OCTOBER 2, 2412 CHARR Windrazor knew he was dying. He could feel the tailored nanoids and auto-repair machinery of the CR chamber doing their best to save him, but he also knew that his body was too badly damaged, his energy systems failing. He could feel his spark detaching from its mortal shell. What a joke. The black-clad stranger with Optimus Prime's face had been right. Windrazor was a fool, his Imperial Decepticon movement doomed from the start. Perhaps Windrazor had attacked him so fiercely because of the sting of truth in his words: "I will take these troops you are wasting and put them to good use." Eagle Eye and the others, though. What of them? The Predacons, the Insecticons, those the stranger had rejected because of their "useless bio-emulative forms"; but Eagle Eye, Terradive, Afterburner... they had stayed out of loyalty to Windrazor. Loyalty to the fool who had led them to starvation on Charr with vague proclamations of "reviving the true Decepticon way." History suggested that -Megatron- was the one reviving the true Decepticon way. What did it matter now? In a few moments Windrazor would be dead, and none of it would be any concern of his. He shut down his optics and let himself drift, hoping that when the dissolution came, it would be swift... only to discover that someone wasn't going to let him expire in peace. A voice was speaking to him, calling his name. It was the most incredibly deep, ponderous voice he had ever heard, as though the shifting of tectonic plates could produce speech. WINDRAZOR. WINDRAZOR. ATTEND. Windrazor reluctantly brought his optics back online. He wasn't in the CR chamber any more. It looked to him as though he were floating through space, surrounded by black and starry skies without a planet or near star in sight. "Go away," he said. "Can't you see Windrazor is busy dying?" WINDRAZOR, boomed the voice again, closer this time, behind him. He turned, then drew back in astonishment. Looming behind him, so vast that Windrazor's shattered exostructure was nothing but a speck compared to him, was... "Unicron! This is madness. Reports from Cybertron said you were destroyed." INDEED I WAS... BUT A SPARK SUCH AS MINE IS NOT SO EASILY EXTINGUISHED. "What do you want with Windrazor?" THE DESTRUCTION OF MY PHYSICAL FORM WAS MUCH MORE COMPLETE THIS TIME THAN THE LAST. IT WILL TAKE ME MUCH LONGER TO RESTORE MYSELF TO A POSITION OF POWER. I DO NOT WISH MY VENGEANCE UPON THE CHILDREN OF PRIMUS TO REST FOR SO LONG. UNTIL MY RETURN, YOU WILL BE MY AVATAR... YOUR FOLLOWERS, MY HARBINGERS. "Madness!" Windrazor repeated. "Windrazor is honored by the offer, Dark One, but Windrazor is in no condition - " IT IS NOT AN OFFER. IT IS A COMMAND. YOU CALL YOURSELF A DECEPTICON, WINDRAZOR... BUT WE BOTH KNOW YOUR TRUE HERITAGE. REMEMBER TO WHOM YOU ARE SPEAKING. "Dark One, Windrazor is -dying-! Windrazor's spark has already begun to dissipate. Windrazor is probably hallucinating all of this." YOU WILL BE REBORN. I WILL GIVE YOU A NEW BODY. YOUR FADING SPARK WILL BE AUGMENTED WITH A PORTION OF MY OWN. Windrazor's facelessness could not react; but if it could, it would have been blank anyway, with total astonishment. Unicron? Give a piece of his spark to a lowly Transformer, a Decepticon rebel, a -failure-? "V-very well, then," Windrazor said. "Windrazor accepts." WINDRAZOR, Unicron replied with a cold chuckle, DID NOT HAVE A CHOICE. Then the pain began. I have a message from another time... Eyrie Productions, Unlimited presents UNDOCUMENTED FEATURES FUTURE IMPERFECT Transformers: Collision Courses The Berlin Encounter Benjamin D. Hutchins Transformers history and bios adapted from Hasbro, Takara, Sunbow Productions, Marvel Comics, Mainframe Entertainment, and Sunrise (c) 2002 Eyrie Productions, Unlimited OFFICE OF THE DECEPTICON SUPREME COMMANDER VILNACRON, CYBERTRON Thundercracker sat at his desk poring over reconstruction reports from Grid Sector 11-C, reflecting as he always did when so engaged that he hadn't realized the job of Decepticon Leader involved so much datawork, when his desk intercom bleeped. "What?" he asked irritably. In the old days, all Transformers left their comm systems active at all times, so anybody could call anybody else. During the many Cybertronian Wars, the leaders on opposite sides discovered that this practice left them open to being disturbed by any idiot in their respective faction at any time. This was especially vexing to Megatron, whose forces were overrun with idiots in those days. Still, it was a war; speed and flexibility of communications were considered more important than screening out calls made for bad reasons. Now that peace had broken out, though, and both forces had grown - were growing - the system of contacting the supreme commanders had to be refined. The Autobots had been the first to do this, having been installed in relative peace and quiet on Cybertron since 2116. Thundercracker had modeled his command post's operations after those of Optimus Prime, and so, like Prime, he now had a secretary and an intercom. "Don't 'what' me, Thunderboy," a voice crackled back, "or you can answer your -own- damn stellarcom. Hook's out here with the results of his latest unholy experiment, and he wants to spread the horror by showing it to you." Thundercracker glared at the intercom for a second, then grinned. "OK, Stiletto," he said. "Let him in." He clicked off and shook his head, chuckling, the grin still lingering. Stiletto was a lousy secretary, but Thundercracker saw potential in her similar to his own, if only she could learn discipline. The door leading to his outer office slid open with a soft hiss, and Thundercracker got to his feet, expecting to see Hook enter with the prototype for some bizarre new weapon or part. A second later he was sitting back down again, mouth agape. It took him several seconds to find his voice. "Hook... " he said at last. His voice was filled with a soft but unmistakable menace as he went on, a little shakily, "Hook, this is too far." Hook spread his hands, a pleading look on his faceplate. "No, no, Thundercracker," he insisted. "This is none of my doing! I'm just as shocked as you - perhaps more." "But what... -how-... " Thundercracker gestured vaguely, unable to articulate the questions rushing through his brain. "I have a theory," Scorponok interjected. CHARR Eagle Eye jerked around to face the CR chamber as the screaming and pounding began. Other Impericons looked up from whatever they were doing, their faces evincing more or less shock depending on each one's temperament. Razorclaw glanced up from his nap atop the hypernav panel with nothing more than mild interest. "Curious," he said. "I wouldn't think he'd have the energy to die -that- way." Eagle Eye shot him a hard glare, then went to the chamber's control panel. "What the - ?!" he blurted. "The chamber's shut down!" He punched the activator key, but it just blinked green and went dark again, as if he'd tried to activate an empty chamber, or one containing an already-healthy Transformer. He tried again with the same result. The banging and yelling had subsided by now. Eagle Eye reached for the control that would have opened the chamber door, but before he could, it popped up of its own accord. Almost all the Impericons were on their feet in the next half-second, even the Predacon leader. The figure that emerged from the CR chamber was not the reassembled form of the parts they had thrown in there. It was the wrong configuration, and