Work Text:
1.
Working on the gas station hadn't been the most exciting of jobs, but it paid - and as such things go, where there is money, there is someone willing to do the work for a paycheck which would, quite definitely, not be nearly enough to actually compensate all the bullcrap that came with dealing with customers.
Yet the bills needed paying, so there Kenny was, the fan whirring back and forth in the late August heat, the AC broken since the time Eisenhower was still president, if he was to make a guess, waiting for the clock to move a little bit faster so he could go home, play on his guitar, sleep, and beginning the cycle again.
He tried smuggling the instrument in, once, and he managed to make it work for a couple of days, before someone snitched on him to the corporate chain, making someone nag his boss, and then in turn being angrily banned from any non-work-related-activities.
But this forgotten by God station was so slow, and there were only so many things he could draw on the magazine cover before admitting that he ran out of ideas.
Maybe if he was like Alex, the songwriter of their little band, he would spend it working on the text of their new songs, but Kenny had already been told that ‘his strengths lay elsewhere’ one too many times to ignore it.
He might not be a smart guy, but there wasn't really room for not catching their drift.
Standing in the middle of a road from nothing to nothing (alright, not exactly, if one was looking for the nearby dam and its attached power plant, or was really interested in getting off road after a couple of miles and drove straight to the ocean, this was a perfect connection for either of those activities) there was very little business on an average day. It was a little unnerving when he was starting, nervous about possibly getting booted off since the location was a clear bust, but after a year, he just accepted that it was more likely he quit than for the station to close down, so his employment was quite secure.
The radio crackled as he took another look through the magazines on the stand, knowing them by heart, before an alert sounded off, interrupting the broadcast - something about giant robots attacking a power plant, to watch out, do not go outside - which made his brain freeze when they said the name of the plant.
It was the nearest one from this station.
On legs made of lead, he made his way to the chair behind the counter and collapsed on it hard, bracing one elbow on the surface so he didn't fall off.
The noises from the radio faded away as he considered the chances of this being some sort of a hoax, or an ad campaign that would later be revealed to be there to sell something absolutely unrelated. He breathed in deep; it was most likely something like that, he concluded, shaking off the pins and needles of anxiety, glaring at his restless foot as he steadily calmed down.
Also, even if it was all true - why would the killer machines take any interest at a dingy gas station?
That's right, there was nothing directly dangerous to him - he would keep his head down, finish in two hours or so, and it would be yet another day.
For another half an hour, he listened to the radio with a self-assured nonchalance, when, just as he was checking the expiry dates on the drinks, the ground shook.
The various tidbits nearest to shelves’ edges slid off, clattering to the floor, while Kenny ducked away from the collapsing tower of cans he had arranged out of boredom earlier that day.
The tremors of the earth were getting slightly less intense, which made him consider for a moment a possible earthquake, but then, the loud, angry sounds, those of an argument, joined them, shattering that option's validity.
Cursing his curiosity, he crept to the window and chanced a look outside.
What he saw made him immediately hide back.
“Oh my god…” he started to mumble, words clashing into another as they morphed into a continuous line of prayer.
Who could fault a guy for being less than totally cool about giant robots from space being at their place of work?
Christ, those things were huge!
He was so occupied with his panic that he didn't notice the conflict outside had grown quiet, and only shrieked when the wall he was hiding by had been torn into, glass shattering as the window broke, making him jump up and scamper to run wherever he could.
“Hahahahhahaha!” came a gleeful laugh from behind him, and the sheer sound of it made Kenny speed up despite the burning pain in his thighs and feet.
“Run, fleshling!” Another voice joined in, equally amused in his desperate escape, and was echoed by some more, the jeers growing more malicious, “Run if you want to live!”
He made it to the nearest shelter he could find, which in this case was just a very big boulder, and plastered himself to the back of it, as low as he could, and clamped his hand over his mouth, struggling to put his breathing under control.
For an eternity, he expected them to appear from the edge of his vision, to finish their job, but it seemed the stars had been on his side today, as no loud steps nor laughing had approached his position to deliver his end.
He gathered some of his bravery (he wasn't a total coward!) and, keeping himself close to the ground, peeked to check in case they were just aiming to play a game with him, waiting for his guard to lower so they could squash him like a bug - but they were all focused on the big, grey one.
