Once on this Earth: “Clips from Ground Zero”

Take 1.



“Now don’t gimme that, chica. No amount of pouting will convince me that you absolutely need ice cream to get better.”

There was no ‘But Mona,’ no reasons with whys and wherefores, just a low, lightly rumbling whine reminiscent of a puppy who’d just been told that people food, despite tasting so damn good was not dog food.

Tom Banachek chuckled softly as he took a sip from the mug of coffee he’d just brewed minutes before in what they’d come to refer to as the base’s pantry, and continued on his way up the steel steps to the makeshift little ‘office’ situated on a landing elevated so that he was eye-level with Red Alert.

“Mornin’,” he greeted the Autobot who acknowledged him briefly before turning back to the numerous screens that followed the comings and goings within the vicinity of their base, as well as the visual feed they received from the rest of their comrades situated on the dark side of the moon.  One particular screen showed several Autobots – those who had yet to experience their first rotation in staff to Earth – as they went about installing a new wing to the ship Prime had referred to as ‘the Ark’.  It was, according to the Autobot commander, the transport that he and the first few ‘bots had arrived in a little over two years before.

“Hey, Catydid.” Banachek hazarded another glance over his shoulder at the familiar voice of Mikaela Banes, and held back the smile as that distinctive whine came again, prompting the older of the two girls to chuckle softly. “Aw, honey, not feeling well?” He watched as Mikaela moved one hand to check the temperature on the sixteen-year-old’s forehead, before looking up to acknowledge the arrival of one Sam Witwicky.

“If the staff comes down with a flu bug, I’ll know exactly which unfortunate individual to blame.”

The former Sector Seven head bit back a smile and swiveled around on his chair, coming face-to-face with a grumpy looking Simmons who tucked his unruly dark hair under the standard beret.  “Mornin’ Simmons,” Banachek lifted his mug in greeting, “I see you got up on the right side of bed.”

“Send the kid home, Tom.  Ratchet’s good, but he’s still more adept in dealing with ‘bots than he is with humans.” The sneeze that followed explained why the other man sounded so... stuffy.  At least, more than the usual.

“Is that your roundabout way of saying that we need to start considering employing a doctor on-site? Because if it is, you know we have to run that by SecDef.”

“I’m saying, the civvies shouldn’t be loitering about when they’ve got cooties on them.”

Banachek chuckled openly then, setting his mug down on the table so that he could walk freely to the railing without fear of spilling hot coffee on the people below.

We’re a little over the two-year mark now. The expression on this face was thoughtful as he watched the first two initial members of their civilian unit lead one sniffle-ridden Caitlin Delaney down one of the incredibly large hallways build just so to accommodate the size of their massive comrades.  True enough, it had been a little over a year and a half for them, setting up ‘house’ in the space once known as Area 51.  Though, as much as they’d accomplished by pooling their resources and joining arms with the Autobots, the base was hardly at it’s full potential – at least, not in the way that Banachek hoped it might be.

For one, being a nameless entity perpetually hiding under the noses of any and all governments, his staff was limited to the few who had actually known the truth behind the Mission City incident years before and could be trusted to keep mum about it.  Moreover, since Sector Seven – as far as the President of the United States was concerned, at least – was disbanded, getting in touch and employing the engineers and technicians that he’d worked with previously teetered perilously between a brilliant idea to an outright security breach.

It was one thing, after all, to be employed in secrecy and provided what he had once referred to as a ridiculous government paycheck, it was quite another to cooperate with ‘mechanical aliens’ pro-bono.

Second, while he had every confidence in the Autobots chugging this little project along to the best that it could be, more of them on Earth meant a higher risk of drawing unwanted attention.  So as much as having numerous robotic sentient beings doing the heavy lifting at the base was an advantage in theory, it just wasn’t practical to bring them all down to Earth in one go.  They had to face facts – they had one base with limited space with construction was still on-going.  There just wasn’t enough room to accommodate the surprising influx of survivors from the planet Cybertron.

