FicWad

Chapter 4 - "Mayday"



Rita embraced herself with her arms, trying to occupy as little space as she could in the passenger seat of the silver Pontiac Solstice. She was cold and scared; she felt small, weak and filthy - a horrible mix of feelings. She didn't care where the car was moving, as long as it was away from the café-bar "Midnight."

"Hey there," Jack said softly. "Speak ta me, girl."

/Girl/, she repeated to herself. The word was supposed to express either familiarity, or affection. Nobody had ever called her that. She simply never allowed it.

She glanced at Jack and noted that he looked absolutely unaffected by what had happened a mere five minutes ago. His sleeveless t-shirt was as brilliantly white as ever. His hands were just as clean and steady on the steering wheel. Nothing gave out that he had just engaged in a street fight with guns and knives. Rita, on the contrary, was dirty and bloody, and the state of her hair and clothes left much to be desired. How in the world could she get herself in such a trouble?

When she didn't respond Jack looked at her with concern in his blue eyes. Since the attack he never put his sunglasses back on, giving her careful glances from time to time.

"Okay, Rita, Ineed ya ta answer some questions if ya don' mind," he said, trying another approach. She didn't feel like talking, so she just stayed silent. But Jack continued nonetheless. "D'you have reasons ta be afraid of someone? Enemies?... Offended boyfriends?"

Now /that/got her reaction. "I'm afraid that is none of your business," she snapped angrily, the defensive instinct finally kicking in. She felt like a little clam trying to lock in its shell from the outer world. An attempt to keep some grasp over her life that was rolling down the hill like a car without brakes.

He winced, and she could tell by the look in his eyes that he was hurt. "I'm juz tryin' to help ya here. It's ma' mission ta protect ya, Rita. The more I know, the better Ican accomplish that."

She immediately felt a sting of guilt for yelling at him. /Way to be grateful for being saved/, she scolded herself. "I'm sorry, Jack, it's just..." Rita trailed off, finding her dirty palms very interesting all of a sudden.

"It's okay," she heard him say soothingly after a moment. "I won't let anythin' happen to ya. But I need yer help, too."

Rita didn't answer. She knew this man for only a couple of hours, and already she was used to his presence. It was illogical, but she felt strangely protected in this car, and she was sure he wouldn't go anywhere if danger came from around a corner - and not just because of his work, or money, or his boss' music preferences. Somehow she found herself actually believing his promise. A strange experience for a person who'd been alone for their entire life and who's used to rely solely upon themselves...

Rita suddenly noticed that her hands are shaking. It was rather annoying, so she clenched her fists in her lap to keep some dignity, even if it was only on the outside. "I don't know of anyone who would want to harm me," Rita answered at last, shaking her head pensively.

Jack thought for a minute before asking the next question. "Did anythin' strange happen ta ya recently?"

She couldn't help laughing bitterly at that, and Jack's piercing blue eyes shot to her face again in confusion.

"Apart from having a strange disease and almost being kidnapped?" She shrugged and lifted her hands up helplessly. "No, absolutely nothing." She shook her head again and gritted her teeth in sudden anger, folding her hands on her chest. No, she wasn't angry with Jack, she was just... angry.

"Disease?" Jack repeated, frowning. "What kind?"

"I wish somebody/could tell me that," she replied sarcastically. "But all I hear is 'I'm sorry, Miss Grace, there is nothing we can do.' Isn't there /anything I can control in my life anymore...?" She asked, addressing to no one in particular, then added quietly in disbelief, "Why am I even telling you all this?" Just aminute ago she'd been collected and reserved. She didn't know why she burst up all of a sudden, and it angered her even more.

A silence filled the car.

"A'ight. Turn yer pockets inside out," Jack suddenly said as if having come to some kind of conclusion.

"What?!" Rita asked, stunned. Was it a robbery of some kind, or what?

"Questions later, Rita. Now I juz need ya ta do that. Please," he added looking at her with seriousness she didn't think he possessed.

She stared at the man for several seconds, trying to understand what the hell was going on. Then, with a frown and a sigh of surrender, she wordlessly reached into her pockets and started getting what she could find there out and putting it on the dashboard for her 'assistant's' inspection.

