[fic][Transformers '09 movie] Summer Job 3/?

[sakon76]

Summer Job: Bridge to Nowhere
by K. Stonham
released 1st April 2010

June 3rd, 2010

They'd both been to Diego Garcia before, so it wasn't like Sam and Mikaela were unfamiliar with NEST's facilities. It was rather the sudden change from bright noon at the overlook to pitch darkness on the beach that threw the both of them.

"That's definitely going to take some getting used to," Hound commented, optics refocusing to pierce through the darkness.

"Hey, he's way better at landings than the last guy," Wheelie commented, picking a wheel up and shaking off the sand.

"Jesus," Mikaela muttered, having stabilizing herself by grabbing onto Sam. "What time is it here?"

"Two of hearts!" some '80s girl group piped from Bumblebee's speakers.

"Two a.m.?" Sam asked. "Ugh. We're on night shift, then?"

"Hardly," Master Sergeant Epps replied, making his way down the beach. "NEST never sleeps." Mikaela snorted in disbelief at that, but Epps ignored her, looking up at Optimus. "How was the trip, O.P.?"

"Relatively uneventful," the Autobot leader replied. "Hopefully all was well here, Sergeant?"

"Not a peep outta the 'Cons," the human replied. "Simmons's got some energy readings popping up he wants you to take a look over, though. Low-level, probably nothing urgent, he says."

"Wonderful," Optimus rumbled.

Epps just grinned, all white teeth in a dark face. "Perks of leadership."

*

Lennox showed up, yawning, at just after five, while Sam was trying to fit the base structural knowledge of Cybertronians in his head against the feeling of power tools in his hands. "This is not a good idea," Sam reiterated. "You do know that everything mechanical I've ever touched I've destroyed, right?" he asked Ratchet and Mikaela. Behind him, Bumblebee nodded vigorously, obviously remembering the Barbeque Grill Incident Of '08.

"Wuss," Wheelie muttered none too quietly.

"Don't make me step on you," Sam retorted.

"And what if Bumblebee is damaged and neither myself, Jolt, nor Mikaela is around?" Ratchet asked archly, gesturing at the yellow 'bot who sat leaning back against the wall.

"Suck it up, Sam," Mikaela advised.

"Let me guess, early childhood soap box derby trauma?" Will Lennox called out, buttoning up his camos as he crossed the building.

"Oh, please, even Pasadena's not that retro," Sam replied.

"Soap box derbies aren't that outdated!" Lennox protested.

"What, you won one?" Mikaela asked.

The Major grinned. "Three time champion." His smile faded, though, as he looked at the two teenagers. Finally he sighed and pulled up a chair, flipping it around so that he was sitting backwards on it, his arms crossed on the back as he looked up at the two of them. "You guys want to tell me what's going on?" he asked quietly, gaze flicking from one to the other. "My wife can't even come to Diego Garcia, but NEST is having to file W-2s for you guys. I'd be a lot easier on that if I knew why."

Sam huffed a sigh and looked away. "Sam..." Mikaela started.

"Fine." He looked back at Lennox. "Between the Cube in Mission City, that sliver of it that ended up in my clothes, and that whole wonderful fiasco in Jordan and Egypt last year, apparently I'm somehow a Prime."

Lennox's eyes, to his credit, were only a little wider. "So that's why you went all Carrie on us?"

Sam shrugged. "The Fallen could do it, and so can I."

"But not Optimus."

Sam shook his head. "No. Not yet, anyway. Then again, he couldn't teleport before, either."

"Wonderful." Lennox ran a hand through his hair. "Is single-generation evolution a trait of Cybertronians, or is it just this planet having a weird effect on you guys?" he asked Ratchet.

The medic snorted. "Primes are special," he informed the humans. "Even," he said, eyeing Sam, "unique."

"Great, Ratchet. Just what I always wanted," Sam dryly replied.

"So where is the big guy?" asked Lennox.

"Off consulting with Jetstorm," Ratchet answered. "Then, I believe, consulting with Agent Simmons regarding some anomalies."

