The sign miles back had said "Welcome to Colorado, The Centennial State" but it might as well have said "Welcome to Colorado, We Eat Babies" for all the attention Nic gave it. It wasn't even noon on her twenty-first birthday and she had played chicken with a tornado. Somewhere up in Heaven, she just knew, Eugene Darling was laughing his ass off.
"Nic? ...can you understand me?" Having been silent since the tornado, Whiplash's voice was hesitant.
She mentally shook herself out of the lingering shock. "Uh-- yeah?"
"Good. I was... concerned," he replied, audibly relieved. "You said I wasn't making sense. I was afraid my language data had become irreparably corrupt. My inception was that I was speaking normally."
Nic frowned. Whiplash's little word problem was becoming less of a cute, harmless quirk. What she had heard during the tornado was "Dust fold gone, miss pay hit a brittle gruff" turning a penchant for malapropism into full-blown word salad. She'd been too distracted at the time-- tornado and Decepticon and all-- to think about what he'd intended to say. He seemed to be doing better now, but... "Whiplash? Do you want me to keep letting you know when you do it? I don't want to annoy you but if you don't realize you're doing it..."
"Yes," he said immediately. "I need to correct the errors."
"Okay, well, just then you said inception when I think you meant perception."
He made a noise, a certain mechanical blip she was coming to suspect was a Cybertronian expletive. "They don't even mean the same thing. This is maddening; diagnostics say there's nothing wrong with the data. I hope there is a competent medic in Optimus Prime's contingent. My diagnostic subroutines are obviously shot."
"Maybe it was the connection," she suggested. "You used what we call dial-up. It's not known for being very fast--"
A tinny snort from her robot friend.
"-- or reliable. Maybe that's why the data's all nuts." She thought for a second. "Maybe if we found a wi-fi hotspot?"
"Wi...fi?"
"A wireless connection. Usually pretty fast."
"Transmitted through airwaves, then. My receivers are destroyed, remember?"
And she supposed any net café owner would take a dim view of having a space robot peel open a Dell and chew on the modem. "Well, damn."
"Indeed."
Though the noise of wind and engine masked it, Nic felt her stomach pucker and gurgle. Whiplash's senses proved sharper: "Nic, your abdomen just emitted an odd noise."
She laughed. "Probably because all I had for breakfast was a cup of weak OJ." Now that she was paying attention, she felt slightly shaky, likely a combination of lack of food and the harrowing escape from Ravage by way of (holy crap) a tornado. "I need to get some food in me soon or I'll be in a bad way."
"You refuel in such small increments," he commented. "Perhaps you should take in enough to last for several days. Then we would only need stop to recharge."
"It, uh, doesn't work that way with us humans, Whip." She rolled her eyes. "Our bodies are a big balancing act. Too much of something good is bad, too little of something good is bad. If I gorge I could make myself sick, and we'd end up stopping for me to puke or something."
"Puke. Surely I have that word's definition wrong."
"Probably not."
"That's-- forgive me, that's disgusting."
"It's the human body's way of getting rid of something that might be harmful. Or a reaction to something disturbing. And yeah, it is disgusting." Hunger warred with the subject matter, and she made a face. She scanned the Interstate roadside for signs of an upcoming exit. "Less puke talk, please, more finding a burger joint."
"Joint?"
"It's an idiom. Slang," she explained. "It means a certain place."
Whiplash made a peculiar warbling hum. "A joint is a connection between parts, but also a location. What a language. No wonder I am having trouble." He sounded amused, so she assumed the warble was his equivalent to laughter.
"Heh. Yeah, slang does tend to be a little... weird. Like..." She giggled. "mind your p's and q's and let sleeping dogs lie, and everything'll be gravy and coming up roses, right as rain."
"You're making that up," Whiplash accused, another warble in his undertone.
"'Fraid not. Don't you have slang terms in your native language?"
"Yes, most of them being insults or invective of some sort. I've been called a glitch, scrap, a malfunction... or 'rrrrn-ksht[click]' more than once by Decepticon fliers." He paused. "The closest translation would be 'one who is stuck on the ground.'"
Flying Decepticons now. Nic craned her neck, scanning the sky, but it was only clear, uninterrupted blue, as if to make up for the almost-detour to Oz earlier.
