May 7th, 2010

At least, Sam thought, he'd had his backpack on him when 'Bee had pulled up next to him out of traffic, in the middle of the city, and unceremoniously abducted him with an audio clip of "Come with me if you want to live," that seemed a lot less threatening for being bookended with cheery R2-D2 chirrs and warbles. But, Bumblebee being quasi-mute, it wasn't until they pulled into the airport and Sam got out of the car that he comprehended the reason he'd been picked up midday the week before finals.

"Just so you know," he informed Lennox, brandishing his backpack at the Major, "I have finals next week. Nine a.m. Wednesday morning. Primus help you if I'm not back on time and in one piece."

"Good to see you too, Sam," the Major replied, grinning as he clapped Sam on the back. "Come on, then, we've gotta make time." He didn't quite force-march Sam up into the waiting belly of the C-17, but it was a close thing. The Camaro followed on their heels and the ramp closed as soon as the three of them were inside. A trio of NEST soldiers moved to secure Bumblebee alongside Optimus, Chromia, and Ratchet for the flight while Sam moved to his own seat, intending to spend the duration of the flight studying.

"So where are we going?" he asked after buckling himself in for takeoff.

Epps grinned broadly at him. "Antarctica. Hope you packed a parka."

Sam stared flatly at the man for a moment, then unzipped his bag and fished out a heavy book. Unfortunately, using it as projectile weaponry would be a lost cause in this case, and likely would mean he wouldn't get it back for quite a while. "In case it isn't obvious, I hate you all," he informed the inhabitants of the plane at large, and proceeded to bury himself in his World History, Part II (Abridged) studies.

Antarctica
by K. Stonham
released 14th January 2011

Graham liked Sam, really he did. He wasn't NEST anymore than his girlfriend was, but both of them were unmistakeably part of the Autobots' "family" on Earth, even closer to them in some ways than the soldiers of NEST, who worked and fought alongside the aliens week in and week out, were. And while some part of him felt like he ought to resent that closeness, he found he couldn't. Neither of them had signed up for the quasi-military science fiction drama their lives had become, yet still they coped well enough with it, being even less afraid to bicker, argue, and outright bitch out the giant robots than most of NEST was. (Though Graham wondered if it was due to less exposure to Ratchet; Ratchet could indeed intimidate the slag out of the Unmaker, as Sideswipe had been known to proclaim on more than one occasion.) And any civilian who could run Megatron's gauntlets and survive intact and sane, not just once but multiple times, had to be either incredibly lucky or just plain better at coping than most of the human race.

So as he regarded the teenager who was ignoring the military men and mechs around him in favor of reading a tome that looked far too thick for Graham's idea of a light read, he decided that he wasn't surprised in the least at the Cybertronians' insistence at dragging the college student with them to the bottom of the world to check out the anomalies Simmons had presented to them. The young man had a smart mouth, a quick mind, and all the knowledge of Cybertron in his head. He would surely turn out to be some kind of asset on the mission.

Keeping a sensor on Sam, Optimus had to admit that he was impressed. While not devouring his textbook quite as rapidly as Hound reported Sam was wont to do with anything scientific, his concentration never once wavered during the several hours of flight before Master-Sergeant Epps, with an expressive roll of his eyes, nudged Sam, breaking him out of his trance, and handed him an MRE.

The taste of human military rations, Optimus was given to understand by Sam's reaction, was decidedly substandard. But while the NEST members laughed, neither his complaints nor their humor at his expense were meanly intended.

"So," Sam asked finally, washing down the last of his meal with a bottle of water, "what's in Antarctica and why am I being dragged along for it, into the middle of a pitch-black desert winter on the coldest continent on this planet?"

"Agent Simmons," Ratchet responded, "has been systematically tracking down the remaining Cybertronian signals he had detected while part of Sector Seven."

"Problem is," Epps added, "they've all been in deep hibernation. Now, we've boxed most of them up and shipped 'em to an undisclosed secure location until we can find the key that fits their locks... but this one has been emitting some funky periodic pulses, as per our boys at the Amundsen-Scott South Pole Station."

"And you want me along because...?" Sam questioned.

"According to Agent Simmons and Wheelie, you were able not only to wake Jetfire, but also to reason with him," Optimus said softly.

Sam's eyes were sharp on him. "I don't have the item anymore, Optimus," the human reminded the Autobot, which, as they both knew, was a polite fiction. Mikaela held the shard, and would give it to either of them the moment they asked.