"Right." Lennox nodded once, gaze unfocused. "So," he said a minute later, refocusing, "what do you guys need?"

"Damaged twins to work on," Mikaela replied, smiling sweetly, hefting a drill.

Wheelie glanced at her and edged away just a little. "You can be kinda scary sometimes, Goddess."

Sam rolled his eyes. "I need someplace where I can work on the TK thing without damaging anything or people freaking out."

"Well, I'm sure Ironhide will be happy to help donate damaged twins," Lennox assured Mikaela. "Meantime, there's always Prime's weekly checkup...."

"Weekly?" she asked, sounding surprised, and glanced upward at Ratchet, her expression questioning.

"Yeah, weekly," Lennox drawled with weight, also looking up at the medic.

*

Ratchet vented a sigh of frustration. "Your attempts at getting information out of me have not improved in subtlety," he informed Major Lennox. Bumblebee played a clip of a snicker, showing his amusement, though whether at the Major's attempt or Ratchet's reply, Ratchet did not know.

Lennox merely shrugged. "A guy's gotta try."

"I was chief emissary to the High Council of Elders," Ratchet countered. "You'd have better luck getting your organic plasma out of a turnip."

"Wait, why Optimus?" Sam asked. "I mean, Ironhide I'd understand, or Arcee, but Optimus?" The question, and possible reasons why clearly tumbled over themselves in the new Prime's mind. "Is this because of the death thing?"

And, fraggit, Ratchet couldn't exactly lie to a Prime, even if he was an alien. The best he could do was not answer.

"It is, isn't it," Sam asked, and it was not a question so much as a statement. "Because he came back."

"Unlike your kind, we cannot be simply revived," was all Ratchet would admit.

"Ratchet, I was dead," Sam bit out. "They stopped giving me CPR and stuff. Don't tell me I came back because of anything human."

And that, too, Ratchet could not deny no matter how much he wanted to. But Sam was a Prime. Two Primes had risen from the dead that day. It went against everything rational....

"Question," Major Lennox interspersed. "How does Megatron coming back fit into this?"

Ratchet hrmphed. "He cheated, and his followers went down the wrong path."

Both of Lennox's eyebrows rose in clear inquiry.

"Ya see, using the Allspark to bring mechs and femmes back to life... it ain't exactly the best idea," Wheelie explained to the humans. "Even a scrap drone like me knows that."

"Why not?" Mikaela asked.

"Thriller~!" Bumblebee's speakers blared. "Night creatures callin', the dead start to walk in their masquerade. There's no escaping the jaws of the alien this time~"

"THANK YOU, Bumblebee," Ratchet said, glaring. This was not a matter for levity. The scout raised his hands and shrugged helplessly. Ratchet's ire evaporated at the fresh reminder of his comrade's particular inability, and his own failure to repair the damage. He sighed and slumped, turning back to the humans in his audience. "What gets brought back... isn't what died," Ratchet explained uncomfortably. "The spark rapidly degrades. Madness sets in."

"So that's why you guys never used it to bring Jazz back," Mikaela said, understanding.

Ratchet nodded. "Jazz deserved better than that. Pit, even Megatron deserved better than that."

"An insane Megatron," Lennox said quietly, staring blankly into space. "Shit...."

Sam looked from Lennox back to Ratchet. "But... Optimus and I weren't brought back that way."

"The Matrix has been lost to us for so long it's an unknown quantity," Ratchet replied with a dismissive wave. "You'll forgive me for being cautious."

"The Matrix wasn't what brought either of us back," Sam insisted. "We were at the Gateway to the Well. It was the original Primes who sent both of us back."

"Impossible," Ratchet scoffed.

"I know what I saw, and what they said," Sam replied with calm confidence. "And Optimus showed me what he saw and what they said to him. So unless you're going to tell me that Optimus Prime and a human child have the exact same afterlife delusions...."