"Well, right now, I'd like to be 'one who is filled with food'," Nic said, nudging gently at the handlebars. Whiplash bent to her direction, banking gently to an off-ramp where signs promised food and fuel at the crossroads of highway and interstate. The insignias of gas stations reminded her: "Hey, what do you run on?"
"My legs."
Okay, now he's just being smartass. "I mean, what do you refuel with?"
He made a noise, another word in the mechanical language, a multi-toned hum. "I'm not sure how to describe it to you." He paused. "My systems are currently at sixty-two point six percent power. It will be some time before I need to replenish my reserves, so for now it is only your fuel tank that needs attention."
It was a decent truck stop, as truck stops went. A general store, a modest greasy spoon that wasn't too greasy, and a shower facility to boot. Sam had braved the showers first, reporting to Mikaela that it was clean, private, and even had a separate ladies' side, which was welcome news, since despite Sam's threat of dire B.O. neither teen wanted to stink up Bumblebee's interior.
Mikaela leaned back, propping herself on her elbows on the picnic table behind her. She wondered, did he even mind human body odor?
Something to ask when the robot 'woke up', she mused, gazing at the scratched and dented yellow and black vehicle parked nearby. Bumblebee was in deep recharge, basking in the bright sunlight to boost the regenerative process. After several hours, some of the smaller scratches had noticeably smoothed over, which did much to reassure Mikaela that Bumblebee's injuries weren't serious. She knew the fight with this Buzzsaw bastard could have gone a lot worse.
So they had cruised on through the night, finally stopping here, just past Denver, at dawn, Bumblebee explaining through snippets of song that he would recover much faster making good use of solar power. At least, that was what she and Sam had gotten from "--I'll find a place to rest-- *fshht* -- recharge your batteries-- *fzzss* --Iiiiiiii'm gonna soak up the suuuuuuun-- *kshh*-- Give me a few hours, I'll have this all sorted out--"
Sam was now in the diner procuring some food for the both of them. They had taken turns leaving Bumblebee for showering, by some unspoken consensus loath to leave their friend alone even in this relative safety.
"That had better contain caffeine," she commented, seeing Sam approach with a pair of drinks and a paper sack tucked under an arm.
"If it doesn't, the sugar's going to do the trick anyway." He set the food down on the table and didn't quite contain a yawn. "I think this is some funky off-brand cola, just so you're forewarned."
Mikaela let loose her own yawn, prompted by Sam's. "Nyaaah. Don't do that. I didn't sleep at all."
"Me neither," Sam confessed. "Kept waiting for Buzzard to drop down outta the sky."
"Buzzsaw," Mikaela corrected, pawing through the bag for a paper-wrapped burger.
"No, I'm pretty sure any jackhole who takes potshots at us deserves to be called Buzzard." Sam took a thoughtful pull on his drink and sat down next to her. "And I'm being polite." Unwrapping his own burger, he gestured at Bumblebee. "How's he doing?"
"Still doing his best car impression. Some of the dents popped while you were getting food." She stole a few french fries from him. For a few minutes they both ate in silence, then she asked, "So... have you thought about what you're going to tell your folks?"
"About?" Sam blinked confusedly for a second. "Oh. Bee. Man, I was doing a good job of avoiding the issue 'till you said something."
Mikaela rolled her eyes and draped an arm around his shoulders on the pretext of stealing more fries. "Sorry."
"Are you going to tell your dad?"
"I'm not the one who has an inexplicably hot car parked in my driveway."
"Inexplicably?" Sam arched an eyebrow. "What, a guy like me can't have a smokin' ride? Only thing inexplicable about Bee is his tendency to turn into a fifteen-foot-tall robot. It's the inexplicably hot girlfriend I find so inexplicable."
Sam paused then, burger halfway up to his mouth, as he realized what he had just said. Mikaela slowly grinned. He hadn't used that word yet, girlfriend, not to describe her. And having said it aloud, he looked as if he were holding a soap bubble and waiting for it to pop and vanish.
It was so damned cute.
She popped a french fry into his slack mouth, then leaned close and bit off the half of fry sticking out, their lips brushing briefly before she drew back, smiling. "Not quite so inexplicable, LadiesMan."
