plan; you'll be
caught or worse."
"I still don't get why you'd want to help me. You. Of all people."
"I know the Autobots and I know the Decepticons. And I know Prime. I know
what's going to happen and I want to spare you that fate. I know you're a good
little femme, even if you might not always behave like it. I think you deserve
a chance." I closed my optics. This sounded so irrational, and it probably was.
He probably just wanted to trick me, to make me trust him so they could go on
with their devilish plans without further complications.
"You teach me things that might help me to escape for good. But what do you
expect in return?"
"I expect cooperation. Nothing more."
"Really."
"Really."
"How am I supposed to know if I can trust you?"
"Do you have a choice?" No, I probably didn't. Still the thought of trusting
the Autobot medic didn't settle well with me at all. I was finished wiping off
the oil by now, the best I could at least.
"Fine. So. What am I up against?"
XXXXXXXXXX
"What about the colonies?"
"In the golden age, Cybertron had a total of 47 colony planets, most of which
were lost during the riots leading up to the great war." I droned on, not
actually interested in the history of the alien's home planet. God, this was
like being questioned in school. "Now it has got... merely... seven?"
"Eight. But alright. You may resume your lessons now." With that Prime turned
around and left. I showed off my lean middle finger again after he had closed
the door behind him.
"You wish you stupid, shit-eating, oversized, motherfucking excuse of a
fender." I hissed cantankerously, but quietly. The Autobot commander was
just... just... such an asshole. A few minutes ago, he had just entered the
room in all his audacity and had started to ask all sorts of questions, some
even in Cybertronian, easy ones of course, what my name was and such (I had
told him my name was Joelle, which he had begrudgingly accepted as an answer),
about decent cybertronian behavior, about the politics, history and the culture
of their people. I walked over to the table's edge where my blanket was waiting
for me, sat down on it and wrapped the rest around myself. I had noticed I was
feeling cold almost constantly; maybe it had something to do with the fact that
I now had such a small mass and lacked insulation of any kind.
"You better don't let him hear you using such vulgar vocabulary. He doesn't
like swearing and he doesn't like being insulted." Ratchet said from somewhere
behind me.
"I'm not insulting people to do them a favor." I flipped through the datapad he
had given to me earlier, which was actually too big for me to handle, but what
the hell. The alien glyphs started to make sense slowly, even without the
English translation. I noticed I could now take in more and remember it more
correctly than I had been able to before I had been turned into... this. It
seemed like something had changed in my brain, no, processor, as well. I was
learning things faster. It might have been the fuel. The dictionary part of the
datapad was even a little fun to play with. I tried to say something in
Cybertronian, a rather stupid human joke roughly translated into the other
language, only to have Ratchet inform me of the word order being incorrect and
me pronouncing some of the words weirdly. "Besides," he stated matter- of-
factly, "I don't get what's supposed to be funny about that. It doesn't even
make sense."
"Oh I don't expect an underdeveloped creature such as you to understand such
sophisticated humor."
"What are you implying?" He sat a new bottle of energon down beside where I was
sitting before leaning onto the table, braced on his forearms.
"You're always whining about how little you appreciate human culture and so on.
Don't you think it's impolite to insult another's heritage?" I looked up at
him, he looked back.
"I'm not insulting human customs. Besides, it's not your heritage." Again, I
pulled the suckle off the bottle, tossing it aside. Why did he even bother with
those dumb things?
"That's beside the point. You can't just condemn civilizations that might be
different from what you know."
"What have I said that makes you think I don't appreciate human achievements?"
I took a sip of the energon and wiped my mouth with the back of my hand.
"Oh you know, when you're talking about cybertronian culture you're always like
'this works this way and it's waaay different from what the humans use to do
and oh my god Cybertron is so awesome and Earth sucks' and so on."
"The humans are a rather young species and I'm sure they'll learn in time. You
need to consider that our civilization is way older and there's no telling what
human society will be like in a few million years. Although I doubt they will
last that long."
"Why?" He snorted, pushing himself up again so he was standing completely
upright again.
"They seem to have an urge to destroy each other. I guess they will kill every
living being on the planet before their civilization has a chance to bloom.
It's so... primitive." I laughed, almost choking on my food. I still wasn't
quite used to this body. And my voice still sounded funny.
"Says the guy whose species is going extinct because of some stupid war. How
primitive is that?"
"Well... well, you might have a point there. Yes, it's kind of paradoxical now
that I think of it." He chuckled although the matter we were discussing was one
that was actually posing a rather inconvenient and tragic threat to his
species' very existence. After I had emptied a quarter of the bottle, I decided
to address another topic.
"How does transforming work?"
"It's a rather complicated combination of physical adjustments, coding and body
control. It takes a lot of practice, too. Only adult bots can transform, so
don't even try. You'll just end up hurting yourself."
"I can't even do the trick with transforming single body parts into I don't
know, tools or weapons?"
"No. And I doubt you'll ever be allowed weapons."
Grumbling, I turned back to my fuel.
 
***** Shadows of Christmas *****
I woke up in the room with the bed, desk and shelf again, which was, I had been
told, my room. Ratchet had explained that it had originally been intended to be
his private chamber, but that he rather recharged in his office or the storage
and therefore never used it. I wasn't so sure if that was entirely true
(recharging at his desk didn't sound very comfortable), but I was grateful for
the privacy, even if the furnishing was kind of dull. Dull was an
understatement, but… well.
I yawned, my mouth opening much wider than it would have had I still been
human. There were some quite astounding aspects to this body, I had to admit
that much. It was far more flexible than an ordinary human body, I could move
much quicker too and yet I felt weak. Maybe it was because of the presence of
the much bigger Autobots or that this was practically the body of a mere baby,
nevertheless I didn't think I could overpower anything right now. Not even a
guinea pig. I blinked. That had definitely not been there at the time I went to
bed. A few feet on my bed that was big enough to accommodate a bot like Ratchet
and thus was actually way too big for someone of my size, there was a large
cubical box, wrapped up in what seemed to be... gift wrap paper?