The possibility, Ratchet admitted, was so unlikely as to be laughable. Even with the Cybertronian knowledge in his mind, Sam was human and subject first and foremost to his own cultural imprintings. "You understand," Ratchet said quietly, "that as a medic I cannot simply accept the assertions of my patients at face value."

"As long as you understand that as Primes, we know what happened to us," Sam replied with an implacable faith that reminded Ratchet of the other Prime's. "I may not understand all of how the universe works, Ratchet, but I know that there's some kind of order, a reason we're all here and things work the way they do."

"I thought you were an atheist," Mikaela said quietly.

Sam shrugged and looked a little apologetic as he faced her. "So did I."

*

Though they technically could have dropped their human guises while on Diego Garcia, neither Mirage nor her partner did so. It aided their allies' perception of the Autobots as "just like us, only different" to view her and Hound in human seeming, and avoided all sort of psychological difficulties involved with human views on what robots their size "should" look like. The fact that she drew gazes with her facade was not any part of her calculations, regardless what murmurs she might have overheard.

Simmons, at least, understood that. His perceptiveness (and Hound's periodic urgings and tendency toward cultural exploration) was part of what had drawn her to him. She might have considered Sam as a partner as well, but the human Prime was completely devoted to his girlfriend and his guardian. Leo, despite being occasionally amusing in his pursuit of her, held no interest for Mirage. There was nothing deeper to him than it seemed. Simmons, though... despite his history with her people, when she looked at him she saw that he possessed the same sense of wonder, that same internal light, that drew her to Sam and, always, to Hound.

"--And that's that," the human in question finished presenting his findings to Optimus Prime, Jetstorm, Sergeant Epps, Hound, and herself. He looked up expectantly from the data simulations he'd presented on the holographic light table.

"Absolutely fascinating," Jetstorm said, peering closely at the table and the data it presented. "All this, made by organics. And to be detecting such miniscule proton waves...."

"Stark Industries only makes the best," Epps replied. "You got any thoughts on those readings?"

"Possibly." With only a slight earthquake, Jetstorm sat down on the ground. "Back when we were first discovering this system, not all mechanoids were possessing deep space capabilities. Once an appropriate sun and planet had been discovered, one of our," and here he jutted a thumb at himself to indicate Seekers as a collective, "first tasks was to build a transportation network back to Cybertron, so that workers and materials could be brought to create a Harvester, and for the resultant energy to then be siphoned back to Cybertron."

"A stable space bridge?" Optimus questioned incredulously.

"Wait a minute," Simmons interjected. "You're telling me we have a back door to Cybertron sitting here on our planet?"

"It would be long disused," Jetstorm dismissed. "When he left this planet, the Fallen damaged it in his rage when he went back to Cybertron, to...." His voice died away as he looked at Optimus, then looked away. "To slaughter the other Primes," he finished.

"Leaving you here to find the Matrix," Hound surmised.

"Yes." Jetstorm nodded once. "Leaving many of us here, both those who could not transverse the depths of space... and those of us who had too little energon left to return to Cybertron. Only, we never found the Matrix, and the Fallen was never calling to us or coming here again. Eventually, most of us were to be falling into stasis from lack of energon. And lack of purpose."

Optimus rested a hand on his shoulder. "Purposeless no longer, my friend."

"That is true," Jetstorm replied with systems humming in pleasure and features giving a small smile in the human style he had already adopted.

"Touching though all this may be," Simmons interjected, "if we've got a potentially active space bridge here, that may or may not be a problem depending on who knows how to use it."

"Earth ain't ready for a full-scale invasion," Epps agreed, leaning forward and examining the map.

Seeing where the epicenter of Simmons' readings were, Mirage couldn't help but be reminded of the musical version of The War of the Worlds to which her roommate at Princeton had introduced her. "Very few Decepticons are tripods," she remarked obliquely. Hound, Jetstorm, and the Prime looked at her blankly, but a second later both Simmons and Epps began cracking up, and she allowed herself a small smile of victory.