Sam swallowed, still slightly dazed. "I-- sorry, what were we talking about?"
"Our abuse of a two-dollar word or what you're going to tell your parents about Bee?"
"I'd like to abuse expensive vocabulary some more. Maybe it will lead to more french fries."
"No more french fries until we decide what your story's going to be."
A woeful pout. "Not even inexplicable french fries?"
"We really are sleep-deprived. That made no sense." Mikaela stood, stretching. "I'm going to the little girls' room. Don't eat my burger."
She strode lazily off, knowing full well he was watching her walk away. That feeling was so different with Sam, not like any other guy she'd been with. Never an ogle with him. Hormonal, yes, but respectfully hormonal; he didn't presume to have her. Rambly, adorable, infinitely sweet, perhaps a bit oblivious to some things, sharply aware of others, and always aware of her. After hanging off the arms of alpha cavemen, she found Sam a cool breeze, one she wanted to hold onto. Why had it taken an alien invasion to make her see him?
She neared the bathrooms, and saw it.
A blue... thing.
It looked like a motorcycle only at first glance. Long, built like a torpedo, with four-- four?-- wheels, as if the normal two wheels had been split through. If George Jetson had been a Hell's Angel? she thought, trying to decide whether she thought the machine was oddly beautiful or just plain odd.
Then something clicked in her mind. The video Bumblebee had shown them.
One of those robots had been small and blue. Mikaela suppressed a squeak. Assuming that that purple one was Bee-sized, this freaky motorcycle-thing was about the right size, if she had to guess.
Mikaela told herself to settle down; this weirdass bike could be just a weirdass bike. People were building strange custom vehicles all the time. She moved in closer to get a better look... and maybe have a chat.
But someone brushed by her, just barely clipping her shoulder with a crisp, but very blunt "Excuse me."
The young woman marched straight for the blue bike and swung about, planting herself square at its side, between Mikaela and the machine. Plain black helmet under one arm, water bottle tucked under the other, a half-eaten cheeseburger in one hand, she stood and regarded Mikaela with a calm, direct, but challenging gaze.
"Can I help you?" the leather-clad biker asked flatly.
"I was just..." Mikaela gestured at the bike. "What kind of motorcycle is that?"
"Experimental," was the curt reply. "Custom built. I'm testing it." The biker took a bite of her burger, gray eyes never leaving Mikaela.
"That must have cost a lot to build," Mikaela commented, looking over the sleek blue and turquoise paint job, and the gleaming chrome of the wheels and undercarriage. "Must be murder to keep clean, too."
"I manage," the biker replied, her level tone dipping into annoyed. She plunked her helmet on the seat and leaned back against the bike. "Look, I really--"
Mikaela leaned over, trying to get a look around the rider's legs. "What kind of engine is that? V-6, V-8? It's huge."
"V-10," said the biker, with no small touch of pride in her voice. "I, uh, I really can't tell you much more than that. Experimental and all..."
As Mikaela tried to lean in to look at the instrument panel, the rider again interposed herself between Mikaela and the machine. She looked about her own age, the rider's five-foot height and overabundance of freckles making it hard to guess an exact age. Her posture and the look in her eyes was anything but girlish and youthful, though. The message was clear: do not pop the personal bubble.
Mikaela still wavered. Could be overprotective biker keeping fingerprints off her shiny, or overprotective human keeping people from poking an Autobot. Ah, screw it, let her think I'm crazy if I'm wrong. "This is going to sound a little weird, but does this motorcycle ever--"
The biker suddenly jumped as if slightly startled, frowned, one gloved hand going down to rest on the bike's bright blue flank for a moment. Taking one last big bite of burger, she tossed the remainder of the food into a nearby trash can and shoved the water bottle into her backpack. After a hasty swallow, the biker took up her helmet and smoothly swung a leg over the bike. "Listen, I hate to be rude, but I'm kind of on a tight schedule. The competition is really nasty."
And with that, she leaned low over the bike's chassis, grabbed the handlebars, and the motorcycle's engine roared, pivoting neatly on its rear wheels to get out of the parking space. Mikaela stepped back out of the way, unable to even draw the breath needed to yell over the noise in the time it took for the motorcycle, rider and all, to go flying through the parking lot toward the highway.
