Disclaimer: See part 1
Beta: Tenshi of Light21
Warning: Slash
Pairings ([adopted] children): Because some of the families keep getting bigger, I have created a couple family trees. If you are interested, follow the links. However, some of the trees have spoilers. Prowl's family ( jadeaislin. deviantart #/d3rfvm4); Ratchet's family ( jadeaislin. deviantart #/d3rfvdv); (Bumblebee, [Sam])

AN: I'm so sorry for not updating for so long. I have up to chapter thirteen done and will try to post chapters faster. However, I am currently without a beta and am having trouble finishing the fourteenth chapter. So, I can't make any promises after chapter thirteen.

Note 1: ***** is a scene break where little time has passed.
Note 2: /thoughts/

Time Terms
Mega-cycle – 93 hours
Deca-cycle – 3 weeks
Vorn - 83 years

Part 8

Mikeala stood at the ATM wearily. It had been a long few weeks. One little complication after another kept happening and she was tired.

It had started innocently enough when she had been listening to her iPod. She had been startled to hear 'Hit me Baby One More Time' blast out of her little mp3 player. When she had looked at her play list, she discovered that it had twenty new songs from artists like Brittney Spears or Jonas Brothers. Artists she did not like and would never have searched for, let alone bought songs from. She had contacted the online store she bought music from about the songs and found that there had been some sort of mix up. Some customers were getting charged for songs they never ordered. The store took the songs off her account and deposited the money back into her bank account. She had thought that would be it; too bad it wasn't.

A couple days later she got her cellphone bill. She couldn't believe it when she saw the charge for texting and a 30 minute phone call to somewhere in China. She rarely texted anyone and when she did, her message was short and to the point. And she didn't know anyone in China. Thankfully, the phone company had helped her fix the problems.

Then there was the concert ticket. She had been able to win concert tickets from an online radio contest. But when she had gone to collect the tickets, she had been told that they had received her acceptance refusal via email so the tickets had gone to the second highest winner. She checked her email, but her previous weeks messages had been erased recently and she could not tell if her email had sent the message. Although, she was fairly certain that she hadn't.

Finally, she had problems with her bank. For some reason, her debit card had stopped working when she tried to use it to buy a quick drink. She had been lucky she had cash on her. Going to the bank, she found that her charge card had been overcharged with purchases she had never ordered. On top of that, paperwork had been filed stating that she was transferring what little funds remained to a new account. Working with the bank, she had gotten everything straightened out and now had a new credit and debit card.

Now she was standing outside the bank, hoping that the problems were all over and she could get her money in peace. There didn't seem to be a problem when she pushed her card into the slot. Inputting her pin number went smoothly as well. She selected the amount she wanted to withdraw and waited patiently for the machine to process her request.

Suddenly alarms started blaring and she jerked back from the machine as it started spewing one bill after another out. The bills pelted her and fell to the ground like green leaves. Security guards rushed out and stared at the near crying young lady.

Turning she looked wide eyed at the nearby security guard. Helplessly she said, "I only wanted a twenty."

One thing Seymour Simmons was sure of, someone or something was out to get him. It had started simple. His email had filled up with spam from dozens of different sites. Some were daily recipes from a cooking site he had never been to. Others were coupons for local stores on the other side of the country.

Then there were the emails from dating sites. He began to get emails from people claiming that they had found his email on these dating sites. Sites that he had never even heard of, let alone registered with. More disturbing were the responses from gay singles. He had no problems with gays, although he preferred not to think about them. His family was straight laced and would rather pretend that they didn't exist.

It had been while he had been trying to clear things up with the dating sites that his mother had received his mail. He had told her he was expecting an important piece of mail as he expected to hear from the dating sites that his name had been cleared from their lists. Instead, his mother had taken one look at the mail and then began to hit him with it as she screamed about him doing unholy things in her house. It took hours to calm her down. Finally, when he was able to look at the mail, he discovered to his horror, he had been subscribed to a popular homosexual magazine.