At least to me it was large. I faintly remembered watching a cartoon where
someone would always receive a gift, unwrap it happily only to have it blow up
in their face when I had been a little child, but then again, it probably
weren't my memories. Crazy. Cautiously I stood up, my curiosity getting the
better of me. The paper was light blue with yellow dots and a, for a box of
that size, too small golden bow on top.
A little note had been attached to the bow; it was a bit creasy as if the
person who had prepared it had had trouble to handle such a tiny piece of
paper. It read "Merry Christmas". I had forgotten about Christmas. It was the
morning of December the 25th and I had completely forgotten about it.
Melancholy returned. The past days I had been busy learning all sorts of stuff,
scheming and trying to avoid contact with anyone (I failed miserably), I had
been so occupied it didn't even occur to me that time had flowed on without me.
Time. That was something I had found out was precious now. I only had two
years. About two years until my body was full grown, until... I needed to
escape as soon as possible. And hopefully, even if I felt weak, I would be able
to overpower a soldier, which was essential to my plan. Well, first things
first. The package being filled with explosives seemed unlikely, so I decided
to find out about its contents. Shredding the cardboard box was easy enough
with my metal claws and soon I had a clear view of what was inside. Canvasses
in various sizes and shapes, a small easel, turpentine, brushes and oil colors.
I couldn't describe how happy I was to have something, anything to work with
again. Something I could express myself with, even if it would be just to
myself, something to clear my thoughts, get them in order.
I wondered who had left the present here for me. Probably Ratchet. Most likely.
Who else did I know here? Optimus Prime? He probably didn't give a shit about
what I liked or wanted, judging by his behavior towards me. All the others I
had not even talked to. It couldn't possibly be from someone outside of this
base either. It had to be from Ratchet. But why would he spend money just so I
had something to play with?
The painting supplies were rather high class too, as in pretty expensive. I
knew the brands. The ones I had only been able to dream of whenever I had
visited my favorite supplier in the next bigger city. With the diligent touch
of an expert I arranged the tools on my bed, carefully and with a certain
amount of awe like I was handling precious and unique hallows. I placed a
medium sized canvas on the easel and- nothing. Usually, I would have had
trouble deciding for implementing one of millions of my ideas at a time, but
not now. Now, there was nothing.
There was a knock on my door. With a voice that mirrored my now suddenly foul
mood, I answered. It was Ratchet. He didn't seem to notice all the stuff on my
bed, instead picking me up so I could have my morning energon and continue my
lessons. Cybertronian rules of conduct. Again. This was useless. I asked for
some datapads on anatomy, on battle techniques and things like that but all I
got was a rather inaccurate one (probably designed for little children) about
'The wonders of your body'. I felt silly reading it.
"Ratchet?"
"Yes?" He was, as always, occupied with repairing something; I thought I
recognized it as a piece of armor.
"You're a doctor."
"Yes."
"You'd probably be the bot one should ask if the question has something to do
with the cybertronian physique."
"I guess so."
"How do you reproduce?" He stopped whatever he had been doing.
"Why would you want to know that?" I shrugged, turning the childish datapad off
and flicking it aside carelessly.
"Curiosity, I guess."
"Well, uh..." He resumed working on the piece of metal before plainly staring
at it for a moment and rising to retrieve another tool from his huge supply
shelf. "Do you know how humans reproduce?"
"Oh please. I'm not a baby anymore."
"Practically you-"
"Yeah yeah, I know. Sparkling, not full grown, blah blah." I snuggled into my
blanket on his workbench, ready for a cybertronian version of 'the talk'. "So
how does it work?"
"It..." he scratched the back of his head. Why was this making him nervous? "It
kind of resembles the human way to a certain degree. There are no fluids
though, no exchange of matter, the genetic information is passed on through
sequences of electronic impulses. Also, when the infant is born, it is merely a
spark without a body which is afterward transferred into a protoform that needs
to mature further in a gestation pod before it hatches." The wires and
hydraulics in my arm glinted in the cool neon light as I flexed them
thoughtfully.
"How long does it take?" Ratchet braced his pointy elbows on the workbench's
surface, cupping his lower face with both of his palms. The situation seemed to
be rather awkward for him, but I didn't care. Hell, if he was a doctor, he
should be able to explain this competently.
"The act itself takes about ten to thirty minutes. It is unlikely though for
the femme to conceive after only a single intercourse, so the code often has to
be transferred four or five times to ensure there are no errors. The duration
of the pregnancy is usually about three months for mechs, five for a Prime and
eight for a femme sparkling."
"Wait. Why five for a Prime? I thought that was only a rank, not a third
gender." The medic looked bewildered, obviously he didn't quite understand my
confusion.
"It is... much more than a simple rank. Primes are an advanced variation of the
cybertronian race. Equipped with more durable and in relation to their size
much stronger bodies, with processors usually specialized on strategy or
connatural realms and with a certain amount of sheer stubbornness they are born
to lead, without exceptions. However, a Prime's offspring isn't automatically a
Prime himself since the genes marking a sparkling as a Prime are rarely passed
on."
"And all the others are the workers serving the beehive's queen, aka the
Prime." He frowned.
"Well, no. We do have sequences implemented in our programming which are
supposed to ensure we obey a Prime if one's around, but we still are more of
individuals than mere workers. Besides, the workers of a beehive can't
reproduce while technically, we can. There used to be more Primes in the past,
but they have a tendency to… dislike each other. Now, only Optimus is left." He
heaved a big and heavy toolbox from the floor beside him onto the table. I felt
the strong tremor of it hitting the surface none too gently, my arms
automatically grasped at anything within their reach for support. Ratchet then
started emptying it onto the table, hands full of wrenches, screwdrivers,
pincers and other doohickeys piled in a heap before me. "Where was I?"
"Pregnancy."
"Oh yes." He pulled a rather large tool I couldn't quite classify out of the
box, moved a lever attached to it around a bit while listening to its inner
workings. He then chucked it over his shoulder casually; it landed precisely in
the trash bin. "As I said, the durance differs depending on the sparkling's
gender. However, unlike human females, cybertronian femmes don't alter their
shape during pregnancy since there is no body growing inside of them so to the
outside, there is no visual indication whether a femme is carrying or not. Most
adult Cybertronians will be able to tell by her scent though. Also, the birth
is less painful and much quicker. Five minutes maximum for the actual
emergence, following roughly an hour of the sparkling announcing their arrival.