"Everythin'. Ineed ta see all ya got there," Jack urged glancing at the items she was producing: a wallet with several hundred US dollars, a cell phone, a chewing gum, a guitar pick, a piece of paper with unfinished lyrics, a key-card from the hotel room, a candy wrapper, a hair band... Having cleaned her pockets she sat back, embracing herself with her hands again demonstratively.

Jack eyed the small pile for a second or two and turned huge eyes to Rita. "Slag," he said under his breath, turning away. "This is fraggin' impossible."

Then he fell silent, but the silence was charged, it was tense and filled with some meaning she couldn't quite understand. Rita found herself unable to break it. She looked at the dashboard dumbly. As strange and funny as the situation was, she didn't feel like laughing at all. What was that phrase of his supposed to mean? She'd never heard such words before, but the way they'd been said gave her a strong impression that those were swearing words. What could possibly make this cool and polite guy swear? Her almost-kidnapper with a knife had frightened her, but the lost expression on her bodyguard's face frightened her even more.

They rode in silence for several minutes. "Where are we going?" Rita heard herself ask quietly.

"To the Paradise Hotel," Jack replied shortly and a bit absently, as if he was somewhere else in his thoughts. Whatever he was thinking about, she decided to just drop the matter for the time being. She'd ask questions later. And he'd answer all of them.

-----

On their way to the hotel Jazz was weighing the situation and speaking to Optimus.

'Sir, I think I need your help on my investigation.'



'I am listening, lieutenant. What is the problem?'



'The problem is... well, the human female is the signal, sir... Don't ask, I don't know how it's possible, but her body is/ the source.'/

There was aconfused silence on the other end of the com link. Jazz wished he could see Optimus' face at that moment. The leader must be looking pretty stunned.

'An' another thing, sir. It looks like she has some kinda disease that could be deadly. At least human medics couldn't fix it... I think Ratchet's assistance is needed.'



'I shall send Ratchet to you right away, Jazz... But I am afraid we shall have to transport Rita to the base nonetheless.'



That was a tough decision for Prime, and Jazz knew it. Every human aware of their presence on Earth was a potential threat to them as long as there were Decepticons left on this planet, so the Autobots avoided any new contacts with civilians. But this case seemed to leave them no other options.



/'Yes sir,' /Jazz acknowledged. 'We're headin' to the Paradise Hotel right now. She'll get what she needs there an' I and Bumblebee will get her to the base.'



The hotel came into view, and Jazz closed the link.

As they pulled over at the vast parking lot Rita seemed to wake up from her torpor and started to awkwardly rake up her belongings from his dashboard into her palms. For some reason the sight made him sad. He wished one of those little things was the source of her problems, not her own body. He wished she was out of all this mess. But there was nothing he could do, and moreover, he had an order now.

His holo-projection got out of his car-form and gestured for Rita who had also left his seat to go inside. The girl went to the front doors; Jazz followed. She entered the hall and made her way to elevators. They didn't say a word to each other on their way to the fifth floor.

They stepped out of the elevator in silence and went down the corridor to Rita's room. She unlocked the door with a key-card, but before she could enter Jazz stopped her with agesture. He was the first to come in, scanning the room for unwelcome presences, bugs, cameras and dangerous devices.

While he was busy Rita had spotted her reflection in the mirror and immediately forgot about everything else. "Oh my God," she murmured and disappeared in the bathroom. Acouple of seconds later she came back with a box of Kleenex in her hands. She took one tissue out, dropped the box onto the bed and began cleaning her face, looking into the mirror and throwing occasional glances at Jazz. "So..." she started. "You wanna do some explaining?"

"I will." Jazz turned to his charge. "But right now I need ya ta pack yer things. We're leavin'."

Rita froze. "Excuse me?" She lifted one brow.

"We're leavin',"Jazz repeated patiently.

She stood there for a moment in awe, and then resumed the cleaning process. "I hate to disappoint you, Jack, but I'm not going anywhere."

Jazz shook his head. He knew it wasn't going to be easy. "I'm afraid it's in yer best interests, girl."

