She was floating.

Gentle swells lifted and caressed her limp body in the ancient rhythm of the sea. Beyond her closed eyes, the sun shone down upon her in gentle intensity. Nothing existed at that moment beyond surf and daystar. The sounds around her were muffled by the ocean as she drifted face-up atop the waves, her arms flung out beside her as if to embrace the sky above. Her face relaxed as she let all the tensions of the day drain away.

In a few moments, she would have to leave this peace and go back to the trials and tribulations of her existence. But for a short time, she could float in the clean coastal waters of the Pacific and forget her cares.

God, no one had warned her that senior year of high school would be this tough. Between juggling school and work and the cheerleading team, she barely had time for a boyfriend. Or parties. Or cruising Highway 101 with her friends. Or half the normal fun things that everyone seemed to be doing. It just wasn’t fair. You get into classes that will prepare you for college, or so the guidance counselor assured her, but then all your time gets sucked up into the black holes of term papers and physics labs and calculus derivatives.

Carly Jamison sighed deeply, inhaling the warm salty air, and finally flipped over to start swimming to shore. She struck out strongly in an overhand stroke, the sound of her arms hitting the water mingling with the surf and the babble of the Crescent City Beach crowd. She swam past a few of the dark and craggy rock formations that were a distinctive hallmark of the beach until her feet finally found the sandy bottom. She walked out of the water, her wet blond hair hanging in a sodden ponytail and the water dripping off her tanned, fit form. Distracted by the thought of the night’s homework, Carly ignored a few admiring looks from fellow beach-goers and found her towel and sandals on the beach where she had left them.

Enjoying the sensation of the bright sun sending warming rays to her hair, she slipped on a pair of sunglasses over her bright blue eyes and started walking across the beach to her car, a red ’72 Mustang convertible. The wind blew lightly against her, the moderate temperature feeling chilly on her drying skin. The teenager wrapped the fluffy yellow and black beach towel more closely around herself, concealing the royal blue onepiece swimsuit beneath. Opening the door, she slipped into her driver’s seat and yelped as the hot leather stung her thighs. She hurriedly stuffed the towel underneath her, laughing at herself for never remembering to check the seats before sitting down. She pulled out of the parking lot and cranked the radio, returning to her life - her normal, stressed, high school life that she took ever so much for granted.

The road from the beach wound on a pleasant scenic tour of the small city, including an old but active lighthouse briefly visible along the point of the harbor. The late afternoon sun slanted across the small bay and glinted in bright gleams of blue and green off the rolling ocean. The throaty voice of Debbie Gibson cooed something about eyes from her stereo, and the wind swiftly dried her hair as she swept along the road. Her home, a modest two-story light blue affair with a wooden back deck, lay on the outskirts of Crescent City proper.

Carly snagged her blue and yellow-gold cheerleading outfit and pompoms from the passenger’s seat before heading into the house. The inviting smell of her father’s cooking wafted outside as she opened the heavy front door and beckoned her inside.

Homework, the bane of Carly's existence, waited within.

A gray-haired and bearded man drove along a northern California highway in his trusty mint green Buick Skylark, passing through on his way home from giving a guest physics lecture at the College of the Redwoods in Eureka. The same redwoods that gave the college its name rose up on either side of his car, towering over the highway as it took him through Redwood National Park. Just over a hundred thousand acres in size, the park was home to some of the largest, most ancient living things on the planet. A few ambitious rays of sunlight threaded their way through the labyrinthine maze provided by the leafy canopy and illuminated the rich undergrowth in a soft glow. Occasionally the car would pass through such a patch of light, which flashed across the hood and over the windshield with a glimmer of brightness and then vanished as it was left behind.

The man driving the car absently adjusted his round wire-frame glasses as he relaxed into the drive. The eyes behind the glasses were dark but gentle, and took in the world around him as if he were living in a constant sense of wonder. This was a man who took to heart Einstein’s quote: There are only two ways to live your life. One is as though nothing is a miracle. The other is as though everything is a miracle.

A pointed but still professorial beard hid the lower part of his face, but could not conceal the frequent upward quirk to his lips as random amusing thoughts crossed his stream of consciousness. The skin that was revealed was swarthy with crinkle lines around the corners of his eyes. He wore an old but still serviceable brown suit with a tan shirt. The tie had long since been taken off and casually tossed in the passenger seat alongside his white laboratory coat and presentation materials. The man’s name was Professor Althazar, and he was renowned the world over for his ground-breaking experiments in particle physics, which had served as the backbone for his presentation earlier that day.

Highway 101 was a convenient and scenic route back to his home town of Portland, Oregon, and Professor Elek Althazar had been enjoying his drive when the first reports of unusual activity interrupted his poor singing to Metallica’s latest ballad with the annoying whine of the Emergency Broadcast System.

“This is an Activation of the Emergency Broadcast System. This is not a test. Repeat, this is not a test…”

An authoritative male voice came on the air.

“This is General Myers of the United States Army. The State of Oregon has been declared a disaster area. No non-military traffic will be allowed into the state until the disaster has been contained. Repeat, no civilian traffic will be allowed to enter the State of Oregon until further notice. Thank you for your cooperation.”

The mysterious announcement killed his good mood and left behind a growing anxiety and dread. Gnawing nervously on an oft-chewed thumbnail, the professor shifted channels to AM news, trying to get some clues as to what was going on. Mt. St. Hilary had of course erupted the previous day, but that had been anticipated for months and multiple precautions taken. Had the volcano erupted a second time, with more devastating effect? If so, why was the reason for the disaster not given?

Frowning beneath his graying beard and moustache, he had stopped in Crescent City as there certainly wasn’t much use in traveling to a border he would not be allowed to cross. As one of the principle industries of the area was tourism, there were any number of motels and smaller bed and breakfasts to choose from. Military forces were visible and reassuring; and yet alarming at the same time.

There was, the scholar decided, a security in knowing that the American military could mobilize swiftly when needed, particularly in these times when tension with the Soviets ran high; but also a high unease in knowing that something was happening that required such a mobilization on home soil.

Professor Althazar finally chose a medium sized motel that had a nice view of the harbor and a common television watching area, and here he finally started to understand the course of current events. The small room became cramped as the evening wore on, as all the visitors wanted not only to see what was going on, but also to have the comfort of being around other human faces. Even the haze that slowly filled the room from the four nervous chain smokers of the group could not budge anyone from that security.

For what was happening, as news footage gradually began to be released from news stations and official sources, was that of all improbable things, giant robots were running amuck in the Portland area, with most sightings occurring on the side of town facing Mt. St. Hilary.

Of all the 'interesting times' one could imagine… I’m in a science-fiction horror novel. A rather frightening one at that, was Elek's assessment. The situation felt totally surreal despite the flickering images on screen, glimpses of mechanical humanoids twenty to thirty feet tall as seen through helicopter and surveillance cameras. The reports of actual damage from Portland were minimal, although apparently quite a number of people had been found missing.

The question of whether or not the robots were hostile or not seemed to be answered by sunset. The professor had finally gotten hungry enough to attempt to eat a sandwich when the reporter on the T.V. started talking excitedly again.

“This just in… we have confirmation now of a hostile contact between the mysterious robots and US Armed Forces, resulting in the deaths of over a hundred infantrymen. General Myers has called for a general retreat from the area and it is anticipated that aircraft armed with missiles will be sent against the robot force…”

And so the travelers and the town citizenry grimly hunkered down around their basement televisions, waiting for the alien robots to be wiped from the Earth in the face of America’s weaponry.

But it didn’t happen that way, as Dr. Althazar suspected from the beginning. Giant robots springing from nowhere and spreading destruction wherever they went should never be underestimated. As the small snippets of available footage grew, the physics professor became convinced that wherever these mechanical monsters had come from, they had long ago advanced past the point where human weapons like tanks and missiles would have much effect.

By morning, or Day 2 as the newscasters were calling it, all the US forces in a radius of a hundred miles of Mount St. Hilary had been destroyed. There was no other word for it except for that: stark, utter destruction of tanks, planes, helicopters, military buildings, and the lives of soldiers. The set of four chain smokers in the TV room expanded to an even dozen as anxious and frantic people worried and fretted over homes, friends, and family in the Portland area.

Soon other stories began to surface, of the robot monsters appearing in an ever-expanding radius out from Mt. St. Hilary. Nothing, it seemed, could stop them, and from what the newscasters could put together, it seemed as though they were deliberately aiming their activity at military bases. All through that night, one report after another surfaced, each new attack hitting just a little further east, creeping ever closer to the nerve center of the nation.

At the dawn of Day 3, a blitz of static interrupted a frantic newscast from Washington D.C as a reporter stuttered his way through the news that a red semi had literally just driven through the Pentagon.

Throughout America and the world, viewers leaned close to their sets. Some smacked their offending screens; others cursed pensively. The dozen chain smokers that had grown to a group of seventeen plus six pipe smokers froze in their motions. And then the static resolved to a silver face with a crimson chevron affixed above the forehead and cold blue optics that blazed with purpose.

“I am Prowl, second in command of the Autobots,” the robot said in English, and in Arabic, and in Chinese, and each of the other major Earth dialects, translated and beamed all over the world in an instant. The voice was not the monotonous drone anyone would have expected of a robot. While it was terse and clipped, the robot’s voice had a depth and expression that seemed to indicate emotion.

“This is a warning to the organics of this world,” Prowl continued. The debate over the origin and purpose of the robots had been the near-exclusive activity of most Americans since their first appearance, and as this one continued to speak, the theories that the robots were being remote controlled from some hidden location dissipated. This - being - seemed obviously self motivated.

“No further resistance will be tolerated.” The azure optics blazed coldly. “This planet is now under the complete rule of the Lord Prime. Peaceable activity will be ignored. Your military activity is useless against us and will incite… retribution.”

With that, the transmission abruptly ceased, and after another burst of static, returned all the viewers to the frantic reporters detailing the destruction of the U.S. Capitol building.

By the middle of Day 3, robots had been sighted in all parts of America, targeting the remainder of her military bases. As the sun set upon that third day, the United States stood stripped of its once mighty military.

And the rest of the world watched, and speculated, and did not dare attempt intervention.

Just before midnight Eastern time of that third day, the previous young reporter had been replaced by a gizzled-looking man who surely had been in his teens when the Wright brothers flew at Kittyhawk.

“To whoever can hear me,” he began his broadcast in a deep, solemn tone, “I am reporting from New York City in the last free broadcast of the United States of America.” Deep piercing eyes stared down each viewer as a cry of denial echoed across the nation. Inexorably, he continued, reading from a page at his desk.

“In view of the deaths of nearly the entire complement of Capitol Hill and the utter devastation of the United States Army, and under the threat of the wholesale destruction of America, the President has issued a surrender order for all of America which will begin at midnight, Eastern standard time.”

Families wept. Individuals stared at the screen in shock.

“The alien robots, who call themselves ‘Autobots’, have assured the nation that peaceful activities will be ignored. You may return to your workplaces and schools. All weapons are to be turned over to any Autobot representative that demands them.” There was no question as to how to identify an Autobot representative.

“All surviving military forces, including police, are to disband and disarm.” The newscaster turned to the next page on his desk. “All Autobots are to be obeyed without question. They assure us that they will disrupt our life as little as possible for their own needs. Resistance will be met with… termination.” He continued reading the list of the new Autobot rules that would now govern America, but now and again there was a pause in the listing, as if the newsman were considering the consequences of these rules for the first time as he read them. With the exception of necessary shipping, driving across state lines was forbidden. News services and television would continue, but comments against the Autobot regime were prohibited.

Finally, he turned to the last sheet of paper, and then paused. He glanced offscreen at something, then took a deep breath. His face lost its composure and the old reporter’s piercing pale blue eyes fixed intently on the camera, no longer starting at his notes.