The bike, Mikaela had noticed, had started up without so much as a push of a button or turn of a key. She ran full speed back towards Bee and Sam.
It hadn't been easy, trying to get Nic's attention without alerting the other female human. A few well-placed nigh-imperceptible twitches of an armor plate had done the trick, and Nic had mounted up, leaving the too-inquisitive female behind.
"Okay, what's wrong? She wasn't being that nosy."
"There is a Decepticon here," he explained, trying to mute his engine noise as much as possible. "I cannot scan at this distance, but I observed visual evidence of a Cybertronian regenerative system."
"Uh, what?"
"A yellow vehicle. Its exterior shows signs of damage, but as I watched, some of it repaired itself."
"Oh, for heaven's sake, how do they keep finding us?"
"I don't know. My dampening field is fully operational. But we are in luck; such marked regeneration only occurs in a deep recharge state."
"You mean he's asleep?"
"Yes, Nic."
"Then let's get the hell out of here before he wakes up."
"I fully contend to."
"Intend?"
Whiplash resignedly vented exhaust as he slid up behind an idling vehicle, waiting for the traffic signal to re-enter the highway. He could not wait to get this glitch fixed.
Sam mused sleepily to himself that he'd never seen a girl so jazzed to have gone to the bathroom. Until his brain processed what she was yelling as she was running back towards him.
"--found him! Sam, I think we found him!"
"Found who? Oh-- oh!" He was on his feet before he realized he'd even moved. "What, you mean new guy?"
"Look, look down that way, at the light," Mikaela grabbed his arm and pointed down to the other end of the lot. "Blue motorcycle."
Sam squinted at the speck of blue queued at the exit. "Are you sure?"
"It started by itself." She spun about and hovered at Bumblebee's hood. "How do we wake him up?"
"I dunno," Sam joined her and leaned over to give the Camaro's hood a polite knock with a knuckle. No response. "I've never tried before, maybe it's like with a phone battery, you have to let him recharge all the way--"
"Crap, the light's changing." Mikaela glanced around for possible spectators, then brought her open hand down on the hood with a sharp smack, right between the racing stripes. "Bee! Wake up, we've got to move!"
The car gave a startled alarm-chirpchirp, headlights flashing, and rose up on his shocks a little.
"Mikaela thinks we found new guy," Sam hastily explained, craning to try to see the bike in question. A blue blip swung out onto the highway.
"Not think, I'm positive," she insisted. "The rider definitely did this nonverbal thing with it, she was way defensive--"
Sam blinked. "Rider?" Actual human rider, or a projection, like what he had seen Barricade use?
"Bike started without her doing anything, she just got on." Mikaela was almost dancing with impatience at this point. "Blue bike, just made a right down at the light, can you scan him from here?"
A short pause.
Then the doors flew open.
My luck may be bad, but at least it is consistent, Whiplash thought to himself, catching a flash of yellow in his rear optic array. He kept to the fifty-five speed limit for long enough to visually confirm that it was the same vehicle, black-striped and bearing superficial armor damage, then sped up.
"Whiplash," came Nic's voice, a patient but chiding tone. "We're close to Denver city limits, you have to slow down."
"Nic, I don't wish to alarm you, but--"
Quick to figure it out, she twisted to look back. "Oh, balls."
Making a note to himself to ask her later just what that was supposed to mean, he gauged the traffic ahead. Not crowded enough to hide in, more than open enough to be seen. "Hold on. Once we return to the interstate I will break the limit again."
"Who's this one?"
Just as he hadn't known Rumble and Ravage until they had shown their true colors, there was no way to tell for sure. "I don't know... but I may need to go much faster than I did with Ravage."
"And we're fresh out of tornadoes. Wait-- don't get on the interstate, we should cut through the city."
"What? Why?" To judge by the amount of vehicles headed in that direction from multiple inroads, the traffic would be-- perfect to hide in. "Yes, I see." He followed the highway as it curved away from the interstate exit, joining the stream of traffic.
"Let him follow," he growled. "I will make him chase his own exhaust."
"I am Autobot Bumblebee. I'm here on Optimus Prime's orders. We've been looking for you-- pull in behind me and follow to a secure location."
No response. Bumblebee repeated the transmission as he sped down the highway after the bright blue motorcycle. Still nothing.
