Mechanical Nightmare

The angel trembles against him as the massive, nightmarish machine stalks over the rooftop. They're all trembling, he notices as he looks around with wild glances, trying to find the way out. Stone feathers shiver and stone wings curl close to ward off the monster in their midst...

But they never give him up to placate it. Instead, as the cube digs into his side, the angel he hides behind holds him close to keep him from falling. Because up here, it's a long way down to those ravaged streets. It's a long way down to the black spikes of the metal birds-of-paradise. He'd break his body on them if he fell.

"Is it fear or courage that drives you, boy?" The monster muses in the voice that even he, small and different from their kind, can see why they followed it. But it's too distorted from human for him to get hit with the full effect, and the scrape of metal claws over the rooftop is enough to remind him why he can't answer.

It's not like it matters anyway. The monster with the hellish red eyes knows where he is. It's just toying with him.

He clings to the angel, or the angel clings to him, and he tries so hard not to look over his shoulder at the other one perching like a vulture on another rooftop. It doesn't help, though, he can hear the wind getting cut on its wings.

He's trapped between them, with the artifact they both desire burning symbols into his skin. The only way out is down, but that's no way out at all.

Flames leap far below, the only light in the darkness except for their red eyes and the white glow of symbols on the cube. The cube that's hurting him now with symbols that crawl across his skin and leave faint traces of silvery star-stuff shining out of him.

"Give me the cube, boy, and I may let you live to be my pet." It comes as an order, flung against him like a blast of wind. The angel's wings shudder, and he knows that there's nothing left for him, that no one is coming to save him. There's only one way to achieve victory now.

He touches the angel's face and works her fingers loose from his arm. She understands, amazingly enough, though there are diamond tears sparkling at the corners of her eyes when he steps back into the air.

"So unwise."

The cube sears his hands to it as they fall through the air, and then he hears one of those great, alien voices roar his name.

But it's not Optimus who catches him.

Sam's eyes snapped open. His heart thundered in his chest, and each breath came so fast he was almost gasping. Dark, dark, it was so dark, where was the flames- Oh God, he was trapped in metal, trapped, trapped, had to get out, hadda get out, NOW-

His hand scrambled at the door, found the handle, and yanked on it. Mercifully, the door swung open, and he fell out into the cool night air.

He lay sprawled there, forehead pressed into the dirt, gasping. Sweat ran in rivulets through his hair, down his neck, just dripping off him and onto the ground. Freefreefreefree! He was free, he was free, he was free-!

There's sound in the background. Voices, it slowly dawns on him. Voices and a soft, soothing music that makes him think of rain. Some of the voices remind him of whatever he had to get free from- But most of them sounded... human.

He chuckled. Human. Of course, they sounded human. If they were talking, they had to be-

The violent jumble of memories from the last few days finally pierced through the haze of fear in his mind. Robots. Giant alien robots that turned into vehicles. His car was an alien robot.

Oh, hell.

Sam scrambled to sit up, jerking around to stare through the open door of the yellow Camaro. Bumblebee looked perfectly normal.

So had the police car.

No, no, no. Not going there. He wasn't going there, he'd already had his freakout over the Transformers. He didn't need to have another one. Really. He totally didn't.

"Oh, so unwise."

Okay, maybe just a little one.

It felt a little like he let go of himself, and a little like his spine decided to stop supporting him as he fell back against Bumblebee's passenger side. The back of his head pressed into the leather of the seat as he stared up at the car ceiling, and he could feel the lower edge of the Camaro digging into his lower back. Man, if Bumblebee shut his door right now...

"Sam. I have asked Captain Lennox to speak with you. You seem- upset." Bumblebee said inside of his interior, so only Sam would hear it. The buckle of the passenger seatbelt dropped down and touched his cheek lightly.

He tried not to flinch away from the chilly metal, but he couldn't help a little hitch of his shoulders. "Uh. Thanks, 'Bee."

