Maze part 1

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Maze, pt. 1
by A.J. Bryant (nbryant@mnsinc.com)

Rattrap roared across the barren plain, feeling every ditch, every stone, every bump in the path. "Maximize!" he growled finally. With a sudden mechanical roar the rat-ish shaped vehicle peeled back and a bipedal armored warrior appeared. He skidded to a halt. He needed to rest. Just a cycle or two.

"Cheetor, where are you?" he muttered in his com-link. The young Maximal's voice split the quiet afternoon.

"Forty cliks ahead of you."

That kid was having too much fun. Rattrap scanned the sky. Just within receptor range he saw the glint that betrayed Cheetor's presence. Rattrap looked around for a hint of shade. Nothing.

"Let's get back to the Axalon. There ain't nothing out here except a lot of empty and two slaggin' idiots!"

"Who you callin' an idiot?"

Well, if he had to ask...

The Maximal turned back toward the bluff where the starship Axalon lay partially entombed in a cleave of rock face. His home away from Cybertron, such as it was. He would have transformed, but was awed instead by the dark brooding sky that blossomed over the horizon.

"Rattrap to Optimus. You having a cook-out over there, or is a storm brewin'?"

His com-link buzzed intermittently. There could have been an answer, but he couldn't decipher anything.

"Rattrap to Cheetor--"

Still static.

"Hello! Hey, I'll even take a Pred right now! Yoo hoo!" He regarded the dirt at his feet with a red glare. "Oh, just prime. And me with out an umbrella. Rattrap, beast-"

A receptor-splitting crack split the sky. Rattrap's body convulsed violently, his screams just a whimper in the torrent of screeching air and metal searing heat. His receptors blacked out, his arms felt like lead, his body twisted and convulsed against his will. And then, just as suddenly, came the hard ground.

He slammed flat into it, face down. Every piston, every rod, every gear groaned from instant reverse acceleration.

How long he lay there, he didn't know. When his receptors finally came back on-line, he tried lifting his head. The sickening sound of grinding actuators cut the silence. The picture in his mind was fuzzy, static littered his view. He shook his head gingerly and a sharp pain radiated across his shoulder and down his back.

"Aw man... Rattrap to anybody?"

Nothing. No static, no hiss, Just silence. What was going on?

"Well, slag-it-all... this just... has to... be..." he wrestled against gravity and his tired arms to push himself up his knees. "Blasted... Megatron!" His hand rested against the wall for a milli-klik. He looked up. A wall!?

A corridor, actually, wandering off to his left as far as he could see. There was an intersecting hall a few hundred feet to his right. "What I wouldn't give to get that overgrown lizard a piece of my blaster's mind right now!"

He crawled to the wall and used it to lever himself up. Then he heard the groan.

He pulled his blaster. It was a faint groan, to his right, at the intersection. He took a step in that direction. As quietly as he could with complaining joints, he moved closer.

"Santa Maria ..." The voice was feminine, with a strange accent he'd never heard before. She muttered some unintelligible words and groaned again. A clunk, some more muttering. Rattrap leaned against the wall and peered cautiously around the corner.

She was a tiny human female! This just got weirder and weirder. "I must be dreamin."

He'd spoken out loud, he guessed, because she started and scrambled to her knees. Her fist curled tightly around a black slim barreled gun. He returned the favor, drawing a bead on her with his blaster.

"I'm impressed, girlie. You got guts, but I've got cover. And the bigger weapon." He grinned.

Her grimace faded a bit. She knew he was right. Her aim shifted, just a tad. "And what would happen if my hollow tips shot right up that barrel?"

Rattrap didn't want to know what a hollow tip was, nor what it would it would do to his weapon. "Who are you?"

"Ditto."

"Ah, ah. I asked first.

Grudgingly, slowly, that grimace still marring her small round face, she complied. "First Lieutenant Maria Paolina de Portola de Oso. U.S. Marine Corps. Serial number 65283261."

Well, this definitely wasn't some of Megatron's trickery. Rattrap settled back for a second. This was way beyond the Beast Wars. This was far and above anything ol' iron britches could ever have cooked up. He stowed his weapon and took a step forward.

Clearing the protection of the wall, he towered above the little Marine. She went pale and scrambled backward. He raised his hands. "Wait-"

She didn't. Her aim was spectacular, even if the weaponry was laughable. Four rounds, four hits, and one he felt, right at his left knee actuator rod. "Hey hey - settle down! I'm on your side! I think?"

"Wh - what are you?!"

He had to chuckle, looking at himself, his gaudily colored transmetal skin, half a rat's head mounted to either side of his shoulders, and piercing red receptors resting at a nasty angle above a set of buck teeth. "Ohh yeah, I ehh, must look a sight to someone like you."

Color was slowly coming back to her face, but her weapon still targeted him.

"Look you know you ain't getting nowhere with that. If I wanted to hurt ya'...."

"Yeah.." She agreed. A certain resignation painted her face as she finally let the gun drop. "I guess...you could pretty much break me in half."

"Now, that's better."

"Where am I?" she asked. Okay, this was interesting.

"You don't know?"

"Not unless they have robots in heaven."

"No, see I'm what ya' call a Maximal."

"Oh wait," she suddenly broke into tired laughter. "I know. I'm blacked out. I lost control of my jet and I'm plunging into the Atlantic right now."

"No you're not-"

"I'm in a coma! In the hospital, in a coma, and this is my way of dealing with that stupid respirator... Man, and I told Luis I didn't want to be hooked up to the machines."

"Listen to me. You are definitely not on life support, or plunging into the Atlantic."

"You brought me here?"

"No. I thought maybe... well never mind what I thought." Rattrap leaned against the gray wall again. His relaxed attitude seemed enough to put the young woman at ease a little. She pulled herself up stretched a little, still eyeing him, but the fire had gone out of her glare.

"You never answered my question."

