Radio Silence

By the time twenty of the twenty three minutes had passed, Jennifer was in a full on panic. She couldn’t just bail on this job—she needed it! Maybe robots didn’t care about money, or rent, or food, or future employability. What was she going to do?

The comm buzzed. She tapped it on. “I can’t go,” she blurted.

“Gonna have to rescue you, too?” the voice was still amused. Whoever this guy was, she hated his calmness.

“Look, I need this job. I can’t just walk away all day, no excuses.”

“Is that all? Oh, honey,” he drawled, “have I got the solution for you. Come to the east parking lot. Carry the comm with you.”

She did not have a good feeling about this, but she slipped on some sandals and headed to the door. She grabbed her purse, hesistated, then kept it with her. Place to put the comm node, if nothing else.

She ran down the steps from her third floor to the eastern lot, just in time to see a police car crest the hill leading down to the dormitory valley, lights and sirens ablaze. Her not-good feeling went solidly into a downright bad feeling.

The police car skidded to a halt in the parking lot, Early arriving students, already unloading their cars with this year’s dorm necessities, turned to look. The driver’s side door opened. She felt relief when she saw an actual person—an actual police officer in an actual uniform, step out. Until she noticed the knee high glossy motorcycle boots. That wasn’t right.

“Miss Silver,” the cop called, loudly enough to cut over the chatter of the moving-in. “We require your assistance in our investigation.”

Her heart sank. That was…the voice. Still, what choice did she have. The cop looked blankly over the crowd—oh, he had no idea what she looked like. For an instant she thought about tearing into the dorm, but then one of the freshmen from yesterday leaned over the balcony and pointed. “Jennifer!” he called. “That cop wants your help! So cool!”

“I thought she said there were no assaults on campus, like ever,” said another student, coming out of her room.

“Another jurisdiction,” the cop said, smoothly. “We require Miss Silver’s immediate assistance. Police matter.”

Crap. She had no choice after that. She stomped over to the car. “Fine, here I am. Now what?”

“Get in, please,” The cop resettled himself into the seat next to her, and the car rolled forward, sirens firing again. The cop turned and grinned at her. “Pretty smooth, huh?”

“Uh, not so smooth. Those are motorcycle boots. Patrol officers don’t wear them.”

The cop looked down at his legs. “Really? Too bad. I like ‘em. Oh well. Fuck it.” And the cop disappeared.

Jennifer jumped. “What the hell--?”

“Hologram,” the car said. “Useful sometimes.”

“How did you know my name?”

An impatient sigh. “Really? I read Starscream’s report, for one. Cross check with the names revealed there was one match in this GPS area. Need to be any more explicit?”

“Fine. But who are you? And why the hell don’t people seem to notice you have no driver?”

The car rocketed along the highway easily. “Second question first: because they’re so busy suddenly trying to look law-abiding they don’t bother to look. First question: I’m Barricade.”

Barricade? Where had she heard that name before….? “Oh, no.”

“Oh, yes. Has my reputation preceded me?”

“Uh, you could say that.” Didn’t Starscream say he didn’t want her to ever meet this Barricade? “Are you like…friends or something?”

“Or something. But it’s generally a good idea to protect each other from Megatron. And I owe him anyway. Besides,” the voice took on a teasing tone, “I always did want to meet his xeno.”

She flushed, and suddenly wished that her shorts were a bit longer. She felt every inch of her bare legs along the seat. “So, uh, you…know about that?”

“Know about it? I suspect I started it. So. How do you like it?”

“I, uh…what am I exactly doing to help here?”

“We’ll get to that,” he said, smoothly. “Got to get someplace. While we’re en route, nothing wrong with a little…conversation, is there?”

“Do we have to talk about…that?”

“No. I could, for example, tell you all about what a good fuck he is. Would you rather?”

“What?!”

Barricade laughed. “You didn’t think he was a virgin, did you? Sure, you were his first xeno. But not his first.”

“Were you?”

Another laugh. “No.” A pause, “Probably wouldn’t be as fucked up as he is if I had been, though.”

“What’s that supposed to mean?” she said, hotly. Was he here to rescue Starscream or talk bad about him?

“Oh, he’s got some problems. Surely you’ve noticed the insecurity, right? Kind of endearing, most of the time. Then there’s the arrogance. Not so endearing.”

She couldn’t argue with him there. “He’s very nice to me.”

“I should hope so. I try to be nice to my xeno as well.”

“You, too?”

“Me, one. I was the first. Anything he knows,” and the voice got cocky, “He learned from me.” He took an off ramp. “In a way, you should thank me. And I have a few ways you could start.”

Okay, the shorts were definitely too short. She clutched her purse to her chest, trying to minimize the area of her surface touching his.

The car laughed. “Don’t worry. Just teasing. June’d kill me. Or try to.” He rolled to a stop in a secluded parking lot behind a warehouse. “Here we are.”

“And where is, ummm, here, exactly?” As soon as he popped the locks on the doors, Jennifer jumped out.

“Privacy!” He transformed. He was…barely half of Starscream’s height. And he…and Starscream? She did not want to think about that. He held out one hand. “The comm node, please?”

She dug it out of her purse, but she didn’t want to let go of it. She clutched it. “Will I get it back?”

The bot’s face twitched into something like a grin. “Promise.”

She handed it over.

He turned the node over in his hands. “Now,” he said, distractedly, as if he were mostly talking to himself. “Comm nodes come in pairs. Meaning, he gives you one, he still has the other on the other side. Pairs are freq matched. Meaning, we get this to ping, we can track it down to its mate. Which means,…”

“We find Starscream?”

“If the node is still attached.”

Her heart sank. He peered down at her. “I’m sorry,” he said, his voice different. No more mocking tone. “Merely a realist. I think in terms of worst-case scenarios. How I survive. But yeah, even if he’s injured or offlined, as long as the node is attached, we can find him.”

The apology didn’t have the jet’s level of earnestness and worry, but then again, why should it? He had the node. Theoretically, her usefulness to the bot had just expired. That gave his half-assed apology some weight.

“O-okay,” she said, softly. Stupidly. Feeling useless.

“Ha!” the car said. “Got a hit. Not that far.” He thrust the node back into her surprised hands, and dropped back into his car mode. “You coming?”

*****