"Unidentified Autobot: slow down and respond". He had only confirmed that it was indeed a Cybertronian by the bubble of nothingness his sensors touched. Typical of someone who was running a dampening field full-force, just as Buzzsaw had been doing, without realizing that the sheer amount of stuff in Earth's atmosphere made a blank spot glaringly obvious. The trick was to modulate the field, tighten the frequency.
"Respond... identify yourself, tell me to slag off, anything." Perhaps the newcomer was put off by the flat digital code, but his voice was still in no state to be used. Bumblebee could already hear Ratchet's I-told-you-so.
"All this time, he was headed out towards us," Sam was saying. "Man, Mikaela, we'd be looking for crop circles in Kansas by now if you hadn't spotted him."
"Wonder how he managed to pick up that rider," she said.
"If she paid less than four grand for him, I'm going to scream," Sam replied, and cheekily Bumblebee sent a quick hack to the boy's cell phone.
'FRANKLY, I THINK YOU UNDERPAID' the text message read.
"Yeah, 'Uncle Bobby B' said you were worth five, right?"
"Boys," Mikaela cut in. "Could we focus?"
Ahead, the motorcycle had slowed, boxed in on both sides by a couple utility vans and a pickup truck in front. Bumblebee pulled up behind and dropped his own dampening field, thinking that if the other could see him as a fellow Autobot, perhaps he might listen to the transmissions.
With a sudden kick of speed, the blue bike swerved and knifed into the adjacent lane, inches away from the truck's tailgate and causing the van on that side to honk. The bike surged ahead, and Bumblebee had to negotiate across two lanes in order to get past the vans.
"Autobot, you're risking your human passenger's safety with maneuvers like that. Stand down and respond!"
"What the hell kind of bike is that?" demanded an incredulous Sam.
"Geez, Whip! Warn me next time!" Nic shifted, reseating herself.
"Sorry." Uncharacteristically terse, Whiplash slipped neatly into the leftmost lane, accelerating to a chorus of honking from the stationwagon he cut off. "He didn't transform. Dampening field went down. If he's not attacking, why did he drop his field?"
"Rumble and Ravage didn't transform until they had us alone," Nic said, hoping this yellow one was under the same orders or protocol or whatever rules governed this battlefield. "We need to keep this thing on the highway and on wheels."
Bright yellow loomed up on the right. Aside from the dents and scratches it looked like a rather nice sports car, something slick and snub-nosed and really high-end, if she was any judge. It edged carefully across the lanes toward them, until it was close enough for her to clearly read the Camaro nameplate-- and, through a lightly tinted window, briefly meet the eyes of the driver, a baffled-looking teenage boy.
"Whiplash, there's-- aahshit!" And there was the mule-kick she had seen in the web videos of the Tomahawk's performance, and only her already tense grip on the machine beneath her kept her from jolting loose as Whiplash rocketed forward.
"There's a driver," she tried again, unconsciously yelling, not looking at the speedometer because she just knew it would be some downright suicidal number in lunchtime traffic. "There's a human in that car!"
"Holographic projection. Decepticon trick."
"--oh." Nic felt slightly creeped out. It made sense, in a way. Their ability to mimic, to blend in, was their key survival tactic. It followed that there could be some way to simulate what couldn't be configured with machinery. She frowned down at the blue metal. Could Whiplash do that?
A horn honked out shave-and-a-haircut, coming up fast behind them. Nic could feel Whiplash's engine's subtle pitch this time, and she put a hand on his instrument panel. "Easy," she murmured.
His acceleration was a little smoother this time, but not by much. "What is he playing at?" he demanded, his voice more agitated than she had ever heard from him before.
"Easy," she repeated. "Don't let him push you. If he wants to dance, we need to set the pace. Remember what you told me? No one outruns you."
Whiplash was angry.
Angry in that slow, boil-your-coolant way that he had inflicted on many a Decepticon in the past, and he didn't much care for the taste of his own tricks. For one, he knew if he didn't regulate his processor quickly, he could wind up doing something stupid.
This Decepticon was toying with him. Laying open his energy signature for even Whiplash's dulled, aching sensors to see, coming up behind only to keep apace, rather than attack outright, not trying to herd or bully, just... chasing. It would only be a matter of time, he knew, before his enemy grew bored and went in for the kill.
