Random reality somewhere. Mad scientist's lab. First job.

[random_xtras]

((co-written with victormakesart))

Victor strained a bit against the ropes. She looked for the fear, looked really hard. Two years ago, a year ago she would have been scared out of her mind. "He-ey. Untying me would really rock. Just so you know." She squinted, strained her eyes, looking around. The only thing she could think was that she'd like to study there. That there was plenty she could learn and absorb. That probably was not the proper thought.

She could hardly remember how she got there, and her vision was still kind of hazy. She half-remembered a sting.

A man got up from his chair in the corner.

"Oh, oh, so it's you, can you unlock me now?"

"Do you know who I am?" he asked, stalking forward and preparing another tranquilizer shot.

"Can't say that I do. But I'm pretty much useless, unless you want a mural." She had no idea how she was keeping so calm. She thought (absently) that she would bother herself if she were fictional. It wasn't bravery, though, it was curious apathy, which was a heck of a lot more confusing.

The scientist fixed his hat. Victor liked his hat. It bothered her a little bit that she was thinking about his hat.

"I'm going to cut you up, and use you to study new and efficient ways of utilizing energy."

Victor blinked. "Okay."

"What?"

"Okay," she repeated, taken aback at herself. "I'm not scared."

"She's not scared," a voice seemed to whisper from empty air. "Are you sure this is the right place?"

Victor strained against the ropes a little more, frowned.

The scientist prepared another shot, this time a painkiller. He might be an immoral pain in the neck, but he wasn't into torturing. "Would you prefer to be asleep or awake?"

"Awake, please," Victor muttered. "Though I'd prefer it if you let me go."

He snickered to himself. It was a crackling paper sound. "I'm sure you would, sweetpea. I'm sure you would."

"It's the right place," another voice buzzed softly in the background. "Just wait for my signal."

He walked behind her, moved her hair away from the back of her neck in a motion that was very nearly tender. He prepared the injection.

And a nearby machine fell over, seemingly aimed at his head.

He cursed, then straightened his hat and his coat. He was a professional. This didn't happen to professionals.

Something in the shadows off to one side growled like an angry cat.

Victor tugged at the ropes a little harder. "Okay, dude, you said nothing about getting eaten by predatory felines. At least sedate me."

"This isn't mine!" he said, panicked.

And then the cat itself came boiling out of its hiding place, a big golden tabby that gave a banshee scream as it aimed right for his face.

He shouted, brought his hands in front of his face to shield himself.

Victor started to scream, too! Death she could face. Watching someone get his face eaten off she couldn't!

Hands pulled at her bonds, then lifted her, and the mayhem and chemical smells of the lab were suddenly interrupted by the sound of running footsteps and a door being kicked open.

"Oh man, oh man, don't hurt anyone 'cause of me," she said quickly, struggling.

"Whoa! Whoa!" said a youthful male voice. "Don't worry, we don't kill. Ack! But I might drop you."

"Okay. Don't hurt him too badly." She sounded like she was panicking, but she was making an effort now to sit still.

"I hope you're not afraid of the dark. We had to knock the power out to take down the security." The sounds and smells of the lab were replaced by the sound of footsteps on hallway, and then the arch of a doorway passed over them and they were suddenly in a bigger hall. Somehow or other Vic found herself in the back seat of a car, which gunned down the hall and out the front door with a roar.

"I'm not scared." And she closed her eyes to prepare. And then she opened her eyes, surprised. "How?"

"Uh... how what? Yeeow! Who put that truck there?" The car shuddered with a glancing impact, and then snapped its headlights on as it raced down the private access road.

There was no one in the driver seat

Victor blinked, then rolled her shoulders back, reworking movement. "I mean, how're we here after being there? Did we travel through a pocket dimension."

"Uh... no. Um... I carried you out through the door and the hall, and the bigger hall, and then now we're going down the road...."

Another car pulled up beside them. A little golden tan thing, something European. The car that Victor was riding in, an old style convertible as big as a boat, twitched slightly and there suddenly was someone in the driver's seat, a young man with messy dark hair and a sheepish expression that showed in the rear view mirror as he glanced back at his passenger.

She reached up to fix her hair, smiled hazily. Okay, she was still a little out of it from the tranq, but it wasn't too bad. She still wanted to look presentable for people. "Hey. Ah. Hi."

"Hi." Dark eyes looked at her curiously from the reflection. "Hey... have you ever heard of 'Transformers'?"

"Sure have, dude. Um. Thank you for the saving thing." She looked away a bit shyly, tried to get feeling back in her arms and legs.

"Just doing my job." The car paused as the private road ended and he looked both ways on the highway that they'd reached. "What about them? And... is there anywhere you want to be?"

"Just stuff, dunno much. And can you get to the Nexus?" She wiggled her toes just to prove she still could.

"Nexus...." He turned his head to look at the blond in the other car as it pulled up beside them. "Uh... isn't this your reality? And, do you mean the transformers on the power poles?"

"Nah. My reality doesn't have Transformers. Or mad scientists. Well. At least not ones I hear about." She shifted in her seat, moved each finger in turn. Okay. Mobility granted!

His sheepish look deepened as the blond turned to look back the way they'd come from. "No. I mean, what does 'Transformer' mean to you?"

"I shouldn't say, it's not right to mix information from different realities." She had her rules, even now.

