Panic Button

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Disclaimer: Unfortunately, I don't own any of the characters. If I did, I could probably think of better things to do than writing about them :p

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Sam sighed as he noticed the blue light in the rearview mirror. He knew he had been driving a little above the speed limit, but nothing that would have warranted him being pulled over by a police officer. That probably meant one thing: The officer in question was in a really, really bad mood.

Carly would kill him. He had already been late due to the conference, and this wouldn't make his case any better. Great. He lifted his foot from the speeder and put it on the break instead, immediately slowing down his … no, he wouldn't go as far as to call it a car … his piece of junk. It was the best he could do with his current wage, but after driving Bee for so many years, this yellow substitution just wouldn't do. Sometimes – most of the time, actually – he missed his gigantic friend, however right now their lives just weren't intertwined and Bee's help was needed elsewhere.

Sam steered his vehicle onto the emergency lane and came to an abrupt halt. The police car behind him stopped as well, shining in eerie dark red and black colors in the light of his backlights. It was a Saleen, Sam could now see, and its headlights were turned off, both of which somehow made him nervous.

Just old habits. He forced himself to calm down, rolled down the window and put both hands on the wheel, but the officer didn't leave his car, which puzzled Sam. Calm down, he told himself. He died in Chicago. No need to worry.

"Please step out of the car" he suddenly heard a voice that somehow sounded metallic. Probably the speaker that was damaged. Still, for a second Sam pondered whether he should just drive on and risk a chase with a highway patrol if he was wrong, but then he thought back to that fateful day in Chicago and remembered him being in the area where the bomb exploded. There was no way he could have survived that. So Sam slowly opened the door and left the safety of his car (haha).

"Now step away from the vehicle, sir."

Again Sam did as he was told and moved a few steps away, looking expectantly at the police car. The headlights were turned on now and blinded him, so he couldn't see anyone inside, but of course that didn't mean that no one was driving the car. Barricade's dead! Sam thought once more, but the next few seconds were about to work against this opinion.

"Now please cower in fear while I demolish your vehicle."

At first Sam thought it had to be a joke, so he laughed nervously. Then again – he was alone on a highway in the middle of the night, still miles away from any major city, and the police car's engine was suddenly rearing up… A few heartbeats went by where Sam simply stood and watched in awe, unable to believe that this was actually happening to him a fourth time, then he jumped away from the scene and ducked behind a guarding rail as quickly as possible as the police car suddenly rose on its back tires and grew in height, until it stood 17 feet tall and threatening above him, its front tires turning into wildly spinning wheel blades that cut through the metal of his car with ease, leaving only splintered, yellow pieces lying around. One of the pieces whirled right past him, only missing him by an inch, while another one drilled its way into his cover, far too close to his face for his taste. His first thought was that he wouldn't make it to work without a car after the weekend. His second thought was that he had slightly bigger problems at hand than work right now with Barricade slicing the last of Sam's means of transportation into very little parts.

Sam didn't hesitate another second. As fast as his fingers would allow him to, he found his cell phone in his back pocket and dialed the number to be found under "IECE" – if this wasn't an extraterrestrial case of emergency, nothing was.

The ringing tone was a little bit hard to make out with all the thundering noise of splintering metal behind him, but he could hear it ring once, twice, a third time, then a click told him that the receiver had picked up. Sam's heart made a jump for joy, but before he could have said anything at all, a sharp pain shot through his right hand and he dropped the cell phone with a cry of pain. As he looked down, he could see blood – a lot of blood – dripping down his fingers and landing on the remains of his chance for a rescue. He cursed and whirled around as he saw something from the corner of his eye, ducking at the last second as something very fast and very deadly came right at him. With satisfaction he noted that his reflexes apparently hadn't suffered from the quiet, past year, as his body began to take evasive action without Sam even having to think about it. He threw himself to the left as his adversary – not Barricade, as he now realized – attacked him from the right, caught his fall by rolling off his left shoulder and was back on his feet in less than a second. That seemed to catch the other Decepticon off guard, but he didn't spend one precious second on trying to make out who was aiming for him. He simply turned around and did the one thing that made sense in this situation: He ran.

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