too large. This Transformer was fully the size of the black-clad stranger who had thrashed Windrazor so badly, perhaps even a bit taller. He was clearly an aerial form, as Windrazor had been, but his lines were completely different, and it was obvious from the positioning of various aircraft bits on his robot form that he transformed entirely differently as well. He was mostly black, with some gray and silver bits. His helmet resembled Windrazor's, though it was silver instead of gold, and unlike Windrazor, he had a face - a half-masked face, true, but a face nonetheless, with two bright-glowing blue optics. "W-Windrazor?" Eagle Eye whispered. When the newcomer spoke, it was with Windrazor's voice, all right - but deeper, and a little slower, as though everything he said had more weight to it. "Before we were so rudely interrupted," said Windrazor to Eagle Eye, "you were saying that the Impericons needed a cause to believe in." "... I was?" Eagle Eye replied, flabbergasted. "You were," Windrazor said. "And you were absolutely correct. So, from now on... " Windrazor's new optics twinkled, his half-masked face smiling. "... that's exactly what the Impericons will have." CYBERTRON "So... if you're right... then what you said back in my lab was wrong," said Hook thoughtfully. "You -are- Zarak." Scorponok nodded. "And yet I was right, for Zarak most assuredly did die in Iacon." Thundercracker got up and paced, hands folded behind his back. "Your sparks collided. -Merged-... and the mere -presence- of Scorponok's spark changed Zarak's body so much... " "This is utterly revolutionary," Hook announced. "It changes everything we thought we knew about the way spark and shell interact - to say nothing of the implications for Transformer-organic fusion! There have been Transformer cyborgs before, of course, but with the exception of the two created by Primus's influence during the time when all were one, they have all been created in the laboratory, except for those extradimensionals who work with the International Police. Never before has such a thing occurred on the level of the spark itself." He shook his head. "Utterly revolutionary," he repeated, softly, to himself. "But where did your spark -come- from?" Thundercracker asked Scorponok, his tone frustrated. "It couldn't have lingered in your body all this time. I mean, I'm no doctor, but I was -there-. Megatron blew your -head- off. Nobody survives a wound like that. Not even a little." "Probably," Hook mused, "it was released from the Matrix when Megatron opened it... but we'll probably never know for sure. A lot of very strange things happened that day." "Mm. How am I going to explain this to the troops?" wondered Thundercracker. "Megatron will need to be informed first, I suppose, but then... " Scorponok looked up sharply. "Megatron lives?" Thundercracker gave him a blank look, then caught himself and nodded. "Certainly." Scorponok looked impressed. "And yet you lead. No offense, Thundercracker, but I never thought anyone would be able to remove Megatron by any means other than the one he used to remove me." Thundercracker smiled a little. "Times have changed, Commander," he said, "and so has Megatron." Scorponok's own smile was broad and oddly beatific. "As I hoped he might," he said, then shook his head. "I must get caught up. Hook was able to explain to me only the vaguest of details in the short time before we came up here." He got to his feet. "If I'm needed, I'll be in Hook's lab, downloading history files." "Of course." Thundercracker paused, looking a little awkward, then squared himself to attention and gave the old salute. "Hail, Scorponok!" Scorponok chuckled. "Shouldn't -I- be hailing -you-?" Thundercracker looked more awkward still; then he seemed to gather himself. He gave Scorponok a hard look and said quietly, "I suppose that depends on whether you intend to challenge me for command." Scorponok stared at Thundercracker for a moment, dumbstruck; then he laughed a deep, rich, rolling laugh. "Great Primus, no," he boomed, chortling still. "I, challenge you, challenge -anyone-? Thundercracker, I had to -die- to escape the pressures and problems of command. Why would I throw away an accomplishment like -that-?" He laughed again, then clapped the ex-Seeker on the pauldron. "No, no. I'm teasing you. Forgive me. I'm a bit giddy. Not everyone gets a chance to return from Beyond just in time to find out that the dream he died for has become a reality." Chuckling, he turned and went to the door, then reversed and came smartly to attention. "Hail, Thundercracker!" he said, giving the new salute; then he left the room. Thundercracker watched him go, then resumed pacing. After a few moments he stopped, made himself sit down at his desk. "Thundercracker to Feedback." "Feedback to Thundercracker, go." "Feedback, I need you to contact Soundwave. I must speak to Megatron at once." METASPACE COREWARD OF CHARR On the bridge of the larger of the two starships stolen by the Impericons, Black Convoy sat slumped in the command seat. Only his hands, each holding a joystick connected to the seat, moved. An interface visor covered his optics, casting an eerie greenish backglow on the rest of his face. Around him, the ex-Impericons "recruited" by the black-clad interloper went about the business of operating the ship, adjusting things at the various stations to suit the vessel's new owners. From time to time, one of them cast a nervous glance at the slumped figure in the command chair, wondering just what they had gotten themselves into this time. After several hours of dormancy, Black Convoy sat up straight, stowed the joysticks away in his chair arms, and let the interface visor retract into the headrest. For a few seconds, he sat looking through the forward viewport at the stars. "So," he murmured at last. "A parallel dimension... and one with many differences. Still, some things haven't changed. These 'Autobots' seem much the same as the Cybertron trash whose shield they share." He gestured to the partly defaced Autobot symbol still adorning the main door leading aft of the bridge. "They bleat about 'freedom', then deny it to us by obstructing our rightful path to galactic conquest!" Motormaster nodded. "Yep. That sounds about right." Black Convoy turned his chair to face the weapons console. "Dolrailer!" The robot there did not respond. "Dolrailer!" Black Convoy tried again. When this evinced no response, he got up from his seat, went to the station, seized the unresponsive robot's pauldron, and whirled him in his seat to face his new leader. "Dolrailer," said Black Convoy in a dangerous tone, "pay attention." The one Black Convoy was addressing didn't seem frightened. "I didn't realize you were addressing me, sir," he calmly replied. "My name is Onslaught." Black Convoy released him and straightened up. "Oh. My apologies, then. You have the same configuration as my former lieutenant, Dolrailer, leader of the Combatrons." He looked around the room. "In fact, I see twins for the other four Combatrons here as well. Fascinating... " The Destron trailed thoughtfully off for a moment. Then he went on in a brisker, more businesslike tone, "I believe it's time I met my new troops. Then," he added, tapping a fingertip against the datapad he held in his free hand, "we can get started... redecorating." BERLIN, NIOGI SIX MONTHS LATER Downtown Berlin, the biggest and busiest city on Niogi, has been compared to a heap of rubble in a junkyard