“We must not,” and here even the strong voice of the veteran reporter began to break down, “we must not forget the lives of all the brave American soldiers and civilians who have given their lives in the past three days. Remember that they fought for freedom.” He began speaking faster, as a loud stomping noise came over the waves. “Wait for the day we can fight again. Cooperate now, but bide your time and -“

Something - a huge mechanical leg, perhaps - stepped within view of the camera. A fist the size of a kitchen stove dropped down with incredible force on the reporter, whose face was resigned and brave. He did not flinch, but all around the world people stared in horror at the picture on their television screens. There was a splatter of blood, a gleam of fiery blue, and the hint of an enraged metallic face; and then a giant hand came directly at the camera and the picture died into static.

With ritual solemnity, the dark lord of the Ark strode the spaceship’s halls. A pair of honor guards escorted their liege along the burnt gold of the corridors, warily watching each other as well as those that the trio passed by.

The sparse lighting slid over the smooth metal of their bodies in gleams of silver and darker colors until they entered the brighter expanse of the command center. In the corners of the echoing chamber, diverse robots holding repair tools drew themselves up into attention as their leader entered the room.

“Teletran One.”

The deep, powerful voice of the Lord Prime activated the central computer screen. It flared to life, then calmed into a map of the currently conquered territory. Three weeks after the Autobots’ reactivation, those holdings comprised of the bulk of a continent.

“Display proposed location for the initial power station.”

Silently, the image moved across the screen, then magnified to focus upon a small city on the west coast of the continental mass. One by one, the positive attributes for the site were listed. Deep, natural harbor. Nearby carbon-based resources. Access to building materials. Adequate native labor pool.

“Prowl?” It was much more of a command than a question.

“We leave at sunset, my lord.”

Among other regulations laid down, travel had been restricted, particularly within and to the state of Oregon. The Autobots had claimed the entire state as their exclusive domain and had also forbidden any news or radio broadcasting from it. The region had become a blackout zone, and only the barest rumors reached even neighboring regions.

Those who lived in proximity to Oregon faced the choice of whether to try to stay and attempt to salvage whatever they could of normalcy, or to try to run as far from the site of the alien invasion as possible.

In the end, while some did leave, most residents of Crescent City remained. In fact, many desperately clung to routine - people returned to work, the school reopened, and after a week, fresh produce from surrounding farms was even available again at the stores. A crude system of barter evolved, but that seemed to be the biggest change. Stories were heard of collapse of order in the larger cities; but in the relatively small, peaceful coastal town, even the utilities still functioned.

Carly’s parents argued constantly after the invasion about whether or not they should leave their home. Today, the argument took place in Diane Jamison’s scrupulously neat kitchen around the gleaming pale wood of the center range. Above the range, a collection of gleaming black pots hung on a central array that hung from the ceiling. A country apple theme dominated the room, with a border of lively red and green dancing along the walls near the ceiling, and brightly woven wicker baskets and other decorations hanging from every available surface. It was a cozy and bright sort of place, and the smell of fresh baking bread provided an emotional reassurance of normalcy that was strikingly at odds with the labile atmosphere.

Her father was actually the one who wanted most to go. Stephen Jamison was a tall, lean fellow with the weathered skin of an outdoorsman, and as a conservation officer, he felt that he knew a race of predators when he saw it. It made only the best sense to him to get as far away as possible from their lair, and he moved restlessly back and forth along the counter.

Diane Jamison, however, was having none of it. Carly’s mother had a forceful personality that came from her liberal upbringing as well as two decades of attempting to teach the basics of English literature to high school students. From the moment the robots had appeared, the petite golden-haired woman had decided, however illogically, that she was not going to give up her home without a fight.

“What about my kids at the school?” she asked heatedly from the other side of the range. “I had three of them in my class crying yesterday. Most who are still here say that their families aren’t going anywhere, and they’re scared, Stephen. They need us to provide as much structure as we can. How can we abandon them?”

Stephen slapped an open hand onto the dining room table in aggravation.

“What about our own family?” he retorted. “What about Carly? What if we’re all wrong about these robots, and they aren’t done with us yet? They are like rabid wolves, Diane, and we have no defense against them.”

Carly had been pacing in the background of the argument behind the sparse shelter of the humming refrigerator. All her life, she had been something of a mystery to her parents, who had fairly reclusive, academic natures. Naturally, they had been destined to produce children who would be cheerleaders or quarterbacks, and with whom they would have little in common. But now, Carly’s world was falling apart, and the addition of her parents being at odds was threatening to overwhelm her.

“Stop it!” she shouted, emerging from behind the refrigerator to stare at her parents. They paused in the argument, honestly having almost forgotten their daughter was present.

“I should think that if I’m the thing you’re arguing over, I should have a say in the matter.” The blond girl swallowed down the rising tide of jittery nerves and put on a brave face. A part of her wanted to run away, knowing as fact that the further away one was from Oregon, the safer anyone would be. Another part was quietly insistent that if they just stayed put and went about their normal daily lives as the Autobots had ordered, that everything would be okay.

“My life is here, my friends are here,” Carly said at last, earnestly. “There are so many people that aren’t leaving. And look, ever since America surrendered, the only people that have gotten hurt are the ones who fired on the Autobots for whatever stupid reason. Maybe if we just stay quiet and stay here, they’ll leave us alone, like they said they would. At any rate, I would rather not let them kick me out from my home.”

Her mother nodded in approval, reaching out to clasp her daughter’s shoulder.

“That’s the spirit, honey.” Together, they looked at Stephen with a strange combination of resolve and plaintiveness.

Stephen looked lost and defeated for a moment, but then started to smile, a slow grin tugging at the corners of his mouth.

“I still have my worries,” he admitted, coming around the range to gently embrace his family. “But with two lionesses in the household, I’d better be a lion too, or else I’m going to get eaten.”

The three of them laughed together then, and for a moment it was as if the Autobots had never come.

Later, they sat around the TV, Carly sitting on the couch between her parents as they watched the Cosby show.

How can TV go on? Carly wondered to herself. Why would the Autobots allow it, if they meant to hurt us?

Later, there was some news coverage from the anchor in Eureka about the breakdown of life in the larger cities. Getting supplies past more than the outskirts had become a near impossibility, and without a police presence to enforce smoldering truces, gang wars had broken out in earnest. They fought over territory, resources, and salvage from abandoned stores. Morbidly fascinated at the descriptions provided by those fleeing the inner cities, Carly did take some amusement and comfort from a story being passed around from Los Angeles.

Supposedly, a brazened gang member with a grudge to burn had fired on a cop car, which had turned out to be an Autobot in its vehicular mode. Apparently, the ‘Bot had changed itself to robot mode and single-handedly wiped out the entire gang, a story that the Jamisons found disturbing and bizarrely humorous at the same time.

In the end, it seemed like something that just couldn’t happen in Central City - everything was just so small and relatively peaceful in their town. There were some inconveniences, yes… diary prices shot up until the town started bartering with local farms and everyone started buying direct. Buying gas was a problem, too - everyone was forced to ration. But fishing had become a popular activity for everyone again, and seeing small boats out in the harbor had actually increased in frequency as folks gathered in the bounty of the sea. With every passing day, the probability of having a peaceful life under Autobot rule seemed higher.

“It’ll be okay,” the Jamisons told each other, trying desperately to believe their own words. “As long as we don’t attack them, we’ll be okay.”

And that was a lie that citizens all across the nation told themselves. This lie was later revealed as one of the Autobot’s chief weapons, and showed an entire race’s ability to live in denial of the looming storm clouds right above their heads that would, sooner or later, descend with dreadful force to wash everything away.

But for the citizens of Crescent City, ‘later’ was revealed to be not so long a span of time at all.

Professor Althazar paced the floor of his hotel room for the thousandth time, fretting. He had been trapped here in the northern Californian coastal town since the attacks, as since the closure of Oregon he found that he had nowhere else to go. And so he had remained while attempting to acclimate his mind to the new paradigm of reality and futilely worrying about his friends and colleagues he had left behind in Portland.

Most of those with circumstances similar to his own had left Crescent City, fleeing to the south or east. The scientist, however, had made his home in Portland for years and had few close contacts remaining to him outside of the city. He now spent his days out in the fishing boats or trouble-shooting technical problems in the small local power plant, and in return was given food, clothing, and lodging. Elek Althazar was a man who had spent his life in merry pursuit of the secrets of the universe, but now that intellect was turned to nights of pacing and brooding as he tried to determine his next step.

In this relatively quiet town, it was almost possible to regard the Autobots as some sort of distant nightmare. He knew better, however - the fate of the reporter who had read the terms of surrender was forever etched into his mind.

However, action against the robots seemed impossible. They had proven to be well-nigh invulnerable to any conventional weapon, and the chances of acquiring any of their technology to study for weaknesses seemed equally remote. And yet… Elek was of the firm conviction that there existed no puzzle without a solution. An answer had to exist to this riddle of steel.

The professor turned on his heel yet again in his pacing, tugging at his beard in thought, when his musings were interrupted by the sounds of distant explosions. Eyes wide in sudden shock, he flew to his window, which looked out into the rest of the town. Not a dozen blocks away, iron giants walked the streets, leaving fire and destruction in their wake.

It appeared that there had been a time limit to this riddle, and it had just run out.

Her mind was in a state of shock, and she could only stare blankly into the noisome darkness.

They hadn't even had time to cry out as a random shot of light enveloped them. One final, all too brief gaze of terror and love and then they no longer had eyes to look with and no mouths with which to scream. Stephen and Diane Jamison, along with Carly's entire world, were gone.

The dull roar of the truck engine and the muted clattering of the chassis formed a weirdly appropriate sound that emphasized the desolation of the captives. There was no light allowed into the interior of the cage, adding a higher level of disorientation to the experience of jolting over bumpy roads and helplessly sliding along the floor whenever their transport turned a curve.

She remembered pausing. Yes, she had not been able to move after her parents had been slain by the crimson beam of light. There was a thud that must have been the footstep of one of the Autobots, but at the time she had not noticed because there were ashes where her mother and father should have been, and that was an illogic so profound that it simply could not be understood.

Carly had tried calling out into that impenetrable darkness a few times, but her feeble voices was either not recognized by any of the others or else did not rise up above the babble of terror and pain enough to be heard. The girl was in a crush of strangers that huddled in a hurt and terrified knot of humanity, but although she could feel the press of bodies all around her she still felt achingly alone.

A huge shape descended from above her head, but she did not see it. When frigid tree-trunk fingers plucked her gently from the ground, she had not even the wit to struggle, but reached yearningly for the strangely small piles of gray and black that were somehow receding from her grasp. And then the Autobot carrying her turned and deposited her in a metal cube, dropping the lid shut after her...

With a final lurching motion, the interminable journey ended. The sound of revving motors was replaced by the familiar sound of ocean surf, but it was almost buried by strange mechanical noises and a pair of voices.

They were a pair of cold, alien voices, the mere sound of which was enough to turn the most dedicated screamer into a muted whimperer.

"Ain't ya ready for these yet, Strike?"

"Preparations are almost completed, sir. If you just leave them here, I'll take them in shortly."

"Huhn. Just make sure that ya start on time. Is Hoist finished yet?"

"He's making the final adjustments to the converter now, sir. We are on schedule."

A grunt and the sound of giant footsteps walking away seemed to be the reply of the owner of the first voice. Carly hugged her knees in the darkness, her frozen grief beginning to be overtaken by fear and leaving her increasingly confused. What was going to happen to them next? How long was shortly? What was a converter?