"I said I'm not going anywhere," Rita turned around pointing her finger at him. "And stop calling me that."

"Callin' ya what?"Jazz asked in confusion.

"'Girl.' I'm not your girl, babe, or anything of that kind. I'm Rita. And stop ordering me around!" Her posture screamed of challenge. She was nervous.

Jazz mentally cursed. All the easiness they'd managed to come to had evaporated. "Look, Rita, it's not a good time for arguin'. Yer life is at stake. Please, start packin'."

"My life has long been at stake, that's not news to me," She didn't want to listen. "And it's not like I can disappear into nowhere with you, I need to play a show tomorrow... pardon me, it's today!" She pointed at the clock on the wall that showed 2 am. Jazz sighed in exasperation. How was he supposed to make her cooperate now? Optimus will kill me.

"Rita, we /have/to go," he repeated, unconsciously making a step towards her.

"Oh really?" The girl echoed incredulously, instinctively stepping back. "Over my dead body!" She crumpled the tissue in her hand and threw it at Jazz.

He was too surprised to react. The paper ball touched the surface of his holo-projection, making it shimmer and glow, then flew through him and landed on the floor behind his back.

Rita gasped and closed her mouth with her hand in shock, then sank onto the bed, all the while staring at him with wild eyes.

Oh, blast.

On one hand, it made the explanation easier. But on the other hand, it did frighten her. All he could do to lessen that effect was offer her a smile, though he didn't think it would help much.

What she did next was really strange. She blindly felt the bed for the box of Kleenex with her free hand, took one out, crumpled it - and threw the little ball at him again. It flew through his holo and rolled across the floor before stopping beside the previous one. Two sets of eyes followed it then Jazz turned to the girl again.

"Hey, that wasn't too polite of ya, y'know," he said in an offended, but light tone. Rita only stared at him with huge eyes.

"I don't think I'd be wrong if I said I had a theory that you are by no means working for NAA, you are not Jack, and you are not my 'assistant', huh?" she said slowly and quietly.

He'd been expecting/any/ reaction, but not this. Such a slagflow of words in a situation like this could match one of Ratchet's fits of medic-talk.

So Jazz laughed, in a low, hearty manner. He couldn't help it. Rita kept glaring at him, sitting on the bed and obviously not sharing his joy, and that made him gain some seriousness again. "The name's Jazz," he nodded as if introducing himself anew. "Yer theory's right. I'm not working for NAA. But I'll have ya know that the assistance part is actually true. I'm here ta guard ya, Rita."

"So you're... my guardian angel from above, or what?" She asked disbelievingly in a helpless attempt to give it all a somewhat reasonable explanation, eyeing him from head to toe.

The choice of words confused and amused Jazz. The internet told him what she was referring to. "Not in the sense you humans are used ta interpret the term. But yer relatively close." Seeing Rita take a defensive posture with her legs drawn to her body Jazz held his hands up in a universal peaceful gesture so that she could see them and hurried to explain. "I'm a sentient robot from planet Cybertron, and Iserve under command of Optimus Prime, the Leader of Autobots." He sounded almost like Prime himself, and it was slightly disturbing. Was he getting old?

"God, it seems you've blessed me with insanity before the end of my miserable life," Rita mumbled into space and covered her dirty face with both of her palms.

Rita was the first human Jazz had ever had to talk to about this. He had no idea how this kind of conversation should take place, so he just decided to settle her doubts on her mental health to start with. "Yer not insane, Rita, an' yer not seein'things," he said. "An' I ain't tryin' ta play a joke on ya here."

After some time she lifted her weary gaze to him again. It looked like she was fighting an inner battle.

"You... kinda look like a normal guy," Rita finally said in a strangely flat voice making a vague gesture in his general direction.

"Why, thanks,"he smiled looking down at himself. He liked to think he had succeeded in blending in to Earth culture. "But it's just ma' holographic projection. Ya've seen ma' main form, it's a Pontiac Solstice." Jazz pointed somewhere behind his back with his thumb for emphasis.

"Jesus," she whispered running her hand through her hair. "Don't tell me you're a car."

