Disclaimer: standard.

Author note: Sorry for the long update! "Hunt" and "Family Business" are being most disagreeable. (Writer and Dialme glare at Sam and Sparkplug). Dammit SimmonsSam! Work with us here!

Author note 2: A nod to the movie "Pink Panther" in here.

Family Business

5: Hiding Place

Mikaela was hunched over the engine of a beat-up looking car in the cluttered area of her garage. In the background, a radio played softly, and she hummed along to the song as she took apart the engine.

Her cell phone rang, causing her to jump and collide with the car hood that was propped open. Damn, she thought ruefully, rubbing her head, all that clumsiness that Miles and Sam have…it must be contagious.

"Hello?" she asked into the phone, fully expecting it to be Anne or Lisa or one of her other friends. She hoped it was Katie, though. They really needed to start working on that project…

"Hey, Mikaela. It's Miles."

"Miles!" she hissed, giving a quick glance at the garage door leading into the house and then ducking on the other side of the car—less of a chance that her mother would see her. "Do you have any idea what time it is? If Mom knew that you were calling, she'd rip you to shreds! Come on, even Trent wasn't exempt from her no-boyfriends-after-11 rule!"

"That's why I called your cell phone first," he chuckled, though it sounded oddly forced.

"Okay, okay, whatever. What's up?"

"Sam ran off," he said grimly. "Left a note and everything."

"What?" She couldn't believe it. Sam was an average boy in her school—not one you'd expect to pull that kind of stunt. Nicer than some and politer than most (at least he checked you out behind your back and not when you were talking to him, and at least he had the decency to look at your eyes instead of at your chest when you did talk to him), but still average. He seemed like a typical spoiled rich kid, too, doting on his electronics like that. But it was no doubt to anyone that he loved his family more than anything, even his crazy uncle who sometimes dropped by in the middle of lunch to see him. That particular dynamic was strained at best, but the Sam loved the man in a twisted, I-hate-your-guts kind of way. Of all the kids she had expected to become runaways, Sam was at the bottom of the list.

But then, who was she to judge? Probably no one expected her to have a juvie record. She of all people knew that there was always more than met the eye when it came to fellow human beings.

"Yeah, that was my reaction too," Miles continued. "His mom called me three times in the last twenty minutes."

"Well…I'll keep an eye out for him."

"Yeah…about that…"

"…You know where he is, don't you?"

"I have an idea. I was thinking that, since he didn't go to me, and he didn't go to you, there's only one place that he'd go."

"How do you know that? He might head straight for the city."

"Nah, not Sam," Miles said, chuckling softy. "He'd stop just so he could get directions to the city in the first place. For goodness' sake, he got lost in our school just yesterday, and he's been attending it for how many years now?"

"Did you tell his folks?" she asked, coming out of her crouch and closing the car hood, adopting her ever-weary Miles-you're-doing-something-incredibly-stupid tone.

"…No," Miles admitted.

"Why not?"

"I can't sell out a brother like that!"

"Miles! Standing by his side when he insults Trent in front of the entire football team is one thing, but keeping this from his parents is a completely different story!"

"But, Mikaela, Sam doesn't do things without a reason! I can't call the cops on him without figuring out why he ran in the first place! He'd just do it again otherwise!"

"Okay," she said finally. She might be Miles' girlfriend, but Sam was Miles' brother. Miles had other loyalties besides her. That was one of his many attractions. "You want me to come with you?"

"Please?" he said.

"Fine." She was already planning on how to sneak out without her mother noticing. Then she broke into a grin. "But I drive."

"Knew there was a catch," Miles mockingly pouted on the other end.

X x X

"How are the brothers doing with their search?" Optimus asked Jazz calmly in the control room. Their ship had settled on the moon, and the Autobots therein were looking at the blue planet, a delicate marble in the vast darkness of space. So different from the beloved silver and red that was once Cybertron, but no less beautiful.

"They ain't doin' so hot, boss mech," Jazz said grimly as he finished his communication with Prowl. "They had 'im for a minute, then lost 'im again. Like he just vanished."

"You'd think with three of them down there, at least one of them would have got the boy by now," Ratchet grumbled, entering the room.

"Should we still wait for their signal, Optimus?" Ironhide asked. "All those 'cons down there…it's making me twitchy."

Optimus nodded. "We wait, Ironhide. They will find the boy, and then we will resume our search for the Allspark."

X x X

There were many unfortunate things that Prowl learned in the course of the war. One of the most brutally learned lessons was that, if one can't get the target, then the natural course of order is to get the target's loved ones.

Barricade was still looking for the human. Bumblebee was at the Witwicky residence, watching over the boy's genetic contributors, and other blood relation, at least until they had another lead. Prowl was at Miles' residence, watching as the teenager paced in his lighted room.

Humans were such strange creatures. Take, for instance, a conversation between two police cruisers that Prowl overheard the day before:

"Unknown assailant, attempted robbery, heading down Blue Pine Avenue."

"Man or woman?"

Prowl shut off his connections before his logic processors started to act up. Of course the assailant was a man or a woman! What else could it be? A kitten?

And all the other human sayings too. For example, more than once, Prowl heard one human or other say, "I feel like pizza."

How, exactly, does one feel like pizza? Why would one even want to? Does one really wish to be consumed? Were pizzas even capable of having feelings?

