Chapter Text
Dizzy from hitting the fence so hard, Sam opened his eyes, only to see Barricade storming right towards them. “Look out!” Sam cried, shaking Mikaela out of her trance, trying to get her to move.
Barricade raised his fists, ready to strike, when a bolt of blue light hit him, knocking him back and drawing his attention away from the kids.
A woman riding a black and silver motorcycle was heading straight for them, a strange gun in her hand.
Barricade made to lung at the woman, but the Camaro robot leaped at him only to be tossed aside, landing on an aluminum shed, flattening it.
Pulling up in front of Mikaela and Sam, the woman whose face was covered by her helmet said, “We don’t have time. Get moving!” Her words snapped them out of their shock, and they began running away from the robots, with the woman acting like a barrier between them and the bots, leaving her motorcycle behind.
As they were dashing away from the grappling robots, something pulled Sam back by the belt loop of his jeans. Turning around, he saw the spindly monster behind him, jaws snapping. He dragged Sam along the ground, trying to bring him back to the monster bot. “Get it off!” Sam cried helplessly.
The woman suddenly appeared next to him and shot the bot, creating a massive hole in its shoulder, causing it to shriek and knock her down. Mikaela grabbed a power saw from the work site, turned it on, and tried to draw its attention away from the two. “Why don’t you come after me, you freak?”
The skinny robot lunged for her as Mikaela swung the saw, trying to protect herself from its sharp claws. Sam scrambled up, finding a piece of rebar, and clobbered the thing on his narrow head.
Clang!
The spindly creature staggered back and then slumped to the ground, making a noise like an engine winding down.
”Bloody hell! That thing packs a punch!” The woman said, pulling off her now dented helmet. She had short, wavy hair that framed her face, and green eyes so green they seemed unnatural.
After the humans had run away, the Camaro shook itself off, ripped a street lamp from the ground, and started swinging it like a baseball bat. He caught Barricade at the knees, sending him sprawling across the road.
Suddenly, the motorcycle the woman had been riding on transformed into a large mechanical wolf, its body black, with an eight-pointed silver star on its shoulder. He growled and stalked towards the downed bot, providing backup for the yellow bot, fully confident that the bot did not need his help.
Meanwhile, the Camaro’s hand transformed into an energy cannon. He fired a burst at Barricade’s chest, knocking him backward. What Sam and Mikaela finally noticed was that the burst was the exact same thing that came out of the woman’s gun. Barricade windmilled his arms and took a few steps back, until he loomed over the edge of a construction pit. The Camaro shot one more cannon flare at his enemy, and Barricade toppled over the side with an enormous, earth-shaking crash.
Then…silence.
Which was broken by the wolf’s howl of victory. The Camaro slowly turned around, and the wolf bounded over to the woman, who began scratching him behind the ear and speaking to him in a strange language.
The Camaro just stared at Sam and Mikaela. Sam could hear his heart pounding wildly and wondered for a minute if the others could hear it too. Maybe he was as crazy as his great-great-grandfather, but he swore the robot was smiling.
Sam looked over his shoulder at Mikaela, whispering, “I don’t think they’re gonna hurt us.”
”Oh, yeah?” Mikaela whispered, moving closer to him while keeping an eye on the giant wolf, which was acting like a puppy towards the woman. “You speak robot?”
“You two okay?” The woman asked, walking over to them, the wolf following at her heels; her tone was almost motherly, but with a teasing hint, as she added, "Don't tell me I had to save your skins for nothing."
What’s going on? Who are you? What-who are they? What is happening!?” Sam said, almost stuttering as the adrenaline left his system.
”The name’s Aria,” placing her hand on the wolf’s head, she continued, “This is Dogstar. And the Camaro who has been watching over you is Bumblebee.
”Bumblebee?” Sam asked, turning to the yellow bot.
The famous Muhammad Ali catchphrase rang out from the bot’s speakers. “Float like a butterfly, sting like a bee.” Aria gave a tiny laugh,”You are so dramatic, Bee.”
Turning back to Sam, she said, “I think you’re smart enough, Sammy, to figure out why that bot was after you.”
”He-he wanted something from me,” Sam said, gesturing to Barricade, who was flat on his back in the construction pit, “That one kept asking me about my ‘ancestral artifacts.’ And something about a code?” He looked up at the transformed Camaro. “Can you talk too?”
The bot now known as Bumblebee shook his head. A voice came through his speakers: “XM Satellite Radio, one hundred thirty digital channels of commercial-free music…”
Mikaela said, “I think he talks through his stereo.”
”He does,” The wolf, now known as Dogstar, said, causing Sam and Mikaela to jump, “One of the bots that one was working for ripped out his modulator, kind of like a human’s voice box.”
Looking over at Aria, who truthfully seemed only a few years older than them but acted far older, Sam continued, as she waved him on.
“What were you doing out last night? What was that weird symbol you beamed into the sky?”
Bumblebee hesitated, then a radio evangelist’s voice came out of the speakers, “…and a mighty voice will send a message, summoning forth visitors from heaven.”
”You were calling someone?” Sam prompted.
”And… ‘visitors from heaven’… what’re you, like, an alien?” Mikaela asked.
“Ding, Ding, Ding, we have a winner!” Aria said, with a big smile on her face, as if she were proud they had worked it out.
Then Bumblebee morphed back into the Camaro and opened his doors. Sam looked at Mikaela, “I think he wants us to get in.”
Mikaela nervously stepped back, watching as Dogstar also transformed back into a motorcycle, which Aria mounted, “And go where?”
“I don’t know yet, but think about it,” Sam said. “Fifty years from now, when we’re looking back at our lives, don’t you wanna be able to say we had the guts to do it?”
Mikaela took a long, hard look at the car and at Aria, who was riding the motorcycle towards them. “Okay…”
Pulling up beside them, Aria said, “Good choice, I know you still have a lot of questions but we don’t have a lot of time. Now, stop gawking and let’s start moving. This isn’t over yet.”