“This establishment belongs to the Decepticons now!” the robot, or a Decepticon, whatever it was, announced smugly, receiving a couple of cheers from those around him, before pointing at a boxy blue one.
“Soundwave, prepare the cubes!” he ordered, and gestured at the pumps, “Drain this station dry!”
Soundwave at once began to… conjure? create? cubes straight from his chest, and the rest at once got to filling them with gas as their leader commanded.
“I'm so not getting paid for this shift…” Kenny whispered as he watched them fly away with piles of those cubes filled to the brim, and wondered if the landline was still intact so he could call his boss to tell him they just got robbed by alien robots from space.
2.
Somehow, not a week later, with parts of the fresh construction still settling, he was back at his usual shift.
He wasn't going to pretend he understood everything when his manager tried to explain to him the specifics, but if he got it right, there has been some weird insurance situation that was playing into their favour - so, not only he wasn't docked any pay, but also the location has been patched up instead of being scrapped because this one incident paid off really well.
Kenny had no idea where they got an insurer who covered ‘extraterrestrial theft’, yet if his boss was still paying his wages, then it had to be true.
The next few days passed as normal, but when shadows fell on his back as he put the new delivery of tires up on the side of the building, he pretty quickly connected the fact to the thud that made him sway on his feet, and looked up.
The boxy one, Soundwave, and a bunch of smaller guys, loomed over the station, and one of these shorties pointed at him, clearly pissed off.
“It's you again?”
The question had, by complete coincidence, echoed the same thing in his mind - and had, also, managed to worm its way onto his tongue, resonating at the same time as when the robot spoke up.
He looked away. “Jinx, hahaha…” he said nervously, eyeing the exits while calculating his odds at making it out of the open before they tried grabbing him, while his fight or flight response tried to settle in a survival tactic that wouldn't get him in more trouble than he was.
The alien shot him a confused look, before shaking it off and tapping his foot. “Why are you here?”
At the demanding tone, his brain had finally chosen its path:
resigned acceptance.
Whatever was happening, it was happening.
At least they weren't customers.
Kenny sighed loudly, and shook his head. “Well, this is still my job, somehow,” he replied, scratching his cheek, “apparently my boss has some good insurance for theft, I don't know,” he shrugged, “and since you're stealing this, obviously, and I'm not getting deducted for the loss, so…” he admitted, letting the implication hang in the air.
The robots looked between themselves, his casual answer not agreeing with them at first, but he could see Soundwave tilt his head a little, which was sort of promising.
Nobody shouted or shot him - that was even better.
He put hands in his pockets. “I still have a few hours on shift,” he said, turning towards the entrance to the station, and pointed at it with his head, “should I run and hide for my life?”
“That would be the expectation,” came the monotone, yet clear response, startling him; up close it was making his brain feel like he's been tuned wrongly, receiving static, but the message still got through.
This was a little trippy.
He braced himself for another uncomfortable experience, hoping he wouldn't have to get used to it, as he dove into the heart of the matter:
“So… are you gonna shoot, or…?”
The tall robot watched him in silence, and his small cronies did the same, awaiting the decision.
“... Will someone come work here if you die?”
Kenny felt a shock travel up his spine as he kept a flinch down.
It wasn't fun to know they considered killing him, sure, but it didn't look like they weren't going to be unreasonable about it.
He thought about it for a bit. “Probably,” he shared his thoughts on the matter, knowing what he's experienced already, “my boss doesn't see this as a loss, remember? So he will get someone to work here again.”
When he said it, the certainty of this assessment went up considerably; it did sound like his boss, given how he's treated this entire situation as a turn of luck for the better.
No way he wouldn't get a replacement for him before the ink settled on his death certificate.
He looked up at the odd crowd around the place. “I can keep quiet,” he promised, voice more matter-of-fact than it had business sounding, “I will tell them you threatened me and all that.”
There - a solid proposal for mutual cooperation.
Not at all a plea for his life based on a rather pathetic state of its worth.
Soundwave didn't say anything, but if he squinted, he could swear he noticed a tiniest nod before the alien moved towards the pumps, dismissing him from the conversation - and, by sparing his life, stating his decision loud and clear.