when seen from a distance. Indeed it does resemble a pile: as one moves inward from the suburbs the buildings gradually grow ever higher, until, at the very center, the three great glass skyscrapers jut into the air like accusing fingers. These are the buildings that form the vertices of Berlin Industrial Park, the triangular park at the core of the city. All three of them are, in fact, considered one building; the two that flank Industry Boulevard (which enters the Park from the west, so that it and the Park's perimeter walls give the appearance of a massive arrow pointing toward the Berlin River from the air) are lesser office complexes, while the slightly taller tower standing at the arrow's point is the nerve center and corporate hub, the almost-mythical Head Office, of the biggest corporation in the universe. Galactic Export, Nanotechnology, and Omnifarious Manufacturing Corporation, GmbH, is the name of the biggest corporation in the world, but hardly anyone knows that. It appears on none of the corporation's papers, internal or external. It appears on none of its products or services. The corporation which controls 80% of interstellar shipping in the Galactic Alliance, 47% of international space shipping, 70% of Alliance telecommunications; which manufactures 60% of the consumer goods purchased in the galaxy as a whole; which designs and manufactures 84% of the Federation's consumer robotics (both autonomous and fixed-industrial) and 41% of the public and private weapons and military hardware to be found anywhere in explored space, is known not by a name, but by an acronym. In some places, this acronym is spoken with disgust, in others with pride; in some with anger, in some with optimism; but almost everywhere, it is spoken with respect, and perhaps even a touch of fear. The corporation is called simply, GENOM. ---- In early 1992, Global Export, Neotechnology, and Omnifarious Manufacturing, Inc, burst onto the international scene from the ruins of Worcester, Massachusetts, in a most dramatic fashion. Its massive industrial complex literally sprang out of the ground, and that same day its agents barged into stock exchanges all over the world and established it as a truly huge corporation, bigger than any other in the world. Later that year, an alien starship appeared and, in a pitched battle with GENOM ground and space forces, destroyed Neo-Worcester. All trading in GENOM stock was suspended until it was discovered that the corporation's CEO, Maximilien Largo, had survived the debacle. The corporate headquarters was moved to Tokyo, Japan. GENOM Japan grew from the ruins of its predecessor much more slowly than that predecessor had grown from the ruins of Worcester, and it was not until 2012 that the company became a recognized multinational again. From there, though, the rise to power was meteoric once again, as Largo's organizational genius guided the company to international dominance by 2022, when the first of the Bio-Utility Mechano-Androids was manufactured. The BUMA, an advanced form of autonomous robot, was vastly advanced for its time, and despite several large setbacks incurred through altercations with a small band of armored vigilantes who set up shop in 2032, GENOM Japan seemed well on its way to dominating the newly opened galactic robotics market. Then, in 2100, to celebrate the new century, GENOM changed the 'G' and 'N' to 'Galactic' and 'Nanotechnology' and moved its corporate headquarters to a position more strategically located for control of an interstellar commercial giant: Berlin, the capital of the colony world Niogi. This move was not simply commercial in nature. Largo had learned that Berlin, Niogi was the hometown of one of the core officers of the Wedge Defense Force. GENOM's move to Berlin was largely simple spite. It didn't matter; GENOM GmbH grew to galactic commercial dominance by the end of the decade, and continues in that position to this day despite massive reorganizations following the WDF reunification last year. --from "GENOM: The Killer Giant", Prof. Martin J. Stein, Meizuri University; Meizuri, 2389 ---- At the peak of the central GENOM tower, on the observation deck, a massive robotic figure stood, looking out over the sprawling city below. The robot stood the size a military battlemover, and judging by its sleek, razor-edged lines, it was a military machine itself. This robot, however, was not a product of GENOM GmbH. It was a member of a race of living mechanoids old when human civilization was still young: a Transformer of Cybertron. Other people on the O-deck paid little attention to the Transformer. Some looked curiously at him, then shrugged; some took pictures to take back home. Most recognized him. He was, after all, a fairly famous Autobot warrior, and during the years of peace between Ghorah Khar and Unicron's second coming, he had made quite a name for himself as a race car on the Unlimited circuit. His name, appropriately enough, was Hot Rod. Berlin hasn't changed much, Hot Rod mused to himself as he gazed off into the distance. Although the lady at the desk seemed a little less tense than back when Largo ran this place. He smiled to himself at the memory; the last time he'd been here, they'd had to let him in because of GENOM's public image, but they hadn't liked it. After all, he had been one of the WDF's Autobots back in the Golden Age, and GENOM damn well knew it. Hot Rod wasn't given to subtlety or subterfuge; he wore his WDF 11th Armored Cav shield, the Autobot brand superimposed on the WDF trefoil, with open pride, right on the middle of his chest. The GENOM Tower O-Deck was one of Hot Rod's favorite places. During his tenure with the WDF, he'd made the acquaintance, and then the friendship, of 3WA Trouble Consultant Kei Morgan, herself a Berliner; it had been she who had first brought him here. Since then he had come back whenever his duties permitted it. Those had been fun days, back in the Golden Age of the Wedge Defense Force. Kei had taught him German, and in return he'd shown her the real meaning of driving offensively. Once, he and Outrun, who absolutely -loved- Berlin, had come here for a weekend and damn near gotten their heads chewed off by Optimus Prime for the damage they managed to do (and a little bit of sly back-patting, since all of it had been to GENOM holdings). Things were different now, of course. The Decepticon threat was back - sort of. Old alliances were familiar, but changed; the WDF was back, but radically new; GENOM was no longer the enemy. Megatron on our side and GENOM, too, Hot Rod said to himself. And against us, splinter groups of 'Cons, all the parahuman wackos the galaxy can find, what's left of the Federation, and whatever the hell's going on out on the Rim... As he looked down, absent-mindedly scanning the traffic patterns, he noticed a car moving erratically, driving far too fast and taking terrible chances. For a second he thought maybe it was Outrun - that was the way he always drove - but, zooming his optics down, he saw that it wasn't. It was a small grey car, one of those anonymous sedans that one saw all over any city, and it was swerving all over the place. Hot Rod looked back, and in doing so discovered just why this was going on: it was being pursued by a minivan. A minivan with gun-toting maniacs in it. Hot Rod's flexsteel brow furrowed. Where the hell are the police? he wondered. He looked back at the grey car just in time to see it lose a wheel and go