Chaos

“You know this would go a lot faster if you carried a box or two,” Ron said, nodding towards the car.

Today was the day before the big move; our Sammy was going to college the whole way over on the east coast.

“Yeah probably,” I agreed, not making any effort to move. I was sitting on the steps of the patio, watching as Scout played with the dogs.

It was weird to think that we were going to be so far away from each other. I’d seen Sam, and/or Bee nearly every day since Mission City. We hung out at school, after school. If Sam and Mikaela were off being gross, I hung out with Bee until he had to go get them. Hell I had even stayed at the Witwicky household for the last half of senior year, because my mother and I had a blow out, which resulted in my leaving/her kicking me out.

“Teenagers,” Ron mumbled.

“No weapons,” I ordered, Scout, before heading to the garage, where Bee was parked.

“Hey, Bug.” I hopped up on the work bench, making myself comfortable.

“Wazzzzzuuuupp?”

“You really need to find better clips,” I said.

Apparently, Bee’s voice wasn’t actually fixed. His “voice” in Mission City wasn’t what he actually sounded like. It was his vocal processor producing the sounds, his own words, but they were distorted. Ratchet had compared it to talking with a sore throat, but noted that Bee’s condition was a more extreme case. In addition, the use of his vocal processor only worsened its condition, so the radio bits were back, which was fine by me.

“Everybody’s a critic.”

“It’s a ten year old reference.”

“Classic...”

“Dated,” I returned.

I turned to look out the window, checking on Scout. Scout was riding Frankie like a horse, but wasn’t hurting the dog, so I deemed it acceptable and turned back to Bee, only to come face to face with a skunk haired haired blue eyed guy with a mischievous smirk on his face. I nearly jumped out of my skin, surprised by the sudden presence.

“God damn it! Fuck you!” I swore, punching his shoulder. “I fucking hate, when you do that.”

Ratchet in an attempt to help better relations with their new human allies by putting them at ease had been working on creating a human façade that the soldiers could interact with, until they got comfortable with the bots. It was also in part so that they could easily meet and discuss things with government officials, who not having to spend time around the bots remained fairly uncomfortable in their presence. They had started with holographs, something that they were already capable of producing, but Ratchet had wanted to push it farther, make the holographs more useful, so he somehow managed to find a way to give them substance, mass, a human body that they could turn on and off at will. Bee had chosen to be the first test subject.

The first few attempts were sketchy. They lacked stability and tended to fade out of existence on their own, but with the data from each failure, came new knowledge and Ratchet was able to make what he called holoforms. Turns out the key to creating a bot’s holoform was their spark. It all went way over my head, but the use of the spark made the holoforms stable and gave the bots better control over them.

Bee’s holoform laughed or well attempted to. Holoforms were embodiments of their bots. For Bee this meant that his holoform couldn’t speak and suffered from a number of vocal cord issues.

I glowered. “It’s all fun and games until you actually give me a heart attack one day. Then you’ll feel like shit.”

He rolled his eyes.

“Drama queen...”

I went to retort, when I heard Sam scream.

I hopped off the bench and followed the sound of Sam’s screams. I picked up Scout, setting him on my shoulder.

Bee stayed back in the garage. He had yet to show Sam or Mikaela his holoform. I don’t think that they even knew his worked. I had asked why, and received a long list of reasons, most of which had to do with safety and maintaining a low profile. When I questioned why he had let me see it, I hadn’t gotten a straight answer.

“FIRE! WE GOT A FIRE!”

I stood at the top of the stairs and laughed as Sam flew down the hall from his room the grab the upstairs fire extinguisher.

“Really Brent? I’m glad you think this is funny. The whole house could go up in flames and you’re about to laugh. Great. Really friggin’ great.”

I grabbed a water bottle off of his desk and poured it on the smoldering floor.

“What caused it?” I asked.

“A sliver of the cube,” Sam answered, putting out the fire with the extinguisher.

At the mention of the cube, Scout stiffened crawling from one shoulder to the other. He drew his weapons, aiming them towards the door. “What are you- Oh shit. Sam!”

Sam saw the small bots and screamed. That’s when they started shooting.

They charged at Sam, who fell, trying to avoid their fire. He kicked one off. Jazz was firing shot after shot at them, giving me time to escape. I grabbed Sam and dragged him towards the window. We crawled out of the window and onto the patio cover.

He paused trying to figure out what to do. We didn’t have time for that. Those little bastards were vicious. I shoved Sam off and jumped down after him, not before Scout shot off two missiles.

“What is all the racket?” Ron asked, coming around the back yard.

He got his answer in the form of more gun fire. He and Sam, managed to find some protection behind the bird bath, I was pressed up against the house on the patio, hoping that they’d run forward and not look back.

They kitchen bots blew up Mojo and Frankie’s dog/bird house, and that seemed to be enough for Sam.

“BUMBLEBEE!” he called. Bee drove through the garage, transforming. He activated his plasma cannon and shot at a few, before charging it up for one large blast that basically obliterated half of Sam’s room. A few well placed shots took out the stragglers.

Judy came running out of the house, a waffle iron over her head. Not being able to see where she was going, she slammed into one of her hanging baskets. She fell.

I walked over to help her up, dodging the waffle iron tossed in my direction.

