Transformers, page 13
“TELL THEM TO STAY ON THE PLASTIC!”
Pedaling furiously on his mom’s bike toward his best friend’s house, it ultimately occurred to Sam to look behind him. He didn’t want to, but he felt he had no choice. It would have been better for his already disturbed state of mind if he had trusted his instincts.
Sure enough, there was the Camaro, trailing him while maintaining a distance of about a block between them.
“Ohgodohgodohgod,” he breathed fearfully as he raced around a corner, not daring to look back to see if he had managed to lose his car. Glancing back, he whipped around a second corner.
In the process nearly running over Mikaela as she was coming out of the Burger King with friends. At the last possible instant he managed to swerve, rather neatly avoiding her but alas, not the tree that took her place immediately in front of him. He slammed into it and went down, tumbling off the bike and landing hard on his side. Aware that he was under surveillance, he scrambled to get back on his feet.
Mikaela, thankfully, was more concerned than angry. “Oh my God! Sam?” A wide grin spread across her face. “That was awesome.”
He took an unsteady step and nearly went down again. “Feels awesome.”
Her look of admiration turned to one of concern. “You hit pretty hard. You okay?”
Beyond her and up the street the Camaro was easing into view. It stopped partway around the far corner. Idling. Probably sizing him up. Still dazed from the collision with the tree, he felt sure he could hear it growling softly.
“No, not okay! Losing my mind. Gotta go!” Not even trying to hide his terror, he yanked the bike upright and sped off as fast as he could push the pedals. Mikaela’s friends began whispering among themselves. She ignored them, choosing instead to follow Sam until he had pedaled out of sight. Something was definitely wrong. It had to be, for him to risk being seen in public on a girl’s pink bike.
She wouldn’t find out what was the matter standing there swapping giggles and goggle-eyes with her “friends.” Her Vespa was parked nearby. Sliding onto the seat, she keyed the ignition and pulled out into the street—barely avoiding being run over by the police cruiser that came screaming past, its sirens howling. Breathing hard, struggling to maintain her balance on the scooter, she found that she was too stunned by the uncharacteristic near miss to hurl insults at the rapidly receding cop car. It had gone by her so fast that she had barely had time enough to catch a glimpse of the forward-facing, expressionless, neatly mustachioed driver.
How Sam ended up in the parking lot under the freeway overpass he was not sure. He knew only that he found himself wishing he had turned right instead of left at the last main intersection. On the other side of the lot a familiar yellow Camaro kept pace easily, paralleling his progress. Straightening and rising out of the bike seat, he used his weight on the pedals, putting everything he had into a last-ditch effort to lose his tormentor.
So focused was he on the Camaro that he failed to see the police car that had parked directly in front of him. The driver’s-side door swung open sharply, and he ran right into it. This time he hit the ground much harder than he had in front of the Burger King. Wincing in pain, he slowly peeled himself off the pavement. Fear gave way quickly to anger as he stumbled around to the front of the cruiser, unaware as yet that the vehicle he had run into was a police car.
“That hurt. That was so lame. This is like the worst day ever!” As his vision cleared the details of the vehicle began to register and his mood changed dramatically from anger to thankfulness. “Oh, Officer, thank God! You’re not gonna believe this, but my car’s trying to kill me.” The vague shape seated behind the wheel did not move, did not respond. Sam squinted, his perception slightly blurred by the lights revolving steadily atop the cruiser’s roof.
“Hel-lo? Are you listening to me?” Still no response. Fear and frustration overcoming good judgment, he slammed his fists down on the hood. The police car responded by jerking forward and knocking him backward. Sitting on the ground, the car looming over him, it struck him that he might have acted a tad rashly.
“Sorry,” he began, genuinely scared, “no disrespect inten—”
Before he could finish, the headlight covers swung open and the glaring bare bulbs telescoped outward like the illuminated heads of a pair of glassy eyeless serpents, halting only inches from his face. Seconds later they rose skyward as the rest of the car transformed into a sixteen-foot-tall bipedal loosely humanoid robot. Enormous metal fingers reached downward.
