CHAPTER 7
“I’ve got something!” Glen shouted.
Jack and Maggie were in the living room, finishing the last of the pizza. Arcee was in the garage, in her motorcycle form, and Jack was still figuring out if that was actual rest or more like a cat deciding it didn’t want to be bothered by humans.
“Yeah?” Jack asked. “Like what?”
“A Whittington! In Burbank!” He slammed his laptop down on the table, Maggie flinching. “Ron Whittington. One of the kids of Herbert. The second eldest. I mean, there are others, but this guy is the closest.”
“Wow,” Jack said. He scoped out the laptop and saw a lot of information there. Some, he figured, he didn’t want to know. “Good work, man.”
“So, what’re you going to do?” Maggie asked. “Because I don’t think you should just drop in on a Friday night and ask some guy you’ve never met if he’s got anything of his grandfather’s.”
“I’m not sure if we have any better options?” Jack glanced to Glen, who just shrugged back at him.
“We could break in?” Glen offered.
“We are not breaking in,” Maggie said.
“If it’s some fate of the galaxy conspiracy shit, then I don’t see what’s wrong with some breaking and entering.”
“I’m pretty morally opposed to that,” Jack said. Responsibility had always been the watchword in the Darby household. “That, and Arcee insisted we don’t involve the authorities.”
“Why’s that?” Maggie asked.
“Gee, I don’t know, Maggie,” Glen said. “Just this little thing called Roswell.”
“She’s not a little green man.”
“Yeah, she’s a big green bike,” Jack said. “Look, nothing can go wrong if I just go there and ask. I’ll say it’s for...” He floundered. “A college assignment?”
“Yeah?” Maggie asked, staring. “Which uni do you go to?”
“I don’t know. Harvard?”
“Not bad, mate, you only blew your cover on the very first question.”
“You put me on the spot!”
“Look, I’m okay with hiding some alien robo-warrior in my garage, but I’m not going to talk to the cops or immigration. So, do whatever—providing if it’s illegal, you go straight to Mexico.”
“Alright,” Jack said, nodding. “Loud and clear.”
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Unfortunately, there was no better plan than just stopping by and asking. Glen had suggested sending an email from a spoofed address asking for a scan of the journal, which, not only struck Jack as way more suspicious, but left him feeling about two steps removed from a Nigerian prince.
So, he and Arcee went straight for Burbank. It was only twenty minutes away, on the other side of the city center, and traffic was light. Jack had to remind himself to keep his hands on the handlebars. Arcee’s handlebars. He hoped his mother was okay. It’d only been twenty-four hours, sure, but he might’ve just been wired on adrenaline.
“Hey, Arcee,” he said, as she slipped onto the freeway. “What was Cybertron like?”
“Why do you want to know?”
“Curiosity.”
She drove for a bit further. The hills of Griffith Park loomed to Jack’s left.
“It was beautiful,” Arcee said, finally, softly. “It was home.”
Was, Jack noted.
“Is that all?”
And then, the fire returned: “What else do you want me to say?”
“I’m just curious. I can’t imagine anything like it.”
“Well, don’t,” Arcee said. “Because there’s nothing like it anymore.”
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Burbank was about the same as Jasper. A slice of suburbia with most of the trimmings. Little houses with well-kept lawns and precisely-trimmed gardens. “Hey, stop,” Jack said, patting Arcee’s frame, which made him think of a horse. “This is the place.”
It was one of the larger houses on the street. Two levels, spacious, two bedrooms at least. Brown brick, solid. Good firing lines, some part of him noted. Arcee pulled up on the other side of the road and cut her engine. “No vehicles in the driveway,” she said. “Maybe they’re not home.”
This story originates from Royal Road. Ensure the author gets the support they deserve by reading it there.
“No,” Jack replied, assessing the situation. “There’s something flickering at the edges of the curtains. Television, maybe. Someone’s home.”
“Well, perfect time for you to walk up and ask to see their ancient texts, then.”
“First, a hundred and something years isn’t ancient. And secondly, what would you suggest?”
Arcee’s mirrors twitched. “Demanding it.”
Jack took a breath, raising his eyebrows. What else had he expected? “Yeah, let me handle this.” He went to hop off Arcee, then glanced down at her kickstand. “Hey, so.”
“So, what?”
“I’m just thinking—”
“That’s a first.”
“Hey, come on.”
“You walked into it, soldier boy, learn to go defensive,” she said, and added: “About what?”
“Uh.” How to put it? “Bodily autonomy.”
“What?”
“The kickstand.”
A beat passed in the empty street.
“By Primus...” Arcee hissed. “Soldier boy, just kick it down before people start staring.”
So, he did. He tugged his helmet off when his face felt less like he’d caught blowback from an archaic bazooka, and stowed it under his arm. “Nice work, smooth operator,” Arcee said.
“Laugh it up, Cee.” He hung his helmet off her handlebars. “Watch my helmet.”
“I will, certainly, if someone decides to walk off with it.”
Jack gave her a thumbs up as he walked up toward the front door of the Witwicky residence. He still didn’t know what he was doing but, hey, improvisation was a skill the Rangers had honed like any other. He was almost there when he heard a scooter pull up in the driveway. He turned, spotting a guy with a pizza delivery bag. He couldn’t help but think of the scooter as the pug to Arcee’s wolf.
“Hey,” the delivery guy said. Looked like he was in high school. “This’s the Witwicky residence, right?”
Jack offered, “Yes?”
The delivery guy nodded.