"It would not be being a problem, I think," Jetstorm mused after a few moments' quizzical observation of the humans' laughter. "None of us save the Primes were knowing the full schematic of the Space Bridges, each only a part. And if all the Primes fell, that knowledge, it would be gone with them."

"So we can't reach Cybertron, and Cybertron can't reach us," Epps summarized. "Probably for the best right now."

"Yes," Optimus agreed, though his tone was soft.

"What up, Big Buddha?" Epps inquired.

Optimus' smile was sad. "There were many we had to leave behind on Cybertron. Even now, many of us are not space-capable."

"Old friends, huh?" Simmons asked, sympathy in his voice. Mirage shuttered her optics, willing memories away. She could name far too many of those they'd had to leave behind, and had no idea if they were even alive. A hand, Hound's, brushed her hair back.

"There's nothing we can do for them," he murmured to her, lips at her temple. "Any more than there was before we knew of the bridge."

Mirage nodded wordlessly that she understood. It didn't make her spark ache any less.

And when she opened her optics again, Simmons was looking at her and Hound, his expression all too understanding.

*~*~*

Author's Note: Edited by okami_myrrhibis.

Comments

[mmouse15.livejournal.com]

I love this series...you do such a fabulous job with the characters and the world-building. Mirage's grief at the sacrifices is beautiful and sad, and I have to say, TF zombies makes a lot of sense as a reason for not bringing Jazz back!

It was wonderful to have this to read when I got back, so thank you for it. It was lovely.

[flybystardancer.livejournal.com]

Love this! I love Ratchet not being able to lie to Sam and Sam pointing out that his death-experience matched Optimus' and not what his culture expects... And the talk between Optimus, Epps, Simmons, Mirage, Hound, and Jetstorm was interesting... Can't wait to see where that leads. :D And I agree on liking the zombie-explanation as for why they didn't bring Jazz back with the shard. Though the first thought that ran through my head was, "Galvatron, here we come..."

Will makes my inner biologist want to cry, though. And I think using 'irregardless' is a bit out of character for high-class Mirage...

[sakon76.livejournal.com]

Will's an Army man, not a biologist. :) And, hooray! It's not too obscure that Megatron shall eventually be going Galvatron-wards. ^_^

I'm curious, though, why "irregardless" sounds off, coming from Mirage, to you. I didn't think it was an especially slang-y word....

[flybystardancer.livejournal.com]

Lol. And what I tend to perceive as being "basic science" is off-kilter from having a college degree in science. >_> It's hard for me to keep reminding myself that no, Average Joe probably doesn't know that...


"Irregardless" is a double-negative, non-standard, and many would argue that it technically does not exist as a word. Here's Dictionary.com's entry on the word.

To me, Mirage would lean towards more "proper" words and 'irregardless' falls pretty far from that in my experience. My perspective is probably also biased by seeing a lot of threads on various forums ranting about various spelling and grammatical errors, and the use of "irregardless" seems to pop up every time.

[sakon76.livejournal.com]

Hmm. I see your point on "irregardless" and cede you the argument. Thank you! *edits chapter*

[drharper.livejournal.com]

"Frag it, Sam! I'm a medic, not a metaphysicist!"

So the question is how fast and in what way is Megatron gonna lose it. And, since it was known even to "a scrap-bot" like Wheelie that this was a BAD idea, you have to wonder what kind of scuttlebutt is going around the 'Con ranks right now. And what's going through Megatron's head. I mean to KNOW that you're going to go mad is probably as bad as going mad itself.

How soon is someone gonna realize that the Allspark probably dumped _Space Bridge Construction and Repair For Dummies_ into Sam's head and get ideas?

[sakon76.livejournal.com]

You mean Ratchet is not all-seeing, all-knowing? :)

As to what may be in Sam's head... I take the fifth. O:) Though I'm still trying to figure out how to get in a reference to TF:A Bulkhead's encyclopediac knowledge of space bridges.

[flamekaat.livejournal.com]

oh me oh my I hope you are progressively getting through spell checking the next chunk, because I am adoring this more with every word! <3