On and on the questions came without any answers to relieve the growing anxiety. She learned that 'shortly', at least, seemed to mean a different thing to the Autobots than to humans, for they all sat there for what seemed like a century in the darkness and growing warmth. The metal behind Carly's back became painfully hot, as though it were sitting in sunlight, even though no ray pierced the seals of the doors to illuminate their lightless travelcage. The air became increasingly stuffy, and the girl huddled in misery and fear, panting in the darkness. As what were surely hours rolled on, even the quiet babble of voices died down as exhaustion overtook them all. No one within had even the spirit to pound on the walls of the cage, for what was outside of it was surely even worse than mere darkness and terror.

A few heavy steps approaching caused a thrill of apprehension down Carly's spine, and waking from her near-doze she locked her arms more tightly about herself. From without, they heard a pair of clanking sounds followed by high-pitched screams from human throats.

Someone gasped, and hands were flung out in the darkness, seeking comfort as the outside shrieking faded with the retreating footsteps.

"There's more of us out there," Carly whispered, reaching out blindly and finding an arm. The unseen person took her fingers and held them tightly in a large hand.

"They haven't brought us this far to kill us," a man's voice answered, and she held back to his hand with equal strength.

Again the footsteps approached, and the humans within the transport tensed. Something clanged with heavy force on the roof, first one side, then the other, the sudden sharp sounds eliciting a few startled yelps. And then the entire compartment swayed madly, sending them all tumbling helter-skelter from side to side. Carly lost her grip on her unknown companion's hand and screamed uncontrollably with the others as the sickening lurching continued.

There was a pause, then for a horrific moment she was weightless before gravity caught up with her fall and slammed her against the floor of their transport. Carly tried to untangle herself from the arms and legs around her, shaking with reaction and fear and wishing with the scrap of awareness she possessed to be able to see again. The sound of heavy footsteps receded and left them once more in blessed stillness.

A few minutes later, the footsteps approached again, along with the shrieking of another group of humans. Like they're on a roller coaster, came a whimsical thought out of nowhere, and the distinct sound of something very heavy landing on concrete.

"Be quiet," a stern voice cut through the human noise, plainly audible even through the solid metal walls of their cages. The captives hushed in response, waiting.

"I'm going to let you out now. Any who attempt escape will be terminated."

With brutal suddenness, the back doors to the transport were opened, sending in a stream of blinding light. Reflexively, the humans within recoiled, flinging arms up over their eyes until there had been some semblance of adjustment. When Carly could look, she vaguely realized that they were inside a large building, but the large Autobot who was walking away immediately captured her attention. She got a glimpse of moving blue metal and the long expanse of another room before a large door slammed shut, leaving the humans to cautiously emerge from the transports.

Still trembling, Carly followed the others out, finding herself in a large, one-room chamber that was mercifully cool in comparison to the stuffy environments of the three cube-shaped cages. The floor and walls were smoothly poured concrete, while the dully-glinting metal ceiling towered high above them. A narrow window along the upper length of one wall was lined with bars and let in a few streams of afternoon light. Heaps of casually tossed blankets and towels lined one side of the room, while on the other side along the very edge of the wall a trough in the floor about three feet wide and two feet deep trickled with continuously flowing water.

The water drew them all out like weary ants still inevitably attracted to sugar, until they were all thirstily scooping up the water with their hands. Carly managed to squeeze in between a gray-bearded man and a dark-haired woman whose hands shook so badly that she could barely bring any water to her lips. Further observation of others halted as the water stole the entirety of her attention, and the girl fell to her knees to scoop up a double palmful and greedily slurped it down, only then consciously discovering the burning thirst she had developed while waiting in that hot, stuffy box.

The water had an acrid, almost metallic tang. It was warm and slightly salty from all the sweaty hands dipping into it upstream.

It was the most delicious water she had ever tasted, and she scooped and slurped with an edge of desperation until at last the absolute compulsion to rehydrate had eased. Finally released from the most urgent need of her body, she sat back on her heels, then stood to dully shamble a few feet away.

It was all so unreal. Surely her parents were not dead, and surely she had not been taken from her home by a giant robot, and surely the water drying on her hands was only sweat from sleeping without air conditioning, and, oh God, she would surely wake up in her own bed, any moment now...

Any moment. Please. Please.

"Carly?"

It was a little, hushed voice, barely above a whisper, but it startled Carly out of her dazed reverie and back to a reality she desperately wanted to deny. Turning her head, her glazed eyes focused downward on a petite Hispanic wisp of a girl.

"Natalie?" she breathed, turning further to tentatively reach out and see if the apparition were real.

"Oh God, Carly," and the girls threw their arms around each other, clinging to their first familiar face. Up to this point, Natalie had been a casual friend from the cheerleading squad, but that fragile bond of teenage friendship now felt like a lifeline that had been passed to her to hold.

"You two all right?" asked a male voice, gruff but kind. Startled again, the two clung to each other to look in unison at the speaker.

A tall, broad-shouldered man had his attention focused on them. He was wearing a torn dark brown shirt with a six-pointed gold star on each shoulder and carried an aura of long-earned authority. Carly recognized him as the county sheriff, although she'd never met him in person before.

"I... I think we are," the blond girl answered hesitantly for the both of them. The man smiled grimly in response, peering at them with keen, dark eyes. Of course, not a human there was in any state that could be defined as 'all right', but at least these two didn't look like they were about to break into hysterics.

"Good. I'm Sheriff Highsmith. What are your names?"

"I'm - I'm Carly Jamison. This is Natalie Mareno," Carly added when her companion held back from answering. The presence and attention of a relatively calm adult soothed her, and something within her subtly relaxed in response to his air of authority.

"Call me Jeff, okay?" He smiled charmingly at them even through his obvious exhaustion, then pointed to one corner. Somehow, a few people had gotten organized enough to start finding a way to hang a few blankets for a privacy curtain at the exit point for the stream. "Look there. There's a grate over the drain, so we won't have any luck getting out; but we're setting up a bathroom there. Got it?"

The girls nodded in unison.

"Good," he said again, reaching out to gently touch their shoulders, holding their eyes with his own. "Now, it looks like you girls have each other. Why don't you stake out some blankets and find a place for yourselves and try to rest?"

Caught by his obvious concern, Carly nodded back, her face a mask of suppressed emotion. "All right... Jeff."

"Good," he said for a third time. "Hang in there with the rest of us, okay? We're all in this together." And with that feeble but well-meant reassurance, he very gently turned and propelled both girls toward the far wall.

As they walked in automatic response toward the gradually shrinking pile of blankets, Carly heard him start talking to someone else, using the same opening line. Moving tiredly, she and Natalie each found a blanket and moved over to where a few people had started to settle down. Their bodies could not sustain the energy required to generate endless terror, and as the girls curled up next to each other on the bare concrete, exhaustion reached up and pulled them down into unconsciousness.

If their televised claims had not convinced Elek that the robots were of alien origins, the metal cubes that had been used to transport them here certainly did. Frowning, he peered at the bronze-gold metal, noting the precise welds and texture, running his hands over the cooled metal. The alloy was like nothing he'd seen or heard of before. "You all right?"

The question came from behind Elek Althazar, and he turned from his examination of the gleaming metal transport cubes to answer the question.

"I believe I am physically intact," the scientist answered, absently running a hand through his touseled grey hair and smoothing his beard. Somehow, his glasses had survived both his capture and the journey here, and he peered with interest at the stranger. He was obviously a lawman, with an air of quiet determination and authority that shone even through his exhaustion.

"Good," the other man answered. "I'm Jeff Highsmith, sheriff. What's your name?"

"I'm Elek Althazar, professor," he replied slowly, measuring the sheriff with his eyes. "Are you taking charge here, then?"

"For the time being, anyway," Jeff smiled briefly, but it did not reach his eyes. "So far most folks seem to think that my ideas are worth listening to." He pointed over his shoulder toward the makeshift privy.

"Look, I'm not going to give you orders," he continued diplomatically, as though expecting Dr. Althazar to protest.

"No, no, you misunderstand me," the professor shook his head tiredly. "I am happy that someone is organizing us. Please, what can I do to help?"

Nonplussed, Sheriff Highsmith smiled again, this time crinkling the corners of his eyes. "Thank you, Professor. Hm. I'm trying to pair folks up - is there anyone here that you know?"

Elek shook his head. "I am from Portland. I was just passing through town when... well." He shrugged eloquently.

The sheriff somehow found the emotional reserves to give the professor a sympathetic look, but forbore to ask further questions at the moment.

"Hm. Well, there's a boy that's are pretty shook up - he lost his family, I think, and doesn't seem to know too many people here. Would you mind helping to look after him?"

The professor spared another look at the gleaming dark gold cube-frame. "Certainly, sheriff - "

"Call me Jeff," the other man interjected.

"Jeff," Elek repeated, nodding. "Why don't you introduce us?"

"His name's Felipe," Jeff gestured and started walking. "And thanks, Dr. Althazar."

"Call me Elek."

"Elek, got it," the sheriff replied. "By the way, what are you a professor of?"

"Physics," Elek told him. Jeff flashed him an attentive look, slowing as he approached a small knot of people.

"We'll need to talk later, I think. For now... Felipe? Hey, would you mind helping look after this older gentleman...?"

And that was the first day.

Elsewhere in the warehouse, a comscreen flared to life.

"Report." Prowl's stern visage demanded an immediate answer.

"All equipment is installed and ready. The native labor force has been collected. The first tankers will arrive just after this world's dawn, sir."

The report, with its succinct, brisk sentences, was a typical example of how the Mech named Strike spoke to his superiors, and one of the qualities that Prowl most appreciated in his subordinate. Granting the blue Autobot a nod of approval, the Datsun terminated the connection.

Carly regained consciousness to re-inhabit a body that ached in what felt like every muscle, joint, and nerve, and immediately attempted to flee again into the peace of sleep. Her left shoulder and hip sent dull messages of pain from lying on concrete all night, but trying to shift to another position seemed to be too much of a challenge to attempt it.

"Wake up, people!" a male voice commanded again from nearby. "Someone's coming."

"Huhn?" Natalie moaned from a few inches away. Combined, the two voices were enough for Carly to grudgingly pry open her eyes to view the dimly lit chamber.

"Wake up!" It was Jeff, insistent and urgent, but before the girls could roust themselves enough to understand the alarm in his voice, they too heard the footfalls of an approaching giant.

Carly was suddenly heart-poundingly awake. Aches and pains forgotten in a new wash of anxiety, the girl sat up then scrambled to her feet as around her two hundred and five other souls flung rose in a ragged wave. Her blanket fell to the ground unnoticed as she peered at the door in the scant, predawn light creeping through the high windows on the east wall.

"Do what they say - for now. Whatever happens, keep in your pairs!" Jeff was speaking above the sudden rash of fearful mutterings, and Natalie and Carly reached for each other's hand just as the footsteps reached the door. With a casual heave, the massive barrier was slid aside in a resounding booom that echoed in the sudden stillness as their jailer stood revealed.

He was very tall, dark blue in colouration with some tracings of silver and white, and bore a crimson Autobot symbol that gleamed from the center of his chest. Blue optics casually evaluated them, and Carly would always remember that first stern, mocking gaze.

She would also always remember her first emotion upon seeing his face. Here was a focus for the entirety of her misery and loss. Soul-deep hate blossomed like the quiet ignition of a gas flame, a small and growing warmth that mobilized her against the quaking terror the Autobot also inspired.

“Up, fleshlings,” was the deep-voiced command. “Time for reveille.” Then he turned and walked out of the room in a relaxed stride, leaving the door open behind him.

Terrified to obey, but even more terrified to disobey, the humans crept out of the room like mice, some holding on to each other as they wove past the three now-empty cages and out of the huge door. In their twos and sometimes threes they walked, and what might have been a shapeless mob held some semblance of order thanks to the foresight of one man among them.