Whiplash heard Nic's words and surged forward, weaving into the traffic with new determination. She was right. Whiplash had made pursuit a skill, his specialization, his reputation. The chase was his, no matter what the chaser thought.
A vehicle not far ahead suddenly belched from its aft a cloud of black exhaust, and Whiplash reflexively closed his forward intake vents. But as they plowed into the fumes, he noticed something interesting. The exhaust particles, as they passed through his dampening field, seemed to vanish from his close-proximity sensors, only to reappear once past.
Of course! That was how the other had, before dropping his field, seemed to be a mere car. He laughed aloud, already making adjustments.
"What?"
"I know how he found me," he smugly told his rider. "But it won't happen again. The fool just showed me how to better hide myself."
Sam shook his head appreciatively as the blue whatchamacallit again sped ahead.
"V-10 in a motorcycle. Insane." Mikaela echoed his sentiment nicely. "The four wheels thing is throwing me. What is that?"
"Like a motorcycle and an ATV got together and had a really fast baby," Sam added, then shut himself up, because lord only knew where that metaphor would end up if he let his mouth run with it.
Sam's cell phone beeped, still in his hand from the last text Bumblebee had sent. This one read 'SOMETHING IS WRONG'
Resisting the urge to educate his guardian on the meaning of the term 'duh-ism', Sam passed the phone to Mikaela so she could see it. "New guy still not talking to anyone, I take it."
'I MIGHT AS WELL BE TRANSMITTING TO A SPEED BUMP'
"Maybe he's afraid that purple guy who was wailing on him is going to, I dunno, intercept the transmission or something?" Mikaela shrugged at Sam. "Decepticons do that?"
"Or..." Sam knocked his head back against the seat as a realization hit him. "..or he thinks Bee is a Decepticon."
The radio snapped on. "--And don't insult me, I won't insult you--"
Sam innocently spread his hands. "Hey, just a theory, dude."
"--I'm on your side, You know I'm not the enemy--" Bumblebee let the Divinyls express his indignation.
"Yeah, someone tell Speedy Smurf," Sam retorted.
Mikaela grabbed his shoulder. "Um, guys, where'd he go?"
Nic grinned as Whiplash cut across lanes again, this time cutting speed to let a massive charter bus shield them from sight. A gaggle of tourists gawked from the bus's windows, faces up against the glass. Brassily Nic lifted a hand to wave at them.
"Turning heads, am I?" Whiplash asked, sounding inordinately pleased with himself for evidently having figured out how to foil the Decepticon's senses somehow. "Hold fast. I may need to employ some interesting maneuvers."
More interesting than a tornado? she wondered, as Whiplash dropped slowly back even further, edging around the back of the bus. When she could see around it, incredibly the yellow Camaro was now ahead of them by several car-lengths and two lanes to the right. Incredibly, it gave no indication of slowing. Whatever Whiplash had done, it was working.
With an aggressive swerve and burst of acceleration, the Tomahawk flew across the highway and went roaring right up behind the Camaro.
Startled exclamations in three-part harmony-- Sam's "Hoshit!", Mikaela's less articulate squeak, and Bumblebee's spin through a dozen staticky stations-- rang through the interior of the Autobot's cabin as a blue blur was behind, beside, then gone in one instant. The other had passed so close on Bumblebee's right that the rider could have reached out to knock on a window, and was now speeding toward an off-ramp for an adjoining highway that would take them deeper into Denver.
Bumblebee veered sharply to follow, drawing one-fingered gestures and honking from the vehicles he cut off, radio snapping on: "--Slow down, you're gonna crash--"
"Where did he come from?!" Sam twisted in the driver's seat, while Mikaela simply shook her head, muttering about V-10 engines.
Bumblebee's own engine pounded as he rushed after, eight cylinders pulsing at a rate no earth-made V-8 could match. He was feeling an odd combination of annoyance and amusement at the absurdity of the situation. He didn't think his behavior was particularly Decepticon-like; couldn't the newcomer see that? Why wasn't he listening? And the blatant come-from-behind baiting-- the newcomer wanted to provoke him.