"It's Jazz actually. An' I ain't a car!" Jazz exclaimed with indignation. "Well, I am, but it's only one o' ma' modes. The primary one is arobot mode." Now she was looking at him like he was insane. "Ya know... two arms, two legs... a head... an' all that stuff," he suggested helpfully so that she could better understand what "robot" meant.

She shook her head mutely, then stood up from the bed, made several steps and stopped in the middle of the room as if lost, her gaze roaming around without purpose. Jazz could tell she was "processing the data", so to speak. Well, they all had something to process. After all, none of the Autobots expected that the source of the signal would be the human girl herself.

Rita combed through her hair with her fingers again and suddenly cringed in disgust. It's then when Jazz noticed dried blood in her red locks; it had been invisible in the streetlights.

"Is it yours?" Frowning in concern he quickly approached her and reached out a hand reflexively.

Rita winced and shook her head slightly, and for a moment he thought it was a request not to come close or touch her. Not that he could, in this state... But she countered his assumptions by saying, "No, it's... probably h- his/." Rita winced again in disgust. Jazz's tension was relieved, both from the knowledge that he wasn't the reason of that emotion and that it wasn't her blood. Of course. It belonged to that guy with the torn ear. /Served the glitch right for hurtin' a female.

"I think I need a shower," Rita said quietly, her eyes avoiding Jazz. What was she hiding? Or was she afraid of him now that his true identity was revealed? If the last was true, he could do nothing about it but give her some time to adjust to the flood of new information. Though, he had to admit, so far she'd been taking it all better than most of her kind would have in her place.

"A'ight," Jazz agreed just as quietly. "But not too long, we need ta go soon. And don't lock the door, okay?"

Surprising him yet another time that night, Rita nodded silently and took a spare shirt and apair of jeans from her duffel bag, heading to the bathroom. The last revelation seemed to put an end to their argument. Jazz followed her with his eyes until the bathroom door closed behind her softly.

He heaved a sigh of relief.

'Hit me with the news, Bee,' the bot said through the com link. Bumblebee had always been the one who got the information, and that was what they needed the most right now.

'The fingerprints I'd scanned from the knives the criminals had dropped back on the street belong to members of a well-organized terrorist group. According to Captain Lennox, it is probably based somewhere in the desert. The van they used had no license plate, they must have hijacked it.'



'Why would they need Rita? Was it supposed ta be a random hostage kidnappin' or were they targetin' the signal?'



'It's hard to tell. But Captain Lennox is positive that if the human military forces intercepted any kind of unknown signals Maggie Madsen would immediately inform him of it so that he could contact our base. Such coordinated monitoring is a part of the Human-Autobot program. Captain Lennox never received any such notifications. This signal seems to be intended for Cybertronian equipment only. That means that if the terrorists were after the signal, they could learn of it from only one source...'



'...an' it might not be safe here at the hotel,' Jazz finished. It was just as he'd thought.



'Exactly. But I've just bought us some time by changing Rita's name in the hotel's registration database.'



'Good move, partner. Rita's in the shower. As soon as she's finished we're leavin' this place and transportin' her to the base. Prime's order. But the question is, how in the name o' Primus can a human female send a signal that can be picked up only by our radars?'



'That's agood question. I'm afraid Ratchet would be the only one to try and give it some intelligible explanation.'



'Speakin' of Doc. I'd called for him; he needs ta check on Rita as soon as possible... An' he could provide firepower should we need it. I have a bad feelin' about all this... Jazz out.'



'Got that. I'll meet him. Bumblebee out.'

-----

Rita dropped her disheveled clothes onto the floor of the bathroom, not really caring where they would land. Her mind felt strangely numb, overdosed with an unfathomable mass of thoughts that bordered on the absurd. She tried to push it all out of her head stepping into the shower.

She still felt that man's hands on her body. Rough, painful, frightening. And a cold blade pressing into her throat, not even allowing her to swallow without being hurt. She'd never been so scared in her life. It was like breathing the unbearable stench of death, when one tiny movement separates you from agony, from ceasing to exist, when you don't have control over what's happening and when you know that the hand holding your death by the collar won't hesitate to unleash this beast...