Scrambling backward, he somehow skidded just out of their reach as the blunt tips slammed into the asphalt. Pavement cracked, spiderwebbing in all directions away from the metal fingertips. On his feet now, Sam found that he was not nearly as fatigued as he had previously thought. He was running like hell, running for his life. When he looked back over a shoulder, he saw that the thing was coming after him.
“OH SHIT! OH SHIT! OH SHIT!” His repeated exclamations might not have been graded well in debate class, but they fully expressed how he was feeling at the moment.
Swinging around and down in a broad, swift arc, the gigantic hand struck him square in the back and lifted him right off the ground, sending him flying into the windshield of a parked car. Glass cracked underneath him. Badly bruised, Sam slowly turned on the hood as the robot—that was the only definition for it that came to what was left of his mind—stomped toward him. If he’d had any energy left, he would have started crying.
“Bad dream, bad dream,” he mumbled over and over. “Pleasepleaseplease lemme just wake up!”
He tried to shrink back into the splintered but not shattered windshield as the mechanism that had taken the name Barricade leaned over him. Massive metal fists smashed into the car on either side of Sam, effortlessly mashing fenders and support steel, splintering plastics and shattering glass. This destruction was accompanied by a pair of awful, loud bangs—the front tires exploding. Following which Sam was sure he heard a voice. Though the words that reverberated in his ears were perfectly lucid and understandable, they contained not a shred of humanity.
“ARE YOU ‘USERNAME’ LADIESMAN TWO-SEVENTEEN?”
“What?” His heart threatening to explode out of his chest and make its own way toward the street, Sam had no choice but to meet that overpowering artificial gaze. “I—yeah?”
“WHERE IS EBAY ITEM NUMBER TWO-ONE-ONE-FIVE-THREE?”
“Uh duh wah …”
Clearly patience was not among the personality traits that had been programmed into this particular robot. If possible, its tone turned darker and even more threatening.
“WHERE ARE YOUR ANCESTRAL ARTIFACTS?”
“I—I—have n-no idea what you’re ta-ta-talking ab-about …,” he managed to stammer.
The enormous, mallet-like fists rose into the air again. Sam started to close his eyes. His calf muscles twitched, he swallowed air—and leaped onto the roof of the badly damaged car. Sliding down the rear window and off the lid of the trunk, he hit the ground running. Emitting a metallic snarl, the Decepticon reached down with one hand and contemptuously flung the car aside as it started after its fleeing quarry.
Sam’s legs were rubber, his muscles Jell-O, his lungs on the verge of collapsing. He had about one block left in him, he knew. He still had half that left when he staggered around a corner and for the second time in less than an hour nearly collided with Mikaela. Only this time, she was on her Vespa. All three hit the ground together.
“Ow, my arm!” she blurted. Almost at the same time, she recognized who had nearly run her over. “Sam? What the hell’s wrong with you? What’s going on?”
“MIKAELA, YOU GOTTA GET UP, GOTTA GET UP NOW! MIKAELA, SERIOUSLY, RUN!”
She might have done so had her eyes not suddenly caught sight of the massive mechanical shape that was lurching directly toward them. Her lungs, however, had no trouble responding. The immediate signal from her brain said Scream, and she proceeded to do exactly that.
Sam had just taken her by the arm and was trying to drag her away when another machine roared into view: the Camaro. He barely managed to yank her out of its path as it did a forty-mile-per-hour power slide and smashed sideways into the oncoming metal behemoth, knocking it into a skid across the asphalt. Both passenger doors swung open as the song “Rescue Me” blared from the car’s speakers. Adding emphasis to the music’s message, the car’s horn began honking incessantly.
Across the pavement, the enormous robot was rising to its feet. After everything that had happened this morning, Sam’s decision was not an easy one to make, but he felt he had no choice but to worry about it later. If there was a “later.”
“GET IN THE CAR!” he yelled at Mikaela.
Entering from opposite sides, they dove into the front seat. As soon as they were in, the doors slammed behind them and the Camaro burned rubber peeling out. Falling behind, Barricade swiftly transformed back into its police cruiser persona and gave chase.