"Given that the Cybertronian in question has been emitting spontaneous tachyon pulses, we believe that the Cube's power may not be needed to wake him," Ratchet replied.

"Or her," Chromia chimed in, in the sweet voice of a long-standing argument.

"Tachyon pulses?" Sounding surprised, Sam's gaze unfocused and sharpened all at once, just before he abruptly yanked open his black satchel and pulled out a pen and notebook. "Do you have records of the pulses?" he asked Ratchet. "Duration, intensity, direction, that kind of thing?"

Ratchet sounded startled as he replied "Of course," then began listing out the information in a Cybertronian dialect used for disseminating highly concentrated technical information.

Sam listened, eyes focused into the mid-distance. His hand flew frantically, the pen leaving tight blue ink marks across the ruled paper, a seemingly automatic writing. All the humans seemed to hold their breath, clustering closer as Ratchet finished and Sam quickly jotted a few trailing glyphs before setting his pen down and looking at the writing.

"Sam?" Lennox asked cautiously.

"Huh." Sam took a breath and looked back up. "Do you know Seeker-cant?" he asked, looking at Optimus.

Optimus consulted his memory banks for a moment, then responded in the negative. "No. They were before my time."

"Before all of ours," Chromia added in.

"Right. Well," Sam said, tapping the capped base of his pen twice against the notepad then pointing it at Ratchet, "those pulses, most likely, are Seeker-cant. Which, according to the Cube in my head, is a model-specific dialect, used for long-distance deep-space communications. Kind of like whale song. And what this particular Seeker seems to be doing is broadcasting distress."

"Help, I've fallen, and I can't get up!" Bumblebee replied.

Sam shook his head as various NEST members laughed softly. "Not quite. It seems kind of ritual in this case, anyway." His mouth twitched into a frown. "I'm going to hazard a guess that the Seeker started transmitting about eight months ago, right after Egypt?"

"You're on the money," Lieutenant Casey replied with a sharp nod of his bald head.

"Fuck." Sam took a deep breath. "Right, info-dump: his name is Jetstorm, and he's mourning for his twin. Apparently Jetfire had a brother."

It was dark as midnight and colder than ice at McMurdo Station, where the C-17 had to land due to "inclement weather conditions" at the South Pole proper. At least, Sam thought, huddling in the winter gear that NEST had thought to bring along for him, they theoretically had a route and the Autobots would better be able to handle the conditions than human vehicles ever could. (And boy did he wish he didn't have perfect recall, because he'd read all about the Scott expedition at one point and concluded that there were places that Southern California boys were never meant to go, explorer blood or no.)

"Right, anyone have to use the bathroom, now's the time! We got nine hundred miles to cover before the next sign of civilization!" Lennox bellowed at the men and mechs departing the plane. "Hot coffee and oil waiting inside the hangar!"

Sam watched in amusement as, as soon as they touched the ground, all of the Autobots' tires popped spikes, giving them traction on the snow and ice. "This isn't too cold for you, is it?" he asked Optimus, walking alongside the showy truck to where an open hangar door spilled golden light into the night. He had to raise his voice to be heard over the wind.

"Not at all," the Prime replied, not having to raise his voice at all.

"We traveled through space without protection," Chromia said. "This is temperate in comparison." The riderless bike zipped ahead, weaving through bundled humans with ease.

"Yeah, but... ice," Sam protested, thinking of Megatron's frozen form trapped for millenia in an Arctic iceberg probably literally on the opposite side of the world from here.

"Megatron was low on energy and fell into stasis," Ratchet explained, coming up on Sam's other side as he trudged on. "The water solidified into ice through his systems, keeping him there. Even if he had come out of it, he would have been pinned, unable to move without slicing open vital fuel lines and lubrication conduits. From what I understand, Sector Seven was wise enough not to chip away a good deal of his prison while they held him."

"Lucky for us," Epps muttered.

"Extremely," Ratchet countered, and then they were inside and the doors were closing behind them, cutting out a lot of the wind if not much of the cold. The Autobots almost immediately unfolded. Even though he'd asked them and been told it wasn't so, Sam couldn't help the mental impression that staying in vehicle mode must feel cramped to them, and that taking a chance to stretch was a relief. Optimus had explained once, though, that either mode was equally comfortable, and what mattered most was convenience, either of a more compact form during transportation, or respect, interacting with humans in a shape that was more comfortable to them.