skidding across an intersection and into a wall. The crash bag fired, and then the driver was out and running, a little unsteadily, into the nearest available alley. Hot Rod blinked and mentally replayed the last few seconds. Yep - the driver had definitely been a woman: rather tall, rather dark, very pretty, and a humanized Salusian. Well, she wasn't really his type, but let it never be said Hot Rod of Cybertron discriminated when it came to female beauty and his response thereto. Without a second thought, he stepped easily over the safety railing (which was scaled for humans) and leaped off the Tower. As he fell the first few of the 3,452 feet to the ground, he made a quick mental note of which streets he'd have to take to reach the crash position; then he counted, waited, and, just before the critical point in the fall, popped his parachute out of its compartment in his back (where regulations required one in all flightless Autobots). The chute pulled him up short, and then he ejected it and freefell the last twenty feet, slamming into the pavement and letting his knees and ankles flex to absorb the impact. It took him a tenth of a second to get his bearings: he was in the middle of Laibachstrasse, with the tower behind him where it belonged. Even as his legs were still flexing, he transformed, meeting the road with much of his momentum intact. He tore into the nearest secondary street, leaving a cloud of rubber smoke behind him. Let's see now... left here... and a right... damn, Outrun's lucky - he doesn't even have to think about this. Ah, slag, where am I? Oh yeah - whoa! Almost missed that right... there's the car... she went down this way... there she is! Running parallel to the alley along a street, he caught glimpses of her between the buildings as he went. Going as fast as he dared (which was very fast), he sheered around the next right on two wheels and then transformed so fast it almost hurt, hoping to cut her off. Right on schedule, she came out of the alley, and as she did, Hot Rod intersected her, performing one of his favorite tricks: he scooped her up in his hands in mid-run and then transformed around her, so that, within four dizzying seconds, she had gone from running to riding off in a high-tech sports car without a pilot. The stunt freaked people out - which was why Sideswipe had originally perfected it, and why Hot Rod had insisted on learning it from him. This girl was no exception, although rather than fright, her preferred response was anger, manifested in the form of a string of expletives in at least three different languages, only one of which Hot Rod knew. Apparently, she thought she'd been caught by a friend of her pursuers. "Hey," he said, and when she went right on over it, he added some emphasis to it and tried it again: "HEY!" That interrupted the stream long enough for him to throw a virtual image of himself on his console's center VDU and address her directly, the head-and-shoulders shot of his robot mode backdropped by the streets they were traveling in. "Relax!" he said. "My name's Hot Rod. I'm an Autobot, I'm here to help you. What's going on?" She didn't seem to know what to say, probably because she was still mentally clearing the rest of her protest out of the queue before composing a reply, so Hot Rod gave her a couple of seconds while he banked hard around the next left. There was no doubt the yahoos in the minivan had spotted his maneuver; the question now was whether or not they'd chase him. Eventually, she said, "My name's Leila. I'm a servant of Her Imperial Majesty Asrial's government. Those people pursuing me are members of a terrorist organization called Big Fire. Heard of them?" "Sure. Human terrorist group," Hot Rod replied promptly. "Partly," said Leila. "They're part terrorist group, but also part crime syndicate and part whacked-out political movement. Their agenda, as they announced it in clashes with law enforcement when they first appeared in the early nineties, is absolute galactic domination; but for a start they took over organized crime and generally started stealing everything that wasn't nailed down. I suppose a galactic takeover takes some financing," she added with a wry grin. "Why were they trying to kill you?" Hot Rod wondered. "I was undercover in their Berlin cell," Leila replied. "Somebody burned me. 'Allegiance or death,' that's Big Fire's motto." "You're a spy?" "I'm a counter-terrorism operative," Leila said, her tone clipped. "Whatever, don't get your wiring harness in a bunch," Hot Rod replied. "I have 17-Ally clearance, last time I checked, if it helps." "Verify." "Oh, come on," Hot Rod said, smirking. "How many gorgeous red Autobots do you know?" "Two: Sideswipe and Optimus Prime," Leila replied with a little smile of her own. Hot Rod's image slumped, his face exaggeratedly long, and Leila added, "Humor me." "D558/2, authent green," Hot Rod replied after a moment of pondering. "I think. It's been a -long- time since I had to use that clearance." "Outdated," Leila said, "but, as you say, Transformers are hard to impersonate," she added with a smile. Hot Rod pulled back onto Laibachstrasse heading back toward the Tower and slowed to a reasonable speed; the van didn't seem to be following them. "Where the hell were the police?" he wondered. "On duty, if you can believe it," said Leila, perhaps with a hint of bitterness in her voice. "Big Fire owns the police in this city, now that GENOM's let go of their uniformed neck. They were eating donuts and pretending not to hear their radios, most likely." "Cute. Sounds like you could use a bit of backup, Leila." "Aren't -we- getting familiar." "You only gave me one name." She chuckled. "When I'm working, I only -have- one name." "Well, there you are." "So. Do I call you 'Hot', or 'Rod'?" "Most people call me Rod, but I - whoa!" Hot Rod was cut off as a spatter of bullets bounced gaily from his rear panels, one of them smashing his left taillight. The van was back, and its occupants didn't look happy. "Great. The happiness police are back," Hot Rod observed. "Hang on." He put the pedal down and surged forward, flame shooting from the intercooler vent on the side of his exposed supercharger, the throaty roar of his engine bouncing interestingly off the walls of the surrounding buildings. He had neither siren nor lights, but the cars up ahead got the hell out of the way. "Don't these idiots know who they're dealing with here?" Hot Rod wondered aloud as he slewed around the next right, cutting around Industrial Park and making for the perimeter freeway. "I mean, I don't want to sound like I'm bragging, but I'm just a little distinctive." "They don't care," Leila said, suddenly thinking to strap in. "They've probably got backup coming that they think can handle you." "Is that so." Hot Rod darted between two cars, almost hitting one, and up an on-ramp into the perimeter freeway of Berlin. No speed limits out here, and plenty of room to work. As he did, he accessed his comm function. "Outrun! Sideswipe! Any Autobot, this's Hot Rod, come in!" The VDU divided diagonally, its right-upper half occupied by the face of another Transformer, one Leila didn't recognize. "Well, good afternoon, Sir Rodimus," this one drawled in a voice that reminded Leila oddly of a spaceliner pilot addressing the passengers on the PA. We hope to have you on the ground in about ten minutes... "You busy, Outrun?" Hot Rod asked, too preoccupied even to tell his comrade, for the millionth time, not