Not-police-car pursued not-Camaro through a manufacturing district that had seen far better days the previous century. The same neglect was evident in the vestiges of tracks and train yard that had once served the skeletal steel remains of now-silent industries. Anyone looking on would have seen an ordinary police vehicle chasing a beat-up old muscle car.
At least the police car was relatively ordinary until the side panels on the cruiser rose up like wings to reveal launching pods beneath each cradling metallic arc.
Explosions boiled up on either side of the Camaro as it swerved and dodged. Inside, Sam and Mikaela did not so much cuddle as get thrown into each other.
“This isn’t happening this is not happening!” she was screaming.
Try as she might, she could not convince Sam. After all, he’d had plenty of practice not believing in what was happening long before she had even become involved. He tried to take control. But no matter how hard he gripped the steering wheel, it simply slid through his fingers. He was reduced to pounding on it and shouting.
“Whatever, whoever, wherever you came from, just goooo!”
If possible, their eyes grew even wider than before as the Camaro approached a very solid-looking dead end. Both teens squeezed their eyes shut in anticipation of the imminent impact. But at the last possible minute the Camaro spun a perfect 180, turning to face the oncoming police cruiser.
Sam opened his eyes, wished he hadn’t. “Bad idea, bad idea! Such a bad idea right now!”
Tires squealed as the Camaro lurched forward. The police car did not slow a tick, continuing to launch small and very deadly missiles as it came onward. One sped past the evading Camaro’s left wheel as it avoided the oncoming projectile with preternatural nimbleness. Sam’s head snapped around as he caught a glimpse of the receding contrail.
“Was that a missile?”
“Yeah, I think so!” Mikaela mumbled numbly. A building detonated behind them and came crashing to the ground. Twisting around in her seat she returned her attention forward. Her tone was unchanged. “Uh-huh, yes, definitely a missile.”
At the last instant, both vehicles swerved, missing each other by millimeters. It was difficult to say which was louder: the squeal of sliding tires or the screams of the Camaro’s two terrified occupants. Screams gave way to grunts as doors opened and they found themselves ejected. They scrambled to stand up and would have run in any direction—except that they found themselves mesmerized by the sight that was unfolding immediately in front of them.
Emitting muted grinding and squealing noises, the Camaro was morphing right in front of their eyes. No changing in the shadows now, no attempt at subterfuge or mechanical dissembling. The robotic shape that emerged from the bulk that had been the Camaro was still the same light-blindingly bright yellow. It even sported, albeit in a radically different configuration, the black racing stripes that had originally caught Sam’s attention.
The robot charged at the simultaneously transforming Barricade. Unfortunately for the temporarily riveted teens, they happened to be standing directly between the two clashing machines. As the robots slammed into each other, a section of the erstwhile police cruiser’s chest popped opened to reveal an inner compartment. The compartment was not empty.
Springing out and away from the main combat, Frenzy’s spidery form clutched at the clothes of the two beleaguered young humans and spun them around. Sam’s transformed Camaro interceded immediately to protect them, knocking Frenzy aside while taking the brunt of Barricade’s charge, which sent the yellow robot tumbling backward. Rolling onto its feet, it charged straight at the transformed cruiser. As Barricade was knocked askew, one of its massive metal legs swung around parallel to the ground, swooshing through the air just over the ducking humans’ heads. Sam and Mikaela rolled and scrambled to put distance between themselves and the battling machines.
At least, Mikaela did. Something was holding Sam back, preventing him from fleeing. Looking around, he found himself eye-to-lens with a mechanical nightmare that had secured a firm grip on his jeans and was pulling him close to its insect-like jaws.
“Get it off, get it off! He’s got me, I’m gonna die!” Like Mikaela could do anything, he told himself wildly. The Terminator she was not. His frenzied, rapid kicks glanced off the indifferent mechanical monster. All that kicking did, however, allow him to wiggle out of his jeans. Freed, he managed to get to his feet. In shoes, socks, and boxers he turned to run after Mikaela. Unfazed, the mechanoid promptly leaped onto his back and head.
“HEY!”