On top of all the mail and email problems he was having, he also had to contend with bank errors. One day he would find all his funds transferred to a new account, the next they would not only be in a new account, but it would be one that didn't allow withdrawals. It took weeks for him to fix all the problems he had with the bank. It eventually got to the point that he was threatening to go to another bank before the bank would help him with his problems.

Then there was the airport incident. He had been flying south to visit some family, when he had been told that he was not allowed to fly. His name had been placed on the no fly list. Him! Seymour Simmons! On the no fly list like he was some sort of terrorist! He couldn't believe that they would treat an honest to goodness red blooded American as if he were some sort of terrorist. He raised such a stink that the guards eventually had to arrest him for creating a nuisance. Having his mother bail him out of jail had not been one of the better moments in his life.

But the worst... The worst were the phone calls. They would come at all hours of the day. Early morning or late night, it did not seem to matter. If his mother answered the phone, the line would abruptly cut off. However if he answered, he would hear heavy breathing. The person never responded to his demands for answers to who it was. The few times the voice said anything it would only repeat one word: Infanticide.

It shocked him to hear. He would never kill an innocent child, but the person on the other end would call him a liar when he tried to deny the accusations.

Seymour stared warily at the phone. It was just getting to be too much. He was exhausted, and he was waiting for the next volley of attacks, because he was sure they were attacks. It was time to go for the bigger guns. Sighing, he took a deep breath and reached a shaking hand to pick up the phone."

After the incident that occurred when Sideswipe watched SoundBlaster, Prowl thought that he would be hesitant to watch the sparkling again. However, when Prowl and Jazz had duties away from the base for a mega-cycle, both Sideswipe and Sunstreaker immediately offered their services. After an intense grilling session over why the two trouble makers wanted to watch his sparkling, Prowl reluctantly agreed to let them sparkling-sit. It had taken Jazz sending a data burst of the twins' first meeting with SoundBlaster to make Prowl capitulate, but before he left on his assignment, he made sure to warn the two that he would assign them to the worst possible jobs for deca-cycles if something happened to the sparkling.

Because of Prowl's warning, Sideswipe decided that he and his brother would be better able to watch SoundBlaster in the Rec. room. While it was more open, it had fewer distractions that could make them lose their focus.

SoundBlaster was a relatively easy sparkling to watch. Just having someone nearby, interacting with him, made him happy. The three bots were in the empty Rec. room, with Sunstreaker sitting on one end of the couch while his brother played with the sparkling on the floor.

SoundBlaster giggled and warbled in happiness as Unca' Sides teased the plate seams on his side and tickled him. He glanced up to see his Unca' Sunny smiling down at him. It made him happy that everyone was happy around him.

When the Rec. doors swished open, he froze in fright as a red and white mech came into the room frantically. He had met the mech before, but now he was really upset. SoundBlaster knew that the mech was anxious about something, but he didn't know how to help. All he could do was whimper.

The new mech, not even noticing the others, began to pace back and forth in the room, and Sideswipe and Sunstreaker watched their younger brother pace anxiously in concern.

Red Alert's team had been a good distance from Earth and yet they had managed to meet up with Prime's team. Sideswipe had gotten to Earth even sooner than the rest of the team. However, there had been other teams that were in regions of space closer than Red Alert's team and there had been no word from them. Red Alert tried to think nothing of this, but sometimes his processor got the better of him.

The twin frontliners watched their brother pace back and forth, his optics going from glaring to worry to determination. All without making a sound.

As Red Alert paced silently, his thoughts raced from one thought to another. /There must be some logical explanation. He's not dead. I would know through the sparkbond. He is fine. . . . Or is the bond stretched too thin? . . . Or he could be captured. I should make rescue plans. Where was their exact location again . . .? I must confer with Prowl. . . And Jazz . . . His input in extraction plans will be invaluable . . . /

SoundBlaster looked at the pacing bot in interest. He was really missing his daddies and wondered where they were.

