Chapter Six
Once back on a busy city street, the Camaro slowed to comply with the prevailing speed limit. Tentatively leaning forward, Sean Andrews let one hand slide back and forth over the dash in front of him. Stained and sun-bleached, it felt exactly like dried-out old car upholstery.
?Wait a sec. If this car can reshape itself, why?d he pick such a piece of crap? I mean, he could be anything, right? So why this? Why not a Hummer, or a Ferrari??
Brakes squealing, the car skidded to an abrupt halt. Both doors swung open, the car tilted sharply from side to side, and its occupants found themselves dumped onto the pavement. Alissa Andrews rose, started to brush at her clothes, and stopped when she realized the futileness of the gesture.
?Aww.? Alissa said. ?You hurt his feelings, Sean.?
?Liss, it?s a robot. It doesn?t have feelings.? Sean remarked. ?What?s it doing now??
As they looked on, the car?s windshield morphed into a screen. Imaging beams scanned the street, bouncing from car to car, traveling farther than either of the occupants could see. They settled on a brand-new, fully customized Camaro GTO. Simple scanning beams were replaced by more complex transcanner waves. A moment later and the Camaro was transforming again, reshaping itself before the very eyes of its occupants. When the process finally concluded, it was a different vehicle that stood before them. An exact duplicate of the distant GTO, except for one difference. It was the same bright yellow as before and sported identical black racing stripes.
Frankie?s expression did a little transforming of its own, changing from one to awe to outright admiration. She took a step toward the freshly morphed vehicle, admiring it openly. ?Now
this is a
car.? She couldn?t repress a huge grin. Life had never been better. Walking back to the driver?s side, admiring every glimmer of light bouncing off the blemish- and ding-free bright yellow paint job, Frankie slid in behind a shining custom steering wheel. ?I?m not sure about the final destination, but I think I?ve found my adventure.?
The completely done-over Camaro finally pulled to a stop at a pullout on the highest road near town. Doors opened and the passengers climbed out. They expected the car?s edifying radio to offer up a suggestive song, or at least an informative one. But the speakers stayed silent. The car stood up on two transformed legs.
Head tilted back, Wilt was staring up at the night sky. ?Uh, Frankie???
Frankie and everyone else looked upward. Blobs and streaks of light were illuminating the clouds from within. There was no thunder, so they could not be caused by lightning, which meant they had to be caused by?something else. As everyone looked on, what appeared to be a small comet struck the atmosphere sharply, shattering?separating into five pieces. But comets did not
separate when they struck atmosphere.
One segment of whatever it was slammed into the hillside atop which they had parked, barely a couple of fields away. Trees snapped, brush ignited, and dirt and rock flew in all directions as the piece of sky ground to a halt. The force of the impact shook the ground beneath their feet. Other pieces of the mysterious falling object were drawing attention elsewhere.
Frankie?s transformed Camaro began leading the way, as they all followed a trail of flaming brush and vitreous scree down the hill until they came to a ditch where one of the falling stars had landed. When they finally reached the site, nothing concealed the still-smoking object from their view.
?You know, maybe we should be walking fast
in the other direction.? Sean suggested, as Eduardo nervously nodded in agreement with him.
?Sí.?
Pushing aside the few branches that had not been snapped off or stomped flat by the yellow-and-black robot breaking trail in front of them, a thoughtful Frankie disagreed. ?I think if there was any danger,
he would have stopped us from coming with him.?
They had finally reached the source. Embedded in the earth at the bottom of the ravine and directly in front of them, a complex knot of streaming metal dripped white-hot silvery beads. Standing yards away, they could feel the heat coming off the object. As they looked on, the globs of liquid metal retraced their path, blending back into and being absorbed by the globe much as a ball of pure mercury would soak up smaller spheres. When the glistening orb began to crack open like a giant metal egg, the earthlings stepped back behind the yellow robot they now thought of as a friend and protector.
From within the sphere a metallic leg emerged. It was followed by a second, then a pair of arms. A silhouette began to rise, higher and higher against the still-flaming, crackling scrub, until it was nearly thirty feet tall. Unmoved by the sight, their own mechanical companion stood nearby, as if waiting for something more. Despite what she had told Sean earlier, Frankie began to wonder if maybe they ought to start looking for some bigger trees. Just in case they had to take shelter behind something other than her transformed car.
The immense shape that had emerged from the silvery egg started to turn toward them. Its attention was drawn away from the earthlings by a blast from an eighteen-wheeler barreling down the road above the ravine. Turning in the direction of the sound, the newly arrived alien mechanoid transcanned the big truck as it slowed to take a sharp curve. By the time the night-running transport had sped on past, a second, identical truck was facing the group from the depths of the ravine.
The ?truck?s? engine growled. It sounded just like a Detroit diesel, only with something added. It was diesel-plus. Diesel transformed. Angry diesel.
Ascending from the ravine, the eighteen-wheeler rumbled across the road and halted less than a foot from the group. Its grille alone was considerably bigger than they were (even Wilt). Any one of them could have reached out and touched it. But neither of them hadn?t because right there, directly in front of them, it transformed a second time.
Wondering what came next, their attention was drawn down the road in the direction of town. They were soon joined by as peculiar and unrelated a trio of vehicles as one could expect to find gathered together in the same place. There was a beautiful sports car, an emergency vehicle, and the baddest-looking pickup truck anyone had ever seen. The three new arrivals soon simultaneously transformed into upright robotic shapes.
?Oh, man! I hope this is some kind of invasion plot! That?d be awesome!!? Bloo exclaimed.
Eduardo couldn?t help but to cry out in fear. ?Oh, no! Me no want big, scary robots to take over Earth! Me have so many things to do, like watch the new episode of
Loren is Explorin?!?
The head of the largest robot there lowered farther toward them. Since it was a good deal bigger than all of them put together, they started to freak out a little?Eduardo more than the rest. The voice that emerged from the massive head was carefully muted, designed to reassure and not frighten.
?Do not fear. Freedom from fear and all else is the right of all sentient beings. We will never harm humans.? The immense machine straightened, looming high above them. ?Frances ?Frankie? Foster? Biological descendant of Samantha Foster, greatest explorer of the nineteenth century??
?Y-Yeah.? She affirmed.
?I am Optimus Prime,? the robot announced.
END OF CHAPTER SIX