to call him 'Rodimus'. "Not 'specially," Outrun replied with a shrug. "Hanging out at a high school. Field hockey team's having a car wash to raise money for new sticks or something." He grinned. "These kids know what they're doing. Ah, I -do- love to be scrubbed by experts." The silver-faced Autobot gave a rather sentimental-sounding little sigh, then seemed to drag himself back into the conversation. "And what are -you- up to this fine post meridiem, Sir Rodimus?" "Getting shot at," Hot Rod replied as a bullet whanged off the armored slope of his rear deck, "and don't call me Rodimus." Then he outlined the situation, ending with, "So, if you'd be so kind, I think I could use a hand!" "Hey, no sweat, good buddy," Outrun's voice replied. "Be there in five minutes. I know a shortcut." "Yeah, I'll just bet you do," Hot Rod muttered. "You know where Sideswipe is?" "Haven't seen him," Outrun replied. "You know how he hates to miss a fight, though - he must be someplace he can't get signals. If he'd heard you he'd be comin'-a-runnin'." "Yeah, guess so," said Hot Rod. "I guess we'll just have to handle this by ourselves, then." The stereo panel on the dash worked by itself as he selected an optic chip and looked for some appropriate driving music. "This," he said to Leila just before the song started, "is the fun part." /* Big Country "Driving to Damascus" (Live) _Come Up Screaming_ */ Out on the highway, the minivan was no match for Hot Rod's speed or maneuverability. He darted in and out of traffic, making liberal use of the horn or just using his external speakers to shout, and people got the hell out of his way. At least, they did until things began to thicken up, and maneuvering became harder. Hot Rod checked his internal chron: it was ten minutes past 5 PM, local time. Slag. He glanced back with his rearview optics and saw the van beginning to catch up, its weapons-brandishing passengers probably motivating more people than Hot Rod's simple yelling. Hmm... what to do, what to do... It was about then that Hot Rod noticed the motorcycles. Motorcycles were no big deal in city traffic, of course; lots of people had them. They were more convenient in an urban setting, if you didn't have kids or a lot of groceries to shlep around. They got better fuel mileage, accelerated better, took up less parking space and were easier to handle in congested traffic than automobiles. Still, these were a little odd. For one thing, there were a dozen or so of them, all traveling at the same speed, interspersed in the traffic pattern around Hot Rod and the gray van, and they seemed to be tightening in. For another, they were all the same design, and that design was one Hot Rod hadn't seen before: long and low-slung, with spindly, nearly horizontal front suspension almost half the length of the complete bike, and much smaller front wheels than rear. They had reddish body paneling and sharply raked fairings with narrow green strips of windscreen. Oh, and no riders. One of them drew even with Hot Rod's driver's side window. Hot Rod figured it would bump him, but instead, it seemed to hesitate, then... ... it transformed. The transformation was sudden, fluid and yet at the same time violent, more like an involuntary spasm than a deliberate act. It was over in less than a second, and - and this was the thing that really struck Hot Rod at the time - it did not make the normal and distinctive sound of a Transformer changing modes, the curious low-frequency harmonic crunch. With nothing more than a whine of servos and the clack of a few parts striking together, the motorcycle had changed into a robot, with broad shoulders, long, powerful-looking arms tipped with three equidistant claws instead of hands, and a flat, angry-looking turret of a head. Of course, there were plenty of transforming mecha in the universe that didn't sound like Transformers when they transformed. Most of them were built by humans - but almost all of them were piloted. In Hot Rod's mind, with very few exceptions, autonomous transforming mecha equaled Transformers - so what was -this- thing? Instead of legs, it balanced on what had been its front wheel, all spindly suspension from the waist down, easily keeping pace with Hot Rod in the fairly congested traffic. In the center of its chest was what looked like a symbol, but it wasn't one Hot Rod could remember ever seeing before. It certainly wasn't an Autobot, Decepticon or Impericon shield. It looked a little like the symbol the humans used to denote radioactivity. He wondered if it meant the creature, whatever it was, was nuclear-powered, even though it was clearly emitting a high-pitched shriek such as one would expect from a very-high-RPM piston engine. The cycle droid raised one of its clawed hands toward Hot Rod's window, and in the center, a beam emitter glowed. Hot Rod steeled himself for a hard deceleration. He would be rear-ended by the closing van, and at this speed both of them would crash, but at least the cycle-bot's beam weapon wouldn't blast poor Leila all over his interior. There was a sudden splintering crash, and the robot which had been a motorcycle writhed, its green powerbolt shooting harmlessly up into the air as its arms flexed. It faltered, lightning arcing over its surface, then toppled. For an instant, before it hit the pavement and exploded, Hot Rod could see what looked like a lightning rod sticking out of its back. Then he heard a familiar growling whine, and from behind the gray van came a low, lean black-and-red sports car with an Autobot brand on its smoothly sloped hood and a jet thruster shooting a cone of blue-orange flame from between its taillights. This was a short-lived, ultra-expensive New Japanese sports car of the early 2200s called the Miwatari Rocket ZX. It was also the automobile form of an Autobot who Hot Rod was very pleased indeed to see: "Outrun!" he cried. "Boy, you've got your good timing on today!" "Yeah, I figure," Outrun drawled in reply. "One side, vanboy," he added with a grunt, and in Hot Rod's rearview, Leila saw the ZX sideswipe the gray van, sending it into another of the motorcycles and the pair of them into the grass median. The van spun out in a great cloud of grass and dirt; neither Outrun nor Hot Rod saw what happened to the cycle. More of the motorcycles began appearing, coming up from behind, merging on at exits, even crossing the median from the other side until the caravan reached a section of highway where the median was blocked by a concrete barricade. This concrete canyon effect amplified the cycles' high-rev exhaust notes, giving them the nerve-racking, echoing screech of a swarm of wasps. Hot Rod found it most unpleasant. "Who -are- these clowns?" Hot Rod wanted to know as he jockeyed for position, trying to keep either of the cycles which had fallen in on either side of him from matching his speed exactly. "Transformers of some kind, I guess," Outrun replied. "Never seen anything like 'em, though. You figure the Impericons have something new?" "The Impericons wouldn't be involved with an outfit like Big Fire," Leila said. "They're religious fanatics, they'd never ally themselves with a carbon-based criminal conspiracy." "Lady's got a point," Hot Rod remarked, feinting a sideswipe at one of his tormentors only to slew at the last moment and tap the other one into the median barrier. "I'm sorry, ma'am, I don't believe we've been introduced," said Outrun, his virtual face nodding to Leila from Hot Rod's