"I don't know what to say," Rattrap muttered. He wasn't the thinker that Rhinox or Optimus was. He wasn't the emissarial type. He knew explosives, demolition, espionage and good hard living - not specifically in that order. "You a soldier?" he asked.

"I'm a Marine!" she barked. Any further explanation she seemed to think was unnecessary.

"Well, okay then... where you come from?"

"First you answer my question-"

The time for talking ended abruptly as a tremor shook the ground they stood on. Rattrap looked back toward the long hall. "Run!"

She already knew something was wrong as three green pulse arcs ricocheted off the wall beside her. She grabbed her gear bag. Pushing her ahead of him he tore up the hall as a mutli armed gun weapon steamed around the corner. Maria scrambled just ahead of his thudding feet, hauling her bag with her. He grabbed her bodily and tossed her ahead of him further. She landed like a cat, and skidded to a halt at another intersection, backtracking to dodge two more blasts. "There's another coming this way!"

"Oh just great!" Rattrap skidded to a stop beside her. "Here!" He tossed his weapon to her. She wavered under the weight of it. It looked like a rocket launcher in her hands, but she knew all she she needed to, and after a quick look at the weapon, hefted it to her shoulder and took aim at the target down the hall. The recoil wracked her body - again and again and again.

"It's not slowing that thing much-"

"Don't get your gears in a grind!" The Maximal slapped his forearm compartments to dislodge the explosive charges he carried. "I hope that storm didn't damage these -" He tossed one to the Marine and armed the other. "Time's set with the left green control. Press both sides to arm -"

"You don't hafta' tell me twice -" she ducked another barrage. Rattrap slid his toward the mechanical terror barreling towards them. A barrel leveled its hollow gaze at him.

"Ohh man..." He grabbed Maria and rolled away from the searing heat of the blast. Another blast, larger, more resonant, silenced the thing. Maria's charge exploded in another ear splitting crack. Rattrap remained balled around the Marine. Ten milli-kliks of silence was his rule. Don't move before ten milli-kliks of dead silence.

He raised his head. An oily smear of black marred the gray wall. Nothing remained of either gun machine. He released Maria. "Well, well. Looks like they couldn't take it."

"And you have no idea where we are?" she breathed.

"None."

"Well I'll tell you one thing. Something wants us on the move."

"You think so?"

"I bet if we stand here and do nothing, another set of those - whatever's - will come trundling down that hall."

"I'd take that bet, but I have no charges left."

"Yeah... let's move out."

She hefted her bag again. Rattrap stopped her. "Here, give me that thing-"

"Get your paws off my bag now, or I'll find a way to rip your arm off!"

The Maximal recoiled. What a temper!

"No one touches my flight bag," she added, and started down a hall that headed to their left.

Rattrap pondered her choice. "Why you going that way?"

"What? You have a better idea?"

He didn't. Acquiescing, he trundled along beside her.

"Okay, now I say again," she said. "You never answered me."

"Huh? Oh yeah, I didn't, did I. The name's Rattrap."

She laughed now. "Rattrap."

"The latest of several."

"Funny, I got a wing man we call Rattrap. I've gotta' be dreamin'."

"I wish you were, because then I'd be back on the Axalon."

"Your ship?"

"Yeah."

"I'm on the Yorktown. I'm sure I wouldn't know anything about your ship."

"No, but... funny, I've heard of yours."

She stopped. "How?"

Rattrap gulped. Timelines. They were a cumbersome thing to remember, and so easy to screw up. She eyed him unflinchingly.

"Heh, heh...just uh, read about it once."

Her expression didn't close the subject. "So, you an alien?"

"I guess you'd call me that. I'm a Maximal. We live on a planet called Cybertron-"

"Anywhere near Earth?"

"Why?"

"Well, I mean. Look at you. And look at me." she waited for the remark to fully register.

"Ohh. I'm not an invader if that's what you mean."

"Good. It means I won't have to drill you for information."

"Hmmm, sounds like you already are."

By this time she'd led them both along three different corridors, turning each time they came to an intersection. Rattrap looked behind them, then looked around. The halls looked identical, and no marking betrayed any position. The sky above was a pewter gray and Rattrap suddenly noticed the evenness of the light. The two of them, the wall, the corners, none cast but the faintest of shadows, and the shadows fell about them in multiple layers. It was as if the light emanated from dozens of lamps at various positions in the grayness he arbitrarily called sky. They had no directional cues. "We're in a maze, y'know," he muttered.

"I figured. I've been following this one wall. Eventually it'll lead us out."

"Sure, if you got a few lifetimes. Call me impatient, but ehh, I don't feel like waiting that long."

"I thought rats liked mazes," she grinned.

"Not this rat. C'mere."

She followed him to the wall, and looked at his outstretched hand. "Get on."

Her smile grew with a nod, and she jumped into his open palm. "First floor, hats, coats, mech-fluid and a view of our trap, ding ding-"

His enthusiasm was short lived. A glare filled the sky for a split second. Maria jumped from his hand just as a yellow arc hissed through the air. It impacted on the wall opposite them as she hit the ground. Rattrap hugged the near wall. "Whoops! Guess they don't like cheaters?"

She jumped up and joined him, pale and wide-eyed. "No, yah think!?"

"You see anything?"

She shot him a rancid gaze. "My life! Just before they tried to blow my head off!"

"Ooh touchy-"

"Okay, I did see some sort of tower." She pointed through the far wall to their left. "That way."

"How far?"

"Well, not knowing the size of the object, I'd say ten miles at least. But it could be one mile, could be a hundred miles. It depends of the tower's size."

"We need to get a better look-"

"Well you can figure a way to get your butt up that wall then, 'cause I ain't going. I'm brave... not stupid."

He would have stood and thought it out, but she picked her pack up. "Hey, remember they want us to move. C'mon."

"Yeah yeah, whatever."

Both kept their gaze off to the left as they walked on. The light never faded, nor did it ever change intensity, but they walked, and walked. A never-ending trudge that Rattrap could stand only for so long in the silence. "Hey, I'm about to whack out here. Say somethin'."

