sakon76

Once any sentient species passes a certain stage of physical and mental development, they begin to ask one of the universal queries: "What if?" It is this question that leads to their survival. What if I apply pressure to the sides of this rock and flake it into a knife? What if I band together with others to defend our territory? What if I remove the source of conflict by ejecting it into space?

The side question to "What if" comes somewhat later than the initial thought: "What would have happened if?" What if I hadn't dodged that predator's claws? What if I had turned left instead of right that day--would I never have met my soulmate? What if the boy had been an entirely different person--what would have happened at the dam?

These queries open up the concept of alternate universes. Parallel dimensions. Though this was a matter of only conjecture for many species, Cybertronians were technologically and scientifically advanced enough that they could answer their questions. For a time, watching the holos of alternate realities, piped through microscopic holes in the space-time continuum, had been a popular hobby. But eventually, like all fads, it faded, and by the start of the war was as out of style as button shoes. The reason was simple: too much navel-gazing, as humans would put it, just wasn't healthy.

But nonetheless, scientific investigation had continued into the question of what made one universe fundamentally different from another. The left-versus-right questions, researchers found, tended to sort themselves out sooner or later. But for some things, big changes, the only explanation they could find was that some people just ended up as fulcums of fate. And, for all their research and careful notes and attempts at keeping tabs on a control reality to compare others to, no one really ever figured out why it was those particular individuals who changed whole universes.

And, in the back of Wheeljack's mind, and Perceptor's, and Ratchet's... they wondered.

What would have happened if Megatron had just talked with Optimus?

What would have happened if Optimus hadn't decided the only way to end the war was to destroy the Allspark?

And, sometimes... what if Sam Witwicky had been afraid to get in the car?

Deus Ex Machina: Waiting to Fall
by K. Stonham
first released 17th August 2012

No plan, Simmons had warned him, talking in cliches, survives contact with the enemy.

The dorm room door slammed shut behind Leo. In front of him, Sharsky spun around in a desk chair. One hand held a thumb drive. Behind himself, Leo could feel Fassbinder's eyes boring a hole in the back of his head.

"So," Sharsky said, and his tone was almost cordial, "last week the school goes into lockdown because of a classroom shooting. Yet somehow no one in the mainstream media gets any details. No names, no bodies, no one rushed to the hospital or picked up by the coroners."

Yeah, maybe their project on figuring out how to hack cop databases hadn't been Leo's best thought-out plan. It had just seemed like a good idea at the time. When he had been younger and stupider and not up to his neck in alien wars.

"Eyewitness reports, however," Fassbinder picked up the thread, "mention Mira, and Sam. And you and Henry. There's also stories going around about a mysterious glowing blue stain left in the lecture hall that, reportedly, caused a few morons who touched it acid burns. But, again, no body to have caused it."

"And then," Sharsky said, "there's the matter of cellphone video. Even here, with the crap reception, there's some posted footage from the lecture hall. And the quad. Including some rather familiar vehicles. Shanghai. New York. Cairo. Etcetera." He straightened from his lounging position. "Footage which includes you running after Witwicky, some blond guy carrying a dead robot, and then... nothing. Big vanishing act."

Fassbinder shifted. Leo turned around to look at him. He was leaning back against the door, blocking the escape route. "Plus there's that whole 'hacking hoax' from last year." Dark eyes met Leo's. "I think you owe us some explanations."

Looking at Sharsky and Fassbinder, Leo amended Simmons' philosophy to "no plan survives contact with your roommates." His college plans sure as hell hadn't survived meeting Sam, and the strategy he'd developed for Simmons regarding his conspiracy theorist roommates/employees sure as hell wasn't surviving the two of them looking at him, Sharsky's expression unimpressed, Fassbinder's arms crossed.

What the hell, Leo thought, wadding up his mental plans and tossing them over his metaphorical shoulder. When all else fails, fall back five yards and punt.

He let his expression drift to a shark-like smile. If Sam had been there to see it, he probably would have made some comment about Leo already starting to mirror Simmons. But Sam was not there.

"Gentlemen," Leo said. "I've got us an in."

***

Trouble was coming. Red Alert hated to borrow misfortune, but he could practically feel it in his struts, the way Kup had always claimed he could.

Rumble was just the first salvo. The Decepticons obviously hadn't been aware of Sam's Cybertronian bodyguards, but they were now. They would reshape their plan of attack based on this new knowledge. At least they seemed to want him alive and intact.