VDU. "My name's Outrun, personal datacourier to Optimus Prime and - " "This is Leila, and she doesn't need you to upload your resume right now!" Hot Rod barked, braking-and-gunning to avoid a powerbolt from another cycle-bot. Outrun frowned. "Why, there's no reason to be rude, Rodimus," he began. "From where I'm driving I can see about -twenty- reasons," Hot Rod replied, "and STOP CALLING ME RODIMUS!" Outrun noted that Hot Rod had reached the point in the crisis where he lost his sense of humor, and called an internal moratorium on teasing the other Autobot until further notice. Instead, he gauged the slope of the median barrier. The barrier was, by design, sloped to prevent vehicles from finding their way onto or over the top of it; but that could be defeated if one were enterprising enough about it. When it came to vehicle-mode maneuvering, Outrun was nothing if not enterprising. He flicked suddenly into the far-left lane, drawing an angry honk from a delivery truck. He ignored that, knowing that he'd had at least four centimeters of clearance and, as such, the trucker's complaint was groundless. Anyway, that truck didn't interest him; the one that was now directly ahead of him did. It was a car carrier, returning empty from a delivery to some downtown dealership, and that suited Outrun exactly. He'd perfected this trick with the help of Ultra Magnus. At that time he'd had the advantage of being able to communicate with the car carrier involved and gain its cooperation... but then, why not now? He grinned to himself and selected a communications band. Jens Fochinger was himself wondering what the deal was with all the riderless motorcycles. Was it some kind of technology demo? Didn't you have to have permits and police escorts for that kind of thing? It looked like there had been an accident back there with one of them and a gray van. He looked at the panel of his truck's comm system, wondering if he should call the police. At that very moment, the display panel on the comm unit flicked to life, showing him the silver and black face of a robot. "Hey there, good buddy," said the robot. "Do me a favor and hold her nice and steady at sixty, willya?" "Uh... sure," Fochinger replied. He eased off on the throttle a little bit, watching the needle until it rested firmly on the dit between 6 and 0. "Great, perfect," said the robot. "And don't freak out if you feel a bump, OK?" "Sure," Fochinger repeated, blinking at his instrument panel in disbelief. The face disappeared. "OK!" Outrun declared to no one in particular, unless it was Hot Rod and Leila he was addressing. "Here we go! I'll meet you up ahead, Rod." "Up ahead? How do you plan to get ahead of us in this traffic?" Leila wanted to know. "I don't," Outrun replied. With a burst of acceleration, he lunged forward; a flex of his front suspension threw his front wheels clear of the ground, and with a bump, he was heading up the rear slope of Jens Fochinger's empty car carrier. They were coming up on a gentle right-hand turn, and that was just exactly dead solid perfect. As soon as his thruster's exhaust cone was clear of the traffic behind, Outrun declared: "Full power! Outrun Afterburner: GO!" With a roar, the jet of flame behind Outrun blossomed to nearly the length of Outrun himself, honing down to a nearly invisible blast cone stippled with blue-white shock patterns and edged in a vivid orange. The sudden kick of all this extra thrust hurled the Autobot up the spine of the car carrier, through the barricade at the end and straight off into open space. Outrun flew in a gentle arc, his afterburner still bellowing at full bore, for one long second... ... and then slammed down foursquare in the center of the flat top of the median strip, which was perhaps two inches wider than his wheel track. Without a wobble, he shot off down the center of the median as if there were rails up there, vanishing out of sight into the distance. "... Wow," said Leila. "OK, Rod, I'm gonna clear the Kaltenbrunner Drive ramp for you," said Outrun on Hot Rod's VDU. "Take the exit and we'll either lose 'em in the suburbs or duke it out with 'em someplace nice and open, like the gravel pit outside Belz." "Roger," Hot Rod replied, and Outrun's face disappeared, freeing the whole display for Hot Rod's again. Hot Rod accelerated as best he could. Ironically, the thickening concentration of motorcycles was making it easier, as the mundanes on the highway were now starting to notice that something weird was going on and were better about getting out of the way. "That was incredible driving your friend just did," Leila remarked. "Tell me about it," Hot Rod replied ruefully. "Stunt driving's like a martial art with us Autobots, and Outrun's beyond grand master. That guy can do stuff the rest of us can't even -consider- without crashing. The only Autobot I've ever seen who's better at autocross than Outrun is Wheeljack, and he isn't as fast." On the screen, he shrugged. "I mean, I'm fast, and pretty good in a roadway scrap - but with Outrun around, I have to content myself with being the handsomest one," he added, grinning. Leila rolled her eyes. "Right." "Rodimus, my boy," Outrun's voice crackled over Hot Rod's comm system, "we might have to revise our plan a little." "What for?" Hot Rod started to reply; then he saw for himself. Half a mile ahead, before the ramp he was supposed to take, the highway was blocked by a swarm of the motorcycles - and a pair of squat black-and-silver tanks, parked nose to nose across the highway. Hot Rod didn't know exactly what the tanks' octagon-barrelled main armament was, but given the angry red way the muzzles were glowing, he wasn't anxious to find out. He didn't have to check his rearview sensors to know that still more of the cycles were hemming him in from the back. Up on the median barrier, Outrun had come to a halt by the time Hot Rod caught sight of him. "Outrun, get out of here!" Hot Rod called to him as he skidded to a halt a hundred yards from the roadblock. "They can't block the median." "That's a 'no can do,' good buddy," Outrun replied. "I'm not leavin' your butt out here to get fragged alone." Up on the median, the black and red Autobot suddenly assumed his robot mode, looming up from the concrete with a heavy blaster rifle in his hands. He opened fire on the robots blocking the road. Though his blaster told against the cycles' armor, it didn't seem to have much effect on the tanks, one of which which turned its turret almost lazily and sent a scarlet powerbolt into the concrete barrier below Outrun's feet. The Autobot vanished in a plume of gray dust and black smoke. "OUTRUN!" Hot Rod cried. He stood his ground, facing the squadron of cycles and the pair of tanks, and thought furiously, trying to put his worries over his comrade out of his mind. "OK, Leila," he said, as much to himself as to the Salusian. "I don't have a whole lot of options here. I can't transform; I don't have seats in robot mode, and you wouldn't last five seconds on foot. That cuts out my main weapons. I'm not strong enough to ram one of those tanks, and I don't have much room to maneuver... " The VDU zoomed in on the gap between the prows of the two tanks. "... but I might have just enough." Hot Rod revved his engine a couple of times. Some of the cycles replied in kind. All the standoff was missing, thought Hot Rod ironically, was a stray newspaper to blow across the no man's land between them. "Got any better ideas, lady?" Hot Rod