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A Horrible Place

"I hate this place," Jack grumbled. He hunched forward, shivering despite his heavy cargo pants, boots, gloves, thick shirt, and hip-length leather coat, and leaned on Arcee's handlebars. Pouring rain splattered his helmet visor and created a muted roar all around him. He wiped the visor off and tried to keep an eye on the restaurant to the right of the mall's main entrance without staring straight through the window at the still ridiculously-dressed Sokolov. "I'll be glad when I can put my armor on. At least it has a built-in heating unit."

"At least this isn't Florida," Terwilliger said over the comm. "I grew up there, kind of all over the place. My parents moved around a lot. Some parts aren't that bad, I guess, but in other parts, I was sticky all over the whole time I was there. And don't even get me started on all the fuckedupness that goes on there."

"Florida?" Strika's voice came from Jack's helmet speakers.

"It's America's syphilitic penis," Terwilliger grumbled. "As soon as I was on my own, I moved as far away as I could get and never looked back."

"I'd take almost anything over this place," Jack said. "When I was growing up, I couldn't wait to get out of Jasper, but at least the climate there never got cold enough to turn my dick into a small stack of buttons."

"That image is too horrifying to contemplate," Arcee said with a chuckle. "And believe me, these optics have seen some shit in the past few thousand years."

"All the more reason to wrap this up quickly and go home," Miko chimed in. "I'm bundled up in a thick shirt and coat, and my nipples are still like pencil erasers. If it gets any colder here, I'm afraid my tits might actually invert."

She appeared at the mall entrance, pretending to talk into her phone to avoid arousing suspicion. Her other hand was stuffed into her leather trench coat pocket and her arm was pressed against her side. She glanced at the Lucky Dragon restaurant before turning to the Subway on the opposite side of the door.

"Is 'Cowboy Wannafuck' still sitting there?"

"Yep," Kefira said, and Jack glanced over to where she and Terwilliger sat in Bumblebee. He'd inverted his usual yellow-and-black color scheme to make himself harder for their quarry to identify. Arcee had changed from her usual blue to dark red, and had left her Pretender body riding in Optimus's trailer with Bulkhead's mini-me and the team's gear.

"He appears to be waiting for someone," Kefira added. "Hasn't even ordered any food. And he's still wearing that ridiculous outfit. I doubt I'll be able to forget it, though I intend to try."

"Yeah, that's in my brain now. Especially the sight of his nutsack poking out of his shorts. The cowboy hat doesn't seem to be out of place in this town, though." Miko headed for the Subway. "We've only been here an hour, and I've already seen a ton of wannabe-cowboys."

"And lots of big trucks with lift kits and huge tires," Terwilliger added. "What's the deal with that, anyway?"

"It's the kind of thing a guy drives because he's hung like a thumb tack." Miko paused at the Subway's front door. "I'm gonna duck in here and grab some hot coffee before I freeze solid. Anybody wanna join me?"

"You should warm up while you have a chance, Jack." Arcee laughed. "If you shiver any harder, you might rattle a few of my parts off."

"I wouldn't feel right about leaving you out here in the rain."

"A little rain won't kill me. Go on. It's best if you don't turn into a Jacksickle before Cowboy Wannafuck finally hits the road."

"Besides," June added, "if you sit there in the pouring rain too long, people will start wondering why you're not indoors."

"Good point, Mom." Jack sighed, dismounted, and headed for the Subway. "Let me know when something happens."

"Uh," Terwilliger said, "how about now? Someone just sat at Sokolov's table."

Shit. Jack paused, glanced through the restaurant window, and found a man seated across the table from Sokolov. "Oh, good, another guy dressed as a cowboy."

"At least the new guy's wearing pants," Miko said. "That face, though."

"Yeah." June laughed under her breath. "It reminds me of a thrombosed hemorrhoid I saw in the hospital in Jasper."

"Jesus, Mom!" Jack tried to hold a laugh in and ended up snorting instead.

"Just getting back into character in case I need to put a scare into this guy."

"I'm pointing a laser mic at him," Kefira said once she stopped laughing. "Let's see if he mentions where he's going or what he's up to."

---

"Oh, boy," Sierra whispered. She wiped her sweaty palms on her pants and leaned forward to stare even more intently at the bank of monitors. As before, each screen showed a live feed through a secure transmission from the Autobots' optics. Once the human team members put their armor on, images from their helmet cameras would be added to the rest.