The time in the gestation pod varies, but it takes at least four years until
the infant hatches and can start its growth."
He started cleaning the now empty toolbox with a small, but thankfully rather
quiet vacuum cleaner. I looked down at my own body, imagining there would be a
spark growing... wherever it would beneath the metal. I didn't like the thought
at all. I was afraid to ask the next question, but I'd probably have imagined
all kinds of worst case scenarios if I hadn't asked.
"You said the procedure resembles the human way. To... what extent?" His optics
swiped the room quickly, no idea why, before a hologram emanated from them,
faintly resembling the one of my own body I had seen before the surgery. To me,
it seemed like that had been an eternity ago, although it had actually just
been a few days. A second body joined the first hologram, but it seemed to be
male instead of female. He started explaining the parts of anatomy required for
reproduction, pointing out how they fit into each other and would move together
so the best possible connection could be established. I felt my legs clenching
together unconsciously.
"I don't want that. I... really don't want that." The holograms disappeared,
but Ratchet said nothing. My arms wrapped around my small shivering body in a
vain gesture to protect myself from the world. "Is there any way other than
running away to avoid this?" His shoulders dropped a little, he continued his
work with now polishing the tools he had previously splayed out on the table
and putting them back into the box.
"You know" he said quietly, the faintest hint of depression audible in his
voice "I would very much like to tell you that there's nothing to be afraid of
and that we all just want to do what's best for you, but I can only speak for
myself. I'd like to tell you that you have a choice and yet I know you don't."
"Therehas to be something that can be done!" I stood up and stamped my foot in
anger. "If you want to help me, then why can't you just make up a story and
tell them I'm barren or something like that? If you're the only medic here, who
would be able to disprove it?" Said medic closed his optics briefly, venting
air and shaking his head.
"They will know when the time has come. They will know. We can't hide it from
them and when he finds out, I bet Prime won't waste any time." We. Did he just
say 'we'?
"It was you right?"
"What."
"The present. It was you who left it in my room."
"I... thought you'd like it." He didn't look at me, still fumbling with his
tools.
"I do. Really. Thank you. Still" I retrieved the datapad I had thrown aside and
put it on a neat stack along with the others. A strenuous task considering it
was bigger than I. "I don't get why you'd want to help me. After all, you're
one of them."
"Personal reasons. Doesn't concern you." He stood up and walked away, bringing
the conversation to a sudden end.
XXXXXXXXXX
Christmas passed by without anyone losing a word about it, the only indication
of this holiday even existing being the present I had received. So now there I
was sitting in front of the still white canvas in my room, inspiration gone.
Expressionism sounded good at the time, but I couldn't even decide for a color
scheme, the oil paint still sealed and laid out on the bed. Finally, I decided
to open ocher. To me, depression was ocher.
The viscous paint landed on a piece of cardboard box (I didn't have a palette)
with a splat. I smeared it on the cardboard with a medium sized brush; it was
smooth, the color itself was very well covering and vibrant... but still I
didn't know what to paint. I didn't want to just start without a plan either
since I would have been wasting material then... ocher didn't sound so good
after all.
Why were there so few colors in the world anyway? In the end, it all came down
to yellow, red, blue, black and white and that was it. I wanted another, a
universal color, something more, a color that could depict my thoughts,
something complex, one that could even attempt to grasp the concept of life...
but such a color did not, and never would exist, nor a word to name it.
But why? Why not? How was I to illustrate my feelings or thoughts with the
existing banality?! I could not! It made no sense, the colors formed a cage,
one that I strived to break, just like the confinements this very room
formed... I screamed, threw the cardboard with the paint and the brush against
the wall; it left a big smear of ocher paint on the otherwise gray surface. I
started pacing on the bed, shuddering and covering my mouth with my hand
firmly.
This was driving me crazy. Was I even myself anymore? Everything had seemed to
be so easy before these monsters had come into my life, everything had been so
full of color, full of activity, dynamic life, constantly renewing itself and
presenting an innumerable amount of new ideas, but not now. Now, everything was
just gray in gray, lifeless, artificial, monotonous. I let myself fall flat
onto my back, the bed below me gave a little, but not too much... its softness
was comparable to an old car tire. The ceiling above me. It was also gray. It
was nothing like the sky, the sky that I had not seen for days, but to me it
seemed like an eternity... I curled up on my side and started sobbing. I needed
to get out. I'd die here if I couldn't.
XXXXXXXXXX
I hadn't meant to insult the Prime, this time I really hadn't. But when he had
snapped at me I had just lost it and... I had known the moment the collapsible
tube of yellow paint had hit his back armor and had ripped and emptied its
contents all over him that this would have serious consequences. I hadn't even
had an idea of why he was actually here or what he wanted, he had just come in,
obviously wanting to say something, but had instead started to fuss because I
had not bowed to him like manners dictated and so on. When I had responded
equally it had only gotten worse.
His optics had seemed aflame with white hot rage and his voice had risen above
levels I had thought him capable of. He had practically screamed at me, making
me shrink back behind my blanket, what I was thinking who I was, if I even had
the slightest idea what would usually be the penalty for assaulting the Prime,
if I had a screw loose etc etc. I tried to hit his soft spot (in case he had
one) by starting to wail softly, but he had looked right through my act (or
maybe he just hadn't cared if he made me cry), had grabbed me off my bed and
taken me with him.
Ratchet had promptly been shoved out of the way and further on ignored when he
had tried to step in and with me clutched firmly in his huge hand, Prime had
stormed out of med bay to a, to me, unknown destination. Now, being stuck in
the huge lift with the commander and going further down to the lower levels of
the base, I was slowly starting to panic again. Where was he taking me? What
was he planning? Would he hurt me? I looked up at his stern face, he didn't
spare me a glance, not even when I made a sound similar to clearing my throat.