Staggering under the weight of the clinging robot, Sam did not have time to wonder where Mikaela had found the power saw. Looking past her, he saw an open chest from which a dozen other tools protruded like metal flowers. Given a choice of the available gear, he would have opted for the oversized hammer. Did that make him less masculine than Mikaela?
Deep psychological issues were not on her mind as she came forward, holding the howling saw out in front of her. “Why don’t you come after me, you anorexic metal freak!”
Responding to the more dangerous threat, Frenzy let go of Sam and leaped at her. Mikaela swung the saw wildly. Since she had no idea where it was going to go, the robot had no way of predicting its arc. Amazingly, it made contact. There was a brief but very loud grinding noise. One of the attacking robot’s arms went flying. Having picked up a loose length of rebar, Sam charged the machine from behind and began battering wildly at the bot’s head. No one was more surprised than he when the protruding appendage came loose. A couple more hacking swings and it lay on the ground, severed from the main body and twitching spastically. Sucking in air in long, pained gasps, Sam stood over it. He could not have put into words how good, how great, how freakin’ wonderful it felt after being chased all day to have finally been able to fight back.
Well behind them now, Barricade had transformed back into a police cruiser. Employing the added velocity of its adopted terrestrial form, it burned rubber and charged. The Camaro-turned-robot waited, waited—and then stepped aside. At the same time it undercut a nearby crane. Hanging from the crane’s arm was a solid steel wrecking ball. The crane missed the oncoming Barricade, but the wrecking sphere did not. It smashed square into the roof of the charging cruiser, stopping the vehicle as cold as if it had run head-on into a solid wall. Flashing police lights and their protective plastic splintered and went flying in all directions.
Ignoring the vehicular mayhem taking place behind him, Sam glared down at the twitching mechanical form. “Not so tough without a body, are ya?” He took a victorious kick at the head he had just detached.
Both kick and victory turned out to be premature. The metal mouth promptly clamped down onto his foot. Dancing around in a panic, he tried to dislodge the clinging metal skull.
“Get it off, get it off!”
Coming loose, his shoe went flying with the bot head still firmly attached to it. Mikaela came up beside him.
“Sam—chill! It’s okay, it’s off.” She leaned around to stare into his face. Eyes met. Chaos and cataclysm receded—a little.
They realized that the sound of metal-on-metal combat had stopped. Both turned toward the place where the two much-larger skirmishing robots had rolled while they had been battling the spider-thing. A shape began to emerge from the dust and wreckage, coming in their direction. Sam held his breath, then slowly exhaled.
The shape was the color of the sun. A black-striped sun.
Standing over the now-silent scene of battle, the robot reached down to pick something out of the dirt. Extending a limb, it offered this to Sam. His jeans. Filthy and torn, but an improvement over his boxers.
“Uh, thanks.” Awed by the machine standing silently only feet away, he hurriedly struggled back into his pants. Next to him, Mikaela’s stare as she gazed up at the mechanoid was no less rapt.
“What is it?”
Sam had already come to a decision. Maybe it wasn’t founded on solid science, but it was good enough for him. And there was no one around to contradict him.
“Looks like a robot. Moves like a robot. If it could talk, I have this feeling it would talk like a robot. So I think it’s a robot. But like—superadvanced. Way beyond the stuff they use to assemble cars or sell in RadioShack. Probably Japanese,” he decided impulsively. “Gotta be Japanese. They love the things.” Full of wonderment, he took a couple of steps toward the hulking machine.
Mikaela gawked. “What are you doing? This thing didn’t come out of a cereal box!”
Gleaming yellow, the robot responded by taking a step toward the approaching Sam. The head inclined downward in his direction. Sam found himself smiling. He’d been wrong from the get-go. His car hadn’t been trying to hurt him. It had been doing—something else.
“I don’t think it’s gonna hurt us.”
Mikaela’s eyes kept flicking between her companion and the massive machine that was now standing within arm’s reach. “Oh yeah? You speak ‘robot’ now? ’Cause this one just participated in, like, a droid death match. Maybe it’s only intermission. Maybe we’re the second round.”