Beyond the threshold of the door lay a single concrete-walled chamber the size of an indoor football stadium. Stacks of strange machinery filled it, with a few human-sized catwalks spiraling around the upper portions of the largest. The smell of brine, which had been present but faint in the chamber they had just left grew stronger, an almost reassuring scent among the stink of welded metal and alien hydraulic fluids. Three huge docking bays were open onto the sea from the north and awaited occupancy. The chamber was illuminated primarily by a series of large floodlamps hanging from the massive support girders a hundred feet above their heads, and also by the soft blue and pink lights emanating from the humming, waiting machines.

The robot waited for them, an air of expectancy about him as he watched the humans leave the chamber. Impossibly large hands twitched idly at his sides as he waited. There was always at least one.

The Autobot was correct, for unfortunately not everyone could accept the wisdom of "Do what they say - for now."

One woman who had lost her entire family in the attack barged toward the robot. Her partner, distracted by his own fear and misery, tried to intercept her too late. Her features set in the same expression of anguished outrage and loss as they had been for the past two days and now animated by the presence of a target, she stormed up to the robot and demanded an answer of him, uncaring of consequences. Tangles of black hair streaming behind her like a tattered warbanner, she pushed her way through the crowd to confront their captor.

“What are you, you bedamned godforsaken son of a bitch? What are you that you could do this to us?”

Her cry was the vocalization of the anguished question that each and every human held, and Carly watched in breathless anticipation to see how the robot would respond.

His wait for an example ended, the Mech bent and scooped up the questioner in a smooth, fluid motion to hold her in the grip of one large hand. The other humans, all two hundred and five of them, froze in their tracks. Every eye in the crowd became fixated on the impetuous woman held high above them as the Autobot began to speak.

"Lesson One," he said with dreadful casualness. Like his movements, his voice was far more fluid and expressive than expected of a machine. He spoke English with easy mastery and detachment.

"I am not here to answer your questions. You are here to obey my orders."

He brought his hand closer to his face, holding the trembling woman on his open palm. For a moment he studied her with dispassionate interest. She stared back, a rabbit caught in the azure headlights of his eyes, struggling to speak.

"But you - "

"Lesson Two!" he boomed, cutting across the woman's halting voice and returning his attention to the others. The woman cried out as his thick fingers hungrily curved up around her. She curled up into a ball - which he abruptly flung to one side with devastating force.

CRUNCH...chh... chhh...chhuff.

The frail human body impacted the reinforced concrete wall at about two hundred miles an hour, then slowly slid down in a trail of fluids and mangled tissue until finally being deposited with a wet, sickening sound upon the floor.

"Demonstrated ignorance of Lesson One results in termination," he ended with a note of satisfaction as he inspected his hand, then briskly ran his thumb against his fingertips to scrape off any lingering traces of human.

"Now where were we... ah yes. Each morning you will assemble in ranks for reveille." The Autobot paused and eyed the cowed mass of humans expectantly.

Carly looked about frantically, unsure what was expected of her. She and Natalie took a few uncertain, shaky steps forward and back; and then they were all rescued by a determined male voice.

"C'mon - I need twenty people in a line across the front. Everyone else fall in behind them. Move!"

Taking one of the front twenty positions himself, the sheriff pointed and pushed people into position, the others falling into a ragged formation with alacrity. Carly and Natalie managed to keep in the same line together, too frightened to speak.

Above them, the overseer's optics brightened in curiosity at the one who was helping to herd the others into formation. Jeff Highsmith found himself the recipient of the alien's disconcerting gaze.

Suddenly the robot surprised them all by breaking into a chuckle. It was all the more chilling coming as it did just after he had ended one of their lives with all the concern of a boy stepping upon an insect.

"Ahh... a symbol of your law on both shoulders. You are their little prime then, yes?" The sheriff could only stare up in confusion at what obviously amused their keeper.

"Yes... I think that is what you shall be," the machine decided. "What is your designation?"

"Jeff Highsmith, sir," the human replied, instinctively adding on an honorific. The choice of trading a bit of pride in exchange for a better chance at keeping everyone else alive was an easy decision for him.

"Highsmith. An almost civilized name - refreshing," the Autobot remarked. "Highsmith, you have just become foreman of this work detail. I shall hold you responsible for the performance of your fellows, so do what you must to keep order among them.

"Now," he continued, generalizing his attention to the group, "normally, after reveille you will be allowed a short time for fueling. However, this little demonstration has put us behind schedule." He waved a casual hand toward the side wall and the pitiful remains there. "So, follow me. You all have much to learn, and only one of your hours before the tankers arrive."

With that enigmatic comment, a long, exhausting day began. With efficient instruction that hinted at long experience, the Autobot taught the new slaves how to use the human-sized equipment in the gigantic factory. Jeff Highsmith, who did his best to keep his assigned pairs together in the various work groups, aided him.

Somehow Carly and Natalie got through that day, learning which cables to move, which switches to throw. Although the terror and horror of their situation had not lessened, neither girl was yet prepared to directly tempt Death when He loomed so directly over their head.

Evidently, the large water-filled berths were waiting to accept a series of oil tankers. Their job was to help run giant hoses from the automated tankers to one of the inputs for the conversion machines. There were easily fifty such intakes, each requiring two humans to manage the two-foot diameter hoses and pump mechanisms. More stations around the intakes managed the volume of flow. All of the intakes fed into a tall, mysterious central chamber, which had a single output into a deep trough. At the other end of the trough, another station requiring two humans to keep running was a device that made Cubes.

The appearance of the Cubes was almost like magic. Two people struggled to move a large lever back and forth along its track, and at the end of the levered motion a large, completely transparent Cube simply materialized in thin air.

"Mark this well, little humans," their blue captor deigned to explain in superior tones. "Your primitive organic-fuel will move into the main converter and its energy extracted into energon. You will catch the energon in the cubes, then carry them to the storage area." He paused to survey them.

"Any questions?"

No one dared a word.

The possibility for escape into the sea was evaluated by dozens of desperate eyes. However, the designer of the facility had certainly considered that, and their captor delighted in explaining the six different ways they would be hurt, maimed, or killed by automated defense systems should they attempt such a thing. In a moment of comparative benevolence, he used a piece of scrap metal to demonstrate them instead of selecting another 'example'. As the metal, pierced in a dozen places by laser bolts, sank into the sea, so sank their hopes.

And then the tankers came in with the tide, and the rest of the day faded into running along the large hoses, attaching them to the portholes and switching them out as the holds of the tankers emptied. The converter itself had coughed to life at the touch of the Autobot, and its loud, staccato sound quickly rose to almost painful levels. Crude oil soon spattered the previously pristine floor, the slick black stuff coating their hands and providing a hazard to movement. More than one person slipped and fell in a heap, to rise bruised and sore. By the end of the day, under the robot's tutelage, they had fallen into a sort of rhythm. Hoserunners dashed back and forth to connect the different lines, the pair at the Cubeswitch generated Cubes, and dozens of others carried the finished product of glowing pink energon to the storage units.

They were allowed to stop an hour after sunset, finishing their work under the glaring luminescence of the overhead flood lamps. The Autobot watched them with critical optics, then paused them as a certain indicator on the conversion machine began to flash.

"That will suffice for today," he announced, his deep voice audible even over the noise from the converter. Too weary to fully comprehend, Carly and Natalie paused in their tracks to stare dully at their captor as he reached out with a giant hand to touch a few parts in sequence on the upper level of the central machine. Instantly, the converter quieted, leaving only an echo of its grating roar in their ears.

"You may refuel now," he continued, and stepping to a high shelf, pulled out a container. Thoughtfully eyeing his captives, he stepped to their holding area and dumped a shower of objects from the box. Even from a distance, Carly could recognize the characteristic cylindrical shapes of canned goods. Warily, then with hunger and exhaustion overcoming them, the girls spent the last of their energy returning to the communal cage.

Jeff Highsmith somehow managed to get there first, and with the help of a few others organized some lines. Randomly, every human returning to the cell received a can of food. Seeing that his foreman had things well in order, the robot watched to ensure that all two hundred and five re-entered the cell, then gave his last order for the day.

"Recharge."

The doors slammed shut, and for the first time in hours they were out of the view of their captor. They all felt the immense weight of his regard being lifted from their shoulders and exhaled in relief. The sheriff quickly seized the moment.

"Everyone gather around," he called, taking himself to the center of the room. "Anybody with can openers or pocketknives needs to share them," he continued as the majority sluggishly circled around him. A few were too weary to heed him, moving in zombie-like slowness to their blankets as soon as they had managed to open their dinners and consume them.

Jeff looked after them for a moment, then addressed himself to those that chose to attend his words. Carly, Natalie, Elek Althazar, and Felipe were among them.

"We lost somebody today," he spoke with deadly seriousness, meeting the eyes of his audience. "But we didn't have to. Right now, we have no position of strength. We don't know the system, we don't know the building, and you saw just how easily that Autobot kills."

"So what are we gonna do? Just bend over and do what that mechanical sonuvabitch tells us to do?" A pained voice came from the crowd.

"For now, yes we are," Jeff shot back. "But I want us all to remember something. We are NOT slaves."

"Sure, whatever you say, 'little prime'," someone else muttered; but that person was immediately turned upon by his partner and thwapped upside the head.

"Shut up. He's just trying to keep us alive, can't you see that?"

As the dissenter was quieted, Carly tried to figure out Jeff's meaning. Certainly they were slaves - what else could he possibly call their situation but slavery? But he had an answer that suddenly threw their situation into a new light.

"We are prisoners of war."

Elek Althazar and the young man, Felipe, sat wearily sharing one can of creamed corn and one of cherry pie filling. After nearly two days without food, the simple, cold items tasted like manna from heaven. As they came to the end of their rations, Jeff Highsmith slowly made his way over after his speech to sit heavily upon the floor beside them.

"So, what do you think, doc?" The sheriff was so tired he had to make an effort not to slur his words. "What in the blazes are we making in there?" What is so important that we're dying to make it? he wanted to ask, but had no heart for the question tonight.

Dr. Althazar paused to swallow, luxuriating in the feeling of something filling his belly, and invigorated at having a question to answer.

"I have little answer right now beyond the obvious," he admitted. "This 'energon' is a liquid energy source, but it is concentrated in a form that yet to be encountered by human science. It is not hydrocarbon-based at all, and I have been pleasantly distracted with trying to think what else it might be."

Felipe, a shy Hispanic boy with a thick shock of black hair, hesitantly asked a question. "Hydrocarbon - that's like oil and gas and coal, right?"

"That's right," Elek affirmed, scooping out another bite from the can with his finger. "They're also called fossil fuels, but the way we get energy from them is by breaking the bonds in them between hydrogen and carbon with oxygen to get carbon dioxide and water - in other words, by burning them."

"Oh." Felipe considered this for a moment, struggling to think through his fatigue. "But there wasn't any smoke. That machine isn't burning the oil to get the energy out of it."

"Exactly," the professor answered. "It's... extracting the energy somehow, changing it into a different form, and I daresay it doesn't use oxygen, either."

"But what else could it use?" Felipe asked. Around them, a few others were casually eavesdropping into the conversation.

"Well, there has been some extremely theoretical speculation about using photons to store energy, but I'm not sure how exactly how one would go about making those into a pink liquid."

"Um... what's a photon, exactly?" one of the eavesdroppers asked, struggling to stay awake while his companions fell into exhausted sleep. Jeff Highsmith himself was fighting a losing battle, his head falling forward toward his chest.

"Think of photons as the particles that carry the energy of light..."