I asked where he was taking me, but he didn't respond. I sighed tiredly after
trying to wriggle out of his hand fruitlessly.
"Look, I'm sorry. I know what I did wrong and I won't do it again. I promise.
I've learned my lesson." The lift doors opened and he stepped out. These
corridors looked different than those of the other level, less familiar,
darker, foreboding. A mech I didn't know was standing guard at a corner we
rounded, saluting to the Prime when he passed by. I thought I heard a faint
scream from somewhere down the hallway. There were numbers on the many steel
doors on either side of the corridors. Finally, Optimus spoke, quietly but
menacingly.
"You actually want me to believe you're sorry and that you'll improve? Only to
deceive me when I'm not paying attention, right. You will learn your lesson.
You can start now." With that he opened a large steel door with the number 101
neatly stencil sprayed onto it with white paint, released me into the room and
slammed it shut again.
I didn't even have an opportunity to object. I stood up quietly and took in my
surroundings. It was pitch black in here. No light on the ceiling, no light
shining through from beneath the door... I reached out with my arms and moved
forward until my palms met it. Not even my optics had enough light to
illuminate even the smallest patch of it... I put my audio receptor against the
door to maybe hear something from outside, but there was nothing. Not the
smallest sound. I turned around. I couldn't see a thing.
"Hello?" My voice sounded a little muffled in here. Slowly I started tracing
the wall with my fingertips, exploring the room with my hands alone. It was
completely empty. The walls were absolutely smooth, no cracks in its surface,
no dents or bumps, just cold and black perfection. I couldn't tell how high
they were, at least too high for me to reach the ceiling by jumping. There was
nothing I could have climbed onto, it had no corners: it was round.
When I was sure I had circled it at least twice I realized I couldn't even find
the door anymore, it didn't stand out from the walls at all, its seams were
blending in perfectly. While I had to admit the accuracy this room had been
crafted with was astounding, I also started to see what seemed to be its
purpose: disorientation. Deprivation of sensory input. It was rather cold in
here, too. I started pacing with my arms around my torso: ten steps from one
wall to the other. A medium sized Cybertronian probably couldn't even sit down
in here. I walked back and forth until my feet started to ache and I got tired.
I lost track of time completely and soon I started to get hungry. Very, very
hungry. There was simply no corner to curl up in, so I opted for just sitting
down with my back against the walls and my knees drawn up. The constant cold
kept me from recharging.
What would happen as soon as someone let me out of this dark cell again? Would
I be able to pretend to be too weak to even stand up just to wriggle out of the
mech's fingers to make an attempt at escape? Or would I actually be that weak
when the time came? Would they hurt me someway if I wasn't? I was pretty sure
they wouldn't let me die in this room, deprived of energy as I was becoming
quickly... on its own accord, my body started to move again, rocking back and
forth gently, my mind tried to settle on more comfortable thoughts.
Memories of the wind caressing my skin, of the smell of flowers and wheat
fields, of the open sky above me... but as much as I thought back to those
happier times, my mind was always forcefully shoved back to the present when
another shiver rocked my fragile limbs. Was I allowed to hate them for this
torture?
Hate was bad. It was probably the worst thing in existence and yet I craved it
at the moment. Hate was very bad. It made people blind to everything around
them, it spun the threads which weaved their own doom- still, nothing would
have been easier right now than to outright hate Optimus Prime. Ratchet I could
understand, a bit at least. Although I didn't quite get why he of all people
would want to help me, why he behaved so very different from anyone else, I did
see how it would endanger him if anyone found out of him helping me and I kind
of understood his reluctance. Prime, however... he seemed to be a plain
asshole, the complete opposite of the many versions of him depicted in the
fictional media. Were the Autobots the bad guys after all? Sure, the government
seemed to cooperate with them, but that didn't mean much. I didn't trust
politicians anyway.
So how was I to know? I was denied pretty much any kind of useful information.
I didn't know where I was, how I would get out of here and when, what was to
become of me. All I knew was why they kept me here, which obviously was to save
their species from extinction and that didn't settle well with me at all. And
it got even worse: by studying all that crap on etiquette, I had learned about
my rights in cybertronian society which were practically nonexistent.
They had nothing even remotely comparable to the basic human rights, their
highest element of legislative remaining the Prime; I was fucked if my life
depended on that shithead. I caught myself being amused at the thought of our
roles suddenly being reversed, with me being Prime and him being my subordinate
whom I could treat however I liked... I halted. Revenge. Cruelty. No. That
wasn't me- or was it? I wasn't so sure of that anymore.
This everlasting silence was driving me nuts, so I started to hum a tune, but
it came out sounding so pitiful, so miserable I couldn't bear it and so I
stopped. Time had lost its meaning, it didn't exist here. I started scratching
my arm, softly at first, but becoming more furious, finally dragging my claws
across my metal skin with force, drawing sparks and energon. Jerking out of my
hypnosis like state I quickly put my hands to my sides. This was self- injury.
Not good. I couldn't go insane here, I couldn't, couldn't, I was sure the door
would open any moment now... but it didn't. I don't remember when my brain, or
processor, ceased thinking altogether, my optics merely staring into the
darkness before me. Nothing, there was just nothing. I wanted to cry, but I had
no tears.
A few times a rather small flap in the door was opened, a can of energon was
pushed through and every time I slowly crawled over to it, searching for it
with my shivering fingers and drinking the whole content at once. It wasn't
much, barely enough to keep me from losing consciousness. Then I would always
move back to the wall and curl up to wait for the next ration. There wasn't
anything else. I had the faint feeling the energon came irregularly, maybe to
prevent my time from being structured, but I couldn't tell... I had been
reduced to a mere animal in a cage, merely vegetating, unable to form coherent
thoughts... that was until one day (or night?), the door opened; it was like
being struck by lightning, the brightness of the hallway outside hurt my
temporarily blind optics, the unbearable noise of someone, whoever it was,
entering the room to pick me up making my audios ring painfully.
They probably thought it was enough, that they had broken me... but something
else had long since formed in my mind and soul, burning itself in irreversibly.
It was one single wish, a desire stronger than anything else: I wanted to live.
