After watching Revenge of the Fallen, I came up with two theories on why Barricade was nowhere to be found. Like many people, I refuse to believe he could be dead. Although my sister did say to me that she hoped the fact that he was absent didn't mean that my story, Alone I Break, was canon...

I know I mentioned to Kibble Beast about these theories already, but I can't remember if I said anything to anyone else about them.

THEORY 1:

Starscream sent a transmission through to Barricade, hoping to be able to reach his signal from space. He waited. And waited. And waited some more. Why wasn't Barricade answering? His systems confirmed that Barricade had received his transmission, so he should have answered by now. After all, he made sure the message was clear that he urgently needed him to reply.

"Starscream, what is Barricade's response?" Megatron asked, growing impatient.

"I don't know…I can't get ahold of him!" Starscream replied helplessly.

"Figures," The Fallen sighed. "Your second-in-command can't do anything right," he said to Megatron.

"No, it's not that! I can get the message through just fine, he's just not answering me!" Starscream quickly added to avoid more criticism. He'd hoped it would stop when Megatron got here, but unfortunately The Fallen continued to be an evil stepmother even with Megatron standing right there. He resent the message, wondering if maybe the last one got corrupt or something on the way through.

"He can't even send a decent message. Why is he your second-in-command again?" The Fallen asked Megatron.

"This is what I get for recruiting people through Craigslist…" Megatron groaned.

Meanwhile, on Earth…

Another message from Starscream came through. Barricade growled and blocked his signal. Couldn't Starscream tell that he was busy doing important things right now? "Can I have the one with dinosaur sprinkles?" he asked the Dunkin' Donuts employee.

The guy behind the counter sighed and retrieved his donut. "I hate Free Donut Day…" he complained.

THEORY 2:

Barricade called up Starscream, all the while looking around at his surroundings. Starscream said he'd meet him there, so where was he? When finally Starscream answered, he greeted him with an impatient, "Where the hell are you?"

"What do you mean, where the hell am I? Where the hell are you? I've been waiting for six hours now!" Starscream snapped back over the comlink.

"I'm in Egypt! That's exactly where you told me to be, isn't it?" he asked.

"I'm in Egypt too," Starscream replied. "I don't see you anywhere and I can't detect your signal."

"Same here," Barricade admitted.

"Hang on, I'll track your signal and then come to you," Starscream replied. It became dead silent as he activated his tracker. "Can you describe your surroundings for me?"

Barricade looked around. "There's a couple of horses to my left…and a road to my right…a lot of open fields…there's a house a little ways off…and a whole lot of grass."

"Grass? We're in the middle of the desert! Hold on…" Starscream became silent once more until finally he found Barricade. "Wait a minute…Barricade, you're in Egypt, Pennsylvania?!"

I like to tell my friends that I've been to Egypt. Many fail to realize that I actually meant Egypt, Pennsylvania and not the country in Africa. XD I love living in Pennsylvania...although New Jersey has a Buttsville, which kind of makes me jealous.