“You humans are so weird,” one of the small guys said finally, the blue metal flashing when he followed after his friends, or whatever relationship bound their little group of nightmares.
Kenny waved at him as he took off to the inside of the station, settling to hide in the back room until they took off again. “Gotta make that dollar, you know?”
The response was a frustrated grunt, but he would take it over aggression any day.
3.
He had a couple of customers pass through before the ground shook.
He grabbed the can of coke he had on the table without looking up from the crossword he was butchering, and only hissed in displeasure when he heard the sound of metal meeting the floor.
So, the polish stand was still too close to the edge, huh. He would have to fix it.
The door of the station opened, showing the familiar face of Rumble, who was sporting a much more serious expression than he had seen in weeks, which made him put down his pen and look expectantly at the bot.
“Tremble in fear- oh, it's you,” the alien stopped himself midsentence, dropping the attitude and swapping it right back to frustration as he scowled.
“Where were you yesterday?”
“Jury duty,” Kenny replied, not very pleased with the summons either, but he leaned back on his chair, hands placed behind his neck as he regarded the robot with mild curiosity.
“Heard you stopped by, though,” he brought up, having asked the drummer from their band if he would be able to cover one shift for him this once, not wanting to lose on a paycheck for that day, “Jay was a bit surprised when you left so quickly, he said you didn't even take anything.”
The fact that he also got a fifty for the bet he made when his band members called him a liar about what happened at his job on a regular basis was a sweet, sweet bonus.
“Yeah, we weren't expecting someone else,” Rumble explained, a tad defensively, which was bordering on being bizarrely hilarious, “so we didn't really prepare anything special.”
Kenny let his arms part. “Was that why you did that ‘tremble in fear’ bit?” he asked, mimicking monsters he's seen on late night TV, which got him a scoff out of the bot.
If he didn't know better, he would think the robot was blushing from embarrassment.
“Leave us a note next time,” the alien demanded, not replying directly - confirming the truth - and the man let him be, leaning back on the counter.
“Sure, sure,” he added pacifyingly, picking up his pen again, ready to carry on with his day.
To his surprise, Rumble didn't just leave, staring at him instead - which was a little off-putting.
He looked back up, right into the red optics.
Still no sign of going away.
“So…” he started slowly, promptingly, nodding at Frenzy who decided to come in too, and hoping the rest of the smaller guys don’t follow inside; the high ceiling had been a saving grace for these guys, but they had very little awareness of their peripherals, making him do a lot more cleaning up than he wanted to each time they walked in.
Rumble’s shoulders hiked up. “Well, you better not call anyone-” he began to threaten, and Kenny just waved it off before it could get more intense.
“Yeah, yeah, I’m properly scared, promise,” he acknowledged, before tapping the newspaper, “you mind if I just continue with this?”
The two living machines looked at him before bracing their hands on their hips, irritated.
“You're making this awkward,” Frenzy noted stiffly, and his friend nodded in agreement.
The only human in the building pointed to the wall behind him. “I can turn around?”
Rumble actually growled at that in a manner that made Kenny briefly question if Ravage hasn't sneaked in (he knew a cat when he saw one, and it only took so many cans being pushed slowly off the edge of the shelf while keeping eye contact to be sure), but the other bot just narrowed his optics.
“That's not really helping.”
The man sighed, letting the pen drop as he stood up, getting from behind the counter, sitting on its edge instead.
“Well, last time I went to hide in the back, I locked myself in, remember?” he recalled, drumming his fingers on the hard surface, and looked straight at the red one.
“You had to pry the door open, which, granted, gave more credit to the attack story,” he admitted - his boss had told him it's been a ‘fantastic detail’ that ‘shook up the expectations’, which Kenny figured out stood for ‘insurer is getting pissed off but this made their case weaker, so good job!’, or so had he interpreted from within the usual nonsense - before raising an eyebrow, “but I'd rather not have to repeat that.”
“You don't sound afraid at all anymore,” Rumble muttered quietly as they stood in the middle of the floor, hunched a bit to not scrape the ceiling.
