Book 1: Beast Wars

Chapter Seven:

A talk

"Okay," Tallen, or rather Omicron as she had let the Maximals know her as. She wasn't sure why she didn't give her real name, but just went with her gut on the subject. "You have your wallet-calendar book thing, cell phone, two dollars and seventy... five cents in quarters, three pads, five tampons, De-fog..." She listed aloud, and counted to list the items the woman had pulled out of all her pockets and set them all out on the berth in front of her. "Dive knife, reading glasses, keys… oh that's helpful with no bloody car- I miss my Satern..." the woman continued on to herself.

Omicron was in one of the 'smaller' rooms, quarters, on the Axilon to take stalk of all that she had. The room itself was about twice the size of Omicron's in her apartment, at least… and this is what Primal had called small?

Really?

Shaking her head, Omicron returned her attention to that which was spread out in neat rows on the berth before her. The woman ran her hands over her person, re-checking all her pockets and coming up with a missed sewing needle kit that joined the rest of her things. "Okay, all that's impressive." She said poking her mask that had been with the de-fog in her left lower pocket.

Checking the time, Omicron found she had enough to start on her backpack. Two one side of the things already out, the woman pulled out her laptop first being very careful as she set it, the power cored and her external hard drive together. A few stray jump-drives would join that pile as well.

As Omicron pulled apart a bundle of fabric to see what those cloths were, she glanced back at her laptop, worried about the transformer shows on it, as well as in the external hardrive. What should she do with them? Omicron didn't want to delete them but... how to explain to these mechs her dimension?

She shivered a little at the thought of what could happen not only to herself but to the Beast Wars. What if Dinobot re-joined Megatron or something like that too early?

Omicron forced her attention back onto the pair of shorts, under-things and another shirt in her hands before folding them back up and set them down on the berth with the rest of her stuff. Diving back into the backpack she pulled out everything and even shook it upside down.

"I was going somewhere." Omicron muttered looking over her things, she had always kept a lot of stuff in her backpack, but not normally this much. It was stuffed full like she did when going on an airplane. Or when she was going on a trip for more than a week did Omicron cram this amount into the pack.

She fingered the two figures of Bumblebee and Barricade from the live action Transformers movie. The two things hung off the loops on the pack's zippers. They didn't transform or anything, but apparently looked different enough from the real thing that no one asked about them.

Omicron crossed her arms on the edge of the berth that was as high as her stomach. She stared and then dropped her head into her arms, "What am going to do?"

There was a knocking on the open door behind and to the right of the human, and after jumping and looking back she saw a mech she hadn't yet... Only Omicron had, but not as a mech.

"You okay?" Cheetor's voice asked as the mostly golden mech stayed in the doorway, tilting his head. Though shorter than Optimus Primal, the young mech was also taller than both Omicron and Rattrap.

"I..." The human looked back at the berth, hesitated before letting her shoulders drop under the weight of uncertainty, "I don't know... no, I'm not alright. I'm somewhere I know for damn sure I wasn't but at the same time I can remember squat about how I got here, or what happened to me in the days black out of my memory."

"I'm sorry Omicron," The young mech said as he came in, looking around first at the empty room, out the window view then couldn't help his interest at all the things on the berth.

"You can call me Omie if you want," Omicron smiled up at the golden mech, Cheetor flashed a full one gri, n, some feline like fangs included, in return. "Still same El-Spotty?"

"Just bigger, but still me," Cheetor chuckled as he stepped up beside the human, reach out daringly to touch her hat. "What's all this?"

"Everything I pulled off my person and in my bag," Adjusting her hat back the way she like it, Omicron shifted. Using one foot to rub on the ankle of her other leg, where one of her tattoos were. That one in particular she really didn't want to explain just yet, as it was a Decepticon emblem and a big one at four inches.

"That's a lot of stuff for someone that doesn't have sub-space," Cheetor said, picking up the silicon mask and looking it over. Belatedly he looked back at the human as he realized that maybe he should have asked first. "Sorry-"

"Its okay Cheetor," smiling, Omicron took back the mask and put it on. Since it fit she didn't need to use the strap to hold it in place, just a small sniff, "Its mah dive mask." She said, tone a little odd as she had block off air passage to her nose to keep the mask in place. Popping it off she gently tossed it back by the defog.

