Transformers Prime: The Tesseract

Three: Negotiation

Ultra Magnus, Arcee, Fowler, and Sunbeam made it to the rendezvous point, discovering the small group of human government officials and military waiting for them. Sunbeam froze in place as she recognized a few of them.

"Pull yourself together," Arcee patted Sunbeam on the shoulder to move her forward. "Word of advice, kid: don't let them know that they get to you."

"Right. Hopefully this is the last time I'll ever see them..." Sunbeam agreed.

"Agent Fowler! Long time no see!" An official welcomed Fowler with a handshake.

"Yeah. We should really get together sometime," Fowler agreed.

"Yeah. Sure sucks that we've gotta meet here for business," the other man agreed.

"No kidding. So, you want your experiment back, right?" Fowler suggested. The official nodded.

"That's right. We need to run a few tests and make sure everything's functioning right," he confirmed.

"I'll show you how well I'm functioning when I shove my foot-" Sunbeam started before Arcee covered her mouth.

"I see her voice is still annoyingly functional," the official remarked with a raised eyebrow.

"What did you hope to accomplish by creating your own Autobot, Mr. Secretary?" Ultra Magnus asked.

"We wanted to see what kind of military breakthroughs we could make. Imagine the possibilities. Humans would no longer have to die in battles. And the robots would seem more human, so they could relay information in a way that the average person would understand. Think of how many lives could be saved," the Secretary pointed out.

"With all due respect, sir, you wouldn't have to worry about fighting wars if you weren't always starting them," Arcee retorted.

"Is there anything we could offer in exchange for possession of your asset?" Fowler asked.

"Knowledge. I want to know everything about them," the Secretary decided aloud, pointing at Ultra Magnus. "I wanna know how they're made, how they think...how they're alive."

"Okay, so here's what we'll do. You let your bot stay with us, and we'll help you out with anything you need, including any information you want...within reason. Ultra Magnus here'll lay down some ground rules before you begin working with them," Fowler suggested.

"Alright. That sounds good to me. But, if this fails, our property is returned to us," the Secretary agreed with a nod.

After about another hour of negotiating and discussing, the group dispersed back to their original locations. The Autobots returned to their base, and were greeted with Jack, Miko, and Raf asking a million questions.

"Were they super evil?!" Miko asked.

"Oh yeah, they even had fangs and giant wings!" Sunbeam lied with a laugh.

"Cool!" Miko exclaimed before walking away and having a loud conversation with Bulkhead.

"She knows I was kidding...right?" Sunbeam questioned with obvious concern.

"Yeah, she knows," Jack assured her.

"Whatcha workin' on, Raf?" Sunbeam asked, peeking over Raf's shoulder to look at his computer.

"I do this every day. I go through and erase any evidence that you guys exist," Raf explained.

"You can really do that?!" Sunbeam shouted in bewilderment.

"Why does everyone always ask that?" Raf mumbled.

"'Cause I don't know any person who can do that," Sunbeam admitted.

"Not that you know many people..." Ratchet remarked.

"Shut it," Sunbeam deadpanned. "You ain't one to talk, anyway."

"Hey, Sunbeam! Pop quiz! What does this say?!" Miko shouted, holding up a poster board that had Bulkhead's name on it.

"Uh....nice work on the poster! It's really shiny!" Sunbeam dodged the question with an innocent grin.

"Yeah, I put some glitter on it," Miko replied not realizing that she dodged the question.

"Creative! I love it!" Sunbeam exclaimed.

"Hey, wait! You totally didn't answer my question!" Miko realized. "What does my sign say?"

"Um..." Sunbeam sounded out the word. "Bulkhead?" She read, pronouncing the "ea" as "ee."

"Close. It's actually Bulkhead," Miko replied. Sunbeam's eyes lit up, despite her apparent failure to pronounce the word correctly.

"Really?! I was close?! Hey, Ratchet! Did ya hear that?! I was close!" Sunbeam asked. Ratchet just let out a hum of agreement as he continued working, making it abundantly clear that he had not been paying attention. Sunbeam's cheeks flared out in frustration. "Jeez, ya don't have to be so mean..." her pouting was cut off by a funny voice coming from Raf's computer screen.

"These people really don't like you, Raf," Jack pointed out, reading a short footnote on the bottom of the conspiracy page.

"Who wouldn't like Raf?" Sunbeam asked, leaning more to get a better look at the screen.

"They just don't like that I replace all their posts about Autobots with this," Raf stated before pasting a picture of a cat with an astronaut suit over a picture of Arcee. "Mars cat says, 'take me to your feeder.'" Sunbeam let out a little giggle.

"Ooh! I know one! They wanna show off aliens, right?" Sunbeam asked before pointing out a short clip of a man dressed as an alien attempting to slide down a stair railing before losing his grip and falling backwards onto the floor below.

The kids spent the rest of the day sitting at Raf's computer, picking short clips to paste over any of the Autobots who showed up on conspiracy sites.

It was around six o'clock when the kids were driven home by the Autobots. This meant that Sunbeam would likely turn her attention to annoying Ratchet for the rest of the night.

"Whatcha up to, Ratchet?" Sunbeam asked.

"I'm trying to see if there has been any decepticon activity," Ratchet replied.

"Decepticons?" Sunbeam repeated.

"Yes. Don't you remember Ultra Magnus telling you about them?" Ratchet questioned.

"No..." Sunbeam admitted.

"Well, decepticons are like us, except their morals are very corrupted. They believe they should rule Cybertron and have control over the planet's Energon supply," Ratchet explained.

"Energon?" Sunbeam asked.

"It's what keeps us alive. Without it, we'd all have died long ago. However, due to the war on Cybertron and its continuation on Earth, both sides seem to be running low," Ratchet answered.

"I can get some for you!" Sunbeam offered.

"How could you find Energon?" Ratchet questioned, finally turning to look at Sunbeam, who grinned slyly.

"I have ways. Think ya could locate the decepticon base?" Sunbeam wondered aloud.

"Most likely. It's not too hard to track down," Ratchet confirmed.

"Great! Then tell me where they are!" Sunbeam urged.

"I'm not telling you where they are! You'll get yourself killed trying to fight them! Besides, you wouldn't even know what to look for if you were to go looking for Energon," Ratchet stated.

"Fine, then tell me where ya found the Energon stuff you have now," Sunbeam requested.