Living meant living in freedom, everything else was death. Gray- black death. I
didn't care about the cost anymore. I would be free, one way or another.
 
***** Rain *****
I slowly started to see again, I could only distinguish light and dark, but it
was getting better by the second. Who the hell was carrying me? He was probably
a little taller than Ratchet, slimmer though, but it wasn't anyone I knew, that
was for sure. After a while I could spot his dark silver and black armor, a
Porsche logo on his chest, next to the Autobot sigil... but who was it? I
groaned and moved a little in his hands. Where was he taking me? My optics felt
like they were on fire, my voice capacitor felt rough, but still I tried to
speak.
"Ngh... where-"
"Quiet. You've got an appointment." I closed my optics from the bright light
around me, trying to sit up in the mech's hands, but he pushed me back down
again. It took a while until he rapped on another unfamiliar door. Someone from
inside said 'Enter'. I knew that voice. I knew it and it made me shiver in
discomfort.
The door opened and I was released onto the floor, the door closed again. I
curled my fingers, having fallen onto my hands and knees, I felt the carpeting
beneath me... wait, carpeting? What for? Dark blue, almost black, soft
carpeting. I looked up, only to be confronted with the Autobot commander, who
was sitting behind the largest desk I had ever seen, his fingers laced and his
elbows braced on the desk. I sat back on my haunches slowly, he seemed to be
seizing me up with his optics. Was he expecting me to say something? And then I
got the idea. Staying on my knees, I leaned forward slightly, bowing my head to
him.
"Good girl." He said quietly, standing up from his large chair and striding
over to me. "Very good. Have we had enough?" I didn't look up, instead I just
nodded softly. A large finger moved beneath my chin to push my face up so I had
to face the imposing mech, who had knelt down beside me. How somebody his size
could move so soundlessly was a mystery to me. "Will you be good now or do you
want to go back to room 101?" I shivered at the prospect of being imprisoned in
that dark room again. The finger started stroking the underside of my jaw
gently. To me, the touch was repulsive, no matter how delicate he tried to make
it.
"I... I'll be good."
"I'll be good what."
"Sir." He smiled, it made me shiver. There was something cruel about his smile,
something lecherous. He stood back up and went to sit at his desk again, I
stood up cautiously.
"Who gave those supplies to you." Prime said marginally while studying a
datapad.
"What 'supplies' do you mean...sir?" He shot me a sharp look over the edge of
the datapad, as if he wanted to say 'don't fuck with me'.
"Answer me, femme." I looked down at my hands. Ratchet would probably be in
trouble if I told. On the other hand, I wondered why he was asking me anyway
since Ratchet was the only logical choice; after all, there actually wasn't
really anyone beside him (except Prime, of course) I had much contact with,
so... but while a few days ago I would have very willingly made the medic look
bad in front of his superior, I now found I didn't really want to cause him any
trouble. What the hell was wrong with me? Was I growing to like that creep?
"I... don't know. One morning, it was just there. I don't know where they came
from."
"Alpha." He warned. I looked back up at him. He had put the datapad aside and
was now watching me intently, metallic brows furrowed. I started chewing my
bottom lip, not knowing what to say, almost biting myself when he slammed his
fist onto the desk loudly. "Answer me! Who was it?!"
"I... it was... I guess-"
"SAY IT!"
"It... um... Ratchet?" There. I had said it. It made me feel bad, but what was
I supposed to do? He leaned back in his huge chair, relaxing noticeably.
"That wasn't so hard, now was it?" His attention turned back to the datapad,
his optics analyzing the (most likely cybertronian) script quickly. "The paint
will be confiscated until further notice. Maybe, if you behave, you can have it
back. Prowl!" The mech who had brought me here opened the door from the
outside, stepping into the room and bowing his head to his Prime. So that was
Prowl? I had imagined him to look... different. Optimus motioned towards me
with his head, the lights on the ceiling reflecting on his brilliantly polished
blue helmet. "Take her back to med bay."
"Yes, sir." Prowl moved to pick me up and retreated through the door, but the
commander spoke up again before he had exited completely.
"And Alpha. I case you want to pull a stunt like that again let yourself be
told that there are much worse punishments in store for you than room 101."
 
                                  XXXXXXXXXX
 
I didn't struggle at all while Prowl brought me back to med bay, at least not
until a good opportunity was at hand, which gave me the benefit of not being
held too tightly and that was a mistake on Prowl's side. The chance to escape
appeared in the shape of a human soldier patrolling a hallway we passed, armed
with a machine gun and rounding a corner behind us. A magnet strip card was
fastened to his belt; probably some sort of key. My spark's pace was quickening
rapidly, but Prowl didn't seem to suspect anything. Good.
Moving quickly, I wriggled out of his grasp, landed on the floor and ran,
leaving a stunned Autobot behind. Before he could even react and come after me,
I had already rounded the corner where the soldier had disappeared and jumped
to tackle the man. He let out a surprised yelp and hit the ground hard,
receiving a hard blow to the back of his head when he tried to struggle and
throw me off.
But now I had the problem of the black and silver Autobot thundering towards
me. What to do, what do do... I grabbed the machine gun the soldier had been
carrying, losing precious time while fiddling with the strap which had been
holding the gun to his shoulder. I tried to fire it at Prowl, but it didn't
work. Was it even loaded? It should have been. I had no experience in the
handling of guns at all, so I didn't know... wait, there had to be some kind of
lock... a little black button at the side of it. I pressed it and tried again
to fire- and it worked.
The kickback was so hard it almost knocked me over, but I remained on my feet,
firing multiple bursts at Prowl's face. He howled in pain, his hands flew up to
cover his optics; obviously I had done something right. With him now merely
stumbling towards me, I had enough time to steal the magnetic card off of the
soldier's belt and run.
I wasn't so sure if using the elevator was such a good idea and so I ran back
to where I had seen a human sized stairway before. I tried to rip open the 
door of steel and bulletproof glass, but the broad handle didn't budge, only
when I inserted the magnetic card into a slot beside the door could it be
opened. I hurried up the stairs, taking three or four steps at a time, the
machine gun clasped firmly in my hands.
