Transformers, page 14
“No.” For the first time all day, Sam’s voice was normal, relaxed. Reaching out, he extended a hand toward the ’bot.
As they stared at the robot and Sam reached out to experimentally caress its gleaming metal skin, they failed to notice the lights that sprang to life within what for the past several moments had been a dark, inert skull. Sprouting tiny centipede-like legs, the decapitated head rose up slightly to take stock of its surroundings. Its attention fixed on an object that had been dumped in the dirt: Mikaela’s purse. Skittering over to it, Frenzy’s head began to transcan the contents. Lipstick, useless. Glasses, no good. Pen, insufficiently complex.
Sidekick. Limited storage capability, small and decidedly primitive, but sufficiently adaptable. As soon as it completed the transcan, Frenzy kicked the actual device into a pile of rubble and out of sight. Transformation ensued. The result was that it became an exact duplicate of the now-banished device. Unseen, it worked its way into the open purse like a tarantula backing into its lair, withdrew its legs, and went dormant. Like the rest of its fellow Decepticons it had waited for the forthcoming Resolution for thousands of years.
It could wait a little longer.
Sam and robot stared at each other as a still-uneasy Mikaela looked on.
“What now?” she murmured curiously, never taking her gaze from the machine that loomed over them.
“I think—I think it wants something from me.” His attention focused on the dark lenses that seemed to stare back into his own eyes.
“Like what?” she whispered. “What could something like this want from someone like you?”
“I’m not sure.” He looked over to where the erstwhile police cruiser lay silent and unmoving beneath the heavy wrecking ball. “But the other one kept asking about my eBay page.”
As much as she wanted to, she was unable to make sense of his reply. “What’s up with that? You selling batteries or something?”
Cocking his head to one side, Sam studied the robot’s head. “Can you—talk? Communicate? In words we could understand?”
The yellow apparition shook its head from side to side. That, at least, was comprehensible enough, Sam thought. So, too, was the voice of an unknown DJ that suddenly poured forth from within the machine. “XM satellite radio, a hundred and thirty digital channels of nonstop, commercial-free music, news, and entertainment!”
“I think it talks through the stereo,” Sam told a staring Mikaela. “Or at least, it can channel commercial broadcasts and try to filter content to convey what it means.” In response, applause echoed from the robot.
Nothing to lose by trying to get some more information, Sam decided. “What were you doing out last night? I thought you were being stolen. I followed you and saw you send something up into the sky.”
The sound of a radio evangelist’s sermon filled the air. “And a mighty voice will send a message, summoning forth visitors from Heaven!”
Sam considered the possibilities. “You were calling someone? Or trying to?”
Mikaela found herself falling for the same notion. “ ‘Visitors from Heaven.’ ” She cast an involuntary glance skyward. “I don’t think it’s Japanese, Sam. I don’t think it’s from anywhere on our world.” She looked back at the silent machine. “What’re you, like, an alien or something?”
The machine—the individual—nodded and emitted a brief electronic squeak. As they stepped back and looked on, it shrank, shifted, transformed. Moments later, sitting before them once more was a by-now-familiar yellow Camaro. The doors swung wide and the horn beeped insistently.
“I think it wants us to get in.” Sam started toward the waiting vehicle.
Mikaela hesitated. “And go where?”
He glanced over at her. “I don’t know, but think about it. Fifty years from now when we’re looking back on our lives, don’t you wanna be able to say you had the guts to get in the car?” Advancing, he put a hand on the open driver’s-side door. It looked and felt exactly like a car door. “Besides, if it wanted to hurt us, why transform back and invite us to go for a ride? Why not stay allrobot and stomp us into the dirt right here?” He slipped in behind the wheel. Carefully, he took it in both hands. It remained steady and unmoving beneath his fingers.
Mikaela considered. It was still very empty in the abandoned industrial park. Looking around, she reached down and picked up her purse, then climbed in on the passenger side. The re-formed Camaro roared to life and headed out of the empty lot. As it left it sprayed gravel all over the motionless police cruiser where it lay smashed and unmoving beneath the heavy wrecking ball.
