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sakon76And I came home after being stalked by Sunstreaker (see last blog entry for details; why is it that the only two Lamborghinis I have ever seen in my life were both yellow?) and being sleep-dep'ed again, I typed up the following instead of working on The Novel. Which means my writing targets for the next three days are upped to 3.5K/day... fortunately they're weekend days and a Monday holiday.
Anyhow, I give y'all an instant-gratification sequel to "Ghost in the Machine."
Poltergeist
by K. Stonham
prereleased 5th October 2007
In some ways, things hadn't changed very much at all between the situation of Sam being "his human" and being "his ghost." They still spent all their time together and got into long, involved discussions about Earth and Cybertron and all the other planets Bumblebee had seen. They had arguments about music that inevitably dragged in insults in a variety of languages about each other and their creators. Sam still "drove" wherever they went, and their absolute favorite place to be was in one another's company, with any insults or slights anyone else levered at either of them avenged through meticulously co-planned pranks.
In some ways, though, everything was utterly different. There was no more steadily beating human heart to lull Bumblebee into recharge, no comfortable weight on his hood as they both caught some sun; Sam's touch was instead a whispering of energy along his circuits and sensors, a constant, eerie presence. Neither of them was sure how much they saw into each other, so they worked hard to ensure each other some modicum of privacy. And while Bumblebee didn't mind remaining in car form so that Sam could use his holomatter projector to interact with his friends and family, it hurt a little the way they acted sometimes around Sam, like the fact that he was a different form of life now changed who he was and had been to them.
On the other hand, there was always the training.
Whether it was the fact that the Autobots had seen more planets and myriad forms of life than the human race, or were in the end just more practical, Bumblebee didn't know, but his brothers-in-arms had far fewer problems than the humans in accepting Sam's changed state. It hadn't even been an orn after Shockwave's demise before Prime, Ratchet, and Ironhide between them had devised a testing and training regimen to figure out the extent of Sam's new skills.
"Can't overlook a possible advantage," Ironhide had said, almost apologetically.
Sam had given the equivalent of a shrug. "This is war," he replied. "So, what're we in for?"
Ratchet had only smiled and steepled his hands before his face. "In the word of your people... Hell."
*
Sam didn't know where he disappeared to when he "slept." Bumblebee said that he was still there, that he felt a little like a daemon, an undisturbed program running in the background of his processors... but not really. Unfortunately, that didn't help Sam any, and it definitely didn't help him get any kind of control over how long he was out.
Full-body possession was draining with anyone other than Bumblebee, though willingness alleviated that a little. Going too far away from Bumblebee left him feeling cold, and if he pushed it too far, like pieces of himself were being sheared away. But he could work with it, stopping critical electrical impulses, jamming up a Decepticon's sensors and transformation cogs and motor functions. And the converse was true, too; he could unblock damaged nerve pathways in injured Autobots, guide someone whose sensors were out, and repair damage, a concentration of effort popping out dents in armor and reforging cracked bolts into pieces as solid as if they were newly forged. He could even act as a sort of shield and give an energy boost to someone whose systems really needed it.
None of which quite made up for the times he got really mad, lost it telekinetically, and woke up months later to find that Mojo had died, Mikaela had gotten engaged, and a whole new contingent of Autobots had arrived while he slept.
"Bumblebee?" he whispered confusedly on waking again, because the last he remembered, it had been the middle of the night in an Oregon forest, and now they were racing midday through desert heat.
"Sam?" Bumblebee didn't screech to a halt in surprise, but he definitely fishtailed across a few lanes before recovering, one of the other Autobots snapping at him to watch his driving. Sam slipped into his interior, activating the holomatter projector, reforming in the warm sunshine. He thought he understood better now Bumblebee's love of Earth's sunlight, because he felt cold, so cold, and the heat was a blessing as it soaked through his borrowed form....
