He looked down and saw a ten-inch-tall blue alien robot staring up Carly’s skirt.
She aimed a kick at him but came up short as he darted backward. As the robot got out of the way, Sam shouted at him, “Brains! What are you doing?!”
“Just watchin’,” Brains said defensively, bobbing his head so that his wiry “hair” waved around like a field of wheat.
Sam lashed out with his foot and had more luck than Carly had, catching Brains squarely across his torso. The robot zipped backward, and Sam endeavored to recapture the mood with Carly. But it was the romantic equivalent of trying to shove the toothpaste back into the tube. Carly, visibly shuddering, walked out of the bathroom. Sam followed her. “Carly—”
She wasn’t listening. “I’m late, but the creepy one … yesterday, I found him in my underwear drawer.”
Sam didn’t want to be in the position of having to defend the little perverts, but still …
“They’re stuck here! They’re stranded. Someone’s gotta look out for them.”
She stopped and turned back to him, automatically smoothing her skirt and then reflexively looking down to make sure no one was taking in a show. “So,” she said ruefully, “not a normal boyfriend, then?”
“Thought that’s what you love about me.”
Carly tapped his nose with a finger. “We are not to the L word yet. Maybe a bit closer when you’re covering your half of the rent.” Then she kissed him on the cheek. “Bye, bye, baby.”
She headed out, and moments later her high heels were clacking down the stairs to the front door.
The moment she was gone, there was an insistent knock at the balcony door. Sam turned and strode over to it quickly, knowing what he was going to see before he opened it.
Sure enough, there was Wheelie, rolling back and forth impatiently next to Sam’s huge wet mastiff, Buster. Neither robot nor dog seemed particularly thrilled. Wheelie, however, was more vocal about it.
“It’s inhumane, is what it is!” Wheelie complained. “Make us live in a box, on the balcony, right next to the beast, like a common animal!” He slapped at Buster, who responded with an annoyed bark.
Sam was not brimming with sympathy at that moment. “Okay, you and your creepy sidekick cannot be in here without permission.”
Buster, apparently having no patience for conversation, bounded into the room. Wheelie grabbed on to his fur and rolled in behind him, as if he were water-skiing. He rode him a few feet and then released his hold, allowing momentum to glide him over to the television. He turned it on and immediately let out an aggravated squawk. “Who messed with the TiVo? South Park sucks! What’s this Kar-duh-SHEE-uhn crap?” he said, mangling the name “Kardashian.” Then with more interest he said, “Star Trek,” but he quickly followed it with a disappointed “I’ve seen that one.” Struck by a thought, he wheeled around to face Sam. “Here’s an episode I’d love to see. The Enterprise is cruising along, and suddenly it comes face-to-face with a Prime. And the Enterprise starts changing around, and the nacelles become cannons, and it says, ‘So you’ve found me! At last … we finish this!’ ’Cause it’s a Decepticon, get it?”
“Yeah, I get it. Look—”
“And the two of ’em start whomping on each other—”
“Will you listen to me!” Sam shouted, managing to get Wheelie’s attention. “I’m serious! I don’t need this relationship going the way of …” He stopped and then rephrased it. “You know how long it took me to get over Mikaela!”
Wheelie seemed put out at the mere mention of her. “The warrior goddess dumped you, she dumped us. Now we’re the only family you’ve got.”
Sam crouched down and pointed an angry finger at Wheelie. “No. We are not family. You are a political refugee. I am your …”
“Refuge-or?”
“Whatever. The point is, I’ve finally found someone who appreciates me for me. And I’m not going to let you screw that up.”
“ ’Cause you figure you can screw it up yourself?”
For an answer, Sam brought his fist down on top of Wheelie’s head and thumped it as hard as he could without damaging his hand.
Wheelie didn’t even seem to feel it. “Travesty’s what it is. They don’t even offer us a position?”