One of the twins stepped in front of the pacing security officer, and Red Alert stopped and blinked at the gold colored autobot. "Sunstreaker?"

"What's the matter bro?" Sunstreaker asked.

Red Alert blinked and attempted to calm himself. "I . . . ah . . . nothing."

"That's a slagging lie," Sideswipe said as he came up beside Red Alert. Sunstreaker moved to the side so that Red Alert was boxed in by his brothers. They would often do this when he tried to keep things from them. "You're worried about something. Now tell your older brothers what the problem is."

Red Alert pulled at his digits, a clear sign that he was worried. "It's just...we've gotten a transmission from Streetwise's team."

Sideswipe and Sunstreaker glanced at each other. Sideswipe grinned at a smirking Sunstreaker, remembering who was on that team. "That's great news. Are they coming here?"

Distractedly Red Alert responded, "Yes . . . Yes."

"But," Sunstreaker prompted.

Red Alert sighed, "Hotspot's team should be closer than them, and there's been no word from them for vorns."

Sideswipe and Sunstreaker looked at their brother in dawning understanding. It was Sunstreaker who simply stated one name, "Inferno."

Red Alert agreed. "Inferno . . . What if something happened to him? I could not live without my mate. The distance between us has thinned the sparkbond. He could be dead or captured-"

Resting a servo on Red Alert's arm, Sideswipe interrupted Red Alert before he could work himself into frenzy. "You would know if something bad happened to him."

"But. . ." Red Alert started.

Firmly, Sunstreaker said, "No buts. Inferno is your sparkmate, Red. You would feel if he were in danger or had died. Don't forget, Prowl felt it when Jazz was in danger and injured. Have you felt any sort of danger from him?"

"No, but why haven't we heard from them?" Red Alert pleaded for answers.

Sunstreaker snorts. "Wasn't Inferno part of a fighting team? They may be so close to those slagging cons their supposed to be destroying that they can't risk any communication."

"You think so?" Red Alert asked.

Sideswipe nodded. "Of course. They could be on their way here at this very moment."

When SoundBlaster realized that his uncles were calming down the distraught bot, he decided to see if he could find a more interesting location. He was too young to realize how big the place was. When the humans had given the base to the autobots, they had left the ground part of the base as it was. The humans they worked with would live on top so that civilians would not wander onto the base thinking it was abandoned.

However, instead of using the facilities on the base, the Autobots had built an immense structure that was more suited toward them underneath the human base above. The Autobot portion of the base had quarters, offices, a med bay, and a recreational room that was one of the closest rooms to the surface. This was done so that the humans could spend free time with the bots in an environment that was comfortable for both.

SoundBlaster wandered down the hallway. After looking for any interesting bots, he soon lost interest and decided to go back to his quarters. Jazz Daddy was always fun to play with. For hours, he tried to find his quarters, but all the hallways looked the same. At the end of the hall he could hear some bot muttering amidst a strange clanking noise.

Ah . . . There was a bot that could help him. SoundBlaster hurried toward the open doorway.

As he reached the doorway, the room became eerily silent. Then the bot let out a curse that SoundBlaster knew Prowl Daddy wouldn't have liked, and he watched in surprise as the mysterious bot dropped to the floor as the object he had been tinkering with exploded in a bright flash, letting out a big cloud of black smoke and ash that headed straight for the door.

SoundBlaster blinked as grey-white ash fell around him. He let out a small giggle and clapped his hands in excitement.

Startled, the pale metallic green bot turned to find he had an audience of one. His ear fins flickered on and off in surprise.

SoundBlaster, realizing he had the new bot's attention, decided to share his appreciation of the previous events. Grinning, he eagerly asked his new friend, "B'o 'gain?"

TBC

Note: If you're wondering what'll happen next, my muses have begun chanting: They're coming. They're coming. They're coming. *wanders off giggling*