"What, you want information?"

"So, you still don't trust me, do you?"

"Well, I know you won't hurt me. You've saved my life once." she paused. "Of course you also almost got my head fried."

"I had no idea-"

"I know I know. Look, I'm just a Marine in absolutely uncharted territory. I mean, this isn't something that comes up in basic."

"Alien abduction?"

"Right. After all, the Marines' official view is that aliens do not exist. So they wouldn't train us much, would they?"

"That explains a lot," Rattrap huffed.

"About what?"

Again he tripped over his own thoughts. "Nothing."

"No not nothing, you know something, and I want to know it too."

"Forget about it - whoops!"

He stopped short, just avoiding stepping on the Marine. She had stopped in her tracks. They both stared, slack-jawed, at the remains of a human. The skeletal remains. Maria haltingly approached it. She knelt at its side, carefully examining the jumpsuited figure as it gazed up with socket eyes and a ghastly, open jawed grin. The clothing that remained was starting to tatter, but still faintly resembled her own jumpsuit, except for the brown jacket topping its flight suit. Maria settled back on her heels, still kneeling there. "My God. This guy's from the forties if he's from anywhere."

"The forties?"

"This is - well,was, a pilot. This bomber jacket. The flight suit - it's Army Air Corps. The Army and the Air Force split in the fifties. This guy had to be flyin' in World War Two." She gazed down at the dead man again. "He must have disappeared in World War Two."

"That was an Earth war?"

"Big time. Basically half the world battled the other half to keep people free. Millions died. Soldiers and civilians. Earth has never seen anything of its kind since."

"Ohh oh don't worry, you will-" He slapped his forehead suddenly.

"All right, now." She stood up. "That's strike three. What the blazes is goin' on!?"

"I can't say-"

"Don't hand me that!"

"Look, do you know anything about timelines? The flow of history? Do you know anything about the problems of disrupting that flow?!"

"I don't care. I live in the present, not the future. The future doesn't exist!"

"Wrong! It does, and I'm it."

She studied Rattrap's red receptors carefully "Are you saying you are what we become?"

"No. But you are very definitely a player in my existence. I like being alive, so I don't want to blow that."

She wanted to ask more, he could see it in her face, but the ground trembled again. Rattrap shook his head.

"Uhh oh. I think we paused a little too long-"

Confirmation blasted its way into their sight. The gun machine trundled up the corridor. "Oh man, and me with no explosives! Beast mode!" Maria ducked a hail of fire, and Rattrap's flying body as he transformed. She gaped at his new form. "Jump on! We're movin' out!"

"!Incraible!" She grabbed her pack and hopped on board as he peeled out toward the lumbering attacker. "Where's your blaster!?"

"Just behind you-"

Rattrap wheeled through the veil of fire as Maria hefted the weapon. In the close quarters of the hall, they edged past the machine with inches to spare. She fired point blank at one bulbous pod set squarely in the middle of its tracks. The guns stretched like spider's legs from this pod, and rightly guessing, its destruction silenced the machine.

Rattrap spun on his wheels and came back to the still behemoth. "Nice shot."

"They don't give you a marksman's medal for nothing."

"Get off, let me transform."

They walked over to examine their prize.

"This could be fun," he said, poking the machine cautiously.

"Yeah, if we had time. C'mon let's get outta here-"

"Wait a minute." He peered at the machine as she peered at her watch. "Okay, you got four minutes."

"What's a minute?"

She groaned and kept an eye on her wristwatch.

Rattrap was a whiz with machines. Rhinox, sure, was the master, but Rattrap had a few tricks up his sleeve. He knew where to look to get to the heart of a machine, and this one was simple. Just inside the destroyed top pod was the main board, buried under machinery and a protective cover. He fingered this cover a moment before tearing it from the box. The machine hissed.

"Get clear!" He ripped the box from its anchor and dove away as smoke veiled the machine. There was no explosion. But as the smoke cleared, the thing was gone. Rattrap puzzled over the box in his hand.

"Hmmm, a self -destruct."

"Yeah, well you can look at it as we walk."

He pondered the box as they trundled off.

Time makes all things familiar and contemptible. Time and lack of down time. The light above never faded. Rattrap and Maria walked, figured, schemed and walked more. She was a trooper - a 'Marine'. And he could operate for long periods without down time. But now it was starting to show. Things that were second nature had to be thought about. Maria was becoming edgy, and he was too.

And the maze just went on and on and on....

Maria stumbled. With a growl, she threw her pack to the ground. Rattrap just stood, staring blankly as she drew her weapon and fired several rounds into the pack. The percussion died away. Rattrap leaned against the wall. "Feel better?"

"Don't push me-"

"Hey, I'm not arguing. It seems a waste of good ammo, though."

"A human being needs sleep! I need water. I need food! I need sleep!"

"Yeah, you're pretty mean without it-"

She popped off one more round into his chest. He flinched, then scowled at the splat of lead marring his breastplate. His glare fell on her. "I'll ignore that!"

She raised her hands, frustration twisting her face. A sigh of resignation and she slumped against the wall. "How long you think we've been here?"

"My internal clock says a couple days."

"Yeah... my watch too. We were at sea. They'll have called off the search."

"For you-"

"O God. Luis, and Allejandro and Raquel. They'll tell them I'm missing."

"What d'ya mean? Your friends will just presume you're dead?"

"Well yeah."

"Boy oh boy, talk about your short sighted mentality. Where I come from, a 'bot can be missing for deca-cycles. Just means he's gone into stasis lock or somethin'. I know Optimus, he'll keep an eye out for me until doomsday - or until he gets sick of the peace and quiet." Rattrap chuckled. It didn't lighten the mood.

The familiar rumble alerted them that they'd been idle for too long. Maria still sat.

"C'mon, get up-"

"Just need to rest-"

"Not now!"