I had shot at someone. I had actually hurt someone. What about the soldier? If
I had wounded him fatally, if he died- no, no, I had to stop thinking like that
right now. I needed to get out of here, as quickly as possible. No alarms had
been triggered yet, they probably didn't know I was trying to escape right now.
After many many many levels, the staircase ended, so I exited through the door
at the top. I entered a vacated locker room and, glad not to have encountered
anyone, grabbed an abandoned black military jacket and ran on, but stopped
abruptly.
There was a tabular glass case with keys hanging on hooks inside, car keys,
close to the next door. I actually didn't expect the magnetic card to work at
its lock, but surprisingly, it did. Without further ado, I grabbed a gray GMC
key and ran out, forgetting the card in the lock. I came out in the hangar
where I had first arrived. I was on a raised grating platform in front of a
human sized in- built two story tall set of rooms. From here I could see the
multiple vehicles below, the huge gate through which the sunlight was
illuminating the front part of the hangar- and the soldiers in front of it.
I ducked, but I was pretty much out in the open here. I needed to get down to
ground level. I pressed the release mechanism on the key and seeing the
flashers of a nearby black truck light up, I made my way over to it silently
just when the alarms started to sound.
There was sudden agitation in the hangar and I did have some trouble hiding
behind trucks, quad bikes and motorcycles to avoid the soldiers suddenly
running about. I managed to open the now open truck's driver's door quietly and
crawled inside, hiding behind the steering wheel and putting the machine gun
down on the passenger seat while plugging the key into the ignition lock. I had
only just started my driving lessons not long before the incident at my school,
so I wasn't really a good driver yet but I did know the basics.
At least the truck was an automatic- no danger of killing the engine. I
discreetly put my foot down on the brake before turning the key. The motor
hummed to life and I released the brake to slowly pull out of the space between
two other trucks. I heard soldiers shouting and kicked the accelerator to the
metal, making the car lurch forward, knocking over a motorcycle in the
progress. But as I now was speeding towards the exit, the soldiers tried to
block it, aiming their guns at me. I honked, but they didn't move out of the
way. I wouldn't stop. If they didn't move, I'd run them over. They started
shooting, I ducked behind the steering wheel. I could barely see through the
windshield anymore, at the time I reached the lowering gate the front of the
car was probably laced with holes. The soldiers had jumped out of the way in
the last possible moment, now shooting at the car from the back. Something
impacted with the rear portion of the truck, making it screech to the left a
little, but I caught it quickly (thank god there was nothing in my way anymore)
and sped on. The gunshots stopped. Another engine howled behind me and a quick
look into the cracked rear mirror told me it was Jazz chasing after me,
followed by a cloud of dust, the silver sports car quickly closing in and
pulling up beside me.
"Stop right now, femme!!" He shouted, but I wouldn't even think of listening to
him. His driver's door opened and started to transform, but I stopped the
process by slamming the truck's side against the smaller Autobot. He yelped,
but returned to the truck's side quickly. "STOP!!" I hit him again and again,
still I couldn't shake him off. We were nearing the barbed wire fence
surrounding the whole area, but the soldiers at the gate didn't shoot, probably
because they didn't want to hit Jazz. The splinters of the gate flew through
the air as I tore through it, Jazz still hard on my heels. As I was nearing top
speed, he pulled past and in front of me by a few hundred meters and
transformed, aiming his own gun at me. I needed to avoid him at all cost. The
ground beside the dust road was rather uneven but, considering I was driving an
ATV and he was a sports car, I saw my advantage, hit the brakes and after
reducing my speed severely, I pulled off the road. Jazz, obviously surprised,
transformed hastily and tried to chase after me again- tried.
The stones and bumps of the dusty ground were getting to his low carriage, and
soon he was stuck and forced to transform and try to run after me in bipedal
mode, but I left him behind quickly. He shot the ground in front of me a few
times so small craters were created, probably in the hope of me driving into
them and crashing, but I avoided them narrowly by drawing aside quickly. My
head hit the truck's roof yet again when the vehicle jumped over another bump,
but I ignored it euphorically.
I had made it! Made it out of the base!! Wind was rushing through the damaged
windshield, I could see the sky above me and mountains in front of me... I
needed to go into hiding somewhere. Get rid of the car. Change the direction of
my escape quickly, mislead the Autobots. A city. That would be perfect.
Something labyrinthine where I could hide... some location that would hopefully
force them to tread carefully to avoid too much collateral damage. I saw cars
glinting in the distance and changed my course to the right. Civilization was
it. But I would have to wait until nightfall so I could move undetected by the
population...
 
                                  XXXXXXXXXX
 
By the time it got dark I had found a patch of green where I hid the truck
behind some large bushes, but not before searching it for useful things. I did
find an emergency canister of gas, a flashlight and some small set of tools
(two screwdrivers, universal pliers and a wrench) in the trunk.
Of course the Autobots and their human allies had already started searching for
me, but they obviously hadn't expected for me to stay off road most of the
time, so thankfully, they hadn't spotted me yet, at least I hoped so. It was
getting dark and cloudy quickly and I twitched when a bang was heard nearby,
but the following light show in the sky suggested that it must have been close
to New Year and people just wanted to start celebrating early.
I walked along the road quietly, dressed in the stolen jacket, the gun neatly
hidden underneath. It felt great to smell the fresh air again, to hear the
faint rumble of thunder... avoiding the light cones beneath the street lights,
I kept looking for a phone booth. A few years ago, I wouldn’t have had trouble
finding one, but now that pretty much everyone was carrying a cellphone, it was
a whole different story.
I reached some kind of shopping district, which was devoid of people save for
two or three fast food restaurants. I could smell the burgers and fries,
although I kept a few hundred feet away. What was that over there? A pay phone.
In the shadows of a supermarket, old and smeared with graffiti, but it would
do.If it was still in working condition.