“And you’re... Sam Witwicky?”
“That’s me,” Jack said, smiling. “Sam Witwicky.”
“Sam Witwicky,” the delivery guy repeated, like he was getting at something.
“Why? I can show you my ID,” Jack bluffed, hoping the kid wouldn’t call.
“No, it’s fine. You just sounded... different on the phone.”
“Doesn’t everyone?” Jack went for his wallet. “How much do I owe you?”
“Two for twenty, man,” the guy said. “Just like the flier said.”
Jack nodded, and threw in a ten dollar tip on top of that. It’d get the guy back on the scooter and off the asking questions train. That, and he’d spent enough time in the KO Burger trenches back in high school that he had a bit of sympathy.
“Thanks, man!”
“Don’t mention it,” Jack said, and waited for the scooter to recede down the street before he approached the front door. As he stepped up the stairs and onto the porch, he couldn’t help but feel that he’d made it worse. Now he wasn’t just knocking on someone’s door, but he was pretending that he had any right to be there. Was that fraud?
He rang the doorbell, and waited. Nothing. He pressed it again.
“Pizza delivery?” Jack called, at about the time that the door knob turned and the door opened. The girl who met him there looked like she was a high school senior—blonde, blue eyes, and a Nirvana hoodie.
“Is this the Witwicky residence?” Jack asked.
“Um, yeah,” the blonde replied, then turned to call deeper into the house: “Sam!”
Shit. For some stupid reason, he hadn’t thought to think that there could’ve been Witwicky kids. An unknown-unknown that he really should’ve had pegged as a known. Well, he was already improvising.
Another girl came down the hall. She had olive skin, and a mess of dark bushy curls. Her hands were shoved in the pockets of her brown G-Star hoodie.
“Sam Witwicky?” Jack asked.
“Yeah? What’s up?”
“Listen, I have to—”
“Just, how much do I owe you?”
“Is your dad around?”
“No. And he didn’t order the pizza, anyway, sooo...”
Oh, Jack thought. Yeah, sounded different would be right. Sam. Samantha.
“What I’m saying is,” Sam continued, “is that I know how to pay for pizza. And it was two for twenty, right.”
“Sam. I need to speak to your father.”
She gave him a skeptical look. “Are you trying to extort me for higher than a twenty percent tip?”
“What? No.”
“Because this is America, and I don’t think—” Sam paused, then looked him up and down. “What a second, weren’t you on the news?”
Jack sighed. “Yeah.”
“And now you’re delivering pizzas?”
“Kind of, but not really.” Sam went for the pizzas, and Jack pulled them away. “I need to talk to your dad. About your great-grandfather.”
Sam sighed, leaning back against the door frame. “Oh my God.”
“Archibald Witwicky, right?”
“Yeah, the crazy Captain Ice Man guy.”
The other girl said, “She tried selling a bunch of his stuff in history class like a month ago.”
“Maya!” Sam hissed.
“What? You did.” She nodded to Jack. “She did.”
Jack took a breath. “Please tell me you didn’t.”
“Turns out no one wants to buy old worthless junk, so, no.”
“Oh, thank God,” Jack replied. “Tell me, was one of them a journal?”
“Maybe,” Sam said. She held out her arms for the pizzas, notes caught between fore and middle fingers. “Pizza me.”
Jack did so. “Alright, this is going to sound crazy, but I really need to—”
The door shut in his face. Jack, stunned, took a second. “Did she...” Frowning, he knocked again. Tried the doorbell again. Nothing happened. No one came to the door. After a minute, Sam stuck her head between the curtains and shouted on the other side of the window: “My dad’s head of the neighborhood watch!”
Unsure of what else to do, and feeling vaguely like he’d gotten hustled Jack made his way back to Arcee. “Hey, nice going, smooth operator,” she said. His cheeks flushed. He could hear the smirk in it.
“Look,” he said, “I’ve got good news and bad news.”
“Looks to me that the bad news is you lost the pizza that you paid for.”
“Yeah, well.” He didn’t have a comeback for that. “You’ve got a lot of sass, y’know that? The bad news is not that I lost the pizza. The bad news is that I think I botched the chance at getting a look at the journal.”
“Alright. What’s the good news?”
“The journal’s in there somewhere.”
“Huh,” Arcee said. “Well then.” And she ignited her engine.
“Arcee, what’re you...”
“We’ve done it your way, soldier boy,” she said. “Now, we’re doing it my way.”
“Arcee!” Jack spluttered. “Don’t!”
Except she already had. She accelerated toward the driveway and shifted forms in a forward somersault, keeping below the fence line, and came up in one smooth motion. Arcee stalked over to the gate leading to the backyard of the Witwicky residence and hopped the fence.
“Arcee!” Jack hissed, clambering over the fence. “What the hell are you—”
She was pressed up against the brick wall. Covert, if not for the fact she was made of gleaming metal and motorcycle parts—and in view of the kitchen window. “Watch my back,” she snapped. “Where are they hiding the book?”
“I don’t know!”
“Then I’ll start at the top and work my way downward.” Arcee crouched, ready to spring, at the same time someone entered the kitchen. Jack’s attention snapped to them at the same time as Arcee’s did.
“Oh, this is bad,” Jack whispered.
Through the kitchen window, Sam stared out at them, utterly still. Jack watched the pizza slice fall from her hand like it was a grenade.
“Hey,” he called, hands up. “I can explain.”
Sam’s eyes widened, and she shouted:
“Bumblebee!”