He prodded her, and she wrestled herself up from the ground as the machine rumbled ever faster toward from far down the corridor. Something had changed though. It was faster, lower. And now Rattrap could feel the presence of energon. "Uhh ohh aaaugh!" A fierce blue lightning danced across his body.

Maria was awake now, adrenaline pumping through her veins. "What's happening?"

"Energon - Beast- mode!" he screamed,but his circuits would not cooperate. He fell to the ground as Maria grabbed his weapon. "It - won't -"

"Work!" she yelled, dodging a blast and throwing the weapon aside. "I got that idea when I pulled the trigger - okay buddy," She pulled her gun and took quick aim. "Meet this!"

The bullet hit the top pod of the machine squarely, splintering into a million shards of flaming metal inside the behemoth. One energon pulse flared and knocked Rattrap well down the corridor. Maria could only glance as the machine bore down on her. The shredded metal of the pod healing over. She broke and ran.

Rattrap was out of range. He must have been because he lay, gasping for oxygen, but free of the energon surge. He sat up and focused his blurring vision on Maria. The machine was closing on her. "Beast mode!"

He froze. A blue light opened up before him. A portal - and inside stood Rhinox and Optimus!

"Rattrap!"

Maria's voice came as a distant echo. He scrambled toward the portal. Reached for it. It was real! There was where he belonged! Just a few - more - steps

"Rattrap!"

Maria's scream was very near. Suddenly his view was obliterated by the reaching arm of the machine. It collided squarely with him, driving him further down the hall. The portal disappeared. Maria was a momentary blur as she jumped atop the machine. He heard the gun pop.

Maria fought off two of the machine's flaying arms as she fired point blank into its control pod. The metal splintered and she felt the sting of shrapnel in her leg. She saw the box - but the metal was healing over. Got to get the box! She plunged her hand in and grabbed the top panel. She hadn't the Maximal's strength. The metal was closing over her arm! "Rattrap - now! Help!"

He tumbled over and over at the front of the juggernaught. She fired her gun once more. This time her hand went numb. Okay, if she couldn't get the box out, she would just destroy it where it was. One more shot would do it.

The box splintered and the machine ground to a halt. She tried pulling her hand free through the healing metal. Smoke engulfed her, and she felt a heat rise to surround her.

Rattrap felt the heat too, pinned partly beneath the machine. He covered his face plate and choked on the fumes. The crushing weight upon him lifted, he rolled over and groped in the haze until he felt a small hand. He tugged gently. The Marine was limp, but he could hear her gasp now and again. Her clothes still smoked, but she she seemed otherwise untouched by the heat. Rattrap noticed her leaking fluid, though. He turned her over. "This can't be good."

He rapped her back a couple times and she coughed hard. Gasping for breath. she scooted over with his help to sit against the maze wall. "What - happened to you!?"

"I uhh...nothin', my receptors are playin' tricks on me."

"You didn't hear me-"

"Look, I'm not perfect."

She saw the blood on her leg, and on her mangled left hand. "Oh man."

"Yeah, that looks nasty. How long do you take to make internal repairs?"

"Internal...I don't work that way."

"Then how will you stop the leak?"

"I'll -" she grimaced, moving her leg. "Have to sew them up. Get my bag."

It was a female human thing to always be prepared she told Rattrap. She told him what to get and he dispensed a pain killer to her. Then a sewing kit and a pad of antiseptic - something humans needed. Then he made like a 'chariot' at her command. They had to keep moving. She made repairs to herself as he wheeled carefully along the maze. It was a while before he noticed, but she was limp atop him.

"Hello, back there. You want to wake up now?"

She stirred only when he came to a stop and transformed beneath her. She was paler than he'd ever noticed before, but his receptors hadn't really been the same since his sudden arrival. He sat her down from where she clung to his shoulders. She wavered and leaned against him. "I'm still dizzy..."

"All right, you win. Boy, humans need a lot of work. Climb on."

"Need help," she muttered. "I stitch up a five inch gash in my own leg, bandage my own hand, all with only a topical anesthetic, and you say I need help."

They traveled in silence for awhile. He was beginning to think she'd fallen asleep again, until she moved. "So...about that little stunt back there -"

He kept moving, but slower.

"Why didn't you jump?"

"At the time I was being pummeled by that thing-"

"Not that. I mean that portal thing."

Rattrap shuddered. He knew she felt it.

"All you had to do was step into it."

"I ehh... I didn't, did I."

"Yeah, you were ready to."

"But I didn't-"

"Aw c'mon."

Without warning he transformed again, dumping her on the ground in a heap. "So you're accusing me of what!? Listen, I tried to help, if you remember! That alien scrapper shot me half way to the pit!"

"I wasn't accusing you of anything-"

"Slaggin' straight you weren't! Like you wouldn't jump at the chance to get back to your home!"

"Have you blown a circuit-"

"Listen sister, it's surprising that I've lasted this long! I'm not a drone, y'know. I need some down time too."

It was as though he was someone else. He heard the tirade coming from him, but something in him stopped his conscious from acting. He was stuck inside this slightly off-kilter, very tired, and very edgy 'bot that even he didn't fully recognize.

"Listen rat, your foot was on the threshold and you were steppin' through when that gun machine slammed into you! It wasn't like you were hesitating, man."

"And why shouldn't I want to get outa' here. I don't even know why I am here! I certainly don't know where! And then I have to put up with you, and your ideas, and your - your."

"What?"

What? Why was he saying this? What was going on?

"You! You can't take this. Look at you, leakin' fluid -"

"Blood." she retorted.

"Whatever! And your puny blaster-"

"Gun."

"You're pushin' my buttons!" He stalked off a couple steps. "I don't need this slaggin' waste of time. I can get outa' here on my own, thank you very much!"

"Rattrap -"

"Put a cork in it! I'm chekin' out of this maze right now. I don't need you-"

"No you don't!" Maria barked.

