All the cars look old and rusted but I at least needed a decent looking car to show up in. I hoped it would work to sway the judge in my favor rather than the government's. Finally, I came across a little yellow car with black stripes running across it. I slid into the seat and looked around. The inside was dusty but comfortable. On the steering wheel was an autobot signature. Everyone was getting them somewhere on their car in hopes to pick up some women, look cool in front of their friends, or to sell their cars at outrages prices. It was so common that you couldn't tell an autobot from a normal car anymore. As I ran my fingers over the insignia and felt small electrical impulses. It felt odd but nice and it made me feel safe. It felt as if the car was alive and was choosing me as its owner.

"I like it enough. How much?" I got out and shut the door.

"Um," the salesman looked nervous as he came up next to me, "It actually isn't for sale."

"Why not?"

"Well it…it doesn't exactly run. Here," he reached across the wheel and turned the key. It started up just fine, but a little too loudly for my taste. The man jumped back.

"It sounds like it runs just fine." I tried changing the radio station but it wouldn't budge. "Since the radio's broken…1,500?"

The next thing I knew I was waiting outside an office while he talked to his manager. The black skirt started to have small, dusty stains that I tried to wipe away but it just made everything worse. Of course that would happen. That seemed to be my luck now. Everything I tried to make better or make right turned out worse and worse and worse.

The manager came out and plopped the keys in my lap. "Just take it! I'm sick of it!"

My eyes brightened and I wanted to hug him but instead I ran out and slid back into the seat. My luck was starting to change around.

I turned the engine on and calmly made my way to the court building. As I collected my stuff I said to whatever god or angel or guardian might be next to me, "Wish me luck. Maybe I'll get her back." By the time I came into the courtroom I was shaking and sweating and breathing as if I had ran the whole way.

The entire time the judge was reading my case files I tapped my heel silently and focused on my breathing. Inhale. Exhale. Inhale. Exhale. The courtroom seemed to become crowded despite it being empty and it seemed to grow darker and darker.

Finally, the judge put down the papers, took off her reading glasses, pierced my grey eyes with her brown ones, and said, in a pitiful and cold voice, "Custody for your sister is denied. She shall stay in foster care."

My heart broke and I stood. The lawyer attempted to pull me down and shut me up, "What? Denied? What reason would you have to deny me?" I counted off on my fingers, "I have two jobs, a car that I just bought, I have a three bedroom apartment that we can share and I have a female roommate! What reason-?"

The lawyer finally forced me into the chair. The judge said, "You are a young girl. You just got your GED, when again? A month ago? You only just turned eighteen. You have a bright future ahead of you. Your sister will be better suited with an adult with a real career and a real job, not with a child who can't sit still for five minutes."

Nobody was there to comfort me on the long walk back to my car. In the cramped space of the back seat I put on some shorts that I had stashed in my blue backpack. The stitch of the hibiscus flower still stayed in tact. After I crawled back up to the front seat I just stared out the window.

"I knew it," I whispered to the air around me. "Nothing can be done."

The radio suddenly turned on. Some sad rap that I didn't recognize played on the radio. I growled and hit the dash. "No! Don't turn on! I don't want music!" Finally I gave up and just tried to change the radio station but I stopped when I heard a voice I'd only heard on the news.

"Calling all autobots! Stay on emergency protocol! Stay-"

I tried to change the radio station but it was on every station.

"-on protocol."

"The hell? Whatever. I have to go home." My voice cracked. Home. Where was that now?

I drove to the apartment. Arizona sunsets usually look beautiful. Not today. Today there was no beauty in anything. I parked the car in the parking lot and spent most of the evening on the hood of the car, listening to the radio, which mostly played music but would sometimes cut out to tell us a warning.

I looked through the backpack and scattered around everything that was important to me. There was a pen that grandfather once called a quill that was rumored to grow if it found a new writer, a book that I often wrote in, a sketchpad that belonged to my sister with the word 'Alisha' written across it, and a camera that held my memories and the tapes were scattered around. I smiled, and cried, and laughed as I watched the tapes.

"Look! Look! Look! See that? That's Optimus Prime!" Alisha squealed while we watched the news.

"Is he your favorite autobot?"

She played with the action figures that came out during the Chicago Crisis. "No. Bumblebee is. Who's yours?"

"I like Optimus."

"Why?"

"Why? Because he has a lot of little brothers to take care of. And I have one little sister to take care of." I tickled her and she squealed. The camera dropped. "Oh shoot." And shut off.

"Calling all autobots…"

I ignored the cry on the radio and I picked up the next tape. This tape wasn't written on. There was no date or name. This was a tape I had never seen before. "Strange," I whispered as I popped the tape in the camera and watched what unfolded. The time stamped 12/30/1990 and grandpa came up in all his lively action. His smile was back. His grey hairs were back. His old wrinkled skin before the cancer ate away at his life.