In spite of himself, Sam said, “Yeah. I was saying the same thing.”
“I tell you, we know how you feel. Wasted talent. Even Brains can see that.”
Sam glanced over at Brains. The little robot had a box of screws he’d pulled out from under the sink and was busy chewing on them and spitting out the heads.
Great. I have no job, my girlfriend probably thinks I’m a loser, my parents are going to give me no end of grief, and the only ones around who see things the way I do are a couple of metal midgets with a fetish for hardware and my girlfriend’s panties. Maybe I’m the one around here with a screw loose.
He walked over to Brains and grabbed the box away from him. Brains gave a protesting bleep. “Okay, stop with the screws,” he said, then stepped back to address both of them. “Look, you guys like it here? Just treat Carly with respect.”
Wheelie spun back and forth, which was his mocking version of a salute. Brains, who was preoccupied with watching MSNBC, spun his head around and muttered, “Buy, sell, buy, buy, sell, hold. Short.”
Exasperated, Sam headed for the shower and hoped that Brains wouldn’t start flushing the toilet the way he had the last time.
ii
Sam, wearing the one and only suit he owned, strode out into the street while making what seemed the umpteenth adjustment to his necktie. He took a mental inventory of how the day had gone so far, couldn’t find a single positive, and wondered, How could things possibly get worse?
From nowehere a horn started blasting from down the street that was so loud, it sounded like a lighthouse, complete with foghorn. Sam turned to find the origin of the hellacious noise and was horrified to see his parents, Ron and Judy Witwicky, navigating a gargantuan RV right down the middle of the street. Three parked cars lost their side-view mirrors as his father steered the beast with the skill of a blind man.
I have got to stop wondering about things getting worse.
As the RV drew closer, Sam, out of habit, checked the front to see if it was carrying a Decepticon emblem. How strange had his life become that he was seeking out evidence that a vehicle was a disguised alien robot in order to make sense of it?
There was a large parking space available in the street, mostly because Ron felt that that whole business about not parking next to fire hydrants was more of a guideline than an actual law. (“If there’s a fire, I’ll move it!” he frequently said.) Once he had maneuvered the behemoth into its illegal space, Ron clambered out the driver’s side while Judy hopped out of the passenger’s seat. She threw wide her arms as if she were a falcon about to take flight and cried out, “Oh, Ronald! Look at him! He looks just like a little man!” She clapped her hands together, ran to him, and started patting his face repeatedly, thus ensuring he would have curious red marks on his cheeks for his interviews. Then, for her finale, she shoved his cheeks together so that his lips wound up pressed forward like a goldfish’s.
Having inflicted enough damage on her hapless son, she turned around and surveyed the area. “Where’s Carly? Show me that beautiful girl. Where is she?”
Not here, thank God. “She’s at work, Mom. She got a new job. What are you doing here …” An entire freakin’ week early!
“Just speeding up the trip,” she said, as if the answer should have been obvious. “Wanted to see you. And”—she lowered her voice and chucked a thumb toward the RV—“I could not last another month in that thing. It’s a nightmare. Relived the entire Civil War.”
He wasn’t sure if by that she meant that they had attended a Civil War reenactment or she and Ronald had split the thing into North and South sections and then fought the entire time.
Ron sauntered toward his son, obviously thinking that his wife was busy extolling the jo
ys of traveling everywhere in a conveyance so large that it had its own ZIP code. “Like the dream machine, huh?” He winked. “Could be yours someday, kiddo.”
I can’t wait to have it run me over. “Thanks, Dad. I’m getting the chills,” Sam said with his best forced smile. “Guys … you should have called.”
“Then we couldn’t surprise you!” his mother said.
Sam wasn’t exactly seeing the downside of that.
Mom, meantime, was busy straightening the lapels of his jacket. “Oh, Ron, look how handsome! See, I told you he’d find a job.”
“Took long enough,” Ron said. “We were getting worried.”