When he had applied these questions to Bumblebee, his little brother had stared at him, optics wide, for a full minute, before turning away. Prowl had the feeling that, were his vocal processors able to make such a sound, Bumblebee would have been laughing at him heartily.

Prowl did not understand what he found so amusing. He hoped that the human silliness was not rubbing off on Bumblebee.

Humans were just so illogical, the saboteur concluded once again, coming back to the matter at hand. Then he hacked into a very interesting conversation. He waited until the human female picked up the human male, and then started to follow them from a distance.

Bumblebee, Barricade, I have a lead, Prowl transmitted to his brothers.

X x X

"Sam!" Glen said, opening the door to his friend. Sam stood outside his door, holding his hand awkwardly.

"Hey, Glen," Sam answered weakly.

"Glen!" his grandmother shouted from upstairs. "Who is it? Do you have any idea what time it is?"

"Shut up, Grandma!" Glen yelled back. "Drink your prune juice!" He ushered Sam inside, failing to notice the little dark shapes that followed, scuttling, into the hall and dispersing into various closets and cupboards.

"Sam, what do you think you're doing, man?" Glen demanded, setting Sam down into the living room sofa. "Your momma be calling my house—my home—every ten minutes! Bro, you know what that does to my place of Zen and peace, to my flow of chi, man!" As if on cue, the phone rang. Glen jumped to get it.

"Hey, Mrs. Witwicky!" Glen said. Sam frantically mouthed no no no no no! from the living room, waving his one good hand in the air desperately. "Uh, no, Mrs. Witwicky. Haven't seen Sam at all," Glen said, glaring at the boy who was now looking at him in relief. "Yeah, yeah, I'll keep an eye out for him. Take care."

"Sam, explanation," Glen said shortly. He hated having to be the grown-up one.

"Glen, I just—I just…" Sam sighed, and then collapsed on the couch. "I don't know where to begin."

"The truth is a good place to start," Glen said, adopting his grandmother's imperious pose. Sam just laughed bleakly.

"Truth's stranger than fiction, Glen."

"Kid, you're talking to the world's greatest hacker. I've seen everything."

Sam gave him a look.

"Except those!" Glen added hastily. There was another moment of silence, in which Glen noticed the state of Sam's hand. "What happened to your hand?"

X x X

Sam was really starting to regret coming to Glen's place. The plan was to stay the night and then leave for the closest city as soon as it was daybreak. Sam had forgotten how concerned Glen could be at times. Glen would be the one to sell you out to the police to save his own hide, but after that he'd also be the one to bail you out, even if it meant confessing the truth and landing jail time with you. At the end of all things, Glen was someone who could be counted on.

And now he was searching for answers. What was Sam supposed to say? My hand got mangled 'cuz I got tossed into a car by some large, black, nightmare thingy from outer space that's here for my best friend, who also happens to be an alien from the same planet.

Riiiigght.

Though Sparkplug wasn't in sight, he could sense her hiding out in Glen's closet and cupboards. Should we tell him? she asked. He is trustworthy, and we're going to need all the help we can get.

Should they?

"Glen," Sam said finally. "I have a confession to make. I'm—"

"On drugs? Is this what this is all about?" Glen demanded, jumping to his feet.

"No!" Sam said, and then sighed. "Glen, do you want me to tell you or not?"

"Okay, okay, just sayin'—"

"Glen, you know all those electronics that I got you to fix a couple years back?"

"Yeah, man. That's how you met me in the first place. How could I forget? Dude, I still can't believe how clumsy you are…"

"Yeah, I can't believe it either. But, listen, those weren't ordinary electronics. They were—"

A knock on the door interrupted them. Glen looked at the door in annoyance. "What is it with everyone?'" He sighed. "I'll be right back, Sam."

"Take your time," Sam muttered. Glen went to the door, and all of Sparkplug's ten selves gathered next to Sam.

Ready for this? she asked.

"Eleven years of silence, Sparkplug," Sam said, his hand coming to rest on the head of Sparkplug-the-laptop. "It's a hard thing to break."

"Maggie!" they heard Glen say. "What are you doing here? Zen and peace, girl, what do you people not understand about that?"

The choice may be taken out of our hands, Sparkplug said quietly, her voice suddenly fearful, turning Sam's attention to the view outside Glen's window.

A police car. The very same one.

"Do these things never give up?" Sam asked incredulously. He looked at the door. Glen was still talking to this person called "Maggie," who apparently wanted some code read.

Apparently not, Sparkplug said dryly. Three of her selves clutched the glasses case. Ready to run again?

"Aren't I always?" Quietly, with a silent apology to Glen, Sam let himself out the backyard door.

Not a moment too soon, either, because within the next few minutes, Glen's house was covered in special agents.

X x X

"Whoa, what's happening there?" Miles asked. They had reached Glen's house, which was now swarming with black cars. It looked like some sort of raid was going on.

"Move on, kids, nothing to see here," a man in a black suit told them brusquely. Miles was about to ask further, when Mikaela noticed something down the road.

"Come on, Miles. We don't want to be caught up in stuff like this," she said, eyeing him significantly. It took him a full five seconds to realize that she had seen something.

"Well, goodnight to you then, officer," Miles said as smoothly as he could, and then settled down in the passenger's seat.

"You see Sam?" he asked at length as Mikaela set the car into cruise.

"I think so," she said.

They didn't notice that they were being followed.