"I still think it's horrible that they're sending kids into a situation like this," Camille grumbled. "They'll end up right in the middle of it when the shooting starts, like they always do."

Beside her, Roderick sighed and rubbed a hand over his face.

"It's not a high-risk mission. They're just watching from a distance." He reached over to put his hand over hers. "We know they were in the middle of this before we ever found out about it. At least now they're surrounded by people trained to handle things like this."

Camille rolled her eyes and let out a sharp sigh.

"Miko has shown us that she can handle it," Natsumi said, though her left hand gripped her husband's as if holding onto a lifeline. "As have her friends. And I doubt we could stop her, anyway."

"I hate to admit it," Daisuke said, "but you're probably right about that. From what I've been told, she seems to have a talent for slipping past anyone trying to keep her out of the fight."

Sierra glanced over at Raf's parents and several of his brothers and sisters, who'd been let in to watch the operation, or at least part of it. It seemed weird to her that any of them were being allowed to see it. But then, maybe Colonel McKenna had wanted to keep them all in the loop so they wouldn't worry themselves sick. Though if the operation went down the tubes, they'd have to watch a lot of horrible things unless the feed was cut.

Well, seeing them in action gave me a chance to see how they all have each other's backs, so that's kinda reassuring, I guess. Sierra's gaze drifted back toward Smokescreen's monitor. I'm really starting to wish I could be part of it.

Kefira's voice came from the speakers. "I'm pointing a laser mic at them. Let's see if he mentions where he's going or what he's up to."

"Given what I know about MECH and its leaders," Terwilliger muttered, "every time I hear one of 'em speak, I almost expect 'em to say, 'Hail HYDRA.'"

"Took you long enough to get here," Sokolov said in a passable southern accent, keeping his volume low to avoid being overheard by the people surrounding them.

"We took a big hit when your base was overrun by those aliens and their human collaborators. You're the only one who made it out of there." The other guy had a nasally voice and an accent that reminded Sierra of her uncle from Boston. Which really clashed with his outfit. "We had to pull everyone in to make up for it and regroup at our base in the mountains. That took a while, but at least it's not far from here. How the hell did you end up here, anyway?"

"When I landed, I had to take the first vehicle I found and just drive until I ran out of fuel. Had to repeat the process a few times to be sure I was no longer being pursued. The last one brought me to a train. I slipped into one of the cargo cars and rode it to its destination, which happened to be this … charming little town."

"That was a stroke of luck we've been needing. Last I heard, your base is still engulfed in flames."

"At least we know the quinitricetyline has exceeded our expectations."

"And then some. Well, I'm ready to give you a lift to the new base. It's a couple of hours from here. Just let me know when you're ready."

Miko's voice came through the speakers next. "Hey, can someone run facial rec on this guy? Find out what he's driving? I'll see if I can tag it before they come out of the restaurant."

"I'm on it," Arcee said. "I've got a great view of both of them. Sending a photo from my optics."

"Got it," Raf chimed in, his voice accompanied by the clicking of a mechanical keyboard in the background. "Okay, his name is Patrick Conte and he's driving a white Ford F-150. We'll be able to track him wherever he goes as long as we can stay in range of the tag."

"Nice." Raf's dad grinned. He glanced around the room and added, "That's my boy."

"I'm looking for it," Miko said once Raf read off the truck's license plate. "You gonna be riding in with us or keeping your distance?"

"He'll be inside me," Tomoko said, and Sierra wondered if she'd imagined the very slight hint of mischievousness in her voice.

"Uh, what?" Camille blurted.

Terwilliger burst out laughing. "That put the most awesome image in my head!"

Col. McKenna stifled a snicker. "Uh, say again, Tomoko?"

"I'm a helicopter. He'll be sitting in my back seat while I keep an eye on those guys from the air. That way, he'll be able to help us out with tech and hacking stuff while I keep him a safe distance away."

"Ah, okay. Understood." McKenna sounded like she was still struggling not to chuckle.

Sierra glanced at Raf's parents and found them grinning at each other.

"He's getting to the age where he's starting to notice girls," his mom said. "He could do a whole lot worse than Tomoko."

Camille turned to her and sneered. "You actually approve of your kid dating one of them?"

"Are you kidding? We've been spending a lot of time with her and she's such a sweetheart!" Raf's mom beamed. "She's one of the nicest people I've ever met. And the way she carries that Catbug plushie everywhere is adorable!"

"She's also a giant robot. An alien one." Camille shook her head

"And?"

Camille rolled her eyes, turned back to the monitors, and muttered under her breath. "Disgusting."