And with that, Dr. Althazar began to lecture in earnest. What began as an effort to attempt to comprehend the mysterious nature of the equipment they were forced to operate turned into the first of what would be a long series of lessons for those who somehow found the last shred of energy in the evenings to learn. And patiently, somehow finding a source of strength in the questions of others, the professor taught.

Across all the infinite realms of space and time, for every cosmic force there must exist an equal and opposite force in balance. Blazing white-blue giant stars orbit and feed the grasping hunger of black holes; burning magma flows and is quenched by the sea; male and female were they made; Primus Warlord rails against His eternal stalemate with Unicron Destroyer.

And now, while the imperial, conquest-driven Autobots wreaked their wills upon the planet, the counterparts to those lava-hot souls began to stir. A living flame dared wander too carelessly and with too much concern for its own glory, and in so doing roused the still waters that would otherwise have remained in their ancient sleep. Deep beneath the storm-gray sea, after resting for ages of a world in a forgotten and battered starship, those war-weary but determined beings known as the Decepticons...

...awoke.

"Our courage is not shackled/ Life is marvelously beautiful..."
"Our Courage Is Not Broken," Israel Cendorf, French Jew in captivity, 1942

The giant door clanged shut, providing a welcome relief from the baleful glare of His cerulean optics. Carly and Natalie gulped down their allotment of food, then wearily headed over to the water trough that ran along the entire length of the south wall in an attempt to clean off the worst of the black muck that clung to their clothes and skin.

Natalie's pace was noticeably slower than Carly's, although both girls were fatigued to their very bones after almost a month in the POW camp. Giving the factory that name seemed to give them all a certain illusory power over their situation, and so long as they embraced it the mirage remained a small oasis of strength - although one that still was not enough for Natalie Mareno. The once vivacious and spirited cheerleader had retreated into herself, and was even more slender after a month of being overworked and underfed. As the petite girl stubbornly tried to put one foot in front of the next, a sudden wave of dizziness overcame her. Carly had only a moment's notice before her friend staggered and fell against her, almost throwing both of them to the floor.

"Wha - ooof! Natalie!" Clinging to the collapsing girl, Carly supported the frail weight of the other's body, then all but dragged her bodily the remaining few steps to the water trough.

"Natalie, what happened? Is something wrong?" the blond girl demanded, something within her chest constricting in panic. Even in a few short weeks, Natalie had become her constant companion and her link back to memories of happier times. Carly refused to think about the possibility of losing her.

"I'm all right," Natalie gasped, sinking gratefully to her knees at the water's edge. She still clung to Carly with all the strength remaining in her fingers, heaving huge breaths and trying to will away the spots dancing in her eyes.

"You're not getting enough to eat," Carly sank down next to her, frowning. "Look if you need it, you can have a little of mine tomorrow..."

"It won't do me any good," Natalie responded with the ghost of a bitter laugh as she began to recover, but then turned her head to give Carly a small, pure smile. "But... thank you. I couldn't ask for a truer friend."

"What do you mean, it won't do you any good?" Carly demanded, her voice sinking into a harsh whisper. Fear thrummed its ominous rhythm through her chest. No, no, no.

Natalie closed her eyes, then dipped the edge of her shirt in the water and tried to rub away some of the filth on her oil-stained face.

"I mean, my body can't use it. I'm... I'm diabetic, Carly. Without insulin, my body can't use food in the right way."

"Why didn't you tell me before?" The older girl's voice shook. Turning to the water, Carly tried to distract herself with her own libations, wearily trying to wash the dark fuel from her hands and arms.

"I thought you knew about it, you know, from cheerleading." Natalie offered a wan smile through a curtain of matted black hair. "Besides... what could any of us do about it now? Do you think He's going to fetch some medicine for me?"

"No but - but - Natalie, what's going to happen to you?"

"I'll go as long as I can, Carly, I promise. I... I don't know how long that will be. A day, a month - I don't know," she repeated dully.

"Don't..." Carly trailed off. To her surprise, she found that she still did have tears left, which welled up at this unexpected blow. She had shed so many the first nights here that she had thought herself drained of even the potential of making more. "Don't let them take you away from me too!" Don't leave me alone!

Oddly, it was Natalie who reached an arm around the older girl in comfort.

"If I do go, it won't be Him that does it," she vowed, more determined on this one choice than on any other in her entire short life. "I won't let Him break me."

"I believe you," Carly whispered, and with an effort stilled her tears. Weary in mind and body and heart, the girls drank their fill of water and then shuffled to their sparse collection of blankets. As they passed the small group surrounding Dr. Althazar, Carly was distracted and soothed by the scientist's even, patient tones as he answered the questions of his students.

How they found the energy to learn, Carly could not guess, although there was a part of her that yearned also for more answers about the technology they were being forced to use.

The night passed uneventfully, as did the morning. From their first assemblage into formation to the brief time allotted to devour their morning rations, the two girls stayed near each other. Carly's troubled yet solicitous gaze was focused upon her partner, watching for any further signs of weakness or faintness. But Natalie seemed to have somehow regained her strength in the night, and although her motions were slowed from chronic fatigue, she remained steady on her feet.

The afternoon brought an unexpected variation in the camp's routine. At first, no one knew what had caused their captor’s outburst of violent temper. All they knew was that after a brief step into his office, the alien robot had re-emerged in a foul and violent mood.

The humans quailed before the angry footsteps that pounded the floor and rocked the equipment. His fury was not merely sensed, it was felt in the vibrations transmitted through the concrete floors of the factory as each stride brought the tall blue Autobot closer to the main work area.

The overseer usually watched them work. Carly had almost gotten used to the feeling of living underneath a hammer poised to strike at the first sign of a mistake. But now, there was an incredible rage in the blazing optics and a snap to their master’s every motion, until he paused to stand and inspect them. For a long, long moment he stared at them, the organics who bent to the work of the Empire, and the intensity of his unblinking gaze unnerved one man just enough that he tripped over an oil-hose and fell.

In a sudden stoop, the blue machine stepped forward and snagged the fallen worker in a silver hand. Startled to the point of speechlessness, the human froze in a limp pile on the metal palm, the iron fingers curving up around him like huge bars of an unfinished cage. Panicked human eyes met coldly furious ice-blue optics. Across the floor, the other humans paused in their work in unified horror.

“If you think that they will ever be able to help you, reconsider.” The enigmatic words were nonetheless spoken like a serious warning. “You belong to the Autobot Empire, and even a hundred Decepticons who should have been long dead and rusted could not change that, let alone the rag tag crew that is here. Say it!!”

Carly held her breath in the tension, staring unblinkingly up at the man held twenty feet over her head, a silent, frantic prayer repeating itself over and over in her mind. Please God, not again. Please God, not again. Please God...

Patrick Mills, once a conservation officer, trembled on the Autobot's hand. Voice shaking, he repeated the words as best he could. “We… belong to the Empire…. Th-they can’t h-help us.”

Surprisingly, the submissive response seemed to calm the giant Autobot. Responding to his own alien thought processes, he lowered his hand and almost softly tossed Pat to the ground instead of the dozen other more violent actions he had seemed inclined to do moments ago. “Remember that,” the Mech rumbled, and then the robot turned his back on all of them to return to his office.

Later, Carly remembered that incident very distinctly.

It was the first time she had ever heard of the Decepticons.

More weeks went by, but without another word about the mysterious 'Decepticons' beyond what exhausted speculations the prisoners could devise during their rest period.

"They're something that makes Him angry, so they have to be good," was Natalie's continued conclusion. Despite the words, her tone was dull and disinterested, and she nearly collapsed to the ground to paw feebly at their blankets. Carly knelt and covered Natalie with a thin rag, tucking in the edges as her friend lay quietly with a preoccupied look on her face.

Natalie grew steadily weaker, until it was Carly that wrestled the hoses almost by herself while the other girl performed a show of assistance, and finally Jeff subtly reassigned Natalie to a stationary position and sent the man nearly killed by the Autobot to be Carly's work-partner. Carly didn't care, though, as long as the work was made easier for Natalie. Somehow, all the affection of her heart turned from safer things such as the memory of her parents and former life to this one precious, vital, horribly vulnerable person to whose existence she clung for hope and the strength to continue on.

Somehow, they got through the next day, and the next. The calendar was something kept by all of them despite any weariness, the days counted and chanted under their breaths and under the droning shriek of the energon converter. It could have been so easy to forget to tell time when under the weary monotony of endless days of work, but in an unspoken accord the prisoners refused to release this vestige of their former lives.

The end of November went by with the barest quiet acknowledgement. Even Jeff Highsmith could not do more than summon a few words of hope that someday, a free America would be able to celebrate its gratitude for continued existence once more.

The days of December passed in a blur of tankers and rosy-hued energon cubes. The brisk morning air, let in from the bays open to the sea, was more chill and fresh each day as the days approached their shortest length. A kind of anticipatory hush lay on their spirits as the humans waited to see what relief Christmas day would bring to their hearts.

In the end, the reactions were highly individual. Some got up to the call of reveille with the slightest of smiles on their faces, as they remembered the jewels of the happier times of their lives and locked them away in their hearts in a place where those memories could never be violated nor dulled.

Some moved more slowly than ever, tears streaming down their faces for the first time in weeks as they grieved anew for loved ones and the times that would never, could never, be again.

And some drifted through the day and routine in a haze of unreality, unable to reconcile the renewal of spirit represented by the holidays with the daily crushing grind of their current existence.

For Carly, the day brought the frozen numbness with it, her emotions caught and held away by the conflicts between her memory and her reality. After three months of weary captivity, after long weeks of seeing the sun only by its reflection in the sea, and after investing the remainder of her devotion in a weakening girl, the earlier events of her life appeared so bright and full of warmth that it was only possible to think of them as a favorite but fading dream. And beyond that, thoughts of her family were edged by a guilt so terrible that her conscious mind was only able to bear looking at a small piece of it before violently repressing it to the depths of her subconscious. It had been her voice, after all, that had voted for remaining in Crescent City on the day of the last argument, a decision that had directly resulted in the deaths of her parents. Hemmed in by the past, present, and future, Carly merely existed.

But Natalie wore a kind of subtle glow about her face, as if for this one day her weariness could be put aside as she drew upon the strength of her memories. For this one day, she allowed herself to remember in full the warm circle of her extinguished family: the slow fond smile of her father, the touch of her mother's hand, the impulsive kisses of her baby sister. With a gentle mental hand, she caressed the Christmases of her life in reverence and love.

And that night, as her last Christmas sun shrank from the terrible noise produced by the factory and descended below the edge of the horizon, Natalie sank to her blankets, her gaze still focused on the past. Her once-supple hands, now nearly skeletal, loosely grasped the can that held her evening ration, but she showed no inclination to eat.

Even Carly's dulled emotions were aroused at this.

"C'mon, Natty," the blond girl urged. "You gotta eat."

Natalie continued to gaze out into space a moment more, then slowly her vision turned from whatever time-distant vista had captivated her mind's eye to the girl beside her. There was no fear or dismay left in her eyes, but instead a kind of serene peace, and a single question.

“Carly,” she suddenly asked in a weak voice, “Will my death mean anything?”

“Don’t ask that!” Carly whispered fiercely, in sudden surprise and anger as her frozen emotions thawed even further at this threat to the friend that she had sworn to protect. “You’re not going to die!”

“But I am,” her friend replied, the oddly peaceful and determined expression still resting on her visage. “I can’t stop it. And I want it to mean something… I want Him to know I didn’t break.”

“No, you can’t die!” The blond girl abruptly took Natalie’s thin shoulders in her hands, ignoring the compassionate gazes of some and the irritated gazes of others as the other humans settled for the night. “Say it, Natty. You’re not going to die.” Her blue eyes flashed as she spoke as if by denying it she could ward Death’s shadow away with the shield of her anger and love. All I want for Christmas... This is all, just this: let me keep her with me...