Once back on a busy city street, the Camaro slowed to comply with the prevailing speed limit. Tentatively leaning forward, Mikaela let one hand slide back and forth over the dash in front of her. Stained and sun-bleached, it felt exactly like dried-out old car upholstery.
“Wait a sec.” Even as she found herself addressing the car in which she was riding, she worried that somehow, somewhere, someone else might be listening. But the concern did not stop her. “If you can, like, reshape yourself, why’d you pick such a hoopty?” She eyed the scruffy interior. “I mean, you could be anything, right? So why this? Why not a Hummer, or a Ferrari?”
Brakes squealing, the car skidded to an abrupt halt. Both doors swung open, the car tilted sharply from side to side, and its occupants found themselves unceremoniously, though gently, dumped onto the pavement. Sam rose, started to brush at his clothes, and stopped when he realized the futileness of the gesture. Plutonium couldn’t get his torn jeans clean.
“Great. You hurt its feelings.”
She stepped back, away from the car. “What’s it doing now?”
As they looked on, the car’s windshield morphed into a screen. Imaging beams scanned the street, bouncing from car to car, traveling farther than either of the occupants could see. They settled on a brand-new, fully customized Camaro GTO. Simple scanning beams were replaced by more complex transcanner waves. A moment later and the Camaro was transforming again, reshaping itself before Sam’s and Mikaela’s wide eyes. Metal contorted, flowed, folded in upon itself. But not into the shape of a robot this time. When the process finally concluded, it was a different vehicle that stood before them. An exact duplicate of the distant GTO, except for one difference. It was the same bright yellow as before and sported identical black racing stripes.
Mikaela’s expression did a little transforming of its own, changing from one of awe to outright admiration. She took a step toward the freshly morphed vehicle, admiring it openly.
“Now this is a car.”
Sam couldn’t repress a huge grin. Other than the fact that he had been arrested and accused of being a dope addict; chased by his own car, which he was sure was intent on killing him; attacked, interrogated, and nearly killed by a giant alien robot—life had never been better.
Mikaela turned to him. “It’s waiting on us. Where’re we going?”
Walking back to the driver’s side, admiring every glimmer of light bouncing off the blemish- and ding-free bright yellow paint job, Sam slid in behind a shining custom steering wheel. “I’m not sure about the final destination, but I think I’ve found my adventure.”
Metal of a different kind blasted from multiple speakers as the transformed car sped off. On the front seat Mikaela slid a little closer toward Sam. Her purse lay between them. Picking it up, she tossed it casually into the backseat.
Intent on each other, on the wicked performance of the transformed Camaro, and on the road ahead, neither driver nor passenger noticed the glowing eyes that peered out over the rim of the purse.
Except for a Spartan metal table and its attendant chairs, there was little in the room. It had been laid out to accommodate people but not to comfort them. Quite the contrary.
Two of the chairs were occupied by Maggie Madsen and Glen Whitmann. The table was occupied by a plate of doughnuts and other pastries, a pitcher of water, and some glasses. Enough time had passed for Glen to have worked his way through five of the doughnuts. While not his beloved Fruity Pebbles, they had sufficed for a temporary sugar fix.
“Look,” he whispered to her, crumbs dribbling from his chin and lower lip as he spoke, “do not say one word. I know how these guys work. It’s just like in the movies. They’re gonna try and play us against each other. And don’t fall for the good cop, bad cop thing. We gotta stick together, okay?” He reached toward the plate. “Bear claw?”
His hand froze halfway to the pastry as the room’s single windowless door opened, admitting light and an FBI agent from the hallway outside. The visitor was big, his expression intimidating. His resolve crumpling like a Twinkie, Glen quickly pushed himself and his chair away from his associate.
“Oh, she did it!” he declared, pointing. “She’s the one you want! It’s all her. I’ll turn state’s evidence, wear a wire, whatever you need!”