“Banachek!” He glanced down to see Mona Figueroa looking up at him, the look on her face concerned.  “Did you see where Caty went?”

“Little tyke got dragged bodily by Witwicky and Banes.” Simmons supplied before he could, the disgruntled man trying his best to look dignified while he struggled with a clogged-up nose.  “Went to see Ratchet.”

“Thanks.” The Latina waved as she dashed off in the direction that the earlier trio had gone, side-stepping just in time as not to collide into Glen and Maggie who seemed to be caught up in a discussion of their own.  

“Glen! Maggie!” Banachek called out then, prompting both computer analysts to look up in response.  “How’re we doing on the internet front?”

“All’s quiet, boss-man.” Glen mock-saluted, which earned him a soft grunt from Simmons who as far as Banachek could see, had turned his attention to watching the screens with Red Alert.  “The conspiracy theorists have turned unto themselves while we sit back, relax and enjoy the show.”

“That’s good,” he replied, letting them go on their way, glad that both seemed less hectic than one might expect.  Then again, he mused, having Blaster and his little assistants work the world wide web alongside them obviously cut the volume of their workload down in size, thus providing them enough of a window to take breaks and catch up on sleep.

At that, Banachek couldn’t help but remember the initial stages of their little-turned-massive base of operations, wherein Glen had repeatedly complained that he only had two eyes already inclined to fall out from computer screen radiation.  After burrowing deep into the network of speculative sites set up by thousands upon thousands of well-meaning individuals who’d either known about Mission City’s Robot Death Match through first, second or third-hand information, it was expected.

Banachek was actually quite thankful at their dumb luck that most of the sites borrowed information from each other since the Decepticon Blackout’s ability to emit EMP, had pretty much scrambled all electronics at the time of the siege, hence destroying any recorded evidence.  Added to the chaos of screaming, panicking, awe-struck citizens, very little concrete evidence survived save for a few, easily dismissed pictures – such as the popular stills taken by one Mason Graemes, a camera aficionado who had come in on that very weekend with his pre-digital SLR.

That Maggie and Glen had created what he’d been told were ‘sock-puppets’ that constantly debated the forums, was another was to ensure that nobody got too close to speculating upon the truth surrounding Mission City:

A government experiment gone wrong, had been Cynic55348’s proposal.  The military has obviously been tinkering with unmanned AI programs that can be installed in planes and the like.

What then? You saying all the citizens from Mission City simultaneously hallucinated Camaros and Peterbilts transforming into robots? Had been SciFiFan23’s response.

You know, wouldn’t it be awesome if someone actually came up with a toyline like that? Transformers! Robots in disguise! Had been the cheerful script of Jacob_Is_My_Name.

Each, of course, the alias of one Maggie Madsen.

And as if constantly watching the insanity of the internet wasn’t enough to keep them occupied, Banachek had to deal with issues on-site.  He was glad enough that Optimus Prime and Ratchet made it habit to check things by him just as he did them, and it was most definitely a relief to have Ironhide have his back since the newer – and possibly younger – Autobots weren’t always so cooperative.  And while he had faith in individuals like Prowl and Red Alert (when the more mischievous ones weren’t making fun of the latter ‘bot) having enough pull to keep the ‘young ones’, as Ratchet referred to them, in line; it didn’t change the fact that he was often the only one other than Simmons speaking up to represent the ever-fluctuating (ever-absent?) staff of humans.

After all, Lennox and his men couldn’t be around all the time thanks to their duties to the country, and Keller could hardly abandon his post in Washington.  At the end of the day, it was just him, Simmons and the civilian unit who up until recently had merely comprised of Sam and Mikaela, both still very much children in every right.

It was like asking a five-year-old to baby-sit a group of bears.