Natalie winced as Carly’s hands closed on her shoulders, the peaceful expression giving way again to doubt. “N... not going… to die,” she whispered, then the anger and the doubt and the exhaustion gave way to tears for both of them, and the girls cried on each others’ shoulders to sleep.

It was amazing, Dr. Althazar had quickly discovered, how completely a complex mental problem could distract one's mind away from physical suffering. By his request, he was one of the two captives - not slaves! - who were assigned to the great lever that churned out the outlines of the Cubes. By so doing, he had a more intimate view of the inner workings of the machine than nearly anyone, and thus could gather more fragments of the fascinating science that was the alien Autobot technology.

He had eventually abandoned his thoughts of photon storage to an even more intriguing theory of room-temperature liquid plasma. But even the puzzle of the Autobot's fuel source paled in comparison to the mystery of the hardware that produced it. As much as he could, the physicist studied the pumps, the connections, and the rare glimpse of true circuit board, his mind savoring the complexities and possibilities.

Each evening, he taught an attentive class for a stolen hour of learning. Not unsurprisingly, his class was very small, for few had the endurance of body and mind to endure their grueling days and then attempt to learn the basics of physics and electronics. By the time they finished, they were usually the last to sink into exhausted sleep.

Jeff Highsmith was a frequent attendee, although for all his good intentions the sheriff was often comatose by halfway through a lecture. But when at any time the conversation turned to speculation as to the nature of the 'Decepticons', Jeff remained quite wide-awake.

"They must be another kind of robot," Elek repeated his argument a few days after Christmas, more for the sake of continued reassurance than to have anything new to say. "Think. 'Long dead and rusted' is what Himself said they should have been. Rusted. Surely that would mean that they, too, are metallic beings, and given Himself's reaction to them, enemies of the Autobots."

"And 'the enemy of my enemy is my friend'," nodded Jeff Highsmith, fanning the sparks of hope into a small and warming flame. His dark eyes glowed in a hidden smile he permitted himself fond thoughts of large metal fists hammering against the walls of the factory and smashing through the hated equipment within.

"Do you think so?" Felipe asked, bitterness in his young eyes. "Maybe they hate the Autobots... but that doesn't mean they have to like us. Or rescue us," he added in softer tones, his slightly accented voice aching with rejected hope.

"No, we cannot merely wait for anyone to rescue us," the sheriff agreed quietly. "Any ideas on how to best take out that machine yet, Professor?"

"Not in any way that Himself would not immediately know it was one of us," Elek answered regretfully. "But I am still thinking. It may be that if it breaks down at least once on its own, that I could duplicate that. But first -"

" - it has to break down," Jeff finished the thought, sighing and laying his head down upon his rag-clad arms. "Well, let's keep thinking. There's got to be some way to sabotage that converter."

"I think I know where an access panel is," Felipe offered. "There's an odd square on one side of the machine that doesn't quite match the rest of it. And then there's the light that tells Him when to stop for the day. If only we could figure out how to make that light turn on sooner!"

The others chuckled in appreciation.

"Yes, that would be a grand accomplishment," Elek agreed, and then the lesson tangented itself back to electronics and volts and current until slumber ambushed them and dragged them down into sleep.

In his quarters, an area just large enough for him to not feel cramped, the blue labor overseer contacted his immediate superior.

"This is Prowl. Report." The Autobot Second's voice was snarled and clipped. This had not, Strike surmised, been a good day for him.

"Energon production continues unabated," he answered, giving the good news first. "However, I spotted a Decepticon patrol on the station scanners. Am I likely to experience interference from them?"

Prowl understood the real question underlying the stated one: Were these Decepticons fresh, inexperienced, and foolish, or could they be expected to know the standard Autobot policy of extermination for attempted rescue?

"Megatron has been sighted," the Second responded tersely over the secure channel. "You should have no difficulties. He will not risk their lives."

A small wave of relief surged through Strike's systems, although he gave no outward sign of his emotions. Instead, he responded simply,"In that case, I shall continue my work."

Prowl nodded distractedly, optics shining with suppressed frustration. In a moment of curiosity, Strike took the opportunity to wonder about the origins of the thumb-sized dents in the Datsun's throat; and then the Autobot Second shut off the connection without any formal signoff.

“Ca…Carly?” The thin whisper seemed to float in the air, the lips that spoke it barely moving. Too-bright eyes opened, attempting to focus on the dirt-stained face above her. The eternal dimness provided by the fluorescent bulbs high above provided just enough light to see her friend’s anxious expression.

“Natalie… c’mon, you gotta get up! It’s almost reveille!” Carly’s features were worn, but much less emaciated than the face of the other girl. She was dressed in remnants of shirts and jeans, their color no longer discernible after months of constant wear. Gently but firmly, she swept away the protective cocoon of filthy blankets from around Natalie’s passive figure, her worry increasing as always as she got close enough to her friend to smell the sickly-sweetness of her breath.

“… can’t…” came the weak protest.

“Yes you can,” the other girl replied too quickly, refusing to consider the alternative. “Don’t give up on me, Natty. Come on!” Giving into the inevitable, the thin Hispanic girl aided Carly’s attempts to sit her up, weakly pushing at the floor.

“’m so thirsty,” she mumbled, hooking an arm around the stronger girl’s neck as Carly stood up, then hanging against her for support.

“I know, Natty, I know,” Carly answered, relieved that her friend was standing up. She reached up to hold the hand around her neck, hooking the other arm around Natalie’s waist. “C’mon, walk with me,” she coaxed. “We’ll have food and water right after reveille, you know that. That’s right. Another step. Off we go.”

Weakly, the thin black-haired girl allowed her stubborn companion to guide her to the exit of the large enclosed room. Around them, other humans clad in rags shuffled wearily, the dull realization that yet another day had begun provoking many apprehensive expressions.

Outside the sleeping room, the pair of girls joined the others in a broad space on the main factory floor, slipping into the rows of other humans. Professor Althazar watched concernedly, his long dark face drawn with anxiety as Natalie was half carried by her stronger companion. He started to move to help, but stopped as a heavy tread vibrated the floor. Their master had arrived.

“Stand up by yourself, just for a bit,” Carly whispered urgently as the humans settled into a block formation, somehow managing straight lines and standing at attention as the dark form of their Autobot overseer walked casually around the corner, towering above them. He scowled down at them, as he did every morning, and with a casual glance had them all accounted for, his optics feeding information into his processor at a rate the ragged humans could scarcely comprehend.

“Eat.” The casual word released them, and with a final dismissive glance from his cold blue optics, the giant robot walked away to begin his own morning routine, checking the great generators and the energon flow lines to ensure all would be in readiness for the coming day.

Immediately, Jeff came over to help Carly with Natalie, and between the two of them they managed to get some water and canned fruit into her. Natalie was even quieter today than the previous evening. She ate slowly, and stared off into space with a distant expression Carly could not quite interpret on her face. A little stronger after eating, the dusky-skinned girl slowly started to walk on her own, and by the time their massive overseer summoned them to their stations, she was able to amble slowly over to her station.

Prior to this, Carly was fairly certain that their captor had remained fairly unobservant of the individual frailties of his charges. However, as she walked to her own station at one of the oil pumps, she was troubled to see the Autobot’s gaze settle on the slowly moving Natalie. The weakened girl felt the chill gaze upon her, and turned her head for a moment and caught the coldly evaluating glance. Fear lent brief impetus to her, and Natalie moved more quickly to her station alongside the three-story energon converter.

Carly watched the Autobot allow his gaze to wander from her friend, and breathed a quiet sigh of relief. She lost herself in her work then, and with Patrick Mills began to run the one of the great hoses to the side of the nearest tanker. As they started, she could see a pink glow arise from the other side of the energon converter, where the pink substance of energon ran in a brief rush into a channeling pool before being caught by empty cubes. These were then carted away by teams of men and new empties brought to replace them. Soon, the gigantic room buzzed with the usual sounds of electricity and generators in a great chaotic cacophony.

It was not until the noon hour when Pat, working beside Carly, abruptly halted in his work and stared upwards that Carly even noticed that Natalie was missing from her usual station. Following Pat’s gaze, Carly was immediately similarly fixated, caught in the condensing amber of a stopped moment in time.

Somehow, the weakened girl had managed to slip away unnoticed, and climb the metal stairs that led to the upper stations of the giant energon converter. Eschewing the upper stations, she had stubbornly clung along a catwalk and reached one of the giant horizontal girders that ran along the ceiling of the room. With faltering and trembling steps, but steady determination, Natalie found her way to the point directly over the energon stream as it exited the machine, where the bright fluid ran through purifying gratings before being caught in the cubes.

That was how Carly saw her, poised on the treacherous footing over the tumultuous rose-hued falls below her. Their eyes met in a brief instant, and in that flash Carly saw the fear and doubt of her friend melt away, and beheld a peace and courage radiating from Natalie Moreno’s thin face. It had all come down to this, an inevitability of death met with the calm conviction that by not dying quietly she could make a statement of resistance that the human spirit would never be truly broken. Silently, with no further fuss or attention, Natalie closed her eyes, spread her thin arms before her, and dove off the girder.

Carly’s eyes followed that swan dive, that fatal moment. Natalie’s clothes fluttered for a brief moment in the wind of her passage, and then she disappeared from view forever into the rosy swell of energy, ruining it for Autobot consumption.

A shout of belligerent outrage split the air, but as most of the other humans quailed from the rapidly approaching Autobot, Carly stood transfixed. A few lone tears traced their way down her cheeks, and as a new scar etched itself onto her soul, she learned a new meaning of courage.

Every action has consequences, inevitable as the tireless work of entropy or the descent of night.

You simpering worthless sacks of MEAT!

Every death has a meaning to those who loved and are left behind.

How dare you even think to rebel against us?

Most people barely recognize the effect or meaning they have on others' lives. Natalie had imagined her statement of defiance to be directed solely at Him, at the Autobot who had god-like authority over their lives. In her last fevered moments, she wished only for Him to realize that Natalie Moreno had not been broken.

Perhaps I neglected to be clear about the penalty for disobedience.

But Natalie had not foreseen that others would find their own meanings in her death. Lost in the mental cloud of illness, she could not have even predicted the effect of her swan song on the person who had been closest to her during their shared months of captivity. She had not realized that by refusing to allow her spirit to be broken that she had set a standard, a measure that Carly Jamison would from that day forth determine to meet.

And perhaps this... incident... could have been prevented if one of you had been more vigilant.

Most of all, Natalie had not dreamed that her own death would trigger the deaths of others. No, the girl whose spirit was as gentle and as strong as the finest silk would have never consciously done anything to lead to Jeff Highsmith being grabbed up in eager, clutching fingers.

I trust that you now begin to comprehend the consequences. Come, let me hear that you understand!

A single human scream split the uncaring air. High above his head, Elek Althazar saw light reflecting from a thousand perfect spheres of crimson before they began to descend. Terror and grief held him frozen as the dreadful rain fell from the Autobot's hands and onto the people below. The scream finally ended in a wet, gurgling noise that should never have come from a human's throat, and the dark precipitation finally ceased.

No, this was an end that while it could have been predicted, was nonetheless unexpected. And baptized by their leader's blood in a dark parody of ceremony, the prisoners of war felt something intangible slip away; which when it was gone, left them merely slaves.

Deep within the lair of dark gold known as the Ark, a black and white Datsun paused his work to answer an encoded transmission, optics brightening with a certain hardness as he recognized the source.

"This is Prowl."