The Maximal stopped. Looking back over his shoulder, she was very small now. He'd traipsed several dozen yards now, with his giant stride. She still stood, favoring one leg, dirty, wounded, and looking very, very insignificant.

"Rattrap wait-"

He reverted to beast mode and roared off.

Maze, pt. 2
by A.J. Bryant (nbryant@mnsinc.com)

A Maximal didn't need much to keep going. They were tough beings, meant for hostile environments and rugged lives. But they were also finely tuned creations. They needed down time. They needed fluid. They needed food.

Rattrap staggered down yet another in what had become a blur of gray impenetrable wall. He could hear the throb of fluid in his brain center now, and the thud of his own steps. His receptors were graying out, his circuits were beginning to short out. He stopped and looked at that slagging gray sky.

"So shoot me! Shoooot meeee!"

He reached high and grabbed the top of the wall. Ahh the way! Just die! Just climb up and die! His arms could barely pull him, he felt like twelve tons of slag, but with one final grunt he topped the wall. First one foot, then the other. For a glorious moment he stood triumphantly in the still, sterile environment, taking in the reach of the maze, seeing the paths and the openings.

The way! He saw the tower just as a brilliant light flashed from its pinnacle.

The impact - silent - and he flew....

How long? Rattrap wondered as he woke up. How long had he been down? Where was he?

"Oh man," he rubbed his head and tried to sit up "One more slug like that and I will join the Matrix."

Oh, was he in need of service.

"Beast -oof - mode."

It wasn't the time to hear his computer complain "Internal repairs necessary-"

"No kidding! Begin repair sequence-"

"Repair sequencer off-line, repairs will require external maintenance sequencer or a repair chamber."

"Oh, that's just prime."

He wrestled himself up and ambled aimlessly down the hall.

"What's the date and time?"

"Internal chronometer off-line-"

"Ahh shut up! What is online - huh?"

A lump nearly tripped him as he turned the corner. He peered hard through the blurry image in his mind. A skeleton! He reached for it and turned it over.

"No..."

The flight suit - the dry blood stains...Maria.

"Oh no... have I been here that long?" he pushed at the form gently. It couldn't be! But there was her name tag, a large leather patch with that infernal, unreadable human script and the wings of her rank. He straightened up.

"C'mon, shake it off." He muttered. Yet he remained rooted to that spot. But see, it wasn't his fault! She had accused him... of... well no - but he was just more suited to this environment. Yeah, survival of the fittest! Humans were just not strong enough. They were too finite! First that World War two guy, and now her. He nodded portentously and walked away, striding on toward his... goal... Why couldn't he stop thinking about it?

His left leg actuator stuck momentarily and he stumbled.

"Ahh slag this!" Frustration welled up - he drew his weapon and fired a rapid burst at the sky. "Who am I kidding! Fine, I look out for me!" He threw his blaster down and it skittered several meters down the hall. "Fine...I been gone so long, probably no one's looking for me anymore. They've probably all gone back to Cybertron by now!" He glared up again. "So why not just end it!"

The familiar rumble juddered the ground around him. "Ohh fine, now they listen. Ahh well, it's been fun Rattrap." He shrugged, and looked down the hall.

The machine tore around the corner. It only had two arms this time, with a sleek body and no pod atop it. The arms precluded anything getting around it to either side. Not that he was going to resist at all. He just waited for the inevitable.

It ran over his blaster, throwing the weapon further back as it did. Rattrap readied for the onslaught, and the first shot knocked him from his spot, throwing him a dozen or so meters in front of it. Energon! It fired raw energon blasts - he tried to move. Something in him suddenly wanted to fight, but now he couldn't even move.

"Just get it over quick-"

He heard a blast and waited... nothing. It was what he saw when he finally turned his head.

"You!"

"You were expecting the Good Humor man, maybe?"

Maria still hefted his smoking blaster. She dropped it at his side. "D'you know there's blue lightening dancing all over you?"

"Energon. I think I'm two cycles from stasis lock."

"What's that?"

"Enforced rest."

"Stasis lock in five cycles." His computer said. Maria jumped.

"Whoa, how many people you got in there Sybill?"

"My - computer... override stasis lock."

"Not advisable -"

"Override it!"

"Stasis lock override confirmed. Heavy energon damage. Rest chamber advisable."

"Yeah, I'll just go - find one."

"Can you get up?" Maria asked.

"I...think so. Maybe."

With a sigh, Maria positioned herself at his shoulders. "If I can pull an airplane around..." she pushed hard as Rattrap fought against his own freezing bearings. "I'm...sure...I can...help you!" She grunted.

Three minutes concerted effort had him on his knees and able to crawl. "Okay dogface, quicktime, three hundred feet down the corridor!" She barked.

"What?"

"Now! Or they send another machine."

As they moved, she explained what she'd figured out. Rattrap was beginning to think he'd underestimated her.

"I must have been off-line -"

"Forty hours I figure. I tried to catch up to you, but you're too fast...well, were." she laughed.

"Don't rub it in."

"So I had to make contingency plans."

"But why the suit change with ol' bones back there?"

"I thought I could fake them out by looking different. It worked once. But I figured out, they modify their tactics. As I get better, they up the ante."

"But how'd you get so far ahead of me?"

"We've been going around in a circle. I found that out after I made a periscope. See, I tried to look over the wall again, but I get the idea they can see me. They cannot see a small inanimate object, however. So I rolled up some charts into a tube, broke my signal mirror in half, taped them in place top and bottom, and now I can keep that dang blasted tower in sight as a fix point of reference."

Rattrap shook his head, whistling. "Man you're good!"

"Hey it's what I get paid for. Jarheads may not believe in aliens, but escape is escape. Okay, we can rest now."

"How do you know - wait don't tell me..." Rattrap tried to think, but the very act made him lightheaded. "Okay, tell me."

"I've timed them. I can squeeze five minutes twelve seconds of a rest period twice. Then they take it down to three and twenty second. If I dawdle still more, they take it down to one minute. But if I move more than three hundred feet the first two times, they leave it at five. Then I have to move at least four hundred twenty feet to remain at five minutes, after that they seem to be satisfied I'm working at running the maze."