"I don't have much time," he said to the camera, "because I fear for my life and the life of my family. I have discovered something only fantasy writers dreamed of! A magical quill and a book. You wouldn't believe it unless I show you. So I am writing down that this 'mole' here will be gone. So here I am writing now…" He wrote it in a language I didn't recognize. "Haha! Here the mole is gone! That, my friends was skin cancer. Although its effects are temporary it's still a powerful tool." The Quill came into view. I picked up the pen and stared at it. "Please, my daughter and granddaughters or grandsons do not use it. Defend it with your life." The video cut out.

I stuffed the Quill into my backpack followed by everything else and I jumped into the car. "You know, I have something to admit," this time I spoke to the car, "I…I lied. I don't have an apartment. Only parking outside of it. My roommate kicked me out this morning. I just wanted my sisters back." I put my head in my lap.

"Calling all autobots. We are meeting at…"

"Oh shut up! There aren't any autobots here!" I yelled at the radio.

I was answered with a, "Whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa! Don't shoot the messenger!"

The radio dials turned on their own free will. I stared with my mouth open.

"What? Cat got your tongue now?"

"No way…" the words were forced from my chest.

"Better believe it kid. Now, buckle up!"

I took the buckle and pushed it into its lock. The car jerked backwards and sped out of the parking lot. I couldn't help but grin. "Oh my god! You really are an autobot!" I ran my hand through my hair. "Okay, okay, which one are you?"

"Bumble…bee," the answer was chopped up based on what words were spoken on the radio at the moment.

This was amazing but one question still came out, "Where exactly are we headed?"

"Do you always talk this much?" It answered.

"Fine, fine, I won't ask." I watched the suburban landscape turn rural. The stars slowly multiplied. I bit my lip as Bee came to a slow stop. I got out. "You could have just left me at the apartment."

Bee transformed. The transformation seemed slow but it was over in a second. The transformation took my breath away. "Oh no, girl," it was a black man's voice. It nearly made me laugh as the voice changed again. "Not after the sob story you told me."

I laughed and covered my mouth. "Oh my god! This is incredible!" Tears escaped my eyes and I wiped my eyes quickly. The tears came from their own accord and I started to cry and my cry turned into a sob.

Bee got down on what I assumed to be his stomach and tried to comfort me much like how a child might comfort a pet hamster. "Why are you crying now?"

"I…my little sister always wanted to meet you. I just…thought of her," I admitted. "It's my fault…" I breathed out the words.

Before Bee could ask a question he jumped up. The ground shook and toppled me onto my back. I never did have the best balance in the world. Other cars from all different directions came from the uncharted desert and transformed before my eyes. I looked around at the robotic figures standing before me now.

Optimus Prime was the most amazing to see. I was so taken aback I missed most of their conversation. They greeted each other not unlike how humans greet each other; they were just a mess of manly hugs and 'how have you been' type of talk.

Bee finally remembered my presence and his fingers surrounded my body in a cage. Now I knew how a lizard felt whenever I trapped it in my palm.

"Bee, what do you have there?" A voice asked.

"Nothing," he lied. Why was he lying?

"Then you won't mind showing me your hands."

My body jerked with the motion into one of his fingers. My head filled with ringing as I groaned in pain. Slowly his fingers forced open and the light of the full moon filled my space.

"It's just a human girl! Why were you keeping it from us?"

"Stop fighting with him, Crosshairs. I'm sure Bumblebee has a good explanation." Prime turned to Bee. All eyes were on us. Bee made a sound like a wounded puppy.

I stood with my hands up in the air to show I was friendly. "Um, excuse me!" I yelled until their attentions were on me. "Hi, my name is Elsa, it's nice to meet you Optimus Prime." I waited a moment longer than I needed to. The silence became awkward. "Um…he was doing me a favor. I needed a moment alone." I shrugged and waited. If Prime knew it was a lie he never showed it and never told a soul.

"It seems it was a misunderstanding," he merely said to Bee. "But we can't bring her with us. We can't put any more humans in danger."

Bee made that wounded puppy sound again.

"What kind of danger?" I asked more out of curiosity than anything else.

"An evil is looking for any combination of the Thirteen Artifacts." Prime explained.

Something about that seemed familiar but I let him continue.

"We need to find them before he does."

"Thirteen Artifacts?" I muttered them under my breath and closed my eyes. Under my eyelids I saw grandpa in the hospital bed. Alisha was snuggled up with him with the book in her hands.

"Now keep that book safe, Alisha. They say it's one of Thirteen Artifacts…or so I think it says in the book but I could be wrong…"

I opened my eyes as Bee put me on the ground. "I'll return her tomorrow," Bee admitted but as he did I yelled in unison, "I think I know where one is!"

Prime carefully got to my level so as not to shake the ground too much and topple me over.

"But," I continued, "it'll be hard to get to." I didn't want to tell him the truth; that the book was with Alisha and I wasn't exactly welcome company at her foster home.