I wasn’t stupid enough to call my parents. That would have been far too
obvious. No, it had to be someone the Autobots probably weren’t watching, but
someone who would definitely help me…
I didn't have any change on me, so I was forced to make a collect call in the
hope that my friend Chelsea would accept it. When I was asked to say my name, I
used only my initials to not make it too freaking obvious to anyone listening
in who exactly was calling. After all, I was pretty sure this phone wasn't
particularly safe. After a few times of ringing, Chelsea picked up.
"Hello?"
"Chelsea?" I fiddled with the cable attached to the handset nervously. "It's
me, Joey." Silence. Then she practically shouted into the phone in excitement.
"Joelle?! Is that really you?? Where the hell have you been? Last I saw you was
before our school burned down and-"
"Listen, Chelsea. I'm in trouble. And if I say I'm in trouble I mean really
fucking big trouble. I need your help."
"I... yeah okay, what do you need? Where are you? What's going on?"
"I know I'm asking a lot of you, but... could you probably pick me up?"
“Should I call the police? I could-“
“NO!” I almost shouted, then cleared my throat and continued with a quiet
voice. “No, please don’t. I… please just get me out of here.”
"Well, where are you?" I told her my location and that she'd better hurry. She
fussed a little over me being not exactly around the corner and all, but she
promised to make it there as fast as possible. Still, I knew it would take her
several hours to get here, so I decided I had to go and find a place to hide
until she arrived. I found a relatively save spot between two large and rusty
dumpsters. A rat scurried away when I got close, but other than that, the spot
was empty. I sat down in the shadows, pulling the jacket closer to myself. It
was a little too small for me and a look at the label earlier had revealed it
was extra large. Shit. I must have grown already.
A drop of rain hit my cheek, then another on my leg. I looked up into the sky.
No stars were visible, but huge amounts of clouds, intent on pouring their much
needed contents all over the dry landscape. Every once in a while, lightning
twitched along the horizon, a few small rockets hissed, rising up into the air
before exploding in a colorful burst of sparks.
My stomach hurt. I had no energon; all I had was the gas in the canister. I
wasn't so sure if I should try and drink it, after all who knew that stuff
wouldn't poison me? Still... I was hungry. The last time I had refueled had
been in the cell and it hadn't been a lot. Merely a few sips. I was hit by the
rain more frequently now, but I didn't bother looking for shelter, enjoying the
feeling of water on my body.
I opened the canister and sniffed at its contents, it smelled like ordinary
gas. Tentatively, I tried a sip- only to spit it out immediately. It tasted
terrible, just terrible. Offended by the disgusting aroma still lingering in my
mouth, I closed the plastic vessel again and shoved it aside. Gas wasn't an
option, then. Wiping the taste off of my tongue didn’t work either- also, the
taste sensors didn’t seem to be only on my tongue anyway. Well, I could still
try diesel, or oil or ethanol... but I would certainly not get energon
anywhere. I didn't even know of what exactly that stuff was made of, only that
it tasted good and made me full.
I leaned my back against the dirty wall behind me. I couldn't wait until
Chelsea showed up. It would be nice to see a familiar human face again,
although my own looks would probably freak her out quite a bit. In a way, I
felt bad for calling her; I didn't want to drag her into this story, I didn't
want to cause her any trouble. But I wouldn't stay with her anyway. I'd ask her
to take me back to our city, the city where I had grown up and which I knew
inside out, where it would be relatively easy to hide and not be found by the
Autobots... I could hide in the abandoned warehouse, near the highway in the
old industrial district. I trusted Chelsea. I had known her for almost my
entire life and she was one of my closest friends. If she had called me and
asked for help, I wouldn't have hesitated to do anything in my might to do so.
There wasn't much I could do until she showed up though, and so I waited. Hours
passed. I crouched behind the dumpster when a helicopter flew overhead, but the
spotlight didn't catch me by a long shot and so I thought of myself as being
safe for the moment. I couldn't recharge. Although the temperatures didn't drop
as low as to resemble those in my cell, it still was pretty cold. But the cold
was not the reason I didn't find any rest.
The scratches I had inflicted upon myself ached, I held my arm close to my
chest, but the burning sensation didn't subside in the slightest. I spent my
time with counting the few cars that were passing by. This was a relatively
small town, so the traffic was rather sparse; throughout the whole night, I
counted a total of 32 cars. Dawn was slowly nipping at the horizon and a thin
coat of rime covered my body where the rain couldn't wash it away. I brushed it
off carefully. Then, a familiar car pulled onto the parking lot and a girl with
shoulder length, straight black hair stepped out. She looked around somewhat
cluelessly, only to find there was no one there. It was still rather dark
outside, she couldn't see me, not even when I stepped out of my shelter. Of
course I remained in the shadows at first. She called my name.
"Here. I’m here." I said quietly. Chelsea turned into my direction, eyes
squinting.
"Joelle?" I hesitated to reveal myself completely. How would she react?
"Chelsea. I'm glad you came. You can't imagine what I went through."
"What... what happened? Your voice sounds strange. Are you sick or something?"
"I..." I looked at my childhood friend. She looked a little confused and very
worried. "You gotta promise you won't freak out now. You must know I'm still
the same person, even if I don't look the same anymore. Okay? Please promise
me."
"Okay, okay, I promise. Come. Let me see you. How bad can it be?" I vented a
huge amount of cold morning air before stepping out into the light. I should
have known she would react a little more hysterical than she'd let on.
"HOLY SHIT!! WHAT THE FUCK IS THIS?!" She jumped back behind her car's silver
hood. I slowly continued towards her across the wet pavement. It had been
raining cats and dogs for the last hours, now was no exception. I raised my
hands in a reassuring gesture.
"Please... I... please don't be afraid. Please. I need your help, Chelsea.
They'll find me if you don't help me. They mustn't find me. Please..."
"I don't believe you're... how am I supposed to know you're the one you're
pretending to be? Prove it. Prove you're really Joelle, my friend Joelle." I
sighed, lowering my arms. What was there only the two of us knew? I thought
back to what we had experienced together in the past. My face lit up. I
remembered a time when she had been staying over at my place and we had wanted
to make some chocolate custard. It all had ended in a disaster when she'd
misjudged the speed descriptions on my mom's mixer and the custard had been
splattered all over the kitchen walls.