"Were both going to go nuts trying to figure this out. I know how big this thing is."

Maria glanced up at him from a crude, half-drawn map. "How?"

"I saw it."

"The whole thing?"

"All the way to the tower. Just before it hammered me good. I'd climbed the wall."

"You could have been -"

"Slagged...that was the idea. But it didn't terminate me. I don't think that's what they want to do. They're testing us. Studying us."

"I wonder why?"

"Here, let me see that map of yours."

She handed it over, and grabbed a pen from her pocket. "Here."

Rattrap knocked himself along the head, trying to clear up his vision. "Slaggin' receptors. I can't get a grid online. Computer, reroute synaptic circuits."

"Argument and destination circuits necessary."

Where could he re-route from? "Well...my leg ain't workin' great. Argument L-C-12, tac, A-I-O-59 and A-I-O-69. Destination visual receptor grid circuits."

"What are you doing?"

"Ever have to take energy from one panel of your fighter and reroute it?"

She nodded, suddenly understanding. And then Rattrap could suddenly see! "Whoa ho- ho! That's more like it!" He looked around. Maria was eating - food! "Hey, you found food!?"

"Yeah, I found 'em when I traded clothes. That airman had some pretty petrified energy bars and two packs of c-rations."

"Yecch - is that any good?" "Hey, Uncle Sam packed those back in nineteen forty-four. They'll be good until twenty-ten." she grunted. Ohh -" she fished in her pocket. "Got somethin' for you too. Should have thought of it earlier. Here - Pedro's!"

"What is it?"

She opened a small bottle and wordlessly dribbled a bit of the contents on his wrist. "Move it around." She flicked her wrist about until he was mimicking her. A smile peeled his sagging face plates back. Smooth motion had replaced the juddering. Oh yeah! "Ahh, prime!"

"It's a high friction oil. Use it on my cockpit levers. Keeps the grime out too. Here, oil yourself up."

By the time her chronometer beeped and they had to move the four hundred -twenty feet, Rattrap was able to walk, stiffly, but anything was better than crawling. He continued to peruse her map. With his own grid online, he quickly extrapolated the maze image in his memory circuits and drew out the quickest route, using the tower as their fixed point. "You know what?" he muttered. "This is still going to take too long."

"What, you have a hot date?" Maria traipsed on ahead of him to peer around a corner.

"No - go right - but even after we run the maze, we gotta' get into the tower. And I know how difficult it can be."

She turned on her heel. "You have been here before -"

"No no. But I've battled one before. Not here, but on an... island."

Doubt still glimmered in her eyes, but she shrugged. "So, got any ideas?"

"Uhh... augh, I'm not the leader type. I'm a demolition 'bot. Rhinox and Optimus usually do the hardest thinkin'."

"Well it's just you and me here. You got the knowledge, I got the leadership. So like it or not, we gotta' work together."

"Well, as you probably guessed, I'm not into team playing."

"Yeah, I think I figured that out."

"What I don't get - turn right again at the next intersection... Why didn't you let 'em slag me back there?"

She chuckled. "Do you remember walking away. I was trying to get you to stop. I was trying to tell you I needed you. I need your help, man. I mean, I was mad. You must drive people crazy."

"Yeah, I've heard that before."

"But, you said it, I'm puny. I don't have the brawn to take this alone. I've survived only by my wits."

"Which is more than I can say for myself-"

"No one can do everything by themselves. We all need help. So I got your back. But - and like my Commander's, it's a big but - You gotta' get my back. If you're in trouble, I help. If I'm in trouble, you help. You got that soldier?"

"Yes Sir!" Rattrap saluted. "Now this I can handle."

The two moved for several hours, checking their position now and again. The maze was running quickly, and the closer they got the more energy they seemed to have. It was so smooth, it was unnerving. Rattrap thought back to all the other encounters with these unseen beings. They were manipulative beings. An underhanded species that almost took pleasure at letting a 'bot get their hopes up, only to dash them against some sudden insurmountable obstacle. Rattrap wanted to tell Maria, but something stopped him. It probably wouldn't have stopped her going on anyway. She was the unstoppable sort. She reminded him of the likes of Airazor or Rhinox. A spark ready to give everything to attain the goal. A sacrificial spark, unstoppable, passionate, and tempered by fire to a smooth hard edge.

Several hours should have made a dent in their running the maze. But Maria's scowl as she checked their position confirmed Rattrap's suspicion. "Man, we don't seem to be any closer!" she growled.

"I told you. They'll play with as long as we let them."

"What the blazes do they want!?"

"They're studying our tactics. Seeing how we...work together..." Rattrap's remark caught his own imagination. "Hmmm..."

"What? Rattrap, why are they interested in both of us?"

Perhaps because of the cumulative effects of the energon blasts, or fatigue, or something in his cognitive function had shorted out, but Rattrap held back no longer. "Ohhh, look, I'm probably gonna' cease to exist because of this, but - you're going to be meeting my ancestors in nineteen eighty-one when a volcano erupts and spits them out. They're trapped down there because their ship crashed on ancient earth. I don't know why the aliens are testing us, but it might have something to do with that. All I know is, if anything happens to the proper timeline, I don't exist."

Maria stared at him as if he had cheeds crawling out his ears.

"Hey c'mon." he continued, "You've already been dropped by aliens into a giant maze with me. What's one more bombshell?"

She agreed with resigned shrug. "So... they're trying to stop that - that...what you said?"

"I don't know. " Rattrap steeled himself. "But the best way to find out is to get to that tower now."

They walked on when her chronometer beeped again. Rattrap tried his best to figure out how to accomplish what he knew needed to be done. If only he had Optimus's leadership ability, or even Rhinox's brilliance... but in the end, it came down to his own brand of devious behavior. They had to trick the aliens.

Maria agreed. "But how?"