asked. "Not a one," Leila replied, tightening her seat belt. "I guess we'd better try it, then," said Hot Rod. It was at that moment that an incongruous sound reached Hot Rod's audio receptors, over the rumble of his own engine, the low growl of the tanks' power plants, and the sizzling hum of all those idling cycles. The sound was a high-pitched, ululating howl, a sound Hot Rod took a few seconds to identify: the wail of a siren. Oh, Primus, not cops, he thought. Tell me the cops haven't finally decided to take an interest. They don't have any idea what they're dealing with. They'll be slaughtered. Then, through the squadron of cycles, through the gap between the tanks, he saw the siren's owner round the far bend and start approaching, coming the wrong way down the southbound side of the highway, lights blazing. It wasn't a police car. It was a fire engine, a gleaming scarlet ladder-pumper truck, and it was approaching at a remarkable speed for a fire engine. Before Hot Rod could really parse that, the fire engine had reached the blockade line. It was perhaps two feet wider than the gap between the two tanks. The engine added the stentorian blare of its traffic horn to the howl of its siren and the high-pitched scream of its turbine powerplant, but did not slacken its pace for an instant as it plunged straight into that too-narrow gap. There was a terrific crash. The tanks both spun on their treads with a tremendous screeching of steel against concrete, showers of sparks flying up as their massive bulk was scraped sideways along the pavement. Both massive vehicles ended up turned almost 180 degrees, facing outward rather than inward, their inboard foretreads smashed. The fire engine, scarcely scratched, proceeded on through, its blunt prow smashing aside startled cycle-bots. Once clear of the blockade, it swung into a great sliding J-turn, its tires throwing up clouds of grayish smoke as they howled across the road surface. When the turn was nearly completed, it looked to Hot Rod for a moment as though the engine were falling apart. It split at the narrow juncture just behind the square bulk of the cab, its rear two-thirds, ladder turntable and all, shifting form as though falling into a jumble of parts - but a moment later Hot Rod realized they were doing no such thing. The fire engine was transforming. Indeed, a moment later, the cab, which was still sliding sideways on its two large wheels, shouted in a booming voice: "FIRE CONVOY - TRANSFORM!" With that, but again without the familiar sound of transformation, the various sliding parts of what had been the cab of a fire engine resolved themselves as if by magic into the robotic shape of a Transformer - and a big one, at that. Behind him, the aft two-thirds of the truck also finished taking their new shape, that of a small fortification, bristling with weapon emplacements and topped by a blast tower formed from the truck's ladder. The sudden appearance of this interloper had thrown the blockade into total disarray, a situation not at all helped when, only a moment later, Outrun descended from his jet-thruster leap out of harm's way to rake the gang of cycle-bots on the -other- side of the equation with blaster fire before landing lightly atop the median wall, twenty feet from the jagged hole where he had been standing before. "Friend," said Hot Rod to the back of the big red interloper, "I don't know who you are or where you came from, but you -really- just saved my hide. Thanks." "Don't thank me yet," the red Transformer replied without turning to face Hot Rod. His voice, or his manner of speaking perhaps, struck the Autobot as familiar, but he couldn't place why, not in the middle of a crisis. "The woman will be safe in my battle base if you'd like to join the fight." Hot Rod weighed his options for a moment, then slewed himself around and headed for the little fort the back part of the truck had become. "Do you know who this guy is?" Leila asked. "No, but he's obviously an Autobot," Hot Rod replied. "We don't all know each other, you know. Anyway, he's sure not with -these- guys. They aren't subtle enough to try something like this." Leila considered this, then nodded, climbed out, and sprinted to the fort. A couple of the cycles took pot shots at her as she went, but Hot Rod had already transformed, and he leaped to block their blasts with his photon shield outstretched. A moment later and their window of opportunity was gone - she had disappeared through a small door at the base of the central tower. "All -right-," Hot Rod crowed; he put his back to the fort and started blasting, opening up with all six of his forearm blasters. There was no shortage of targets; there had to be a hundred of those cycle droids, swarming around like army ants. Outrun and the big red newcomer were letting them have it too, as the two crippled tanks struggled to pull their noses out of the concrete of median and side barrier and rejoin the battle. "Buddy," said Outrun to Fire Convoy as cycle droids swarmed up the median toward him, "I think maybe you bit off more'n you could chew, joinin' -this- party." "Relax," the newcomer replied, pointing. Beyond the two crippled tanks, back the way the fire engine had come, three more cars were bearing down on the battle scene in a vee formation. At its point was a black and white police speedster, sleek and angular, its lights and siren blazing. Flanking it to the left was a low-slung blue antique Dodge Viper sports car, its windows glazed in gleaming gold; to the right, a silvery-green sports wagon kept pace as well. As the trio swept past the trapped tanks and into the battle itself, they broke formation. The Viper peeled off to the left to back up Hot Rod; the police interceptor broke to the right to help Outrun; and the silver sport ute plunged right into the middle, rounding Fire Convoy's battle base and taking on the bulk of the enemy's rear guard. "Speedbreaker - TRANSFORM!" cried the Viper as it drew even with Hot Rod, and it sprang up into robot mode. Even in the thick of battle, Hot Rod could tell that this "Speedbreaker" was a different breed of Autobot from himself and his fellows back on Cybertron: his robot mode's design was very different, with slender limbs and a sleeker, almost organic flow to its construction. His transformation, too, was unusual - it had an almost reflexive look to it, less... less -mechanical- than those of the Transformers Hot Rod was used to. It was different too from the spastic alienness of the cycle drones' transformations. All these impressions Hot Rod absorbed and catalogued pretty much unconsciously in the second it took Speedbreaker to assume robot mode and fall in alongside him, blasting away at the circling cycle drones with a big bowcaster-like powergun that seemed to be made from his vehicle mode's whole rear fascia. "Howdy," he said, in a cheery, young-sounding voice. "Speedbreaker's the name." "Hot Rod," replied Hot Rod, a bit distractedly. "Glad to know you, Hot Rod," Speedbreaker said. Outrun gathered many of the same impressions of the newcomers as he watched the police interceptor scale the median with a pair of rocket boosters fitted to the tips of its rear wing, then explode into robot mode in the midst of the swarm of cycle drones besieging him with a hearty bellow of "Mach Alert - TRANSFORM!" For just an instant, he thought that this newcomer was Sideswipe's twin brother Red Alert - but that was absurd. Red Alert was director of security for