Audio finnals twitching like cat ears pricking up, Cheetor tilted his head, "What's that for, and how'd you do that?"

"Its my mask, I use for snorkeling and diving," Omicron looked up at confused yellow optics, "Scuba diving." The optics dimed and flashed in a blink. She held up on arm flat for demistation, curving the fingers of her other hands and mimicked diving down, "Its what we humans do when we want to go under water for a much longer period of time then just holding one's breath. We carry a scuba tank, a personal air source with us to do so."

"Oh, I think I get it,' Cheetor glanced back at the mask, "And you use that to see right? Human optics- er, eyes are adjusted to seeing in air not water… that that makes sense yeah, it traps a bit of air in front of your op- eyes so you see through the glass?"

"Exactly!" Omicron grinned, and impressed a little as the young maximal proved that he wasn't as 'young and dumb' as most thought he was. Hell he was a primary point for a space ship, he couldn't be 'dumb' for that! "Not bad for a new-bee to meeting a human for the first time." She lightly thumped her fist to the mech's hip, and got a playful soft nudge back.

"I cheated a bit," Cheetor admitted, "just looking over everything we had on humans... really odd that we don't have a lot other some basic stuff. Rattrap seems to know a lot, think he worked with some."

"In your time?" Omicron asked as she pulled herself up on the berth to sit on the edge as well as facing the mech. Semi aware she had put herself between her laptop and the Maximal to protect it, but didn't mind him poking at a few of the other things.

"How…?" Cheetor looked up, surprised.

"Well, you're not Autobots," She pointed at the Maximal emblem that Cheetor proudly bore. "And I heard one of you mentioned them as an 'ancestor.' So, not too hard to put together."

The feline mech considered, then shrugged, excepting that, "True enough... what about you? Did you meet a mech before?" He asked, setting down the pair of socks he'd been looking at, and resisted leaning closer so not to loom. It was an odd thought that he of all mechs could be considering looming. "Or an Autobot?" Cheetor pointed at the red hat with that emblem.

"Not exactly... not personally," Omicron admitted, thinking as she touched the bill of her hat, then she grinned, "Well, I think I passed one on I-5, the interstate freeway where I'm from." She screeched something in the air, a rough outline of Washington and Oregon State, "See, I live up at the top of Washington, and Oregon is just below us. The I-5 cuts right by us and into the lower state. There's roomers of the Autobots using it, and now and there's this really odd car or truck that you see. When you first see it, if there's no one else around and either you're gaining on it or it's gaining on you, it doesn't seem to have anyone in it."

Cheetor leaned against the berth near the human, listening intently, smiling as he was caught up in the human's projected energy. "Then what?"

"That's the odd thing, you do a double take, or if you pass each other, there suddenly IS someone driving, but that person doesn't look quite right," Omicron sat up, "Like, they're really sick- the kind you know if someone is that color then they wouldn't be able to drive." She shrugged, "Its kind of an instant of knowing who's really damn sick like that. Or, that person that's driving looks more like a washed out sketch, little grainy."

"Holograms," Cheetor breathed, smiling not just as he understood but at the wistful dream of having personal holograms, "That must be a thrill."

"It the car fits the known general descriptions of the bots yeah, I heard of someone that might have had a Decepticon following him around on the boarder of the states." Omicron shivered, then beamed as she added, "I think I saw one Autobot for sure though."

"Any idea who it might be?" Cheetor asked, grinning again.

"Well," Omicron started, not answering the mech directly, but instead, "It was down in California, I was going to a convention and it was really late when my friends and I left. But there was big, huge ass truck," She waved her arms out, "I mean a big-big rig that was bigger than that old module should have been."

The mech grew still, his optics widening as he referenced the description so far. His tail twitched, one of the few subtle differences between this reality and the show 'Beast Wars.' That reality would prove that Cheetor wasn't the only one to have a tail twitching behind him. "What color was it?"