"Well, uhhh. Maybe with one of those machines-"

"Mmmm, already tried that. They went, I stayed, remember?"

"Yeah...well, we can't go over the walls-"

"We can't go through the walls-"

Rattrap kicked at the hard floor. "We can't go under the slaggin' walls."

If only those machines didn't self destruct... "Hey, wait -" He pulled out his little prize from the first machine he destroyed. "Maybe there's something in here?"

The Maximal scanned the innards, forming a schematic in his mind. It was a simple device, just a motherboard, and two memory chips. Nothing more than a drone really. He removed the motherboard and opened the compartment on his left arm, inserted it and closed the lid. "Computer, analyze program."

"Program functions complete...do you wish to visualize."

"Yeah."

With a hoot the Maximal watched in his own vision what he never would have guessed. "End simulation - I have our attack plan, Marine!"

"What did you see?"

"Exactly how we're going to get into that tower!"

The fight was furious. The first machine was simply dispatched with a blast. The second two were ripped slowly to shreds. The third almost triumphed, but still met a grizzly end. There was no choice but to up the stakes one last time. The greatest danger was if the sentients failed to survive... and that's just what happened.

The sentient organic life form was quickly evaporated. The inorganic form lay in a stasis heap on the corridor floor. Cleanup must ensue, and the probability of need for two more forms calculated. The drone lifted the mangled scrap of inorganic sentient and floated back to the tower. The organics decayed too quickly, but the transmetal of the inorganic could be utilized. It was brought inside and dumped with the other scrapped machine parts. Ready for use at a future date.

Rattrap's lifeless body lay atop a heap of other scrap. The pile moved under the gentle shifting of his arm. A sudden pop and the his shoulder armor slid aside. Maria peered out. The room was huge, dark, silent. She looked about for movement. Nothing. She peered into the dark. No visible sources of light for, say, security cameras. But who knew what they could have.

"Here goes." She squeezed out of the tight opening, pulled her gun, and climbed atop Rattrap. "Hey! Come and get me!"

Only her voice echoed back to her. She sheathed the gun and climbed down. "Computer, recognize Lieutenant de Portola de Oso."

"Voice recognition."

"Override stasis lock."

An unsettling static hiss issued from the Maximal.

"Computer, get him back on-line, now!"

"I'm coming... I'm coming." Rattrap turned his head. "I can't take much more of this."

"With luck, you won't have to." She extracted herself from the tangle of debris and explored further into the confines of the room as Rattrap checked his systems. He joined her.

"So, ehhh, them Trojans you were talkin' about. They win their war?"

"Yeah."

"They had some idea."

"So did you. Saving that box and running the program."

"Hey what can I say. You can learn a lot from a recycled inorganic drone."

"Shoulda' known aliens would be environmentalists."

"Waste not, want not, we always say." He looked around. He'd never actually been inside the island tower while it was intact and operational. He'd gotten a pretty good look at the wreckage, though, while accompanying Tigatron on recce's after the floating island's destruction. The aliens hadn't been too happy about that. "We have to be careful about how we go about this." He said. "C'mon this way. There's a command center and some type of control computer upstairs."

Both kept their weapons at the ready as they climbed higher and higher. The daylight began to penetrate, and they could make out strange symbols and ornate decoration. "It looks almost Incan. And then again, it looks oriental too."

"You understand it?"

"No. Not as such. Just recognize the designs. So they must have been messing with Earth a lot."

"Probably still are."

"Oh that's great, like we don't have enough problems." She glanced inside an open door. "Hey what about this!"

Rattrap followed her and they stopped just inside the threshold. "This is it," he breathed.

The control room offered them a complete view of the maze spread out before them. Maria unrumpled their map. "Check it out! We were on the right track."

Rattrap was already busy looking for the 'spot'. There was a place to stand. The round stone... but where was it? "Aw man. C'mon, we won! Let us go."

"You think they hear you?"

They both froze as a deep hum surrounded them. Rattrap looked around. "Ehhh, yeah."

"Okay, now, did you make them angry?" She growled.

"Life forms incongruent." The voice was deep, computer generated, fuzzy with static and harmonic imbalance that made it sound like a chorus.

"Computer," Rattrap called.

"Keeper," It replied.

"Ehh, sure, whatever you say. Keeper...uhhh - release life forms."

"Initiate the Keeper."

"I would love to, but I can't find the button!" Rattrap retorted.

"Intruder-"

"No! No, not intruder!"

"Destruction immanent-"

"I did not suffer all this just to be kacked now!" Maria barked. "If I go, you go - whatever you are!"

She pointed her weapon at the nearest panel. "You have any will to live?!"

The tower rocked, knocking Rattrap off balance. He fell against a column. "I think you're making it angry."

Maria moved closer to the brightly glowing panel and touched the barrel to its surface. A charge flashed and she was blown back toward the doorway.

"Hey, that's my partner!" Rattrap took a shot and the panel shattered. The door began to slide shut. "Maria - get inside!"

She moaned and lay still. Rattrap reached for her, caught her foot and pulled with all his strength. She slid the length of the room and slammed in the far wall. "Wow, thanks a lot!"

"Perhaps you'd rather be a pancake!" he said as the two stone doors slammed together. The Keeper spoke again with a voice more erratic than before.

"Incongruency. Organics were terminated."

"Incongruency my butt! We won!"

"Organics used treachery -"

"We used our heads!" Maria yelled. "We beat the Keeper. Put us back where we originated from!"

"K-K-K-Keeper must be initiated."

"He's wiggin' out on us," Rattrap said. "Computer - initiate scan."

"Scan ready."

"Locate main power source in this room-"

"Main power emanates from column to left of door."

Maria released her spent gun cartridge and, with a determined scowl, she slammed another cartridge home, raised her weapon and fired at the stone. The stone cracked. Rattrap finished the job with one swipe of his closed fist. He scanned the circuitry.

"Keeper m-m-m-ust be-"

"Yeah initiated! We know."