“Bumblebee get in the garage!” Sam yelled, angrily.

“What the freak just happened?!” Judy asked.

Good question. Where in the fuck had those bots come from?

I nuzzled Scout to my chest asking kindly for him to lower his weapons.

Bee attempted to explain himself to Sam with various whines and groans that only he could fully understand the meaning of. It wouldn’t have mattered. Sam was already losing it.

“I’m about to have a nervous breakdown just go in the garage quietly please!”

What a way to spend their last day at home together. The fire department arrived, Ron and Judy ran to grab the dogs, and Sam for the sliver of the cube. I made sure Jazzy had transformed and was out of sight, before heading out front. In addition to the authorities, Mikaela had arrived. That was kind of surprising. I was pretty sure that she had planned on no goodbyes.

“You missed all the fun,” I greeted.

“What happened?” she asked.

“Oh you know, the usual you-know-what’s trying to kill us.”

“How-“

Sam reappeared, stopping her short. “I need you to take the cube sliver and put it in your purse. I-“

“Are you okay? What-“

“Sam Witwicky, a word with you? Hi, Mikaela. I have a bald spot from a waffle iron. When you go, he goes. I cannot live with a psychotic alien in my garage!”

I cocked my head to the side. “What are you talking about?”

“He’s not staying here. I’m not dealing with it.”

“Why would Bee staying here, Sam?” I asked, pointedly, not liking where this is going.

Sam sighed. “Listen, okay, it’s not that big of a deal. Freshmen aren’t allowed to have cars. It’s just-“

“You son of a bitch! Does he know?”

Bee had seemed so excited to go with Sam.

“Not really...”

I was pissed. “You fucker. You leave tomorrow. Tomorrow. You realize that right? He’s so damn excited. You’re going to break his damn heart.”

“He’s an autobot. He shouldn’t be sitting in my parent’s garage, driving me back and forth.”

I couldn’t disagree with that. Bee could do so much more.

That didn’t excuse the shitty way that Sam was going about this.

“He deserves some kind of warning.”

“I’m going to tell him.”

“When? When you fucking get into the car and leave without him?”

“Will you stop?” Sam snapped. “This is hard enough without you nagging me.”

I threw my hands up in defeat. “You’re such a bitch.”

Sam sighed, heading to the garage.

Mikaela and I followed.

Bee smacked himself in the head.

“Yeah, you know you’re in trouble,” Sam said.

“He still having voice problems?” Mikaela asked.

“He’s playing it off.”

I socked Sam in the shoulder. “Jack ass.”

“Bee, I need to talk to you about the college thing,” Sam started.

“I’m so excited and I just can’t hide it” Bee played, doing a little dance.

Mikaela left, and I punched Sam in the arm once more, before following her out.

The second we were clear, Mikaela start stripping out of her leathers, revealing a pretty white dress beneath them.

I eaves dropped, listening in on the entire conversation.

I wasn’t angry with Sam for wanting to have a normal college experience. He had a plan. It had been the same for years, and up until two years ago giant alien robots and alien civil wars hadn’t been a part of it. He was going to go to school, act a little crazy, get a degree, go to work, get engaged blah blah blah.

It wasn’t the best place for Bee. He had a purpose, a mission, and it was more than sitting in a campus parking lot watching over an average kid from Nevada, looking out for decepticons that may never come.

I was still pissed off about how he had gone about breaking the news. If he had known, Bee could have gone already, been back with the other autobots.

Admittedly, the thought stung, as did the realization that Bee was going to be leaving. I had become accustomed to having the bot in my life. He was legitimately one of my best friends. It was weird thinking that he was going to be across the world or out hunting down decepticons.

I still had Mikaela. With her father fresh out of prison, she was staying behind to help him, while I was taking classes at the community college, in order to help cut costs.

My grandparents had offered to let me stay with them out in New York. They owned a fairly successful chain of book stores, and had no problem letting me crash at their house and paying for my schooling, but it felt wrong.

Sam came back out and I shot him one last glare, before ducking under the tarp into the garage.

Bee looked like someone had killed his puppy.

“Well Sam is a douche,” I said.

Scout climbed out of my pocket and onto Bee, who picked him up and cradled him in his hand. Scout chirped and whirled, speaking in a language that only he and Bee truly understood.

“Unfortunately, there’s nothing we can do about him being a douche. I conducted a number of experiments on my brother to see if the condition is reversible and the results were bleak, but we can however move on from douche baggery and have ourselves a good time.”

Bee looked at me questioningly.

“I’m assuming you haven’t contacted Prime yet.”

He nodded.

“Good, cause I want to go on a road trip. You, me and Scout. Do what you need to do to talk to Prime to make that happen. Good? Good. I’ve gotta go make some phone calls. Scout, keep an eye on Bee.”

I walked out to the front porch and pulled out my phone, arranging for my shifts to be covered and my plants to be watered. Then I headed back to the garage.”

“Alright, we are a go on my end.”

“Really?”

“Really. Did you talk to Prime?”

“Yes... He’s okay with it...”

“Good, then I have to pack some shit and we can leave.”

“Right now?”

“Right fucking now,” I confirmed.

“Do you even... know... where the hell... we’re going...”

“We’ll figure it out as we go,” I said with a shrug. “Spontaneity’s good for ya.”