Maggie whirled on him, outraged. “You freak!”
He was practically blubbering now. Or on the verge of throwing up. Or both.
“I’m not going to jail for you, or anybody! I haven’t done anything really bad in my entire life!” His voice fell to a self-pitying whisper. “I’m still a virgin! Okay, maybe I downloaded thirty-two hundred illegal songs off Napster and hacked the CIA once—okay, a lot—but all I wanted was a free badge, I’ll give it back and—”
“GLEN, SHUT UP!” Maggie roared.
Normally that would have worked. In a Starbucks, at work, in a taxi, on the street, he would have complied, would have zipped his lip. Being handcuffed, arrested, and thrown into a government interrogation room without being told what the charges were against him, however, had stiffened his backbone somewhat—even if the stiffening had come about because he was frozen with fear.
“No, you shut up! Criminal!” He blinked suddenly and had to grab at the table to steady himself. “Whoa, something—in the doughnuts …”
She shook her head at the sad sight he presented. “Yeah—sugar. You ate like twelve!” Without missing a beat she turned to the agent, who had been observing the byplay with the same phlegmatic detachment as the recording device he no doubt wore concealed somewhere on his person.
“Listen to me,” she growled dangerously. “They downloaded a file; something about some old sea captain named Witwicky. Glen and I found it embedded in the material that was downloaded. I don’t know what it means, but if it’s that important to whoever’s behind all this then it’s important to us. And while I’m no linguist, I don’t think Witwicky is a Korean or Russian or Chinese name. You gotta tell Keller before we go to war with the wrong country!” The agent did not respond, and his expression did not change. Next to her Glen was surreptitiously searching his pockets for a pain pill. Her teeth clenched as she regarded him with a mixture of pity and contempt.
“If you throw up, man, it better be in a direction I ain’t.”
The completely done-over Camaro finally pulled to a stop at a pullout on the highest road near town. Doors opened and the two passengers climbed out. Sam expected the car’s intermittently edifying radio to offer up a suggestive song, or at least an informative one. But the speakers stayed silent.
Mikaela stayed close, but not as close as Sam would have liked. He didn’t press matters. For one thing, he was afraid that if he took her hand she would take it right back. For another, he was plain afraid to try. Figuring that at this point he was way ahead of the game, he chose to walk alongside her while maintaining a respectful distance. Look but don’t touch. For now, at this time of day, that would do. Watching her, he was filled with the same degree of wonder he had felt when his car had stood up on two transformed legs. Just a different kind of wonder, that’s all.
Head tilted back, she was staring up at the night sky. “Uh, Sam …?”
Reluctantly, he looked away from her and upward. Blobs and streaks of light were illuminating the clouds from within. There was no thunder, so they could not be caused by lightning. Which meant they had to be caused by—something else.
“That just doesn’t look right,” he heard himself murmuring.
As they both looked on, what appeared to be a small comet struck the atmosphere sharply, shattering into five pieces. Or perhaps shatter was a disproportionate description. Separate would have been more accurate. It was also impossible. Comets did not separate when they struck atmosphere.
One segment of whatever it was slammed into the hillside atop which they had parked, barely a couple of fields away. Trees snapped, brush ignited, and dirt and rock flew in all directions as the piece of sky ground to a halt. The force of the impact shook the ground beneath their feet. Instinctively, Mikaela grabbed Sam and clutched him tightly. He responded automatically. Only when the piece of comet had come to a complete stop did they realize what they were doing. The same thoughts occurring to them simultaneously, they hurriedly parted and stepped back from each other.
“Sorry,” she mumbled, unsure why she was apologizing.
Sam couldn’t meet her eyes. Wanted to, but couldn’t. The feel of her against him still lingered in his mind. “It’s cool,” he stammered. As they considered what had just happened and how to proceed, other pieces of the mysterious falling object were drawing attention elsewhere.
From patrons to participants, the attention of the crowd in the packed stadium was drawn away from the game being played down on the field and upward toward the flaming object that seemed to pass directly overhead, to crash into the ground not far away.