(They couldn't know he was a Prime, could they? If they did, what did they want from him? If they didn't, still, what did Megatron want with him?)

Fortunately, the Decepticons in this system no longer had orbital bombardment capabilities. But hostages were always a possibility, to make him give himself up. Mikaela might be safe on Diego Garcia, but Sam's parents weren't, and had adamantly refused either relocation or additional protection.

Pit, it might not even need to be someone close to him the Decepticons used as leverage! Red Alert could easily picture any of the dishonorable curs threatening a building full of civilians to get the young man to give himself up.

His wires trembled. There were so very many ways the Decepticons could force the issue. And precious little he could do about them, except have faith in Bumblebee and Trailbreaker's well-proved skills.

And pray that, should worse come to worst, Sam himself would find a way to signal the Autobots.

***

Seymour Reginald Simmons stood on the beach looking at the sunset. "He's screwing it up," he muttered to himself. "I should never have let the rookie off his leash this soon...."

"Chillax, bro," Skids told him, settled on the sand, watching the wavelets foam through his ankle joints.

Ratchet, Seymour was sure, was going to have an apoplectic fit about that seawater-and-sand exposure later.

"Da kid," Mudflap said, sprawled mostly upside down against a palm tree, "can take care of hisself."

"Forgive me for not taking your word at face value," Seymour bit out. "Seeing as how, between the pair of you, you have the computational skills of an episode of Robot Chicken."

"Harsh," Skids mourned. "So harsh...."

"Yet so true," a woman's voice joined in.

Seymour snorted. "Come to join me in figuring out all the ways the rookie is screwing up?"

"Ha." Mikaela stopped next to him. "With Leo? I'm sure he's screwing up in ways we can't even think of."

"I can think of a lot of ways." Seymour looked back toward the base. "Missing your shadow and your lovebot already, jailbait?"

"Hardly. They're where they need to be." She smirked at him. "Missing your minion already, mall cop?"

"Oh, no. I'm eagerly anticipating his imminent dressing-down."

"Sounds fun."

"So what does bring you out to our lonely patch of beach?"

Mikaela grinned. "Hey," she called to Tweedledee-and-Tweedledum, "check your pings and tell me where Optimus and Ironhide are right now."

Skids pushed to his elbow components. "Training ground," he reported.

"So?" Seymour was unimpressed. Seen one giant alien robot try to blow-and-or-hack the other to pieces, you've seen 'em all.

She smirked again. "Jetstorm thought it was time for Optimus to step up the teleportation training."

***

Sam stepped into the dorm room and stopped cold.

It was quiet.

Leo sat on his bed, laptop open, reading. Sharsky was at one of the desktop terminals, forehead furrowed in a way that Sam knew meant working out a tech problem. Fassbinder was on another, frantically typing; his expression read as forum moderating.

It was entirely too quiet and copacetic. Particularly for these three, who thrived on Red Bull and arguing with the internet.

Sam didn't want to know. He really didn't want to know. But duty forced him to ask.

"Leo... what did you do?"

His roomie looked up from the laptop, and Sam almost took a step back.

Leo looked smug, and Sam knew from experience that that never boded well.

"Minions," Leo explained, sweeping a hand at Sharsky and Fassbinder.

Oh, you didn't, Sam thought, but he knew that Leo had.

Fortunately, this one was not his problem.

"He's going to kill you," he warned. "They'll never find your body."

"Initiative is its own reward." Leo smirked. But Sam caught a faint edge of nervousness beneath it. Leo liked being the big dog, the man in charge. He wasn't used to having a boss, or having a job with consequences.

Sam, on the other hand, was all too aware of consequences.

Sighing, he sat on his own bed and tried to do damage control. "Tell me exactly what plan is going through your head."

***

"Going to have to do better than that, brat!" Ironhide called, half-laughing as Optimus rolled to the side, dodging a cannon blast, and ended up on his feet.

"You haven't hit me yet, old mech!" Optimus called back. He kept his own weaponry sheathed; neither sword nor gun was the point of this exercise.

Jetstorm, on the side of the training grounds where the humans' observation deck stood, rolled his optics. "Feel the readiness," he instructed. "You must be able to shift in an instant. Do not waste time thinking on it!"

Which was easier said than done, Optimus ruminated. Jetstorm wasn't the one dodging fire from the very mech who had trained him to fight. Optimus needed time to plot where he was, where he was going, how to shift things to step through the doorways in the universe--

A sigh from the observatory. "He is not getting the lesson."