"Can you do it?" Maria stood at his side as he pecked about at the strange design with with pudgy fingers.

"I - think..."

The rumble increased. Maria ducked falling pebbles, choking on the dust raised. The floor began to crack beneath them. "C'mon, Rattrap."

"Keeper initiate!"

"K-k-k-eeper - Incon-con...Keeper i-i-i-nitiate"

"I think we slagged him." Rattrap said.

"Rattrap, look out-"

Rattrap grabbed the Marine, shielding her from a piece of the ceiling. "Blast it! Computer, initiate interface."

"Hey- whoa, I recognize that term-"

"This is our only chance-"

"What if you get fried trying?"

"Then it's been nice knowin' ya'." Rattrap smiled and offered his hand. She looked at it, it was huge and would have swallowed her entire arm. She stiffened and fired off a salute.

"Do it!"

Rattrap's arm compartment opened to reveal a multipronged chip atop a probe. The probe extended quickly and found a place to lodge. The power! Maria lunged away as the Maximal convulsed at the power running through him. His red glare was replaced by a white hot glow. The convulsions stopped.

"Have - to - keep - keep - control..."

Maria peeked out from behind the cover of a column. "Rattrap?"

"Keeeeper -" He droned in the chilling chorus of the tower computer. "Maria-" his voice broke in for seconds at a time, as if fighting for control. "Shoot panel - Destroy organic - behind you-"

She looked around for the panel. "This one!?"

"Noooo!" The chorus chimed. Maria raised her gun even as the Maximal raised his, fighting every inch. She pulled the trigger and felt a shock in her back and a blinding light around her lifted her as she screamed.

The U.S.S Yorktown steamed alone through the calm Atlantic waters with a fair wind at her back. The waves were a murky green beneath her bow, while the sky was a brilliant aqua blue, with only a smear of white cirrus cresting it. The calm was shattered by four fighters screaming low past the ship. As they passed, one fighter peeled up and away. The p.a. blared taps.

Lieutenant Percival 'Rattrap' Sortmeyer saluted the fighters, holding it through taps, and a twenty-one gun salute. Dressed in his number one uniform, surrounded by the squad and by the thousand and odd sailors that made the Yorktown run, he thought only of the family Maria dePortola had left behind. He loved them with all his heart. He could take her death, but there was nothing left for them but a memory of a wife and mother. No wreckage, no body, no trace. That's what angered him most. That they had to just give up. The sea swallows another airman.

The decks erupted into a roar of murmurs as the crew disbanded. Death was part of the adventure, and the ship waited for no human to mourn. Suddenly he heard the everyday banter. Talk of gas leaks, and tank pumps, chart room lamps, and the dinner menu. For four days all their energy had been expelled in an effort to find one missing pilot. Now it was back to business.

"Lieutenant!"

Sortmeyer turned to see a Midshipman waving from three decks up. "Cap wants to see ya' in the radar room!"

Sortmeyer drove his lanky body along on long legs. He was cramped in the cockpit of a Falcon, but suffered it to do what he loved. On the ground those legs could really move out. He stood beside Captain Morgenstein scant minutes later.

"We caught the signal just a minute ago. I didn't want to issue it over the p.a.."

"What is it?"

"Have no idea. We've already turned to intercept. It looks a lot like the disturbance dePortola disappeared in."

The two strode back to the deck as others slowed their work. The black pillar of storm looming off the port bow, and several miles distant, was familiar, and scary. They'd already lost a pilot to it. Now there it was again, like some hungry god demanding sacrifice.

"How close do we get?" Sortmeyer asked.

"As close as I dare."

Without warning a terrible crack split the air and a flash of light blinded them for an instant. Sortmeyer blinked hard.

"Cap'n look!" he pointed to the screaming, flaming lump of gleaming metal that plummeted down. Morgenstein was already running for the bridge as the ship heaved under the command from its rudder. The sea swallowed the falling object, and boiled and steamed. Helicopters were already warming up, and crews abandoned everything else to get them in the air. Sortmeyer jumped on the nearest chopper as it thumped into the waiting sky.

The pillar was dissipating when they reach the splashdown area. Sortmeyer scanned the water wordlessly. Suddenly there! A head, a pair of arms flailing uncontrollably. He slapped the pilot on the shoulder and pointed. DePortola was there! Sortmeyer looked out at the ocean. The pillar was gone.

She was kept in isolation for a day. Sick bay for three more. When she finally rejoined her squad, to applause, she just grinned an shook it off. But something - dark, mysterious - hung like a cloud over her. And when she used his nickname, the grin she grinned at Sortmeyer was almost unnerving. He cornered her after a movie one evening.

"C'mon Portola, you were wearing a navy pilot get-up from World War two, babbling on about Maximals and some guy still in the water, and the shrapnel we removed from your leg is no kind of metal the Falcon has in it.. What happened to you?

"Forget it Rattrap." Maria grinned. "We gotta' wait. But promise me somethin'."

"What?"

"When a mountain blows up. You'll just trust me, and do what I say."

She left him standing, slack -jawed in the corridor as she sauntered back to her bunk.

"You came rainin out of the sky in a ball of seawater, slagged almost to the pit." Rhinox said. His growl was the sweetest music Rattrap had heard in a while. He relaxed on a treatment table, back aboard the Axalon, four days after his disappearance. Mantis, their medical 'bot, busied herself with repairs to his arm. The last of the repairs that were necessary.

"You almost completely need rebuilding," she fussed. "I say we should have put you in storage, but Optimus want you back on-line."

"Because you can't live without me!" He grinned. "But ehh, you find that information I asked for?"

Rhinox tossed him a computer board. "Why are you suddenly so interested in history?"

"Just...want to...see..." Rattrap scanned the events still so far in the future from where he was right now. The volcano, the release of the Autobots. Their human allies... and a Marine Corp. pilot named De Portola.

"Heh, heh, yep. That's what I wanted to see."