Rita's hands went through her hair and came out red. Now that the strands were wet, the dried blood in it went down her shoulders and chest along with rivulets of water, making the girl shudder in revulsion. She hurried to wash the traces of that man from her skin.

Jack- Jazz made him bleed, made him let go of her and run in fear... He didn't have to, he had no reason, he doesn't even know her... And yet he did it. The first guy who really did something for her turned out to be an alien hologram/car. She chuckled sorrowfully. Wasn't it ridiculous? Oh yes, it was. In fact, it was the epitome of her ridiculous life.

Hot water caressed Rita's aching body softly, making her relax a bit, washing away dirt and stress. She closed her eyes and let herself simply stand there, not thinking, just listening to her heartbeat.

-----

"How many times do I have to tell you that humans are useless pieces of meat and blood, Barricade?"Starscream roared. "I can't even begin to assume why you had an illusion that they could find a solution for even the smallest of the Decepticons'problems!"

The silver jet was roaming from one wall to another like a living personification of rage and barely contained need for destruction; the ground vibrated with his heavy steps, his shoulders were hunched as if he was preparing for a jump or for a fight.

"I almost expected that, Starscream," Barricade answered, intimidated by the sight of his furious leader. "They are indeed too weak to match any of our kind. But don't hurry to dismiss our cooperation with them. They could still be useful."

Starscream stopped pacing and turned to the black-white mech, making him brace himself unconsciously."They are your responsibility, Barricade. You are dealing with them... Where is Frenzy?"

"F-F-Frenzy h-h-here," a hesitant mechanical stutter came from a dark corner. The small Decepticon emerged from his shadowy sanctuary, carrying a device in his tiny hands.

Starscream's heavy red stare regarded Frenzy's shaking form for a second. "Let's see how your invention can assist us," he said slowly and menacingly, a predatory smirk appearing on his face.

-----

Jazz was pacing around the room waiting for Rita to emerge from the bathroom. It had been 7minutes 27 seconds since she'd gone there. How long did it usually take a human to get clean? Should he ask Bumblebee? The yellow bot had to know that since he was Sam's guardian. But then again, maybe the cleaning time varied for males and females? Not that Jazz was worried; it's just that he didn't know how to busy himself while waiting.

The bot stopped near the bed, noticing a metallic glimmer beside it on the floor. He reached down and pulled a flat round object into his magnetic fingers. It was small and shined dully. A web-search told him that it was human money. A "penny", to be exact.

Along with other symbols stating the coin's value and such, there was a word engraved on the face of it: "liberty". Another term to define freedom. "Freedom is the right of all sentient beings," Optimus' words sounded in Jazz's head. Looks like humans value that right, too, he thought/./ But Rita wasn't given that right.

"Jazz..." he heard suddenly from the bathroom. A frightened and shaky plea for help that couldn't be misinterpreted.

Jazz's head shot up just as the signal readings jumped and quickly started growing in intensity.

The coin fell from his fingers as he rushed to the bathroom door and swung it open, the handle almost torn from its place with the might of the magnetic jolt.

The shower was running, steam rising and clouding the small room - but he couldn't see the girl above the bath. Rita was nowhere around either, and it took the surprised robot, who was personally unfamiliar with the process of taking a shower, acouple of seconds more to realize that she was probably in the bath. Combined with her call for help and with complete absence of her reaction to his appearance, it led Jazz to conclusions he'd rather not think of.

Two long quick strides brought Jazz close to the bath. He would have appreciated the view, had it not frightened him so much. Rita was lying unconscious on her back on the bottom of the bath, her face turned to him; the water around her was pink, the color intensifying into red near her nose. But the worst was that her head was almost entirely under the water.

"Rita!" Jazz called out in a desperate attempt to bring the girl to senses with a sound of his voice. She remained motionless. His frantic hands reached for the handles of the shower to shut the rushing liquid off, but found only plastic. "Scrap! RITA!"

The next second the deafening ping of the signal shattered his firewall and crashed straight to his spark, overloading his CPU.

This was bad. This was very bad...

'Bumblebee... mayday,' was all he had time to send through the com link before going offline.

End of Chapter 4