"Ah KNOW who ya are, Prowl," Ironhide replied, arrogance dripping from every word. "What Ah DON'T know is when are ya gonna git yer act together enough to build me an energon factory here at the organic energy source." By which he meant, of course, the rich oil fields of the Middle East. "It's a right pain in the aft t'keep loading these blasted tankers... though I will admit they make good Decepticon bait..."

"My current recommendations have been authorized by the Lord Prime," the Second replied in a hard voice. "And in case you couldn't read the original orders, they include waiting until we have a reliable shuttle fleet to transfer the energon back to headquarters. As one was stolen in the last quartex, it will still be awhile before we have the necessary number of shuttles."

"Don't hand me that rivet-counting slag," Ironhide growled back, anger evident in his voice. "Y'all had other reasons for making those recommendations."

Prowl paused to appreciate the slight decrease of tension at the Ark since Ironhide had been stationed on the other side of the planet in charge of the procurement of crude-oil, and permitted himself a small, private nod of satisfaction.

"Believe what you want," Prowl replied in a careless tone. "Grapple has designed an improved converter for the fuels on this planet, and multiple energon plants are in the construction stages. Once the transportation problem is worked out, I'm sure you'll get your converter. Keep up the good work," he added in a deliberately patronizing tone. "Prowl out."

The oil was everywhere. It was ingrained into their hair and skin, their rags of clothes, their tattered blankets, and even seemed to follow them into their dreams. No amount of washing at the thin stream of water in their pens could rid the humans of the clinging black tar, nor could any breeze from the high eastern window ease the terrible stench of the pens, rank from nearly a year of two hundred humans living in weary squalor.

Six long months had passed since the deaths of Natalie Mareno and Jeff Highsmith. And in the half-year since their passing, a hardness had come over Carly. She had no more tears, no more fear. The things and people she had cared for had all been taken away, and she held her own life nearly valueless, as just one more cog running the great and terrible machine that was the energon converter.

The Autobots could take away her right to love, here in this slave camp. He had taught her beyond any doubt that there was no friendship He could not sever, no hope He could not crush.

But even He could not take away her right to hate.

Carly labored in her customary apparent haze, the movements and routine by now so ingrained into her muscles and bone that they performed her tasks without benefit of conscious thought. The girl took full advantage of this automation, and took the opportunity to ponder a string of physics problems in her mind as she worked.

She had but one remaining ambition, a smoldering and relentless determination that somehow she would find a way to make the Autobots pay for everything they had done.

To that end, she had joined the group surrounding Professor Althazar. It had been extremely difficult at first, as she tried to catch up on four months worth of discussions and wrack her brain for the misty memories of physics lessons and mathematical formulae. However, the physicist had made the reasoned argument that the best way to prove you had learned something was to be able to teach it; and so Carly had found herself at the tender mercies of three budding tutors who were just as determined to stuff information into her head as she was to absorb it.

After the first few weeks of impatiently cudgeling her brain, there came a nearly blinding moment of rediscovered insight one evening during Elek Althazar's calm tutelage. Picking up a stray piece of wire, she looked upon it and visualized the very electrons speeding along its length, and once again understood current. She saw the difference of potential in her mind, and understood voltage. She constructed a mental picture of the metal atomic matrix, and understood resistance. The concepts clicked neatly into her head, and she was able to build upon them - electrical power, atomic theory, capacitors, series versus parallel circuitry, and more.

From that point, she jumped quickly to the head of the class, fiercely drawing upon an inborn, latent talent for circuitry and electronics that up to this point had found its highest expression in the disassembly of the family VCR. Although the professor regretfully could not find a way to teach them anything more than the very basics of software programming, he could and did draw circuit diagrams and endless equations into the dust of the slavepen floor.

During the long, stultifying days, Carly slaved for the Autobot Empire; and alternately she longed to join her family and Natalie in the peace of death, and dreamed of ways to bring this particular outpost down around His head.

As far as Elek was concerned, he hadn't had such a gifted student as Carly since young Franklin, whom the physicist fervently hoped had escaped Portland. This girl was a sponge for information, and in a matter of months had begun to solve complex problems in her head that would have taken most college students an hour and required half a notebook in scrap paper. She was an inspiration and a challenge to teach that distracted him from his own growing physical weakness as the months of slavery took their toll on his body.

What was most miraculous was that they were starting, together, to puzzle out the rudiments of the Autobot technology. The converter itself was actually a simple machine by Autobot standards, and so they took turns at the giant switch, covertly studying whatever exposed parts they could see. And one glorious day, there had been a malfunction of some kind that had forced Himself to remove one of the covers. Swearing to himself, the giant machine had stomped off and taken a full five minutes to return with a replacement part, giving the curious group a brief opportunity to see the inner workings of the machine. Himself's large bulk blocked out most of their view of the actual replacement process, but a few crucial glimpses were all that Elek needed to send his mind down a dozen new possibilities and theories.

Best of all, Carly managed to smuggle a small portion of the used part, a thirty-pound oblong piece of complicated wiring, back into the pens. With an air of grim triumph, the stony faced girl presented his group with it as soon as the nightly order to recharge had been given.

"How did you manage to get this?" Felipe marveled, somehow dredging up a trace of true excitement as he ran grimy, cautious fingers over the ragged metal.

"I waited until He had his back turned for a moment, then ran for it," the girl answered casually, shrugging away the very real probability that if she had been caught, the robot would have killed her on the spot.

Elek Althazar opened his mouth to chastise her for taking such a risk, then firmly closed it once again. As much as he cared for the girl, he could not criticize her for having the strength of will to risk so much so that the learning could continue.

"Well done, Carly," he said instead, then knelt to examine it more closely.

"Now, if we only had a wrench..."

"If only we had one of those robots to tutor us through their anatomy," another student, Sandy Perkins, put in wryly. "Heh. 'Sure, little human, let me show you how my stomach works!'" Felipe pantomimed scooping something up and swallowing it.

"Well, at least we know they don't eat people," Carly put in without humor. "Otherwise, I'm sure that He'd have snacked on a few of us by now."

"Himself aside, I wonder if those 'Decepticons' would ever try to teach a human?" Elek mused.

"Even if they don't like the Autobots, they're probably still robots," Felipe answered pointedly. "I don't think they would."

"It wouldn't hurt to ask," Carly put in flatly. "Or, at least, we wouldn't know the answer unless we did."

"However, we're not going to get the chance to ask that tonight," the professor gently redirected them all back to the device. "Look here. I think it's a hydraulic pump of some sort..."

The next two months were spent carefully dissecting the small part. Always, Elek was astonished at Carly's intuition into the hardware, for she was nearly as quick as the professor himself in deducing the probable mechanism for a series of circuits or the tiny pumps they discovered in three positions around the device fragment until slowly, tediously, they unraveled its mysteries.

Interlude

Outside in the moonless night, a shadow walked among other shadows and padded silently through the darkness. Recent events had made this night-wanderer more restless of late, and he eschewed the absent presence in his quarters in favor of prowling the outskirts of enemy strongholds, flirting with danger in order to feel more alive.

With a sudden brush along sensitive receptors, Ravage felt a stray Autobot signal arcing across the land. Quickly tapping in, he restrained a hiss as he identified one of the voices as belonging to the Autobot Second. With a thought, he began tracing the second end of the transmission.

" -tory has finally been completed at the source of the organic fuel. You should be receiving the last of the tankers tomorrow. After finishing with them, the standard procedures will apply. Expect a shuttle for you and the remaining energon at dawn the next day." Prowl spoke with cool efficiency.

"Understood, sir. It will be good to break in a new crew - the current set have come to the end of their strength," replied another voice, smug with cold satisfaction at having wrung the most out of a resource.

"Your contributions to the Empire are noted and commended," Prowl answered. "Prowl out."

With a click, the transmission ended. Finishing his trace, Ravage correlated the location with known Autobot facilities. With a sudden, chilling surge, he matched the location and deciphered the meaning behind the bland words of 'standard procedures'.

Within the space of a thought, the jaguar bounded into the midnight air and sped under the stars to report.

Carly was on hose-duty that day, and everything began routinely enough. As soon as the initial hoses were placed, the Autobot touched the start panel on the upper story of the converter, activating it and awakening its grating roar. The pair at the switched dragged it along its track, producing an empty Cube, which within moments began to be filled with energon.

Yes, it was only another weary day with no concrete plans for sabotage, and Carly settled down into its rhythm and into distracted thought. But as the Autobot paced along the length of the converter, the morning's relative peace was shattered by a sudden snarl that was audible even over the noise of the generator. Scarcely believing her eyes, Carly dropped the oil hose in shock as a huge black and silver metal cat leapt and attacked... HIM!!

"We're in!" cried another voice, and from the ceiling dropped two small robotic forms, barely larger than humans. Arms somehow shifting and changing, the pair dove upon the Autobot slavemaster even as the cat leapt away with a ferocious rake of his claws.

"SCATTER!" the cat roared at the humans, who had been frozen in stupefied shock at the sudden violence.

Decepticons! The sudden certainty surged through Carly with an electric sensation. For some mysterious reason, they had left them to languish in slavery all of these months only to appear now like fiercely avenging angels. She broke from her startled reverie and ran toward one side of the building, reaching out with both hands to herd her fellows along. Even as they started moving, a tremendous CLANG shook the building, causing dust and grime to shower from the ceiling.

"Don't let him activate the defenses!" one of the smaller robots cried to the other, evading the Autobot's grasp as the blue Mech swiped at his attackers. The Autobot roared incoherently as he tried to pry his diminutive assailants from his head and shoulders.

Another great crash reverberated through the building - someone was trying to enter through the main doors, the set that Carly had never seen opened, but knew lead to the outside world. With a final mighty blow, the doors flew open in a flurry of dust and debris.

"Protect the humans!" an authoritative voice ordered from the doors, and within moments what seemed like a legion of massive shapes flew into the factory.

But before they could reach the Autobot overseer, he had finally rid himself of his small attackers and shouted a phrase into the air. Carly could not understand the words over the roar of the converter, but the results were clear and immediate. The weapons systems, the automated defenses that had not been activated since the demonstration on their very first day of servitude, were abruptly awakened. Suddenly, the intruders found themselves targeted by a dozen laser guns that unfolded from the three sets of sea-bay openings on either side of each tanker.

The main doors had been battered down, and Carly could see bright sunlight shining on the other side. Desperate and daring to hope that they could make it, the mass of humans broke for the outside world as the factory erupted in frenetic chaos. Laser bolts fractured the air above them, the whole building shook as though its very foundations were buckling under the massive assault, and the converter itself was sending out huge engulfing clouds of sparks as it was hit by projectiles from either side.

"Seekers! Take out those guns! Cassettes, look to the humans!" the same commanding voice ordered. Unable to resist the impulse to turn her head and look as she ran along the concrete floor in the midst of a hundred of her fellows, Carly saw three winged shapes dart through the air, levitating among the machines and lights and agilely dodging the oncoming laser fire.

And then, with a wonderful, resounding crash that Carly could feel in every bone of her body, the largest attacker flew at her master and swung a large fist directly into the Autobot's face with all the momentum of his massive weight behind it.

Yes! a part of her exulted, and then the chaos interrupted her view of the fight between the Autobot and the silver Decepticon. It was then that a shot went directly into the open maw of the converter's base and ignited the energon there in a violent eruption of heat and metal shards. Human screams began to join the cacophony, and Carly whirled to see the great converter fall towards the fleeing slaves.

It descended in slow motion, an agonizing moment stretched out by the ponderousness of the two-story machine's structure. It covered some of the humans with its shadow, and Carly could see that it would crush many that ran. But at last, at last, its droning shriek had been forever silenced.

"I've got you!" cried a youthful voice, and out of the smoke and chaos, the smaller robots came flying. Urgently, they swept up as many humans as their arms could hold and raced against the speed of the falling converter, escaping its dangerously sparking impact by inches and shooting over the heads of those who were headed to the door.