The glove box popped open as a country song crooned mindlessly on the radio. Sam reached wearily across, dragging out the blanket his mother and Mikaela had made for him, halfway for comfort, halfway for sanity. He stroked his fingers across the squares of fabric, denim and calico, silk and velvet, wool and corduroy. Touch was a human thing, something to do with human delicacy and having to be so attuned to their environment. The Autobots could feel, of course, pressure and vibration like human senses, but nothing so exquisitely accurate as human touch. Bumblebee wouldn't be able to tell the tactile difference between satin and burlap to save his life. Sam could, and as he moved his fingers across the patchwork, recalibrating holomatter sensors, sensation and warmth came slowly back into him until he felt almost all right again.
He took a shuddering breath out of habit rather than need. "Thanks," he said quietly, meaning the space Bumblebee had given him.
"No problem," his partner replied. "You're okay now?" Bumblebee's voice was uncertain. Sam wondered if Bumblebee was still disquieted that he couldn't just run a scan on a ghost to confirm that Sam was "systems normal."
"Better," Sam replied, still holding the blanket. "What happened?"
"You almost took out Starscream," Bumblebee told him.
"'Almost'?" Sam asked, raising an eyebrow. Outside, the world sped past them, a blur of browns and tans, shadowy blue mountains in the distance like paintings. Bumblebee's engine hummed, the raw power of a finely tuned Camaro hiding the strength and agility of a Cybertronian warrior as wheels sped over pavement. Sam had loved his Camaro from the first moment he'd sat in its driver's seat, before he knew who and what it was. The car had indeed chosen its driver, and in a suspended space like this, a bubble, a moment between two worlds, he knew instinctively that he would never love his car/guardian/friend/partner any less than he had that first moment. The infatuation, the enchantment, had been tested, and held fast.
"Skywarp teleported him out at the last minute," Bumblebee reported. "We haven't seen him since, though, so you really did him some damage."
"How long?" Sam asked the question he'd been dreading.
Bumblebee was silent for a moment then answered quietly, "Six months."
Sam sighed unhappily, breath hissing out between his teeth as he closed his eyes, hand fisting in the blanket. He understood now what Bumblebee had gone through with him for eight years. He was going to continue on like this for a very long time, damn near forever as humans reckoned things, and his friends and family... weren't. Every time he drained himself too far in battle and fell asleep, time jumped ahead and they aged while he didn't. Time was a thief, and it was stealing everyone he loved. Everyone except the Autobots.
He really hated the Decepticons and their stupid war that kept doing this to him.
"So." He forced himself to be conversational. "What'd I miss? Who're these guys?" he asked, looking around at the convoy of conspicuously--if you were bothering to look--driverless vehicles.
"Not much. Mikaela postponed her wedding until you could attend."
"'Bee, I can't, it's inside a church--"
"Check the holomatter projector's specs," Bumblebee told him.
Sam did, and blinked in shock. "What the...?"
"Wheeljack arrived while you were sleeping," his car told him smugly. "I asked him to upgrade my system. You can use it for external holograms now."
"It's not line of sight restricted?" Sam asked, continuing to work his way through the new system, mapping out the circuitry.
"Nope."
"'Bee." He sat up straighter, touched. "I.... Thank you."
"Thank Wheeljack. He wanted to come with, but Ratchet has him working on some upgrades to the base's weaponry."
"So who're the rest of these guys, then?" Sam asked, looking around. Two sports cars--Lamborghinis unless he missed his guess--raced in front of them, with a white-striped red Mini Cooper and a forest green Hummer keeping ranks behind them.
"The Lamborghinis are the twins. You've heard us talk about them, right?"
"Sideswipe and Sunstreaker, right?"
"Sides is the red one, Sunny's the yellow. Perceptor's the Mini, and the Hummer is Springer. He's a Triple-Changer," Bumblebee added with a note of envy in his voice.
"Really?" Sam tilted his head to catch the Hummer's reflection in the side mirror again. "What's his other mode?"
"Helicopter."
"That I've got to see sometime." A faded highway sign, probably declaring them to be approaching the Middle of Nowhere, America, swooshed past too fast to read. The highway shimmered ahead of them and behind. "Where are we going, anyway?"
"Hoover Dam. We're a few hours out." A note of mischief crept into Bumblebee's voice. "If you wanted, you could use the new projector and introduce yourself to the others."