“Guys, I can’t talk. I’m gonna be late …” He paused. Lie to them. Tell them you’re going to work. It’s their fault, not yours. If they had shown up when they were supposed to, you wouldn’t have had to lie. So just make something up …
And then the other side of his brain, the one that was aware that his parents certainly posed far less of a threat than a rampaging Megatron—although to give them their due, they were right up there—kicked in.
You’re an adult, Witwicky. Man up. There’s no good way to disabuse them of the notion that you’re gainfully employed. Best thing to do is just rip it off, like a bandage, in one shot.
“… late … to my interviews.”
His parents looked as if they were deflating, and that was when Sam remembered just how painful ripping off those bandages could be.
“Oh. Interviews,” they said in unison.
Feeling bad for having disappointed them but confident that it would be only a short-term disappointment, he put a hand on each of their shoulders. “Look, this is gonna work out great. This way you’ll be here to celebrate with me tonight when I get the job. So go tour the museums, okay? I’ll be back tonight. Welcome to D.C.”
His parents nodded gamely, and Sam, knowing he had done all he could to make a bad situation better, headed to the garage. Wishing yet again that they had an electric door opener, he gripped the handle and pulled. The door grunted in protest and then, making it clear that it was not happy about doing so, moved upward with a screech of metal.
For half a second, in his mind’s eye, he was staring at a beautiful yellow Camaro, and he was a teenager once again, falling in love with his first car … a car that returned that adoration in ways he could not possibly have anticipated.
Then reality caught up with him, and he stared, depressed, at the garage’s current occupant: a dilapidated Datsun. There were dings all over it, the paint was peeling, and the rear bumper was being held on with wire.
But hey, at least it ran.
Sometimes.
He climbed in behind the wheel and turned the key. The engine started to turn over and then started again, and a third time, and then began to choke itself out.
“Oh, no. No, not now, not today … please not today.”
Except of course it was going to be today, because it was becoming abundantly clear that today was simply that kind of day. And it just wouldn’t be that kind of day if his parents weren’t there to witness every bit of his humiliation.
He begged the car to cooperate every time he turned the key, even though the engine was getting weaker and weaker with each successive attempt. But the car gods had never responded well to begging unless one counted making things worse as a response.
“Sam!” came Judy’s voice from behind him. He sagged forward, thudding his forehead lightly on the steering wheel. “Where’s Bumblebee?”
“You tell me, Mom. He’s off on his missions.” He punched the dashboard in frustration. “Had to buy this for backup.”
Ronald Witwicky stepped in behind his wife and said the absolutely perfect thing: “Uh huh. So your car has a job.”
As it turned out, that was actually the high point of Sam’s day.
SOMEWHERE IN IRAN
In any war, there are calms between storms. It has been several years since the last Decepticon attack. And while the world knows of our existence, it remains a source of controversy. We now seek to assist humans in their early conflicts. To defend the free and protect the innocent. Usually at their request. Sometimes of our own volition …
i
The sun was no more blistering on this particular day than it ever was, yet Lieutenant Sulimani, for some reason, was sweating.
He was manning his guard post as he typically did outside the gated industrial facility. He didn’t actually know what went on in there, although he had heard rumors that as a result of the facility’s activities, he wouldn’t be able to have children. Considering the way the world was these days, he didn’t necessarily see that as such a bad thing. On the other hand, he’d also heard that you could indeed have children, but they would be hideously mutated. After giving the matter a good deal of thought, Sulimani had come to the conclusion that he didn’t actually want to know. It wasn’t going to change his situation, and he wound up sleeping better at night. Fewer strange dreams.
He felt as if he were having a strange dream right now.
In the distance, visible through air that was shimmering with the incessant heat, there was the distinctive cloud of dust that always meant vehicles were approaching. Typically they were army vehicles, and had that been what was approaching now, Sulimani would have thought nothing of it.