With NEST, as with Sam and Mikaela, their undisguised robotic forms were the preferred default. Somehow that seemed reassuring.

Despite the offer of coffee, Lennox had practically beelined for a map pinned to one metal wall by magnets and stood studying it, Epps a shadow by his side, Optimus looming over them, exchanging quiet remarks with the two field commanders. Most everyone else hovered around the promised urn, getting cups of liquid black so hot it was sipped cautiously even by the stone-mouthed military men. Bumblebee, to Sam's right, gave a querulous noise. Sam waved him off. "Can't stand it without a ton of sugar and creamer," he explained. "Plus I don't want to have to pee in the middle of a frozen windy wasteland." Bumblebee gave a whirling cascade of gears shifting that somehow managed to approximate laughter quite well.

"...Right." Lennox finished his study and turned around. "Listen up, people." Even without raising his voice he had his men and the Autobots clustering around him. "Our target is just about twenty miles past the Amundsen-Scott Station, a distance of over nine hundred miles from here. There is nothing but wasteland between here and there."

"There will be no sunrise, no warm shelters," Epps took up the thread. "The temperatures outside will be enough to kill you in minutes, winter gear or no. Do not separate from the party. Our route will take us along the McMurdo-South Pole Highway. It will be in complete darkness and is unpaved, marked only with flags."

"Now," Major Lennox took the speech back, "Optimus Prime has assured me that he and his mechs can assure human survival even in these conditions, and will be able to both drive and navigate in conditions that none of us here would even contemplate going out in. Our mission is to get to Jetstorm, extract him, and hopefully find out he's on our side. If not, he is to be neutralized. Any questions?"

"Just one question, sir," the British guy, Graham, said. "Why are we doing this in mid-winter?"

"Because our luck sucks like that," Lennox replied, grinning. "Any other questions?" There were none. "Good. Everyone be ready to leave in fifteen minutes."

Their convoy of four made relatively good time, Bumblebee thought cheerfully, given the blizzard they encountered not too long after leaving McMurdo Station. Optimus led the way, sheltering roughly half of the NEST team in his cab and sleeper. Chromia followed him, taking breaks as needed atop the flatbed trailer Prime pulled. She had been built for speed and agility, not so much for endurance. The trailer was currently occupied with supplies for the South Pole research station, since they'd been going that way anyway, but would be useful for hauling Jetstorm back to the coast and the waiting C-17... one way or another. Behind Chromia came Bumblebee, grateful for Prime's breaking through the treacherous drifts. In his own interior he carried not only Sam, but Lieutenant Casey and Captain Graham, who had been accorded the front seats; in case of an (admittedly unlikely here) enemy attack, the two soldiers would need to be out and moving quicker than Sam would. Sam had shrugged and grinned and stretched himself across both of the back seats, chatting cordially with the two NEST members for a while. Eventually all three had drifted asleep, though, lulled by the monotony of the drive and the blinding white cocooning them. Behind Bumblebee, bringing up the rear of their party, Ratchet's passengers had largely done the same, snatching sleep while they could.

Bumblebee had no doubt that they would all awaken and be ready to fight in an instant, though, should the need arise.

For now, however, he let them sleep, keeping the temperature and airflow of his interior compartment modified within the range of human comfort as he followed the Prime and Chromia up the arduous climb to the flat plain of the Antarctic Plateau.

The storm cleared within moments of reaching the top. Bumblebee waited nearly half an hour further, however, before waking Sam.

"Sam-I-Am," he played at soft volume through his rearmost left speaker, which was right next to the human teenager's ear. It got him little more than a murmur in response, so he repeated the audio clip a few more times, subtly increasing the volume each time, until Sam opened his eyes.

"Mmm?" he vocalized, blinking.

"Gone are the dark clouds that had me blind," Bumblebee sang to him, still keeping the volume low so as not to awaken the two military men. "My god, it's full of stars!"

Sam tilted his head back, still blinking his way awake, so that he was looking almost straight up out of Bumblebee's rear window. Not needing them to navigate, the four Autobots had left their headlights off, mildly freaking out their human passengers for a bit. Above them, for once not blocked out by the ambient light of humanity's cities, whirled this galaxy, stars near and far shining in the velvet black of night. At the very edge of the Earth's mesosphere the solar wind ruffled across the atmosphere, ion discharges creating a ghostly green luminescence, the aurora australis, that shifted and danced between the ground and the heavens.