He watched the two, checking if they finished their little posturing, but they didn't look like they did, more akin to a pair of high schoolers caught in their bluff, so he thought, as the oldest in the room (whatever mentally they were, he could feel he was somehow more of an adult, which was a right kick in the nuts at the age of twenty-seven) that it was only right to let them know why things were the way they were.
He pointed at Frenzy.
“I saw you trip over the tire stack last time, and stuck your leg in one for more than an hour.”
Rumble let out a snicker, but he quickly stopped as the human's finger moved to him.
“You got the weirdest kitten-like hiccups after you drink diesel, and you still haven't figured out the connection to stop drinking it - you're welcome, by the way.”
Kenny shared that comment mostly because the novelty has worn off.
He was a nice bloke - it wasn't the other's fault they hadn't gotten enough brains between them to form a thought.
He waved his arm towards the front of the building. “Your bosses argued about who gets to use the last bucket of polish by throwing hands and collapsing the power line.”
If they didn't go straight into the catfight, he would have told them he could just get some more shipped to the location; instead he had to organise everything with a flashlight, pen, and paper as the inventory check still had to be carried out and logged in some way, power availability notwithstanding.
“You don't feel very scary any longer,” he noted, looking up as he searched for a word, “more like… regulars.”
The duo reset their optics at the statement, faces full of bafflement, but the more he mulled it over, he didn't feel that the categorization was in any way incorrect.
Given the remote location, these aliens were his only regulars.
One of said aliens shook his head. “What a load of scrap,” he said, already taking steps to leave the building, gesturing for the other to follow.
“See you next week,” the man called after them, waving goodbye, laughing a little at the surrealism of his life.
Even he could hear in his voice that he had no doubt about the next visit - and had no worry whatsoever related to that.
“Yeah, yeah, bye-” Rumble cut himself off, hand half raised as the robot had begun to complete the social interaction out of habit, and directed at him a nasty stare, upset to be proven wrong within seconds.
Kenny watched as the bot petulantly pushed the newspaper stand, grumbling “Fragger,” and he sped up, following after Frenzy - escaping the fiasco of the intimidation tactic they presumably expected to deploy today.
Still, he mused, getting it right back up and putting the magazines up without the hurry, that it was a mild revenge.
He had seen a customer punch the fridge so hard the glass cracked and then chewed him out for getting hurt, claiming they didn't notice the door, threatening to sue, and then another lady got pissed off when he refused to take her gym membership card as a form of payment, prodding him with her pointy nails the entire time.
Somehow, the huge robots were less of a pain in the neck at this point than most of the humans coming around.
This was a little bit depressing, wasn't it?
4.
Kenny looked towards the door, the chime of it alerting him to incoming customers as usual, but, to his honest surprise, Frenzy didn't even grunt when he dragged himself inside, wordlessly laying face down, right there in the middle of the floor.
He wondered idly if he was so accustomed to the light tremors (which got much less intense over the weeks that passed by, thankfully) that he didn't even notice when the company had arrived on site, but it was really rather quiet; he stepped around the robot, not getting even an earful for getting too close without asking, and looked outside.
There were some other Decepticons, sure, but they hadn't been doing more than just… sitting around, not speaking to one another. Megatron and Starscream weren't arguing, just staring, which was what made him realise that something must have gone especially bad.
Silently, he backtracked inside, and crouched by the bot's head.
“How did it go?” he prodded testingly, to gauge the other's willingness to talk about whatever it was that happened.
A reply came in a mumble, a resigned “Don't ask,” that made him just nod back, not prying any longer.
“Alright,” he acknowledged aloud, assuming the mech's vision was limited where it was, the visor flush with the tiles, and got up, giving the alien some space.
For a few minutes, nothing was happening or moving within the store, the electric lights above them buzzing faintly.
“It's getting cold.”
Kenny's remark made Frenzy flinch at its suddenness, and the robot turned his head to look at him properly; from his expression it wasn't clear if he wanted to press for an explanation or to tell him to piss off, and this indecision made him falter.
The man didn't mind either way, aiming for any sort of a reaction, as he pretended to not notice the red optics on him, looking out into the late afternoon behind the window, the autumn cutting into daylight more and more now. He pondered the outside for a moment longer, as if it held something more interesting than a couple of rocks, before glancing back towards his visitor.