More explosions rocked the building as the winged Decepticons fired at the defense emplacements, somehow avoiding the tankers themselves. The entire facility became filled with smoke and dust, making it impossible to see what was happening across the huge chamber. Arcing lines of electricity and different colors of laser fire reflected and glowed among the clouds in quickly flickering lights that briefly shadowed the huge forms that fought at the factory's heart.

Carly had almost made it to the door and the light beyond it. Just a few more yards more and she would be standing in the sunlight for the first time in over a year. Behind her, she heard the distinctive, hated tones of Him raised in a defiant bellow, as the Autobot remained true to the malice of his kind even to the end.

"You think you will win here, Decepticon? Defenses - target escaping slaves!"

The final two laser guns responded adroitly to their master's last command. Somehow managing the angle between the sea bays and the main doors, a series of deadly bolts was sent directly into the sprinting mass of humanity.

A bolt slammed into the floor right beside Carly. The shockwave from its impact sent her flying to one side in an uncontrolled tumble amongst a group of her fellows, some screaming in mortal agony as they were hit by the deadly lances of light.

"NOOOOOOO!!!" An agonized voice split the air.

And then a flare of amethyst light tinged the haze of the entire building, and the shockwave from the most powerful explosion yet slammed anyone still standing to the floor.

The incredible noise echoed painfully through Carly's skull; but when it finally died away, and she shakily, dazedly drew herself to her feet, a silence as profound as the earlier clamor had settled through the building.

All the laser fire had ceased. Some few blue-white sparks buzzed angrily from a dozen spots along the fallen energon converter, but even those remnants of the converter's life seemed subdued and merely sullen. Small fires licked up small patched of oil from the floor, but the tankers themselves had been pushed safely out to sea by mighty, alien hands. The heavy cloud of dust and smoke swirled lazily in the stillness, hushed as if a titanic battle had not just taken place. Above, only a single light remained intact, sending out a small cone of light that reflected and bounced from uncounted minute particles in the air before gingerly reaching to touch the battered concrete floor.

"C- Carly..." a weak voice called her name. Turning her head, the girl saw Felipe on the floor, cradling a blood-streaked form.

No. Carly tried to deny her vision as she forced her almost numb body to move. But moving closer did not change the fact that Elek Althazar lay unconscious in his student's arms.

"Megatron, there's human wounded," a deep, almost velvet voice called, and the metal cat stepped out of the smoke like a solidifying ghost. He paused, looking over them with gleaming red eyes and an almost weary expression.

"Get them outside," answered a voice from the misty dimness. With metal footfalls accentuated by the stillness, the great silver Decepticon stepped into the cone of light.

If He had been huge, this robot was colossal, topping the Autobot overseer by almost an additional ten feet in height. Carly's eyes were immediately drawn to the huge black cannon on his right arm, and then inexorably moved to his chest where instead of the familiar red face of the Autobots she saw a strange purple crest.

"We are Decepticons, and we mean you no harm," this massive robot intoned gravely "The Autobot here will trouble you no more," he finished, and then did something inexpressibly strange. He knelt down instead of stooping, and then with incredible gentleness began to pick up the wounded. Three more shapes appeared from the fog, but when one of them knelt to pick up the injured professor, Felipe looked with open distrust at the Decepticon's blue hand.

"My name is Starscream," the robot said to him, in what was apparently supposed to be a soothing tone, overshadowed by... sadness? Impossible. "Just let me help you get your friend outside."

Carly looked up into those red eyes that were so different from the chilly blue of their captor.

"Let him help, Felipe," she told the boy, and after a moment of hesitation, Felipe aided Carly in moving their mentor onto the robot's hand, and climbed on himself to steady the professor. Elek Althazar moaned as he was shifted, and Carly's breath came out in a sudden exhalation of relief.

Not dead. He's not dead.

With his other hand, the Decepticon Starscream ever-so-carefully gathered up another unconscious human, more emotions subtly playing across his expressive, slate gray face. Cautiously rising to his feet, he took them out into the sunlight with a solicitous stride.

Carly turned to follow, but a dim shape beyond the clearing mists caught at her eyes. Turning again to look beyond their large saviors, she saw that the dust had settled enough to reveal a heap of metal parts that had not been against that particular wall that morning. Squinting, she was slowly able to see the shards of blue plating that were affixed to some of the randomly strewn pieces.

Yes. Oh, yes! Part of her mind exulted, and in that moment Carly wanted almost nothing more than to prance over to the broken breastplate and dance upon the shattered red sigil there.

But there was one thing that called to her even more strongly, and so she turned her back on the remains of her former master, and stumbled, blinking, out through the wrecked bay doors and into the sunlight.

"Thundercracker and Skywarp have the energon loaded and ready to go," Starscream reported quietly to his leader. Regret and sorrow tinged his voice. "I think that the two of us should be able to use the door of their cells to transport the survivors inland."

The survivors. For all their planning and desperate attempts, over forty humans had been killed during the rescue attempt - most of them in the last sixty seconds when the Autobot had ordered the defenses turned against them.

Megatron felt each death like a weight upon his soul; and that included the Autobot, Strike. It seemed so senseless to mourn the death of such a cruel and tyrannical being, but he always had and, he hoped, always would sorrow for every life he took.

The silver Decepticon nodded his thanks to Starscream, then turned to face the assembled survivors. It was a testament to the tenacity of their race that so many lived after a year in captivity to the Autobots. And now the battered and stained crowd of humanity looked up at him; all with wariness, some with fear, and none with trust.

He could not blame them for the lack of trust in their eyes. Kneeling again in the hush of the summer afternoon, the remains of the factory smoldering behind him, Megatron began to speak.

"I am Megatron, leader of the Decepticons. As you have perhaps noticed, we are enemies to the Autobots."

"And is the enemy of our enemy our friend?" A voice called out from the crowd. Megatron focused his gaze on the red-haired male that had dared to speak.

"If you will allow it, yes," Megatron answered simply. "This is your world, and we would ally with as many of you as we can.

"However," the massive Transformer continued, "it is not safe to continue any such discussions here. The Autobots undoubtedly are on their way, and it would be best for us all to be gone before they arrive. To that end, we offer you passage inland, to a place where some of your kind still live in freedom."

"Freedom?" several voices asked in unison, as if savoring a concept left untasted for far too long.

Starscream had been in motion while Megatron spoke, hauling a truly huge piece of metal that several of the humans dazedly recognized as the slave pen door. Laying it across the ragged grass, the Seeker firmly took hold of the edges and bent upward, creating a barrier perhaps three feet in height, and continued the process the entire way around the metal slab.

When he was done, Megatron motioned to it.

"There is a place in the mountains, a few hundred of your miles from here. There are others of your kind there who can help those with injuries. If you will climb aboard our transport, we will fly you there."

The humans looked at one another, expressions opaque and unreadable beneath the layers of grime and emotional exhaustion.

And then a pair of them started hesitantly toward the unlikely conveyance, helping a third between them, and others followed, until almost without exception the humans began to herd themselves toward the slab of metal, making their first conscious choice out of slavery.

Carly was one of the few exceptions, and as Megatron rose, she checked with Felipe, a wordless message in her eyes. Felipe frowned at her, but eventually nodded.

"One of us has to ask," he acknowledged stiffly. "But I'll take care of the professor."

"Good luck, Felipe," she answered, and turned away. Felipe looked after her with worry as she stalked off for a confrontation with a machine.

He was impossibly tall. Just to look into the silver robot’s face required Carly to crane her neck at an awkward angle, and her attempt to be insistent was hampered by the fact that she barely came up to his knee.

“No.”

He had been in the process of turning away, the light sliding across his metallic form in clean gleams and reflections. Curious crimson optics looked back down at her, and the weight of the alien gaze pressed upon her, but she did not falter.

“No?” Megatron responded gravely, inviting explanation.

Carly stood her ground. “I’m not going with the others. I have to learn about you and the Autobots, about your technology.”

The Decepticon leader looked down in some bemused wonder at the human at his feet. She was thin, almost frail, dressed in near rags and covered with dirt and the blood of other humans, and looked like a stiff wind could blow her over. And yet... on her face was the most flatly stubborn expression he had seen since the last time he and Starscream had argued about his presence in the forefront of battle.

Sighing to himself, he tried reason, kneeling down to be closer to her level.

“I’m afraid that our base does not have any supplies for humans,” he explained, trying to avoid the real objection of the impossibility of primitive organics being able to decipher Transformers technology. If she came, all that would happen would be a waste of time and this human’s increasing anger and frustration.

Carly persevered, pointing toward a random pile of canned goods amidst the rubble with a dirt-stained hand. “A few of your handfuls of those cans and access to water and I’m good to go,” she argued. Blue eyes flashed up at him from a head crowned with ragged, filthy hair.

“I cannot promise you that my Decepticons will have time to teach you anything you can understand,” he tried again, starting to feel worn from the battle and sick to his soul at all the human bloodshed they had been unable to avert.

“We figured out how the energon conversion process worked," she shot back. "We've been dissecting spare parts for the converter for months."

Presented with that unexpected tidbit of information, the silver robot seemed to look at the ragged human female in a new light.

"Give me a chance," she urged, and dared to reach out and touch the silver of his shin in appeal. There was no fear left in her. Her entire body was one interconnected ache, and she longed to be able to just sink to the ground and rest; but she pushed those needs inside in her reckless attempt to convince these 'Decepticons' to take her in and teach her.

"A chance," Megatron repeated, staring at her with unsettling but respectful red optics, then nodded slowly.

"Fremzy!" he called, not taking that gaze from her face, as if by studying it he could discern the true character of the human spirit.

"Yes, Megatron?" a voice tinged with weariness responded. Carly looked toward it, expecting to see another of the towering robots, but found that the approaching Decepticon was only half again her height. This was one of the smaller ones, then, the ones that had begun the attack on Him.

"I want you and the other cassettes to take - " and he paused, looked down at the girl expectantly. It took her a moment, but she finally deciphered that he was waiting for her to supply her name.

"Carly."

" - take Carly and some supplies for her back to base."

Frenzy looked down with puzzlement at the grimy human, who stared back up at him without fear.

"Yes, Megatron," he finally answered. "Can you eat what's in those cans we found?" he asked his charge; and satisfied that the girl would be taken care of for the moment, Megatron turned to find Starscream considering him with an unusually sober expression.

“Are you really sure this is such a good idea?”

Megatron looked after the girl, who was leading Frenzy to the ruins of the factory.

“Freedom is the right of all sentient beings,” he answered quietly. “And perhaps on this planet, it will require us to take a risk, to see if we can share our knowledge and give these people a chance to fight back.”

Starscream seemed to remain fairly unconvinced, but merely nodded and turned to their own task. All the humans had now managed to fit themselves on the altered door, putting themselves for the last time at the complete mercy of alien robots. Within moments, the two had smoothly picked up and kept level the great door. Together, they synchronously activated their flight systems, slowly levitating themselves and their burden above the ground.

"We will have to go more quickly in a moment," Megatron warned the humans. "Hold on to each other."

Behind him, the remaining two Seekers took off, each with a full cargo bay full of captured energon. Close behind them flew the three Cassettes, one with an armful of human, one with an armful of supplies, and the third with a central processor full of questions. Together, the five turned to the west and began their journey across the sea.

Satisfied that his warriors were safely on the way back to base, Megatron nodded once more to Starscream, and the pair began to climb faster into the sky as they escorted the dazed ex-slaves to freedom.

For this moment, the daughter of twilight remembered the bright noontime of her life; and soothed by the gently rocking cradle of the sea, rediscovered the sensation of peace.