"Well, you have my attention," he transmitted, whether he was heard or not. "A game of tag now, is it? Ready or not, here I come."
But-- how to slow him down without endangering the humans?
Sad to say, Nic was actually kind of enjoying this.
Speed had never been her thing; she typically fell on the tortoise side of the tortoise/hare dichotomy the biker philosophy had divided itself into. She liked a slow cruise, preferred to see scenery clearly rather than through a motion-blur filter. The road wouldn't get any shorter for her sake, she had always reasoned. It was an attitude she had inherited from her father, an easygoing free spirit who had disdained (albeit in a very laid-back and forgiving manner) those bikers who rode the slick little speed-demon bikes and were consequently always in such a blasted hurry.
But with all apologies to Eugene Darling and that sturdy old Harley, she was starting to see the appeal.
Speedometer waving between eighty and ninety, Whiplash fairly danced among the other vehicles, weaving in and around them as gracefully as a bird in flight. She was learning to move with him as he banked and turned, learning to anticipate.
And really, really liking the speed.
Taking glances back, she could spot flashes of yellow in the gaps between cars, gaining one moment, getting lost in the shifting current of vehicles the next. "He's still there," she reported. "How long can you keep this up? Sooner or later we're either going to leave the city or attract some police attention."
Whiplash took advantage of a stretch of open road to accelerate, making for the next knot of sheltering traffic ahead. "I'm not sure. He is... rather agile, I'll give him that."
As they slowed to maneuver back in among the traffic, the yellow Camaro came flying up behind. Whiplash pitched into another lane, cutting in front of a pizza delivery cab, reminding Nic's stomach that it still wanted food, having only had a third of a very nice bacon cheeseburger and not much else.
And then food became the least of her concerns as the traffic began to work against them. An eighteen-wheeler towing a flatbed of pine logs blocked to the right, pizza-boy to the rear and an SUV to the front, and a certain Camaro sidling casually up on the left. Nic eyed it nervously, giving Whiplash's handlebars what she hoped was a reassuring squeeze, hoping he wouldn't panic...
A girl of maybe sixteen or seventeen stared back at her from the passenger window, waving and mouthing words, the same teenage boy, hands not on the steering wheel but flashing big friendly OK signals, and--
"--we be friends, why can't we be friends? Why can't we be--"
Music?
"What the--" She found herself echoing her friend's earlier question-- just what was this guy playing at?
Whiplash said something, a string of liquid syllables and electronic noise, then edged to the right and cut speed. They dropped back, riding the line between lanes, so close to the trailer that bits of pine bark and stray needles were raining down on them. Once behind the trailer, Whiplash curled right, hopping lanes and passing underneath the trailing ends of the bobbing logs, a move that made Nic hold her breath and forget all about cheeseburgers and pizza and deargodthespacerobotiscrazy.
Whiplash kicked ahead again, on the other side of the logger truck, and in the distance she spotted an overpass.
And then it was deargodI'mthecrazyonehere.
"Whiplash! Jump!" She couldn't believe she was letting the words even make it to her mouth. "The overpass ahead, jump!"
A short pause. "I'll have to transform."
Nic tensed, preparing herself. "I trust you."
"Did she even see us?" Sam ran hands through his hair, at a complete loss. "Just what is that guy's damage?"
"She looked right at me. I know she saw us," Mikaela said, leaning up over the dashboard, trying to see around the logger as Bumblebee navigated around it.
"Look-look, there he is, there he is." Hunching forward as well, Sam reflexively grabbed the wheel. "Gun it, Bee!" But damn, new guy was fast. And slippery. If they couldn't pin him down somehow...
"Ohmygod!" Mikaela grabbed his arm, and Sam's mouth fell open as the blue motorcycle seemed to almost detonate in a flurry of flashing mechanical parts.
It occurred to Nic in an infinitesimal instant that there would have been no way to rehearse the maneuver, given that it never should have occurred to her in the first place, and she hoped the occasion never arose again.
But the instant was gone, and with a warning shudder of plates beneath her, Whiplash transformed as the overpass loomed close.
She let go and pushed up and off, handlebars whipping out of reach, her body leaving Whiplash's for a single heart-stopping moment. His wheels cycled around, slamming into place on his back, and she immediately grabbed back on, gloved hands finding a firm grip on the hot rubber of the topmost tire. Toes of boots dug into the rim of the bottom wheel.