“You guys got antifreeze, right?”
His question got Frenzy to roll onto his side, pulling himself into a slouched, cross legged sitting position instead, which made him still a little shorter than the human in front of him. “Why?”
Taking the movement for a good sign, he pushed onwards. “Do you guys get snow on your planet?”
“Snow?” the other repeated after him, before shaking his head. “No, but isn't this normally just at the poles?”
Kenny was about to clarify this matter, but the bot's vision flashed, brightening properly for the first time since he arrived, and his voice showed some more emotion as he gestured towards the door. “Also, don't mention it around Screamer - he's still a little twitchy about his old buddy ditching him after we saved his ungrateful aft from remaining an ice cube forever.”
The man felt his brows shoot up. “He had a buddy?”
His disbelief got him a grin out of the robot. “Shocking, I know.”
Laughing a little, putting this piece of information to the side, he got back to what he wanted to clear up. “Still, you're wrong,” he pointed out, and tapped on the side of his leg, the one he broke a couple of times in his life (the fact he never broke any other limb made his mother even more irritated with each instance - she didn't appreciate his suggestion to start tattooing tally marks on it to keep track, though), “I can feel it in my knee, the weather is about to change.”
The alien looked between his face and his knee, the plain doubt written in bold letters over his own faceplates.
Kenny shrugged, living long enough to trust the signs from his body to be what they were, and pulled a couple of bottles of antifreeze from the shelf.
“Take that back with you, seriously,” he requested, putting them down by the other's legs.
“It better not be poison,” Frenzy countered, but his hands already moved to take the offering, putting it wherever these guys stored their stuff, and started to gather himself up onto his legs.
“You will thank me later,” the man replied in a knowing tone, glad to see the spark return in the other's optics.
The poster they had hanging in the small staffroom kept on reminding him that these guys were the enemy.
Maybe he should have felt a little conflicted at what he was doing.
He thought about it for a moment longer, and ran a hand over his hair, snorting.
Nah.
5.
The ground shook in a crescendo, the approach of multiple pairs of legs coming his way, and Kenny decided to go meet the bastards directly for once.
It would be good to have some fresh air in some of the faint sunlight before he'd be stuck in the dark for the next few hours - and on such a rare occasion that they didn't just land straight on the ground on the point, but walked, it felt like something special might be going on.
“You guys seem to be in a jolly mood,” he called out, shrugging on his jacket, and bristled at the cold; the coke he swiped from the shelf was not warm enough to stave off the chill from his hands, he hid one immediately in one of his pockets as he nodded at the Cassettes that were approaching fast, ahead of the group that laughed in the distance.
“Yeah,” Rumble said, grinning, “we got a good one in yesterday, so Megatron got us a day off from raiding to celebrate.”
The man looked back at the crowd, and noticed that they were in much less damaged shape than the usual post battle scrapiness. This explained the earlier hour, too, though it did leave him a little confused.
“So is this not a raid?” he asked aloud, chiding internally at himself for sounding surprised at not being a witness to yet another theft, but the sentiment remained - why would they come if they weren't aiming to rob the station?
The robot nodded, and yet, a moment later he looked around critically. “Well,” he started, watching the pumps, “we will probably take quite a lot today,” he admitted realistically, and snickered, rubbing his hands, “but this time it's gonna be a bit more fun.”
“More fun?” Kenny at least didn't step back at these words, giving the other the benefit of the doubt.
Frenzy chose to join in. “Come on, human,” he motioned around, the group finally close enough to get out the details of the conversations, palm open invitingly, “you're gonna celebrate with the best today.”
The rest of the crowd was already settling around, taking spots around the building (or on top of it, in some cases, if Kenny's eyes were correctly spying Laserbeak's form already perching there). Their movements were careless, but the grip on the pumps had been much more controlled than usual even as they started to fill up their ‘drinks’.
It felt like watching a party starting, not an alien invasion, which, technically, it still was.
He turned towards the two Cassettes. “Do I get a choice?” he asked, more out of curiosity than any concern to his safety, not after not being killed so many times, but the red flashes of the visors was much more emotional than he would have expected.