"The stakes aren't high enough," Ratchet replied.

"Not high enough?" Major Lennox's voice carried just as well as the Cybertronians'.

"He's always learned best under pressure." Which was at once a fair assessment by Ratchet, and at the same time completely insulting--

A whisper of instinct had Optimus scramble to move as something sliced down from above him, Ironhide's cannon's switching to high gear and firing plasma--

He staggered, disoriented at the sudden change in view.

Across the field, Sideswipe looked up from where he knelt, sword cleaved deep into the sand where Optimus had been standing. He smirked. "Looks like the Hatchet was right, bossbot. You just needed some more motivation."

Ironhide, newly in front of Optimus, turned around to face him. His faceplates wore a half-smile of satisfaction. "Not bad, for a rookie. Wanna see if you can repeat that move?"

"Yes," Jetstorm called from his position. "Be doing that again. Ten times!"

***

In another universe, Mikaela is pretty sure, she would have bounced from lousy boyfriend to lousy boyfriend and ended up a stripper. One of her neighbors back in Pasadena did that for a living, and she was perfectly nice, but, still, it's not the life Mikaela ever wanted for herself.

Of course, she hadn't ever dreamed of this, either. Who could have?

Leaning against the railing, she watched, smiling, as the other Autobots tag-teamed Optimus, forcing him to refine his skill at flicker-and-vanishing. They were fighting seriously, and she knew for a fact that his weapons were locked down, inaccessible. She had helped Ratchet do it.

"Good, good," Jetstorm muttered to himself, nodding. He stood as Optimus teleported one more time, reappearing behind Ratchet and Sideswipe. "That is ten!" the Seeker called. "Enough practice for tonight. We will resume again tomorrow."

If Optimus was human, Mikaela thought, would be heaving deep breaths right now. She watched him wobble, trying to regain his physical and mental balance. Sam had told her about the epic forest battle that got Optimus killed. But seeing something like this herself, with no panic and adrenaline and fear of imminent death, was incredible. It was almost like a dance, and it seemed somehow off to think of him like that, but the Prime was almost graceful at it.

Didn't mean his troops didn't run him ragged, though.

"Aww..." Sideswipe protested the cessation of his playtime. Without looking at one another, both Ratchet and Optimus extended a hand and slapped him upside the head.

Ironhide's cannons charged up again. "Who said training's over, ya brat?" he demanded as Optimus and Ratchet hastily cleared the field.

Sideswipe grinned. "Game on," he declared.

***

"You better come up with something good to give him," Sam said, "or Simmons will totally MiB your ass."

"Simmons?" Sharsky looked up from his work.

Sam smirked. His eyes didn't leave Leo's. He nodded at Leo. "His new boss." He paused for effect. "RoboWarrior."

Leo's growl of "Sam..." was overridden by Sharsky jumping up and demanding "What?!" even as Fassbinder knocked his chair over backward, yelling "You work for that freaking bastard?!"

***

Perceptor did not believe in luck. Rather, he believed in rationality. In science. In cause and effect.

His compatriots and the humans could cling to their mystical and religious leanings; he cared not. For him, it was enough to have the mystery of Optimus solved; being created a Prime, of course he had risen from obscurity into his current position.

The mystery of Samuel Witwicky, however, remained an intriguing enigma. Certain things fell logically into sequence. Upon his arrival on this planet, Bumblebee had researched possible sightings of Megatron and the Allspark, and found records of Captain Witwicky. He had sequentially hunted down the man's descendants, looking for any clues they might possess. Samuel had been toward the bottom of the list, but definitely on it. He had possessed the artifacts they needed; his participation in the battle of Las Vegas had therefore been a logical, natural conclusion to the sequence of events.

What was not logical was the insight the human youngling had shown, using the Cube to destroy Megatron rather than Optimus; that had been a bold example of lateral thinking, the like of which the Autobots had been fortunate to encounter.

Still, that should have been the end of his involvement in their war. Upon his cutting ties with the Autobots two years later, Samuel Witwicky should have stepped out of their lives entirely.

Instead he had been the indirect cause of Optimus' death and the direct cause of his resurrection. He had received the complete knowledge of the Allspark. He had been altered in ways unknown to his birth species. He had become a Prime.

One did not simply become a Prime. One was created to it, or one was not. There was no middle ground.

Which implied that Samuel Witwicky had been, like Optimus, an unknowing Prime since his birth.

Perceptor did not yet know the explanation for this. It bothered him.