He had transformed so fast she hardly knew when exactly he had gone from wheels to feet, but now he was running full-tilt, the pounding of his legs not unlike the pounding of his engine. Much to her relief, he bent one arm back around to hold her gently in place where she clung. Taking one great stride as the overpass was upon them, Whiplash's body seemed to coil and gather, and--
In one explosive spring, they were airborne.
Up and over the edge of the bridge, vaulting the barrier, swinging long chrome legs over, hitting the asphalt running again, to a chorus of honking and startled screeching of tires from the cars around them. Several more strides and Whiplash pitched forward, and Nic knew-- she let go again. Wheels flew out from under her, armor reconfigured and the handlebars swung back into place, which she latched onto instantly. And in one body-jolting slam, wheels were back on the road and she in the seat; a little off-balance, not quite in the right position, but intact, alive, and very much in need of a bathroom break and possibly a good faint.
Whiplash rocketed on, weaving through the traffic as he had done before. Dizzy and nearly deaf from the thundering of her own heart in her ears, Nic looked back several times as the road wound off and into a less-densely populated area.
No yellow Camaro came in pursuit.
Denver behind them entirely, and the road was open and clear and theirs alone. Nic finally remembered to breathe, and lay a hand on the sky-blue fairing.
"Whiplash?"
"Yes, Nic?"
"Best. Birthday. Ever."
"Did you see that? Did you see that?!"
Bumblebee felt the thumping on his steering wheel that was Sam failing to contain himself in his driver's seat. Too late to check his speed before going right under the overpass, Bumblebee instead careened across the highway and cut right over the shoulder, up a grass embankment and onto an on-ramp leading to the overpass. It cost precious seconds, and by the time he'd managed to even make it to the spot the newcomer had jumped to, there was no sign, by optic or sensor, of any motorcycle at all.
At least there weren't any accidents, the scout noted, and found a place to pull over.
"Oh my god, Bee," Mikaela murmured. "I think... I think we just got schooled."
"Holy frijoles," Bumblebee employed the voice of a fictional animated rodent, "That theeng runs faster than me!"
"So what do we do now?" Sam asked.
"Delays, delays," tsk-tsked another fictional character's voice. "Oh dear, this is most inconvenient, now I'll have to call out the reserves."
"Yeah, maybe the others can intercept him." Mikaela brightened.
"If he doesn't just pull the same Roadrunner act," Sam sighed, sinking in the seat.
Bumblebee emitted a bright "Meep-Meep!" in response, drawing the desired reaction-- a laugh-- from his two humans.
"Smartass," Sam chuckled.
"Please, sir, do not interrupt my chain of thought. I'm a busy Martian."
"We're on a Mel Blanc kick now, I see," Mikaela said, rolling her eyes.
Bumblebee opened communications. "Bumblebee here, Prime. I had him."
"Explain, Bumblebee."
"I caught up with the newcomer outside Denver, but he's still not responding to any transmissions. He doesn't recognize me as an Autobot, either. He spooked, sir. I lost him heading southwest out of Denver."
"You spooked him?" came in Ratchet.
"Sam posits that he thinks I am a Decepticon."
Ironhide cut in with a snort. "You? That's rich."
"I'm glad you find it so amusing, Ironhide," Bumblebee sent, wishing the digital signal could properly convey smugness, "because he's likely headed in your direction. Good luck catching him. He's barely half my size and built specifically for speed. His altmode is interesting-- a search of the internet reveals a design similar to a Dodge Tomahawk. He's heavily modified it, from what I can tell. And-- he has a rider."
Optimus made an interested noise. "A rider?"
"A human female roughly Mikaela's age, from what she saw of her. Mikaela also says the rider is likely working in tandem with the Autobot."
"At least," Optimus Prime said, "he is not alone."
Author's Note: And now I'm going to point you back to sgxmusic.com/music.htm and grab the track "Crowdpleaser" (not the "Drop the Mic" remix, but the original) and there you have the music that fits the chase scene. While you're there, pick up "Distant" as well, which is Whiplash's early loneliness to a perfect T.
...no, SGX isn't paying me to plug his music. I swear.