"Yeah, well, if you did say it might make this job a lot easier." He sighed. "So the Nexus is where you live? All we were told is that we had to get you away from that guy and make it so that the local enforcers could capture him."

"I don't live in the Nexus, but I can get to where I live through the Nexus. I don't even know how to say what it is I do know about the Transformerfolk."

"Okay, so you know about people called Transformers." He brightened with what could only be relief. "Um... but do you know the coordinates to the Nexus?"

"Yes, and... yes. Let me see...." She squeezed her eyes shut, concentrated hard on remembering the proper combination of numbers. And she managed to!

"Got them," said a female voice from the car's radio. "Hold on, U-turn."

Victor made sure she was strapped in, a bit belatedly.

Just as the antique style buckle clicked home they were suddenly surrounded by the mixed architecture and alien sky/ceiling of the Nexus.

The seatbelt seemed to melt away from her, and instead of sitting on a white leather seat she was suddenly sitting in a blue metal hand as quizzical blue optics looked down at her.

"Uh... hi," said the mech in the young man's voice.

"Hey, dude." She shook her hair out of her face, shifted her weight. "'Sup?"

"Well." He looked around and smiled a bit as a femme the same colour as the little European car walked over and looked at Victor. "Here's the Nexus. You don't seem broken or anything...."

"Here." The femme gently extracted Victor from his hand and set her down on the ground/floor. "How are you feeling?"

"Little fuzzy in the brainplace, but I'm fine." She looked around her, took a deep breath. It was overwhelming to be alive, she found. "Who told you to save me?"

"Our boss." The femme settled down onto her knees. "He didn't tell us much, just coordinates and to get you out of there. I'm Pacer, by the way, and this is U-turn."

"Hi." The mech gave a little wave.

"I'm Victor Allen." She swallowed, suddenly uncomfortable, flushed and guilty. "Ah, there're other people who deserve saving more than I do. I really appreciate it, though."

Pacer tilted her head curiously, then leaned closer with concern. "You're changing colour."

"...What?" U-turn looked quickly.

She swallowed again, lightheaded, blood rushing to her face like one little platelet said 'last one there's a skin cell' to all the other platelets. "Yeah, I suppose I am. Just, just saying that other people need more saving."

"Well, we can only do what the boss tells us to do." Pacer's concern was very apparent. "Are you damaged? U-turn, did you drop her or something?"

"NO! I was careful... oh sheesh, but I hit a truck...." He put a hand to his mouth, optics showing his worry and guilt.

"Oh, heavens, no no, I'm fine." She blinked hard, looked down at her hands.

Pacer frowned at the little organic, but then remembered an interaction she'd seen between humans back at the base where she'd lived for a few days before her 'death' and realized that the girl was embarrassed. Quickly comming U-turn to back off, she moved away herself. "Sorry. I haven't had much interaction with humans yet. And U-turn's never seen one before today."

"It's fine, ah, it's okay." She wiped her eyes with the heel of her hand. "I'm sorry that I'm not a more suitable human."

"Look." Pacer frowned slightly. "Suitable has nothing to do with it.... Wait. Are you saying you didn't want out of there?"

"No, not at all. Just that probably I didn't deserve it. Out of all the people in the world, there're better people dying."

Two sets of confused blue optics looked down at her.

"Well," said U-turn. "I guess we saved the other guy, too. From doing something stupid."

"I guess so," she said quietly, turning to start pacing. Slow steps, careful steps, getting used to moving.

Pacer watched her, then shimmered and contracted till the blond human was kneeling where the golden Transformer had. She was utterly confused by Victor Allen's words, but knew that she and U-turn had pulled off the job correctly. This uncertainty, though, nearly made her miss the war from where she'd come from. Still frowning slightly, she waited for the human girl to finish her restless walking.

"I really appreciate being saved," Victor repeated, stepping over to a couch.

Pacer stood, her ponytail swaying as she walked over to a comfortable distance. "We're supposed to keep an eye on you till you're safely home."

"Oh," she murmured, tugging out her PINpoint. "Do you, ah, do you want me to then?"

"When you're ready. I'm just letting you know why we're still hanging around." Pacer's voice was gentle. "But you look like you could use some quiet time with people that you trust."

"Yeah. I... um, thank you again." Victor chewed at her lip, then looked down at her hands again.

"This is your home, isn't it?" asked U-turn abruptly. "This is where you feel safest?"

Pacer looked up at him, then turned her gaze back to Victor.

She nodded, scratched at the side of her neck. There was a band-aid there from the injection that got her knocked out to begin with. "More or less. I feel good at Rico's place, too. I'll go there."

"Do you need any help?" asked Pacer softly, her attitude hinting at some sort of medical type training. She had a good bedside manner.

She shook her head. "I don't do the whole doc thing, but thanks."

The hologram's mouth twitched. "I'm an engineer. Was an engineer."

She turned to look up at her teammate. //There's nothing else to do here. We're only making her uncomfortable.//

He nodded, his gaze drawn toward the bright lights on a bar sign. //So where now?//

She looked at what he was and nodded. //That's as good as anything until the boss calls us again. It looks like a clean enough place.//

Then she turned back to Victor as U-turn started to walk away, her mouth twitching in a smile as she held out the scientist's hat. "See you."

"See you." Victor accepted the hat, then smiled her first real smile for hours. "And thank you." And then she PINed home. This was the weirdest day of her life.

Pacer watched her vanish, then turned and followed U-turn, shifting her form back to the golden femme bot as she went.