Sam's eyes widened and his mouth dropped open.

"That's the stuff dreams are made of," Bumblebee added, perhaps unnecessarily.

"Oh, God, that's beautiful," Sam said, fully awake now. "Wow." He touched the glass, his fingertips leaving small, warm circles. "I've never seen anything like it. Thanks for waking me, Bumblebee."

"It was my pleasure, sir," Bumblebee replied, using the voice of a British butler.

Sam's other hand drifted slowly across the faux leather of the seat, a gentle human touch. "Love you, 'Bee," he murmured, almost too low for hearing, as he stared up at the universe before him. "I wish... I wish I could give you Cybertron back."

He wondered momentarily if Sam's knowledge extended to being able to pinpoint where Bumblebee's homeworld was, but then passed the thought off as irrelevant. Cybertron was in another galaxy; the human eye would never be able to pick out the star it had once orbited. Instead of finding words to say what he wanted, he merely played a measure of the theme from the Superman films, trusting Sam to understand what he meant.

And Sam did. "Earth is home now?" he asked with a faint smile. It faded. "Still. I wish."

So did all of them sometimes, but if wishes were wings, Autobots would fly. And if not for Cybertron's loss, Bumblebee would never have met Sam.

Together, they drove on through the Antarctic night.

Given the conditions, they had made good time, Bobby thought, stretching until his back cracked. Damned good time, in fact. And even though he felt kind of guilty for the Autobots hauling them around like sacks of potatoes, he knew they didn't mind and it all evened out (more or less) in the end. For now, though, they were ensconced in a half-buried mechanic's garage at the Amundsen-Scott Station, NEST members taking turns in using the facilities while himself, Lennox, and the kid paid attention to a couple of the over-wintering scientists updating them on the latest tachyon pulses coming from the site twenty miles... north of where they were.

He blinked, then smiled, suppressing a chuckle as he realized that the whole damn world was north of where they were at the moment.

And if the pair of scientists giving out the info wondered what the military wanted, or why they were driving such outlandish vehicles, they were good enough not to ask (even if Bumblebee and Chromia had gotten appreciative, almost covetous looks). It probably helped when Sam started distracting them, asking scientific questions that went way over Bobby's head.

/If Sam starts channeling Wheeljack.../ Ratchet threatened.

Chromia laughed. /He's far too small and fragile to be quite that dangerous,/ she replied.

/Don't underestimate humans, Chromia,/ Optimus replied. /Particularly Sam./

Her laughter dried up, sobering. None of them knew just what Sam was, only what he held. /You don't think.../

/I don't know,/ the Prime replied. /None of us do./

/I've got to have faith, f-faith, f-faith,/ Bumblebee chimed in as his response, playing a snippet of human song over their internal comm lines.

Sam had exchanged e-mail addresses with Drs. Johannsen and Roald before NEST's rest break was over and they'd rehooked-up the now empty flatbed trailer to Optimus, and piled back into the Autobots to drive back into the Holy-Fuck-Cold across the last twenty miles of glacier to where Jetstorm was buried.

The shock value of people learning he was still just a college freshman had already worn off and it was now an annoyance. Learning to deal with the smarts the AllSpark had given him had an unexpected downside. The thing was, though, he still didn't know what he wanted to do with his life. Normality, he'd accepted last September, was something that was going to happen to other people, not him. Not with the legacy of interstellar visitors that he'd inherited from great-great-grandpa Witwicky. Not with what the Cube had done to him. And especially not with his and Mikaela's relationship with Bumblebee. And there were all kinds of restrictions on what he could do, what he could be. There was no way he could physically be an Autobot. Going into the military and becoming part of NEST was a possibility, but he really didn't like the thought of giving a human government that much control over him. Scientific research was out, much as it interested him these days, because he knew damn well that Optimus was not handing over any more Cybertronian knowledge without carefully considering its possible impact on humans. And diplomacy was all well and good (and needed, a part of him thought), but it didn't feel like enough.

Speaking on the Autobots' behalf was one thing... but he felt like he needed to run with them as well. But, much as he liked them, he didn't want to have to do it through NEST.

Three more years to a degree (less, if he pushed it). Three years before he had to decide.