the whole planet Cybertron, he wouldn't be so far away from his post. And despite the similarities in their vehicle modes and names, one sight of Mach Alert in robot mode dispelled any notion Outrun might have had that he could be Red Alert. There was no mistaking the big red Autobot symbol on the new arrival's chest, though, and that was good enough for Outrun. He and the white newcomer traded introductions and pleasantries as they fought the swarming cycle drones. Leila didn't know a great deal about Transformer taxonomy, so the differences between the two Autobots she'd been dealing with right along and the four newcomers didn't strike her particularly. She sat in a nicely padded seat facing a bank of controls and monitors, taking it all in, as the silver sport ute blasted through a knot of cycle drones in vehicle mode before even bothering to shout, "Wild Ride - TRANSFORM!" After it did so, Leila -did- notice a difference between this one and the others. This robot, silver and green with a squat round turret for a head, was asymmetrical. His big legs were the same size, and his right arm was about the correct size for the rest of him, but his left arm was -huge-, made up of the whole front quarter of his vehicle mode, with an enormous, powerful-looking hand at the end. The one called Wild Ride used this massive limb as both shield and bludgeon as he scythed into the ranks of the cycle droid rear guard without bothering to draw any other weapon. The three in the center - Hot Rod, Speedbreaker, and the big red one called Fire Convoy - were nearly back to back in a triangle formation by now, their weapons beginning to glow as they blasted away at the seemingly inexhaustible supply of motorcycle drones. "Got any other tricks up your sleeve?" Hot Rod inquired wryly of Fire Convoy. "A few," Fire Convoy replied, and Hot Rod could have sworn he heard a trace of a smile in the big Transformer's voice; but he went on without much pause, "but I probably won't have to use them." "I wouldn't be so sure of that, boss," said Speedbreaker, pointing. "Look!" One of the two tanks still had a vaguely functional foretread assembly. It had managed to pull itself out of the roadside wall and turn to face the group, and was starting toward them, its cannon glowing angrily. "Cover me," Fire Convoy replied. "You got it," Speedbreaker replied, and blasted the cycle-bots away from his leader's path as Fire Convoy broke from the group and walked deliberately toward the tank. "He's crazy," Hot Rod said, a note of respect in his voice, as he watched the back of the big red Autobot striding toward the challenging tank. The gait was oddly familiar too, and the offhanded way in which he was walking toward danger for his fellows. Speedbreaker grinned and blasted another cycle. The tank stopped, seemed to be sizing Fire Convoy up. Fire Convoy took a couple of steps to the side; the tank's cannon tracked to follow him, letting Hot Rod, Speedbreaker and the battle base out of the line of fire as it did so. Parts of the tank's cannon barrel seemed to be partly transparent, or show some kind of circuitry, anyway; they began to pulse in time with a low, insistent throbbing that came from the tank itself. Out of the corner of his optic, Hot Rod spied the other tank, the one which was irretrievably smashed against the median wall, moving. It couldn't free itself from the wall, but it could turn its turret, and it was doing so, training its own gun on Fire Convoy as well. What Hot Rod couldn't see was the battle base behind him, as the ladder tower inclined and turned so it was trained on the crippled tank. Hot Rod couldn't remember the newcomer's name; when he'd shouted it before transforming, Hot Rod hadn't yet realized his name was what he was saying. He had to settle for yelling, "Hey, look - " Both tanks fired. Fire Convoy leaped into the air just as they did so; their blasts passed harmlessly under him, smashing together into the roadside barrier and pulverizing a section of it to match the place in the median where Outrun had been standing. At the peak of his vertical jump, Fire Convoy let the momentum of his ascent curl him into a ball, and he seemed to hang suspended there for a moment. The red light bars of his truck mode, which jutted up in a V like stubby wings behind his shoulders, pulsed, then glowed solid. "FIREFLASH!" he bellowed, and a double bolt of scarlet energy leaped from his wings and blasted straight into the center of the less-damaged tank. Its armor ruptured like the tinfoil bag on a pan of Jiffy Pop, and with a dull crump, its powerplant cooked off, sending a billowing cloud of black smoke into the sky. As the Fireflash went off, the double cannon at the end of the battle base's ladder tower spoke simultaneously, blasting the -other- tank to scrap in the same instant. By the time Fire Convoy landed on his feet again, the surviving cycle droids had broken off and fled, and the Autobots were alone amid the smoking wreckage of their victory. Hot Rod surveyed the devastation, his hand behind his head, and declared, "Man oh MAN! That was some -great- rescue action. What did you say your name was, pal?" Fire Convoy turned around, facing Hot Rod and Outrun in robot mode for the first time, and both Autobots gasped. "Fire Convoy," said the big red Transformer, but from the lines of his half-masked, yellow-eyed faceplate to his broad, two-paneled chest and silver-grilled abdomen, he looked, to both Hot Rod and Outrun, very much like someone else. "Prime?!" Hot Rod said in disbelief. No - unless he'd been extensively rebuilt, and -very- recently, this wasn't Optimus Prime - but oh, Primus, the resemblance! "No," replied Fire Convoy, a trace of puzzlement in his voice. He drew himself up and made a more formal introduction of himself: "I am Fire Convoy, Transformer, Cybertron Space Patrol. These are my Car Warriors: Speedbreaker; Mach Alert; and Wild Ride." Each of the other newcomers raised a hand as he was introduced. "I'm... uh, I'm Hot Rod," replied Hot Rod, rather lamely, "and this is Outrun. We're Transformers from Cybertron too - Autobots." "Eh?" said Fire Convoy. "What's that you say? 'From' Cybertron?" "How can you be 'from' Cybertron?" Wild Ride asked. "Either you -are- a Cybertron or you're not." "And what's an 'Autobot'?" Speedbreaker wanted to know. Hot Rod and Outrun looked at each other. "Oh, boy," drawled Outrun gloomily. /* Information Society "Seek 200" _Hack_ */ Eyrie Productions, Unlimited presented UNDOCUMENTED FEATURES FUTURE IMPERFECT Transformers: Collision Courses The Berlin Encounter written by Benjamin D. Hutchins featuring Orson Welles as Unicron Scott McNeil as Windrazor John Stephenson as Thundercracker Janeane Garofalo as Stiletto Neil Ross as Hook Alan Rickman as Scorponok Joe Leahy as Razorclaw Michael Bell as Eagle Eye John Ratzenberger as Feedback Keith David as Black Convoy Roger C. Carmel as Motormaster Steve Bulin as Onslaught Judd Nelson as Hot Rod Famke Janssen as Leila Connor Trineer as Outrun Jeff Groteboer as Jens Fochinger Clancy Brown as Fire Convoy Matt Damon as Speedbreaker Andre Braugher as Mach Alert Dwight Schultz as Wild Ride Stiletto and Leila created by Benjamin D. Hutchins Formatting suggestions from Kris Overstreet What's the deal with Fire Convoy and his troops? Who is behind the mysterious drones? How is Big Fire involved? And what about Hook's secret project? Next time on "Transformers: Collision Courses" - BATTLE LINES E P U (colour) 2002