"Oh shit, moving the lever to the front means 'extra fast'? How retarded is
that? Remember that one?" Her jaw dropped. Slowly, very slowly, she left the
safety of her car's side and walked towards me. I remembered her to be a little
taller than me, now she was noticeably shorter. She stopped in front of me,
staring up into my face. The rain had long since soaked her black strands and
was dripping onto her soaked gray jacket. Her hand lifted to touch my jaw
tentatively. She flinched at the feeling of metal beneath her fingers. Tears
were welling up in her dark brown eyes.
"Oh my god. It really is you. Oh my god, what the fuck happened to you?"
"I'd... rather explain this in the car. I don't want to be seen out in the
open."
"Okay. Okay uh... where are we going?"
"Home."
 
                                  XXXXXXXXXX
 
"So let me get this straight." Chelsea said, taking another sip of her energy
drink. "You've been kidnapped by a race of almost extinct alien robots because
they want you to have babies and you're an alien yourself and now you've
escaped and are on the run from them."
"Yeah that's pretty much it." I was sitting on the backseat of her car, mostly
obscured from the views of the people in the other cars on the highway through
the tinted windows. I was wearing Chelsea's sunglasses and a dark brown
baseball cap. We had already driven the biggest part of the distance to our
hometown, the landscape was already looking more familiar, forests and lakes
starting to border the highway instead of desert.
We had spent the past hours talking, with her telling me about how everything
back home had been in such a chaos, how they had all been so worried, how badly
my parents were taking it and with me telling her about my imprisonment, the
surgery, the escape. She had seemed to have trouble fighting back tears at one
point or another, but by now she was relatively recomposed.
"I still can't believe this is real."
"You're not alone there."
"So what are you going to do? I mean, is there some way to change you back or
something?" I sighed, looking out of the window.
"I fear I won't ever be able to just live a normal life again. Or to be human
again. As to what I'm gonna do, I'm not so sure myself. I think I'll try and
hide out in the city, but it could become more difficult when I get bigger,
which I'm pretty sure I will."
"Well, maybe you could, you know, stay with me and my mom, I don't think she'd
mind." I shook my head vehemently.
"No way. I don't want to endanger you. I don't know what the Autobots will do
to you if they find me at your place. No. I'm better off alone."
"And" she looked at me through the rear view mirror. "what if you ask the
police for help? I mean, maybe they could help you."
"I don't think the police or the government could do anything to help me.
Technically, I'm an illegal immigrant. Besides, with the military aid the
Autobots seem to be providing I doubt they will risk their good diplomatic
relations just to protect someone who's not even a member of their species.
They'd probably hand me over as soon as they see me."
"But you can't just live on the streets. What will you eat... or... do you even
eat?"
"I... was given energon while I was back at their base. It's some kind of alien
fuel, but I certainly wouldn't be getting it anywhere on this planet other than
from the Autobots, so... I don't know what I'll 'eat', no. Certainly not
donuts." She drove on in silence for a while. I wondered what she was thinking.
What would I have thought if something like that would have happened to one of
my friends? I should never find out. A huge black GMC pickup truck pulled up
beside us. I shrank down into the backseat. This wasn’t good. The rain was
still pouring down on the highway.
"Um, Chelsea?"
"Yes?" I pulled the collar of my jacket up on either side of my face to hide
myself a little more.
"Please don't panic, but... I don't think that's an ordinary truck there beside
us." She looked to the left, where the black topkick refused to pull further
ahead or fall back, remaining in its place.
"Oh my god, you think it's one of them?"
"I'm pretty sure it is."
"Oh shit. What am I supposed to do?"
"Act normal. Don't panic. Maybe he doesn't even know I'm in here." All warning
I received was Chelsea's horrified shriek before the black truck beside us
rammed the side of our smaller car violently, driving it against the guardrail
to our right. Chelsea lost it and pressed the pedal to the metal, but the truck
easily kept up with us.
"OhmygodohmygodOHMYGOD!!!" She made a sharp right turn to catch the next exit,
almost overturning the car. I looked out of the rear window, only to see the
black truck drifting into a u- turn and racing after us. It was followed by a
few army vehicles. When I turned back to look out of the front windows, I could
only catch a small glimpse of a red car honking and speeding towards us with
screeching brakes, but it was too late to do anything.
Everything went so fast. It smashed into the driver's door brutally, sending
the car spinning out of control, coming to a sudden and shuddering stop when it
crashed against something else. Subconsciously, I had curled up in a protective
ball on the backseat, my safety belt holding me in place and preventing me from
being catapulted from side to side too extremely. When my hands let go of my
head, what I saw made me cry out in horror. Chelsea's lifeless face staring
back at me, upside down, neck bent over the back of her seat, mouth wide open,
pure terror written into the expression she had carried in the last second of
her life, her blood covered head almost severed from her body, which had been
crushed by the other car along with the biggest part of our car's front, only
just attached by a few sinews...
I screamed. I thrashed. I tried to open the seat belt, but my hands were too
clumsy in my panicked state. Finally, I managed to rip it out of its mountings
and hurriedly scrambled out of the broken side window and into the pouring
rain, my jacket getting caught in the shards. I wriggled out of it and ran,
screaming. People in cars gasped and screamed as they saw me, but I didn't
care. I didn't look back. I just wanted to get away.
The highway was crossing an old residential area with run- down houses. I ran
across the road junction, jumping and climbing over wedged in cars, stumbling
over the guardrail and almost landing on my face, but always running on and on.
I didn't know if someone was following me, I just wanted to get away.
Chelsea. She was dead because of me. She was dead!! Oh god. I felt sick. The
rain was obscuring my view, everything blurred, the noise all around me was
ear- shattering. Suddenly the world tumbled around me, I was ripped off my
feet, something had hit me and tangled with my limbs, a net, wrapped around me,
I couldn't get up, then I saw Ironhide in his bipedal form, kneeling down with
a syringe in his hand, I felt it pierce my neck, I screamed, I wanted to
struggle, but I couldn't, he was holding me down. And then, everything went
dark.
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