Somehow, he simultaneously felt like it was not enough time to figure it all out, and also that he wouldn't have the time, so he had to figure it out now.

It wasn't paranoia, Sam had accepted, when the Decepticons really were out to get you.

The site was bitterest cold even in deep winter gear, wind-swept, and utterly unremarkable save for the tweedling sensor Epps held, which told them that they were basically on top of the buried Seeker. And Chromia had that look on her face that Will had come to associate with Ironhide about to blow up really big slag. All of them, even Optimus and Ratchet, backed up to a respectable distance as she fiddled with a little glowing device and set it down on the snow. He could barely hear snatches of a high-pitched maniacal giggling as Chromia fell into vehicular mode and dashed back to what she deemed a safe range.

For a moment there was nothing. Then a silent flash lit up the sky brighter than mid-day, washing out the light from the perimeter of military glowsticks, and even through the winter goggles blinding Will and everyone who happened to be looking. Curses and groans crackled across the comms from the entire team. He heard movement before he got his sight back, giant robotic feet moving toward the site of impact. Optimus, given that the sound was from his left.

"Some warning would be nice next time!" Will yelled at the dark-and-silver blur he was pretty sure had to be Chromia.

"Sorry," she responded, and damn it, she did sound sorry. "I didn't realize your optics would have problems filtering that spectrum."

A yellow-greenish blur knelt down next to Will and he felt the bone-deep shiver-hum of a scan. "Your optics are not permanently damaged, Major," Ratchet reported. "Remain still for a few moments and they will re-adjust." He stood, moving on a few steps to examine his next patient.

The glacial ice had sublimated in a perfect circle, resulting in an ice well that descended fifty meters below the surface before terminating abruptly at a large metallic form that was now free of its frozen prison. Still, Jetstorm made no sound or motion of acknowledgment as Optimus stood at the edge of the hole. Only the tachyon pulses continued unceasing, and at the very highest level his audials could receive before having to switch over to other sensors, an unremitting sonic grief keened.

Hesitating a few feet back from the edge, Bumblebee's expression contorted in sympathy, with a few grinding gears colluding to produce a credible human wince of pain.

Around all of them, at their feet, recovering humans walked carefully forward, then stopped, respectful of the sheer drop, to peer down into what had to be a well of darkness to them. Ratchet looked down at the organics, then obligingly turned on his high beams, aiming them down into the well to light the dark metallic shape still in landing form.

"Shit," Lieutenant Casey swore, having grasped the significance of that as well as any of them. "How long's this guy been down here?"

"A very long time," Optimus replied.

"Better question," Major Lennox spoke up, practical as always. "If he's going to keep being non-responsive, just how the hell are we supposed to get him out of there?"

Ratchet had rappelled his way down into the pit, followed more nimbly by Chromia, and as the two of them poked and puttered at the stationary Seeker, Sam began to wonder how cold he could get before it made him physically sick. Even through NEST's winter gear his fingers, toes, and nose were already numb, and he was beginning to ache from the deep cold. He was so definitely a California boy, and didn't belong below the sixtieth parallel south.

But Jetstorm wasn't responding, and they couldn't leave him there...

He blinked as a thought occurred to him, and walked around the edge of the hole to where Optimus knelt, watching his medic and sharpshooter work. Sam actually had to knock on his leg armor to get the Prime's attention. "What is it, Sam?"

He shoved down the face mask, regretting it immediately as the air bit into his mouth, throat, and lungs. "He's a Seeker. You're a Prime."

Optimus' expression said he didn't get the inference.

"Command him," Sam explained. "In his mind, he works for you."

Realization illuminated Optimus face. "It may not work," he warned both Sam and Major Lennox, who stood nearby, listening.

Sam grinned. "I'll bet you twenty bucks it will, especially if you use the old tongue."

"The language of the Primes?" Optimus asked. He nodded. "Very well. Let's try this experiment." He stood up and Sam backed a few steps away, tugging the face mask back into place. He watched as Optimus called Ratchet and Chromia clear. The two of them scaled the sides of the hole faster than anything their sizes and using only hands, feet, and wheels had any right to climb. When they were over the lip of the hole and clear, Optimus spoke.