The Camaro's engine hum became more pronounced until Sam could feel it in in Bumblebee's seat and chassis. He guessed the Autobot was trying to be comforting.

He stared at the crisp stars through the strip of sky between Bumblebee's open door and his body until he heard the crunch of Captain Lennox's boots on the sand. He lifted his head as the soldier took a seat near him. "Hey."

"Hey, yourself," Captain Lennox answered. He glanced inside Bumblebee, obviously taking in the reclined passenger seat. "Catching a nap while everyone talks about what happens next?"

"Yeah, well, you know how it is. Long day, lot of people to see, lot of giant alien robots to run away from."

Captain Lennox chuckled. "Well, it sounds like the SecDef, sorry, Secretary of Defense and Optimus Prime will be done talking soon. So, you and Ms. Mikaela will be allowed to head home soon. Probably so will the rest of us."

"If I've got a home to go back to," Sam muttered.

Something changed in the way Captain Lennox was sitting. Suddenly he felt a lot less comfortable to be around. "What happened?"

Should he tell this guy about it? Well, yeah. People sure as hell listened to Captain Lennox, because the guy wasn't afraid to pull a gun on them and threaten to kill them for being useless assholes. "When Sector Seven came and got us, they took my parents. I don't know where. I told them, when they asked me to help, I told them to let my parents go, but I don't know..."

"I'll bring that up." The look Captain Lennox gave him promised that not only would he bring it up, but he'd probably bring it up with Megatron himself if he had to. And make the nightmarish machine bend over and cry for his daddy if he didn't give up what Captain Lennox wanted.

"Thanks."

"We owe you."

They did? Well, okay, figuring out that a) he liked Optimus way more than Megatron, b) sticking the Allspark in Optimus's chest would just kill Optimus, destroy the Allspark, and still leave them with the problem of Megatron, and c) it would probably kill Megatron and destroy the Allspark if he stuck it into Megatron's chest was probably something to be owed for. But anyone could have done that if they'd been in the right place at the right time. It wasn't exactly rocket science.

"Sam," Captain Lennox sounded slightly uncomfortable with his name. Or maybe it was what he had to say. "Are you doing all right?"

"Huh? Sure. Never better. Got a lot of exercise today. I've probably held off heart disease for another five years of my life with all the running I did today," he babbled in a bad attempt at distraction.

"It's a little after one in the morning, and we're in the middle of the desert. My men are huddling together for warmth and missing the sleeping bags from their gear. You're sweating like a pig." Captain Lennox gave him a stern look.

Sam tried not to squirm under that look. "It's... nothing, really."

"Right." Captain Lennox glanced over his head and into Bumblebee's interior again. "After the base in Qatar was destroyed, my unit was pretty much constantly on the move until we got to a local village. Between one place and the other, though, we were tracked by a mechanical scorpion-"

Bumblebee's engine hum stuttered.

"Looks like your friend knows him. We're pretty sure he's still out there. But he got one of our men in the march to the village, and in the firefight at the village, he crippled another and- Well, not everyone who got out of Qatar got home to the States. Everyone who got to the village, though, got airlifted out to another base. Epps, our radio guy, he wasn't sleeping that first night. Kept getting the shakes when he tried to lie down, because he was the one who got the video of the chopper, and he was the one who the scorpion was after specifically. We think." Captain Lennox shrugged. Who knew what the scorpion's plans really were? "So he asked me to get out one of his manuals, open a page at random, and read aloud until I didn't need to anymore."

"Yeah?"

"Yeah." Captain Lennox grinned. "Took about five minutes about the proper procedure for disassembly, diagnosis, and repair of a WSQ-7(V) before he conked out. Which was good, because I had no idea what I was talking about."

Laughter burbled in his throat, a little nervously. "Yeah, that sounds good."

They both fell silent, Captain Lennox staring at him thoughtfully. It was a heavy gaze, and Sam let his head fall back against Bumblebee's seat so he could watch the stars again. "So, um..."

"Yeah?"

"How much do you remember from those manuals?"

End