Sam stared at the steering wheel for a moment, then grinned, patting it fondly. "'Bee, you are a mech after my own heart."
*
Forewarned, Bumblebee cut speed slightly, forcing the two behind him to do likewise, just before Sam disappeared from his interior and reappeared in Sideswipe's. The red Autobot slammed on his brakes, skidding back and forth across the fortunately empty highway for a minute before recovering, though his imprecations of shock took several more minutes to die down.
"Hi, I'm Sam," Bumblebee's ghost introduced himself. "You're Sideswipe, right? Sweet alt mode. It's a Murcielago, am I right?"
"You so planned that," Springer accused Bumblebee.
"Of course I did," Bumblebee replied. "Sideswipe doesn't believe in ghosts, remember?"
"He does now," Springer observed with half a laugh.
"Your spectre has recovered from his period of recharge?" Perceptor asked with considerable interest. "I look forward to making his acquaintance. Prime's and Ratchet's accounts have been quite fascinating to study."
"We've got hours to go before we hit Vegas," Bumblebee laughed. "I don't think you'll have any problem with getting to meet him, Perceptor." His systems thrummed with contentment. "He's going to be around for a long time."
*~*~*
Author's Notes: Perceptor got to be a white-striped Mini because I saw one the other day and it just seemed to be the right vehicle for him. Giant microscopes/telescopes not being too, well, mobile.... And Springer gets to be an original Hummer because I think they're cool, even if horrible gas-guzzlers. And the twins are Murcielagos because Sunstreaker, in the form of one, stalked me this afternoon. ^^;
Sam's textile blanket exists for a few reasons, the first being extrapolated from Dwimordene's awesome story Bridges over at ff.net, that humans have a far better tactile sense than transformers. Tactile quilts like Sam's are often given to babies in neonatal units to help make up for sensory deprivation during the first several months of their lives. I can't imagine a situation with more sensory deprivation than being a ghost; I think it would drive most people mad to be cut off from sensation like that. Fortunately Sam can use Bumblebee's holomatter projectors.... And, being a little bit of a quilter, to me not much says you're loved quite like a blanket someone made to keep you warm.
Anyhow, I give y'all an instant-gratification sequel to "Ghost in the Machine."
Poltergeist
by K. Stonham
prereleased 5th October 2007
In some ways, things hadn't changed very much at all between the situation of Sam being "his human" and being "his ghost." They still spent all their time together and got into long, involved discussions about Earth and Cybertron and all the other planets Bumblebee had seen. They had arguments about music that inevitably dragged in insults in a variety of languages about each other and their creators. Sam still "drove" wherever they went, and their absolute favorite place to be was in one another's company, with any insults or slights anyone else levered at either of them avenged through meticulously co-planned pranks.
In some ways, though, everything was utterly different. There was no more steadily beating human heart to lull Bumblebee into recharge, no comfortable weight on his hood as they both caught some sun; Sam's touch was instead a whispering of energy along his circuits and sensors, a constant, eerie presence. Neither of them was sure how much they saw into each other, so they worked hard to ensure each other some modicum of privacy. And while Bumblebee didn't mind remaining in car form so that Sam could use his holomatter projector to interact with his friends and family, it hurt a little the way they acted sometimes around Sam, like the fact that he was a different form of life now changed who he was and had been to them.
On the other hand, there was always the training.
Whether it was the fact that the Autobots had seen more planets and myriad forms of life than the human race, or were in the end just more practical, Bumblebee didn't know, but his brothers-in-arms had far fewer problems than the humans in accepting Sam's changed state. It hadn't even been an orn after Shockwave's demise before Prime, Ratchet, and Ironhide between them had devised a testing and training regimen to figure out the extent of Sam's new skills.
"Can't overlook a possible advantage," Ironhide had said, almost apologetically.
Sam had given the equivalent of a shrug. "This is war," he replied. "So, what're we in for?"
Ratchet had only smiled and steepled his hands before his face. "In the word of your people... Hell."