Normal Cybertronian speech sounded like synthesizers and modems. It was static and tones and even if Sam was the only human who could understand it without a computer to translate, it made it pretty clear from what species Earth's Information Age had descended. The language of the Primes... sounded nothing like that. It was deep, like Optimus' voice, and struck the world with all the reverberations of a huge old cast-iron church or temple bell, vibrating everything down to your bones. What he said was short, but to the point: "I am Optimus Prime. I grieve with you for your loss. Jetstorm, awaken!"

And down in the bottom of the pit, optics lit and gears moved.

Humans scattered, weapons at the ready if not yet aimed, as the silvery protoform clawed its way up out of the pit to kneel at Optimus' feet, head bowed. Even kneeling, he was as tall at the shoulder as Optimus was at the top of his head. "My master," Jetstorm said in an archaic Cybertronian dialect.

"I am no one's master," Optimus replied, wondering not for the first time just what sort of society his brother-ancestors had ruled over. In a few aspects, he suspected, it might be better that their species had largely forgotten it. "But I would be pleased to be called your friend."

Bright red optics raised to meet his, shocked. "But-"

"It has been a long time," Optimus told Jetstorm gently. "Much has changed. Cybertron itself is gone."

"Then we failed," Jetstorm said. His tone was anguished and bitter. "Brother, he died for nothing..."

"He died to save this world and all the rich life that lives on it," Optimus said, placing a comforting hand on Jetstorm's shoulder. "Will you come with us and continue his legacy in defending them?"

It was a long moment, but finally Jetstorm nodded, acquiescing. "Yes, my Prime."

It was all very well and good and touching to have the Seeker on their side, but Ratchet was the medical officer and the humans were about to start hitting their endurance limits for this frosted wasteland. "Prime," he said, interrupting with a significant nod toward their knee-high organic allies. "It's time to pack up."

Well-trained by millenia of constant reinforcement, Optimus didn't question Ratchet's diagnosis. "Of course."

Jetstorm stared in interest at the humans as Lennox shouted orders and NEST pulled up the glowsticks where their supports had been driven into the ice. Other than the big gaping hole in the ice, Ratchet thought somewhat sardonically, they'd be leaving no trace of their presence on this continent. "Organics?" Jetstorm questioned in Cybertronian.

"Homo sapiens," Ratchet told him. "Humans, as they prefer. The dominant lifeform on this planet." He found Jetstorm's private frequency and sent him a dense precis of information on their situation on Earth, including the Autobots' alliance with NEST, and an overview of the English language.

"Interesting," Jetstorm said, testing out English for the first time. He had chosen an Eastern European accent, Ratchet noted. He watched as Bumblebee reconfigured into vehicle form and Lieutenant Casey got inside the passenger door. "Why does he do that?"

"It's a long drive back to the coast where our transport plane is waiting," Chromia replied from where she was prepping the trailer. "Sooner started, sooner ended."

"Why do you not just open a space bridge?" Jetstorm asked Optimus. "Or are the organics too fragile to withstand one?"

Optimus hesitated a moment before replying softly, "Space bridges are a lost art."

"But you have the transwarp generator!" Jetstorm protested. "It is in your harmonics! It is..." He paused. "It is my brother's...?"

"He sacrificed himself to allow me to defeat the Fallen," Optimus replied, head bowed.

Jetstorm was silent for a moment, then nodded. "A more meaningful death I do not think he could have asked for. Long had he wished for a true Prime to serve. This I know, despite our agreement to keep our combiner from being misused. But stupid brother, to give you no instruction in the skill! Now, I will teach you."

"What the-" Lennox muttered just loud enough for Sam to hear as Jetstorm sang a certain note that, like the language of the Primes, seemed to shiver through and past the world. The huge Cybertronian still knelt on the Antarctic ice, arms now lightly grasping Optimus' upper arms, and the Prime...

Sam stared, forgetting to breathe as Optimus' chest plates opened, revealing the oscillating blue-white glory of a Cybertronian spark.

All the technical knowledge in his head didn't prepare him for the sight. Seeing Optimus' soul, not spread out in a net through his body like a human's bio-electric web, but instead condensed into that pulsing sun...

A subsonic note from Optimus joined Jetstorm's note, and if he concentrated Sam could understand the meaning behind both, but that wasn't important because he could see now, could sense how the crystal strings of the universe, of one of those seventeen other dimensions that humans hadn't discovered yet, were being manipulated by the transwarp field, the ovoid of defined here/now expanding to include all of them present, humans and robots, even the demi-abandoned trailer. Space stretched, folded, here/now moving next to there/now...