“Tom,” a female voice pulled him out of his thoughts and he turned to see Ina Toledo jogging lightly up the steps to greet him, the heels of her shoes clicking against the metal.  “SecDef said he won’t be able to make it this weekend.  We’re going to have to coordinate the next wave on our own.”

The newest addition to the more professional members of their staff, Ina had, up until two years ago, been employed under Mission City SWAT.  But injuries sustained in the battle that had stunned thousands had sent her home with a torn ACL and a blind side in her left eye, prompting standard protocol to mark her ineligible as a prime candidate for what the aforementioned city regarded as their elite team of law enforcers.  Rather than allowing herself to get shunted to deskwork, Ina had opted to turn in her badge to pursue night school in entrepreneurship.

It had been SecDef’s idea to pull her in as an agent for GZ initially as a means of keeping track of her.  As one of the individuals who’d helped with the Mission City clean-up, it wasn’t so much the resignation itself as the suddenness of the action that warranted the GZ co-head’s concern.  Banachek remembered though being told later, She’ll be a good asset, Tom.  I’ve had my people check her file – she’s headstrong, but there’s never been an incident of her clashing with her superiors.  She’s handy with a gun too, despite that blind side of hers.  And Keller’s move had proven advantageous, since Ina was now the one person who made sure that their asses were covered well and good.

“Red,” Banachek turned to the Autobot Security Officer then, noting how the latter stiffened as he was brought into the conversation.  “Who’s up for planetfall this week?”

“Ultra Magnus, Springer and the Wreckers.” Came the rather short reply as large metallic fingers typed idly on the overlarge keyboard to switch the screens to new areas of concern.  The cameras situated at the entrance topside showed Jin Sagami once more in the company of Sunstreaker and Sideswipe.

“Don’t have to be all stiff just for my benefit, Red.” Ina teased, earning the trademark ‘here we go again’ eye roll from Simmons who’d only yesterday complained about Ina’s inclination to bait the perpetually paranoid ‘bot.

“I am perfectly fine, thank you.”

Banachek bit back his smile as Red’s human equivalent in rank crossed both her arms in front of her chest.  “I said I was sorry.”

The five words opened the proverbial can of worms – or in this case – pulled the trigger on Red’s obviously held back hysterics, which led, as expected to the Autobot raining down complaints on the woman, about how it was not funny at all that she failed to give him fair warning before she set loose a hacker into their systems.

“It was only Glen.  How else do you expect me to find the holes in the system if I can’t have our two techs poke around in it.  It was only a simulation of the worst that could happen.” The scowl on her face did very little to disguise the mirth in her eyes.  “Besides, I sent you the memo.  Tom,” she turned to Banachek, the picture of wounded innocence.  “I CCed you to that.  It’s not my fault he didn’t understand it.”

“How could I understand the vague wordings of a bored human female?! ‘We will be running a diagnostic on the current security mainframe’ does not equate to hacking!”

“If we can get back to the topic at hand.” Simmons cut in then, the heel of one hand pressed against his forehead.  “So we’ve got Magnus, Springer and a bunch’a boys I’m not quite sure I’ll be happy to see if their disposition matches their name.” Softer, the former S7 agent added, “Wreckers – sounds like some rejects off of WWE.  Puh.”

“Latest report from NASA shows that the meteor shower will be between oh-two hundred and oh-five hundred hours.” Ina passed a dossier over to him.  “Lots of sleeping people, Tom.  I think we can assume we’ll be safe from any unwanted watchers.”

“Unless you count the astronomy fanatics that thrive in the California area.” Simmons snorted before lifting a hand to hide his cough.

“Nice to know you’re so supportive of this, Reggie.”

“You do not have the clearance to call me that, Toledo.”

“Enough,” Banachek sighed aloud, “All of you, please already.  Red, have Ultra Magnus and Springer been informed?”

“They have.  Hot Spot will be coordinating this round’s planetfall.”

“Good.” Banachek nodded but the Autobot snorted back with hardly any cheer, “We can always hope.”