Instead, as the caravan drew closer, he was able to make out a very familiar lead car: a Mercedes.
He rubbed his eyes, still allowing for the possibility that it was a dream or perhaps a mirage. Then he looked to his partner on the other side of the gate, Lieutenant Faraj. But Faraj clearly saw it as well.
“The defense minister’s car?” said an astonished Sulimani, seeking final confirmation that he was not losing his mind.
Faraj was nodding, looking no less perplexed. “Why did no one warn us?”
That was not the question that was puzzling Sulimani. He was willing to believe all too readily that someone had simply fallen down on the job in the chain of communication.
What he couldn’t fathom was where on earth the cars following in the convoy had come from.
Sulimani was something of an automobile buff, always had been. He loved to look at pictures of them, since that was naturally all that was available to him, and he would often imagine himself behind the wheel of some exotic muscle car, tearing through the streets of America, which he had heard from reliable sources were smooth and black and without an abundance of potholes, checkpoints, and bombs.
He had long ago resigned himself to the fact that he would never get to see close up any of the cars he lusted over.
Yet here they were now, coming, as if the defense minister had for some reason decided to bring a car show along with him in order to entertain the guards.
He recognized every single model. Rolling in behind the Mercedes was a yellow Camaro, a red Italian sports car, and a silver concept Corvette. Not a single one of those cars was remotely appropriate for the battered desert roads that served the facility, and yet here they were. Even more astounding, none of them showed the slightest signs of the sort of wear and tear one would normally expect the road conditions to impose on such vehicles.
“What the hell are they made out of?” he wondered aloud.
The sweat running down his forehead was becoming even more pronounced. Obviously, there was some matter of security at stake. The defense minister had to be coming here to perform a surprise inspection, and surprises—especially in this part of the world—could have dire consequences.
Immediately, Sulimani and Faraj opened the gates, swinging them wide in welcome. Then they snapped to attention, saluting, as the row of vehicles rolled in.
The moment the cars came through the gate, however, everything changed.
Literally.
The beautiful red sports car was the first one to undergo the metamorphosis. In rapid succession, so quickly that the guards could scarcely follow what was happening, parts twisted and gears emerged. The sports car was making
noises that sounded like a combination of an oncoming locomotive and a series of head-on collisions.
It grew, higher and higher, until a shadow fell upon the guards because it was blocking out the sun. Seconds earlier it had been an idling sports car.
Now incredibly, impossibly, it was a towering flamered robot with gleaming swords for hands.
Shaking off their astonishment—which was, in and of itself, one hell of an achievement—the two guards tried to unsling their rifles so they could bring them to bear.
They never had the chance. Unknown to them, that was actually fortunate. Had they managed to open fire, the bullets would have ricocheted and most likely hit them.
Instead, the robot simply brought his swords up and placed the points at their chests, nudging ever so slightly. If they didn’t fall backward, they would be impaled. Their knees bending, they dropped the rifles that they never had a chance to aim and fell onto their backs.
The titan leaned over them and spoke with surprising softness.
“We won’t be long,” it said.
ii
While Mirage took the point and incapacitated the human guards as carefully as he could, the Mercedes, Camaro, and Corvette—Wheeljack, Bumblebee, and Sideswipe, respectively—were still in stealth mode. Truthfully, they could have simply stormed the gates in their robot forms, smashing the barriers underfoot and reveling in their superiority. But there was no reason to pull out all the stops if it wasn’t necessary. “Like killing a mosquito with an elephant gun,” as the humans might have said.
That, and the less the humans saw giant robots tearing around their planet, the better it was probably going to be in the long run. At least that was Wheeljack’s thinking, and since the learned Autobot was respected for his technological and scientific savvy, his opinion carried a good deal of weight.
Now that they were in, however, there was no point continuing the subterfuge. “Well, Autobots,” Wheeljack said. “Let’s inform them of the consequences of violating global sanctions, shall we?”