...and snapped!, like a rubber band shot off from finger and thumb.

"What the fuck?" Epps swore loudly, and he wasn't the only one as the jolt across nine hundred miles wasn't completely smooth and a couple of the humans fell on their asses and even the 'bots wavered on their pedes.

And the lights of McMurdo Base glowed down on them all through the thick-falling snow.

The shock of the teleport wasn't quite as bad as the time Jetfire had warped them from New York to Egypt, Bumblebee thought, driving slowly into the hangar. He wondered if it was because the distance was shorter, or if it was due to Jetstorm's processors being... well, slightly less addled than his brother's. Once Lieutenant Casey was out and the hangar doors were shut, he transformed back into root mode, keeping a concerned optic on his charge. Sam was acting "spacey" for lack of a better term. Captain Graham had had to place a hand on his shoulder and push to get Sam to walk to the hangar, and had ended up guiding him into sitting in a chair before going off to check with his commanding officer.

It wasn't the first time Bumblebee had seen Sam focus on nothing while accessing the Allspark's knowledge. It was, however, already past the point of previous maximum duration.

He picked a spot conspicuously near the teenager's chair and sat down, keeping watch.

Humans and Autobots had the same power source, simply held in two different forms. In humans it was spread out, a thin mist diffused through their entire bodies. In Autobots it was a plasma sphere held in suspension in mid-chest, powering the mechanisms of their bodies. Sam had been able to manipulate his energy web more than once, to interface with Bumblebee in the Cybertronian manner.

It was that same energy that had enabled Optimus, guided by Jetstorm, to fold space/time and transport the living matter of nearly twenty humans and five Cybertronians almost a thousand miles in a heartbeat. A sparkbeat. And in seeing that, observing the mechanisms of space bridges for the first time while understanding clearly what was locked in his own mind, Sam now felt the hum of the strings that bound dimensions together. And with his own energy he could reach out and touch them...

Epps was Air Force, so Will was happy enough to let him deal with things like de-icing and warming the engines and take-off conditions. It helped that NEST's C-17s might possibly have had a little bit of Cybertronian modulation with this particular mission in mind. The trip back was going to be a little cramped with Jetstorm packed in the plane too, he thoug-

"DOWN!" he yelled, tackling Epps to the ground as a table bore down on the pair of them, splintering as it impacted the floor.

Everything in the hangar that wasn't living or strapped down, Will saw as soon as he looked back up, was whirlwinding in the air. NEST's guys were, to a man, on the floor. The Autobots were variously dodging and batting away the airborne hazards. And Sam...

Sam was sitting still in the middle of it, staring blankly into space.

Will knew an epicenter when he saw one, and half-crawled, half-skittered, half-lunged across the concrete floor, grabbing Sam by the shoulders and shaking him hard. "Sam!" he yelled, trying to break the teenager out of his trance.

As sudden as Optimus' little teleportation trick, Sam snapped out of it, and everything crashed to the floor.

"Lennox?" Sam asked, then looked around him, eyes widening.

"Damage report!" Will called over his shoulder, now that the immediate danger was over. There were some faint curses, but by his mental tally no real damage done. As soon as he was sure of that, he turned his attention back to the college student, who was beginning to shake faintly under his hands. "What the hell was that, Sam? I expect them to pull things like that," he said with a nod toward the Autobots, "not you."

"I-" Sam raised his hands in front of his face and stared at them as if they were new attachments. "Humans can't do things like that," he said.

"Apparently they can," Graham disagreed quietly.

Sam shoved up from his chair all of a sudden. Will got to his feet, turning as he watched the teenager stalk over to Optimus Prime. Every line of Sam's body said he'd gone from scared to angry.

"Sometimes," Epps muttered softly from next to Will, "it seems like all we do is wait around for the fallout."

Oh, Sam was furious. Bumblebee could tell that much just by looking, and hesitated to get between his charge and his leader. Some things Optimus could slagging well deal with on his own.

"What the hell is happening to me?" Sam demanded without preface. "The Cube in my head, I could live with, even if it makes that cosmic kill-me arrow the Decepticons have over me a hell of a lot bigger and shinier. The whole energy manipulation thing, fine. But no matter what the phony psychics want you to think, telekinesis is not in the human skill set!"

"Sam-" Optimus started, but was cut off by the human's demand.