In a café in town two teens the same age as Sam and Mikaela were clowning around with each other and with their food as a third friend filmed them with a compact video camera. The background changed radically when the windows imploded as something massive and glowing slammed into the street. While his friends screamed and panicked, the youth with the camera rushed toward the confusion to try to get it all recorded. Instead of flames and fear, his thoughts were filled with visions of network exposure and large royalty checks.
On another, lower hillside in an exclusive subdivision a peculiar thunderclap roused a five-year-old girl from her bed. Walking to the window of her bedroom, she was just in time to see something splash into the family pool, sending chlorinated water and a couple of inflatable water toys flying in all directions. Eyes widening, she whirled and raced back to her bed. From beneath the pillow she pulled out a single baby tooth, held it up, and smiled broadly as she inspected the wayward dentition. Her grin unequivocally revealed the tooth’s recent previous location.
This time Sam and Mikaela experienced a good deal less anxiety if no less amazement as they watched the Camaro transform itself back into the robotic humanoid shape. With the mechanoid leading the way, they followed a trail of flaming brush and vitreous scree down the hill until they came to a ditch where one of the falling stars had landed. When they finally reached the site, nothing concealed the still-smoking object from their view.
Mikaela came up close to Sam. “Y’know, maybe we should be walking fast in the other direction.”
Pushing aside the few branches that had not been snapped off or stomped flat by the yellow-and-black robot breaking trail in front of them, a thoughtful Sam disagreed.
“I think if there was any danger, he would have stopped us from coming with him.”
“Oh, that’s fine,” she shot back. “I didn’t realize you two were on speaking terms now.” She eyed the back of the powerful machine. “Especially since it—since he can’t speak.”
“C’mon,” he urged her. “Aren’t you curious to see what he is?”
“I’m curious about how an acetylene torch works, too,” she murmured tensely. “I just don’t go sticking my nose into the flame.”
The argument ended then, because they had reached its source. Embedded in the earth at the bottom of the ravine and directly in front of them, a complex knot of steaming metal dripped white-hot silvery beads. Standing yards away, they could feel the heat coming off the object. As they looked on, the globs of liquid metal retraced their path, blending back into and being absorbed by the globe much as a ball of pure mercury would soak up smaller spheres. When the glistening orb began to crack open like a giant metal egg, the two teens stepped back behind the yellow robot they now thought of as a friend and protector.
From within the sphere a metallic leg emerged. It was followed by a second, then by a pair of arms. A silhouette began to rise, higher and higher against the still-flaming, crackling scrub, until it was nearly thirty feet tall. Unmoved by the sight, their own mechanical companion stood nearby, as if waiting for something more. Despite what he had told Mikaela earlier Sam began to wonder if maybe they ought to start looking for some bigger trees. Just in case they had to take shelter behind something other than his transformed car.
The immense shape that had emerged from the silvery egg started to turn toward them. Its attention was drawn away from the two teens by a blast from an eighteen-wheeler barreling down the road above the ravine. Turning in the direction of the sound, the newly arrived alien mechanoid instantly and efficiently transcanned the big truck as it slowed to take a sharp curve. The process did not affect or alert either the truck or its oblivious driver. By the time the night-running transport had sped on past, a second, identical truck was facing Sam and Mikaela from the depths of the ravine.
Okay, he found himself thinking with a detachment that stunned him. So Camaros aren’t the only thing these creatures can change themselves into. From within the ravine the “truck’s” engine growled. It sounded just like a Detroit diesel, only with something added, he decided. It was diesel-plus. Diesel transformed.
Angry diesel.
The downtown street being vacant, there was no one to admire the exotic sports car as it rotated slowly on the turntable in the showroom window. Lumbering up to the glass, the alien exoskeleton was clearly not a potential customer. Not to purchase, perhaps, but in this case to copy. Transcan beams swept over every inch of the low-slung vehicle, recording it down to the last molecule of overpriced paint.