Raf's mom gaped at her and then leaned forward. "Say anything like that about Raf and Tomoko again and I'll give you such an ass-beating, your descendants will feel it a thousand years from now!"

Camille stared back at her and some of the color drained from her face. Roderick clamped his mouth shut on a laugh and she whipped around to glare at him.

"What's so funny?"

"Nothing." He sighed. "Look, he's their kid and they're okay with it. It's none of our business, anyway."

Sierra took a slow breath and fixed her gaze on the monitors. I wonder how long it'll be before they end up in divorce court.

---

"Pretty slick, Miko." Raf grinned at the image of the truck carrying Sokolov and Conte on his monitor. Miko had walked past the truck while the two men were on their way out the restaurant's door, pretending to talk on her phone while tossing her keys into the air and catching them. While behind Conte's truck, she'd pretended to fumble and drop the keys, and had stuck a tracking device inside the bumper while retrieving them. Then she'd continued walking, still jabbering into her phone about a fourteen-year-old girl in Jasper who'd given birth into a toilet in a McDonald's restroom because she didn't know she was pregnant.

"Thanks."

"That thing you were going on about," Terwilliger said. "Please tell me you just made that up."

"Nope. It was in the news a couple days ago. Poor girl's parents never talked to her about sex. Not even a word about where babies come from. They also severely restricted her TV and internet access, so she had no idea at all. Didn't even figure out that she was pregnant."

June let out a long sigh. "That's the kind of thing that happens when when nobody bothers to educate you. I didn't expect to get pregnant the very first time I did it, but when it happened, at least my parents made sure I understood what was going on and how to get through the pregnancy. And they were there to help me take care of Jack after he was born."

"I'm thankful for that," Jack said. "I feel so sorry for the baby Miko was talking about."

"Yeah," Miko said. "Sooner or later, that kid is gonna find out that her life began in a fuckin' toilet in a public restroom. In a McDonald's!"

"Christ," Raf muttered. He glanced at Tomoko's mini-me in the pilot's seat and the Catbug held in the copilot's seat with a five-point harness, and wondered if she knew what everyone was talking about. She was still learning about the world she'd found herself in, but at least she could find any info she needed in an instant with her variety of built-in wireless connections.

Once Raf had begun to get curious about sex, he'd needed to wait until his parents and siblings weren't around before trying to investigate. Some of them wouldn't have cared, but three in particular would've tattled on him just to instigate something if they'd caught him looking for info or watching porn on his laptop.

He realized his gaze had lingered a little too long on Tomoko and focused on his keyboard and monitor before she noticed. If she found out the thoughts he'd begun having about her, particularly after her "inside me" comment, he'd never live it down.

Better get the conversation back on topic before I blurt out something stupid. "I wonder if there's a way to hear what those guys are saying?"

"Wish I'd had a bug I could've planted in their truck," Miko said. "Who knows what they might let slip. But someone would've gotten suspicious if I picked the lock and stuck something under the seat or dashboard."

"Yeah," June said. "Best not to risk it. I don't even want to think about what Sokolov might've done if he'd caught you."

"Same here."

"I might be able to hear what they're saying if I get close enough," Tomoko said. "I'm equipped with sensitive microphones and a stealth mode, among other things."

"Worth a try," Ashanti said after considering it for a moment. "As long as you stay ready to get the hell out of there if they notice you."

"Don't worry, my main concern is keeping Raf safe." She engaged her stealth mode and the thumping of her rotors and high-pitched sound of her engine faded to a whisper.

"Nice." Raf grinned and wondered how the sounds were being suppressed. He watched the image on his screen shift and blur and then focus as she zoomed her camera out while descending.

"We're in range," Tomoko said. "Aiming the mic now."

Sokolov's voice faded in while in the middle of a sentence. "... laugh when I found out where this base was."

"It seemed an appropriate location. After all, Silas's brief partnership with that alien is one of the the things that led to his capture. It seems kind of poetic that we use the place as the launch point of his retrieval, as well as our recovery of Project Damocles."

"Huh," Miko said. "What the hell's Project Damocles?"

"It's the main reason Leland Bishop was given the ol' heave-ho," Ashanti replied. "His pet project was a series of satellites equipped with particle beams and other weapons. In the right hands, they could've been reworked into a planetary defense grid to use against the DJD or Decepticon reinforcements, but Bishop's hands are obviously not the right ones. If he'd managed to build all of them and get them into orbit, they would've been able to fire on any target on Earth's surface."