"Red, bright red and also these odd patches of warn spots. And there was this on the grill," Omicron took off her hat and pointed at the emblem with a flourish. She was telling the maximal the truth, just leaving out that she went to Botcon, and that the bits of her story were out of order, but it was the truth, "It, or he didn't move or say anything but I think I know who it was."

"Optimus Prime..." Cheetor breathed in awe, touching the black Autobot emblem on the hat, refocusing his optics on the human, "You saw the Prime? What did you do?"

Omicron perused her lips and then bit the lower one, but her eyes where bright in their own right, "I waved, yelled thank you and then ran away squeaking in what might have been one of my most ungraceful moments of my whole life."

The gold mech leaned back and laughed, it wasn't cruel but it still felt good to laugh, "I don't' think I'd even make it running away. This cat might just trip and plant his helm in the ground if I met the Prime."

"Yeah..." Omicron took a deep breath, "He and the Autobots have done so much for my world. Granted the war they brought isn't exactly fun, nor with the volcano erupted that woke them up in the first place," She looked back to the mech, "I live under and within a volcano's range, so, yeah, that's a wee bit scary."

"Why do you live there then?" Cheetor tilted his head, shifting around to kneel down and folded his arms on the berth. He was almost optic to eye now with the human, gold looking into hazel, "If it's so dangerous."

"It's dangerous almost no matter where you live big kitty," Omicron pointed out with her own head-tilt, "In a way. And there's lots of volcano's in the ring of fire, but Mt. Baker, that's the volcano I live by, its doormat. Mostly, its grumbled now and then."

"Grumbled?"

"Geological speaking that is."

Cheetor poked at the human's cellphone, "You study geology?" he asked opening the flip phone and stared at the not just the text but little picture of a bridge over a waterway and island. "What's this?"

"That's Deception Pass near where I live." Omicron said without looking, knowing her favorite background on her phone, "And not exactly, I took a few courses and liked it in homeschool, but I like biology, marine biology more and writing more. I'm… or was…or are… whatever the term is now. But I want to be in the diving industry."

"Gear, sounds like you have a plan," Cheetor smiled, it faltered as the human sighed and held up a hands, holding it flat and tilting it from side to side like he had seen Rattrap do several times. Did she pick that up from him? No...

Wait, Rattrap must have picked that up from humans whenever he worked with them.

"The plan has sort of derailed." Omicron pulled her knees up, then jerked in surprise as large gold and silver arms, with a patches of fur, wrapped around her and pulled the woman off the berth and into the Maximal's lap. "Wha…"

"Know the feeling," Cheetor said with deep feeling, purring as he ran one hand over and through blond hair. "My plan has sort of derailed too... I wanted to be the pilot of at least fifteen different ships by the time I was five hundred and fifty five." He smiled a bit.

"…how high are you to that goal?" Omicron looked up, "If you don't mind me asking."

Cheetor shook his head, not minding, "Including the Axilon this is the eighth ship I've piloted professionally."

"And you said you were two-twenty?" The human tilted her head, "I'd say you're not doing too bad."

"Yeah, but with the crash, little derailed." The mech shrugged, paused as he cocked his head with an internal comm. a text message so to say, "Looks like their ready to bring Inferno out of stasis. Let's go down there."

"Okay, could you let go so I can stuff all this back into my bag?" Omicron asked, twisting in the feline bot's arms. And when he let her up she did as she said, stuffing everything she could into her bag before looked up as Cheetor shook himself. With her things packed away and a bundle of her cloths beside it. Out of pure habit her keys and cell were back in her pockets. Stepping over, the woman wrapped her arms around Cheetor's middle and hugged him. "Here's to getting back on the right rails?"

Cheetor grinned as he stooped to hug his new friend back, "I'd drink high grade to that! Come on, I'll walk you down to medical."

"It's a date." Omicron agreed, trusting that her stuff would be safe from prying as the door closed, and the mech set it so that she could set her own opening code.

As the two walked down the hall, neither noticed the form coming out of the shadows farther down. It cocked its crested head one way, then the other and one claw clicked against the metal decking softly. With a ruffle of earth tone feathers the creature fallowed the two at well back pace, pausing once only to sniff at the only closed door in the hall.