"Just tell me!" Sam said, then hesitated a moment, softening. "I think you owe me that much."

Optimus looked around at the four of them-not the humans, the humans didn't know this. Ratchet looked annoyed; Chromia worried; Jetstorm intrigued. Bumblebee kept his own expression as noncommittal as he could. Optimus knew that he thought Sam should've been given this information months ago. Sighing softly, the Prime knelt in front of the human boy. And said, in Cybertronian, "Sam, you are my brother. You are a Prime."

Sam went utterly still, his expression shuttering. Then, wordlessly, he turned and walked away.

No. He was not going to let Sam leave things like that!

Bumblebee scrambled to block the human's path, kneeling in front of him. Sam looked up, expression flat and hinting at barely contained violence.

There were no clips for this, no clever intonation of song or fiction or historical speech that he could use, obliquely, to communicate his meaning.

Wordlessly, Bumblebee extended a single cable, hovering the silver plug in front of Sam. Around him, he heard murmurs of curiosity from the humans-who didn't understand the meaning-and of surprise from his comrades. Only Optimus was silent.

It was a long moment before Sam laid his hand on the plug, and they were able to communicate in a way beyond words.

Okay, he totally didn't know what the cable thing was, but judging from the shocked looks on most of the Autobots' faces, he could guess that Bumblebee was bending some sort of cultural rule nearly to breaking with Sam.

The teenager was breathing harder second by second as Bobby watched. His eyes slid shut and he leaned against Bumblebee's tentacle-y appendage, shaking his head. The two of them might as well be the only living things in the universe, everyone else was so still. Glancing at the Autobots again, Bobby realized with a little surprise that their laser-like attention was focused not on the yellow scout, but on the human.

He was going to find out just what Optimus had told Sam if he had to take Ratchet apart piece by piece to do it, Bobby thought. Then he thought better of it.

"I can't do it," Sam said lowly, looking up at his guardian. "I'm not that person, 'Bee. I'm not that strong. I know the cost!" he cried, almost heartbreaking.

A low chirr from the mute Autobot, and a gentle finger stroked along Sam's back. A questioning hum.

Sam stilled, surprise flashing across his face. Then he nodded. "Fine." He took his hand off of the tentacle, which whipped back to its place in the scout's side, then turned back to Optimus. "I'm not talking to you until after finals," he informed the Autobot leader.

Optimus nodded once. "Of course." And then Sam was in Bumblebee's arms, held like one of Bobby's daughters would hold a favorite doll, and the Autobot transformed around him, ending up with darkened windows and his doors locking with a resounding click.

"I told you we should have told him sooner," Ratchet informed Optimus.

"Perhaps you were right," the Prime conceded.

"Tell Sam what?" Lennox demanded, glaring up at the Cybertronian leader.

Optimus actually hesitated. "That... is for Sam to disclose, if he so chooses."

"Not if it affects my men!" Lennox argued.

Huddled on Bumblebee's backseat, Sam could only vaguely hear the argument going on outside the transformer's metal shell. Which, really, was the way he wanted it.

Fuck.

Prime.

How the hell was he supposed to deal with that, and everything that came along with it? He was still a freshman, for God's sake!

Bumblebee was softly playing something hard rock, barely at the edge of hearing. Thoughtfully, mind and emotions still in turmoil, Sam stroked the faux-leather of the seat. "Thanks, Bumblebee," he said quietly.

"You're welcome!" the radio chirped. "If there's anything I can do..."

"I just need some time to think," Sam said. "Just... give me some time."

A/N: Another entry in what I've taken to calling my "Simulacra'verse." Relevant and included stories for the 'verse are By The Pyramid, The Language of After, and Simulacra. There is also (as sharp-eyed readers may have noted) an implication of a Sam/Bumblebee/Mikaela romantic threesome going on, which I've written out in a story called "Stigmatic" that unfortunately exceeds the ratings this site allows for posting. It is a very adult-oriented, sexually graphic story, but I've gotten good reviews on it. If anyone here wants to read it, it can be found at sakon76 dot livejournal dot com slash 635189 dot html. Sharp-eyed readers may have also noticed that I borrowed Jetstorm as Jetfire's twin from Transformers: Animated (together with his accent!) and Jetstorm's being buried in the ice (though admittedly on the wrong pole...) from Skyfire/Jetfire's original introduction in G1.