"Shit," Jack said under his breath. "So they're planning to restart the project."

"Bishop completed only one satellite, but that would raise plenty of hell on its own if MECH manages to recover it from its secure storage site. He was ordered not to go ahead with the project, but he did it anyway, so he was tossed out on his ass. Then he disappeared and started calling himself Silas when he resurfaced."

"I was wondering what the full story with him was," Arcee muttered. "So wherever that thing is stored, they'll need to be ready for an infiltration attempt if not an all-out attack. Same goes for any place that might still have the plans for those things. If MECH gets their hands on either of those, they'll be able to mass produce it."

"Yeah. Obviously, we can't let that happen. We need to stop them right here, before they can move forward with their plans."

"I have a hunch where Sokolov and Conte might be headed," Arcee said. "Given who they were talking about a moment ago …"

"Yeah." Jack's voice was barely above a whisper, and Raf could easily imagine him trembling from memories of his traumatic encounters with a certain recently-deceased enemy of Arcee's. "Airachnid's lair."

---

"I've got eyes on Suckadick and Cunty," Miko said over the comms, keeping her voice low. Following up on Arcee's hunch, she'd collected her armor and used its stealth system to approach the MECH base's suspected location. "Your guess was right, guys. They've set up a bunch of tents and sheds in the crater left after you blew Airachnid's lair and the top of Camas Mountain off the map."

Jack shivered again, this time at the memory of the "trophies" the late, unlamented rogue Decepticon had put on display in the tunnels deep inside one of the mountains here.

"In the middle of the crater?" Arcee said as she leaned into a gradual turn, following the curve of the highway. She'd changed her color scheme again several times while trailing Conte's truck, most recently settling on black with gold trim.

"Yep. Dunno how they leveled off the spot they picked out and set up their equipment without being noticed."

"It's pretty far away from any roads or inhabited areas," Jack said, trying not to let his teeth chatter. "Still, it seems like someone would've spotted the activity sooner or later."

"It's possible someone found them while hiking or hunting, but if anyone got close enough to get a good look at them, I doubt anyone will ever see them again. We should check for local missing-persons reports."

"Great. Now I'm half expecting to find the bodies of people who just stumbled into the wrong place at the wrong time."

"Well, we can hope nobody got that close," Arcee said. "Miko, any idea how big his team is? What kind of opposition will we be facing?"

"Looks like around thirty in the open. Can't see how many more are in the buildings. There must be a pretty good reserve of MECH troops somewhere. If we're lucky, he brought all of 'em in. If he didn't, we'll have to keep our eyes out for even more of their fuckery."

"Terrific. Well, for now, we'll keep hoping this is all that's left of MECH." Arcee waypoint on her GPS display and cut her engine before easing over to the edge of the highway. "We gotta go off the road and into the trees from here on."

Bulkhead joined the conversation as a moving blip representing Optimus appeared on her screen. "The rest of us are moving toward your waypoint. Optimus will bring his trailer as close as he can get so you can grab your weapons and gear."

"Thanks," Jack said. "See you in a few. Mom, you hanging in there?"

"I'm a little nervous, but I'm also looking forward to seeing Sokolov and his goons led away in handcuffs."

"Me, too. I hope that's really him."

"Same here. Though I have to admit, I'll miss having an excuse to screw around with Silas's head. Still, it's better for everyone to put this guy behind bars."

"Well, he probably still has all kinds of info about MECH that he hasn't spilled yet." Jack grinned as he dismounted. "It wouldn't hurt to keep working him over in case they've still got other troops and resources, so we can mop 'em up before they cause any more damage."

"That's a good point. I'll have to keep coming up with new ideas, then. Mwahaha!"

Arcee chuckled and transformed out of her vehicle mode. She and Jack made their way into the trees and headed toward Optimus.

"I've moved closer," Miko whispered. "Now I can see a few of 'em going in and out of several huge tunnels at the edge of the crater. Looks like they're using what's left of Airachnid's lair, so they could have a lot more gear and personnel hidden underground."

"Fantastic." Jack sighed. A clean-up crew had gone through the lair and removed the equipment and "trophies," but the network of tunnels had been left alone. The area had been cordoned off with warning signs and a chain-link fence topped with razor wire, but that wouldn't stop someone like Sokolov.

"Doesn't matter how many there are," Ashanti said. "This is where we cut off MECH's head, no matter what."

Jack exchanged a worried glance with Arcee. "Fun times ahead."