Sam didn't know where he disappeared to when he "slept." Bumblebee said that he was still there, that he felt a little like a daemon, an undisturbed program running in the background of his processors... but not really. Unfortunately, that didn't help Sam any, and it definitely didn't help him get any kind of control over how long he was out.
Full-body possession was draining with anyone other than Bumblebee, though willingness alleviated that a little. Going too far away from Bumblebee left him feeling cold, and if he pushed it too far, like pieces of himself were being sheared away. But he could work with it, stopping critical electrical impulses, jamming up a Decepticon's sensors and transformation cogs and motor functions. And the converse was true, too; he could unblock damaged nerve pathways in injured Autobots, guide someone whose sensors were out, and repair damage, a concentration of effort popping out dents in armor and reforging cracked bolts into pieces as solid as if they were newly forged. He could even act as a sort of shield and give an energy boost to someone whose systems really needed it.
None of which quite made up for the times he got really mad, lost it telekinetically, and woke up months later to find that Mojo had died, Mikaela had gotten engaged, and a whole new contingent of Autobots had arrived while he slept.
"Bumblebee?" he whispered confusedly on waking again, because the last he remembered, it had been the middle of the night in an Oregon forest, and now they were racing midday through desert heat.
"Sam?" Bumblebee didn't screech to a halt in surprise, but he definitely fishtailed across a few lanes before recovering, one of the other Autobots snapping at him to watch his driving. Sam slipped into his interior, activating the holomatter projector, reforming in the warm sunshine. He thought he understood better now Bumblebee's love of Earth's sunlight, because he felt cold, so cold, and the heat was a blessing as it soaked through his borrowed form....
The glove box popped open as a country song crooned mindlessly on the radio. Sam reached wearily across, dragging out the blanket his mother and Mikaela had made for him, halfway for comfort, halfway for sanity. He stroked his fingers across the squares of fabric, denim and calico, silk and velvet, wool and corduroy. Touch was a human thing, something to do with human delicacy and having to be so attuned to their environment. The Autobots could feel, of course, pressure and vibration like human senses, but nothing so exquisitely accurate as human touch. Bumblebee wouldn't be able to tell the tactile difference between satin and burlap to save his life. Sam could, and as he moved his fingers across the patchwork, recalibrating holomatter sensors, sensation and warmth came slowly back into him until he felt almost all right again.
He took a shuddering breath out of habit rather than need. "Thanks," he said quietly, meaning the space Bumblebee had given him.
"No problem," his partner replied. "You're okay now?" Bumblebee's voice was uncertain. Sam wondered if Bumblebee was still disquieted that he couldn't just run a scan on a ghost to confirm that Sam was "systems normal."
"Better," Sam replied, still holding the blanket. "What happened?"
"You almost took out Starscream," Bumblebee told him.
"'Almost'?" Sam asked, raising an eyebrow. Outside, the world sped past them, a blur of browns and tans, shadowy blue mountains in the distance like paintings. Bumblebee's engine hummed, the raw power of a finely tuned Camaro hiding the strength and agility of a Cybertronian warrior as wheels sped over pavement. Sam had loved his Camaro from the first moment he'd sat in its driver's seat, before he knew who and what it was. The car had indeed chosen its driver, and in a suspended space like this, a bubble, a moment between two worlds, he knew instinctively that he would never love his car/guardian/friend/partner any less than he had that first moment. The infatuation, the enchantment, had been tested, and held fast.
"Skywarp teleported him out at the last minute," Bumblebee reported. "We haven't seen him since, though, so you really did him some damage."
"How long?" Sam asked the question he'd been dreading.
Bumblebee was silent for a moment then answered quietly, "Six months."
Sam sighed unhappily, breath hissing out between his teeth as he closed his eyes, hand fisting in the blanket. He understood now what Bumblebee had gone through with him for eight years. He was going to continue on like this for a very long time, damn near forever as humans reckoned things, and his friends and family... weren't. Every time he drained himself too far in battle and fell asleep, time jumped ahead and they aged while he didn't. Time was a thief, and it was stealing everyone he loved. Everyone except the Autobots.
He really hated the Decepticons and their stupid war that kept doing this to him.