It was remotely possible that Archibald Witwicky's encounter with Megatron had altered his DNA. Samuel's ancestor Irving had been conceived after Archibald's encounter with the Decepticon. But even so, Megatron had not been a Prime, and Archibald had never been near the Allspark.

How, then, had a human been born a Prime?

***

Sam, Leo had concluded, was a douche.

After his roomie had left to collect Hound and Mirage and go in the direction of some Chinese takeout for dinner, Leo managed to calm down Sharsky and Fassbinder, ordered pizza, and brainstormed with his bros.

"So they come in like comets?" Fassbinder was on his second slice of the Zookeeper's Special. The pizza was held, folded in half, in his right hand while the fingers of his left drummed lightly on his keyboard, rattling the keys.

"We gotta look for weird comet sightings, then," Sharsky mused.

The three of them stopped and looked at one another. "Tunguska!" Leo and Sharsky said. "Cyrillids!" Fassbinder said.

They looked at him. "Cyrillids?" Leo asked.

Fassbinder huffed and shoved his pizza into his mouth, pulling the laptop closer and typing. He finished, turned the monitor toward them, took the slice out of his mouth. "February ninth and tenth, 1913. Year after the Titanic went down. A series of weird meteors over North America. Not too well-known because there was a hell of a lot of cloud cover those two days. But tell me if this doesn't sound suspicious."

Leo and Sharsky leaned forward and browsed the Wikipedia article. It was simplistic, and they'd need to do a hell of a lot more digging for anything concrete, but....

"Sounds like the aftermath of a sci-fi space battle," Sharsky admitted. "Like somebody being chased."

Leo rolled his eyes and punched his comrade in the shoulder. "Stop rewatching A New Hope."

"Carrie Fisher is hot!"

"So not the point, nerfherder." Leo looked at the screen again. "Okay, so we got this. And we got Tunguska. Anything else, compadres?"

Fassbinder looked at him, resentment write large across his face. "Dude, you were the one who took Astronomy."

"Sue me for being distracted by meeting real aliens!"

***

Mirage savored the complex, spicy aftertastes of the Chinese food as she and Hound and Sam strolled back toward campus. The sensation of taste was one of those things which made her grateful she had chosen to follow Hound's path in acquiring organic-simulation structural modifications and processing algorithms. Taste was, by and large, one of the senses which Cybertronians had entirely bypassed in favor of plain chemical analysis suites. It was something of a pity; having the experience of taste and smell, she now felt, enriched one's experience of the universe.

Even if she sometimes thought Hound had his sensors calibrated too high. Understanding other life forms was one thing; attempting to become them was something else entirely.

Still, she would quite definitely enjoy curling up in his seats and linking with Trailbreaker later, giving him access to these flavors. She thought he would enjoy them; he had seldom disdained any of the vicarious information her and Hound's broader sensor suites allowed them.

"We should go there again," she said.

Hound grinned sideways at her. "Actually, I was thinking... you ever tried Thai?" he asked Sam.

Sam shook his head. "Nope. You found a restaurant?"

"Isn't that cuisine reputed to be rather spicy?" asked Mirage.

"Ayup."

Sam looked thoughtful, then shrugged. "I'm a SoCal guy. If I can't take Thai, I haven't been eating enough Mexican."

Later she would wonder if, as they crossed one of the broad green spaces on the campus, there had been any warning. If there had been some sign she should have picked up on. If she had been too distracted by her new repairs, or by thinking that it hadn't been long enough for the Decepticons to muster another attempt.

Instead, she was knocked back by an explosion of air. In the nanoseconds it took Mirage to regain her equilibrium, a dark hand reached down and snatched Sam up from where he was lying, also flattened, between her and Hound.

It took precious microseconds to bring her weapons online, to screech a call across commlines, to fire in tandem with her partner. Microseconds that the Decepticon used to pull Sam into the air and transform around him.

The jet, no Earthly form she was familiar with, blasted into the sky accompanied by two sets of tires screeching, two transformation sequences, blasts being fired that didn't hit the jet, then--

"They've got Sam!"

Bumblebee froze at Hound's words.

Above them, the dark jet escaped Earth's atmosphere.

*~*~*

A/N: My apologies for taking so long on this chapter, but life got away from me. My commitments to my original novel, as well as to costuming, absorbed my mental energies for months. If anyone is interested in guessing where I am going, the Tunguska Event and the Cyrillids are both going to be plot-relevant. Eventually.