Electronic Coupling, part 2
by K. Stonham
first released 13th September, 2011

From the first moment Carly had heard of them, she'd been fascinated by the Autobots. Part of it was her engineering bent-an entire species of real, live robots! She wanted nothing more than to figure out how they worked and what their tech was like. Part of it was the fact that she was a sci-fi fan; Star Wars had hooked her on the idea of life on other planets, and here it was on hers! But a major part of her interest in the aliens, she had to admit, was that they were women.

Giant, alien, robotic women warriors and leaders and scientists. And no one gave them crap for being women, or told them that something was beyond their understanding, or that girls didn't study certain subjects...

She'd wanted, with all her heart, nothing more than to meet them and maybe, maybe, in the back corner of her dreams and wishes and hopes where she stuffed everything she thought would never really happen, maybe she could learn from them and be as awesome as they were.

Because after seeing Reagan on TV gingerly shaking the hand of Optimus Prime, and seeing 8 o'clock news footage of Prowl co-ordinating a human/Autobot military attack on Decepticons...

The robotic women ("femmes," they called themselves) from outer space could do anything they set their minds to. And Carly, and any number of other girls she knew, were not going to be left behind.

Carly let the doors to the washracks slide closed behind her with a sigh. It had been a very long day calibrating the auto-defense targeting system for Autobot City, and she wanted nothing more than a long soak in some hot water.

And she loved Spike dearly, but sometimes it was just nice to be able to foist their five-year-old son off onto him and Sparkplug, letting the men order pizza and watch football or monster truck rallies or whatever it was they did, while she went off and bonded with her girlfriends.

The door slid open behind her. "Good evening, Carly," Prowl said politely as Carly moved out of the way.

"Hey, Prowl," she replied. Carly walked over to the cubby set into the wall, out of direct line of sight of the door, and started stripping. The cubby had been added just for her, as the other femmes of the Ark tended to go around either fully armored even in the baths... or go around wearing nothing more than body paint at all times, depending on how one looked at the matter. "How was your day?" she called as the black-and-white headed for the acid showers, one section Carly kept well clear of.

"Frustrating," the tactician replied. "The twins and Jazz are in the brig again. Separate cells," she added.

Tucking her shoes under the bundle of clothing, Carly grabbed her towel and caddy and headed for the water shower on the opposite wall. "All three of them?" she asked. "Are we talking a brawl, or a prank?"

"A combination thereof. Sunstreaker didn't take the prank well."

Carly winced.

It must be tough, she thought, ducking her head under the spray, to have to discipline your own lover like that. It was fortunately something that had never come up between Bumblebee and Spike and her, with the weird sideways heirarchy of where human allies fit into the Autobot military structure. Even with Bee being 3IC of the Special Operations division, the femme didn't have any disciplinary ranking over her human lovers. "Jazz pissed at you?"

"Not as such," Prowl replied, fluttering her wings under the mild spray to get them clean. "More... disappointed that the prank didn't work out as planned." Carly laughed, working shampoo into her hair. "And your day, Carly?" Prowl added.

"Meh. Some days I want to take Ratchet's option and just hit it all with a wrench until it works," she said. "We've tracked down a few bugs; give us another five days and we might have a working system." Tech integration of human and Cybertronian systems was always a bitch. But each had some advantages over the other, and combining them had more than once given the Autobots the advantage over the Decepticons.

"We are, as always, appreciative of your efforts," Prowl told her.

Carly ducked and rinsed, then stood back up straight, flinging sloppy-wet hair out of her face. "Where else," she asked Prowl seriously, "would I ever get the chance to do what I do here?"

Prowl just shook her head. "Your species is improving its views on gender parity in a remarkably short period of time." Sped up, Carly thought, by the presence of solid metal awesome alien femmes. "Someday all young women will have the opportunities you do. It is merely a matter of time."

Author's Note: Flybystardancer asked, in a LJ meme, for a ficlet about what happened one month after Electronic Coupling. Unfortunately my muses seemed to have exhausted their P/J thoughts for the universe and I was stymied. After a while, I turned my thoughts to the original purpose of writing the story, which was exploring gender preconceptions, and realized there was lots of material in how the Autobots being female would serve as inspiration to a whole generation of young women in the '80s, and thus Carly became my focal character. Fortunately Flybystardancer didn't seem to mind the result probably not being what she had actually asked for. ^_^