"So." He forced himself to be conversational. "What'd I miss? Who're these guys?" he asked, looking around at the convoy of conspicuously--if you were bothering to look--driverless vehicles.
"Not much. Mikaela postponed her wedding until you could attend."
"'Bee, I can't, it's inside a church--"
"Check the holomatter projector's specs," Bumblebee told him.
Sam did, and blinked in shock. "What the...?"
"Wheeljack arrived while you were sleeping," his car told him smugly. "I asked him to upgrade my system. You can use it for external holograms now."
"It's not line of sight restricted?" Sam asked, continuing to work his way through the new system, mapping out the circuitry.
"Nope."
"'Bee." He sat up straighter, touched. "I.... Thank you."
"Thank Wheeljack. He wanted to come with, but Ratchet has him working on some upgrades to the base's weaponry."
"So who're the rest of these guys, then?" Sam asked, looking around. Two sports cars--Lamborghinis unless he missed his guess--raced in front of them, with a white-striped red Mini Cooper and a forest green Hummer keeping ranks behind them.
"The Lamborghinis are the twins. You've heard us talk about them, right?"
"Sideswipe and Sunstreaker, right?"
"Sides is the red one, Sunny's the yellow. Perceptor's the Mini, and the Hummer is Springer. He's a Triple-Changer," Bumblebee added with a note of envy in his voice.
"Really?" Sam tilted his head to catch the Hummer's reflection in the side mirror again. "What's his other mode?"
"Helicopter."
"That I've got to see sometime." A faded highway sign, probably declaring them to be approaching the Middle of Nowhere, America, swooshed past too fast to read. The highway shimmered ahead of them and behind. "Where are we going, anyway?"
"Hoover Dam. We're a few hours out." A note of mischief crept into Bumblebee's voice. "If you wanted, you could use the new projector and introduce yourself to the others."
Sam stared at the steering wheel for a moment, then grinned, patting it fondly. "'Bee, you are a mech after my own heart."
Forewarned, Bumblebee cut speed slightly, forcing the two behind him to do likewise, just before Sam disappeared from his interior and reappeared in Sideswipe's. The red Autobot slammed on his brakes, skidding back and forth across the fortunately empty highway for a minute before recovering, though his imprecations of shock took several more minutes to die down.
"Hi, I'm Sam," Bumblebee's ghost introduced himself. "You're Sideswipe, right? Sweet alt mode. It's a Murcielago, am I right?"
"You so planned that," Springer accused Bumblebee.
"Of course I did," Bumblebee replied. "Sideswipe doesn't believe in ghosts, remember?"
"He does now," Springer observed with half a laugh.
"Your spectre has recovered from his period of recharge?" Perceptor asked with considerable interest. "I look forward to making his acquaintance. Prime's and Ratchet's accounts have been quite fascinating to study."
"We've got hours to go before we hit Vegas," Bumblebee laughed. "I don't think you'll have any problem with getting to meet him, Perceptor." His systems thrummed with contentment. "He's going to be around for a long time."
Author's Notes: Perceptor got to be a white-striped Mini because I saw one the other day and it just seemed to be the right vehicle for him. Giant microscopes/telescopes not being too, well, mobile.... And Springer gets to be an original Hummer because I think they're cool, even if horrible gas-guzzlers. And the twins are Murcielagos because Sunstreaker, in the form of one, stalked me this afternoon. ^^;
Sam's textile blanket exists for a few reasons, the first being extrapolated from Dwimordene's awesome story Bridges over at ff.net, that humans have a far better tactile sense than transformers. Tactile quilts like Sam's are often given to babies in neonatal units to help make up for sensory deprivation during the first several months of their lives. I can't imagine a situation with more sensory deprivation than being a ghost; I think it would drive most people mad to be cut off from sensation like that. Fortunately Sam can use Bumblebee's holomatter projectors.... And, being a little bit of a quilter, to me not much says you're loved quite like a blanket someone made to keep you warm.
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Date: 2007-10-06 06:00 am (UTC)no subject
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Date: 2007-10-06 06:48 am (UTC)Thanks. Really. This was cheeky and sweet.
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