“Do you not want to hang out?” Rumble sounded a little upset saying that, plating slightly ruffled, he could read these minute shifts much better now, with practice, and crossed his arms.
“It feels odd to leave you out at this point,” Frenzy grumbled, rubbing his chin, “you're almost a part of the team.”
The man didn't expect such a claim. “Will your boss mind?” he asked, not specifying which one he meant, letting the duo decide how to interpret it.
“Nah,” Rumble denied right away, not even looking to check, but with the addition of “he said it's cool,” Kenny suspected they had asked before coming in about this, so they knew the answer well.
It was oddly nice of them to think about him like this - he didn't expect them to do so.
“He said because you're not a snitch, you can choose to come or be dragged along as a honorary human hostage,” Frenzy clarified, announcing the last bit with a question hidden in the intonation, making it sound like he was actually given a say into which version of events he would like to choose that would lead him to the same result.
That got a chuckle ripped out of his lungs, because yes, this made more sense..
“You're not very good at this,” he shook his head, but he also raised the bottle, nodding at the others, even receiving a few greetings back to his astonishment, “but alright.”
With the threat in place, he had a passable alibi - the fact that he got to party with the aliens was nothing more than a more grounded version of being snatched up by an UFO.
+1
Kenny walked around the corner of the building, eyes narrowed as the one clear sky day had arrived on the one day when he would have gladly accepted the greys.
He was never going to drink again.
He had been waiting for the Alka-Seltzer to kick in, having found some stashed in his car, but it didn't seem to do the trick as it should; still, it took the edge off, enough that he might be able to survive the shift.
If he got lucky, there would be no customers around today, and he could nap a little.
God, sleep sounded heavenly-
A sound of a large group of vehicles in the distance smashed his meagre hopes to bits, and he observed them through the thin slits of his eyelids battling against the way-too-bright sun.
It was a rather odd collection, though - a large truck, some sports cars, a few off-roaders, and even a yellow beetle…
Oh, look, there was even a cop car-
His brain still had to be drunk, because after a mumbled “Oh no…” he raced back to the corner, yelled “It's the cops!” and pushed over one of the smaller stacks of tires, shouting:
“Scram!”
A more aware part of him suggested that, perhaps, these were just customers - this was the one gas station for miles - but before the thought properly registered, one of the cars began to shift, others following along.
Soon, he could see another group of robots.
One of them, a guy with a blue visor and an easy smile, was even waving him down, pacifying. “Hey, easy, easy!”
The pleasant lilt of his voice made Kenny feel a little less pissed off at acting like an idiot.
But, well, without the station being reduced to bits and reported for raiding, seeing the police was never on his ‘good to see’ bingo card.
“Oh god, sorry, thought you were cops,” he said, taking a deep breath, and shouting back over his shoulder:
“False alarm!”
The one who had been a cop car seconds before approached from the side, watching him closely. “What an odd reaction,” he muttered, hands on hips, but the blue visor bot just nudged him in his side, while a larger, red and blue robot - oh, that had to be the Optimus guy, he saw him on the news - stepped forward, almost radiating ease and calm.
“Don't worry,” he said gently, motioning behind himself, “we're the Autobots.”
Kenny didn't think a snicker and a “No shit” would be a polite reply, and he refused to roll his eyes too, yet the need to point out the obviousness was getting harder to ignore the more he bit his cheek.
God, he's been spending too much time around the Cassettes if he's been having these sorts of problems - he was too old for this behavior, even if he was too hungover to think properly.
“We've been told this station gets often raided by the Decepticons,” Optimus continued to explain, “the insurance company asked us to investigate.”
Now, he had to laugh - that would check out, they had been robbing them blind with their continued operations. He suspected whoever gave his boss this package never expected extraterrestrials to be a real threat or they would have been added as the usual exemption; as it was, somebody's plot to get money for an insurance that was never to be used had backfired spectacularly into their faces.
He couldn't bring himself to sympathize, though.
The red and blue bot titled his head at his reaction, but instead of digging into it, he just asked:
“Have you seen anyone around lately?”
Kenny was about to shrug, when steps caught his ear and he turned back towards the corner of the building.
Frenzy's tired face showed at the edge, rubbing the visor - he probably just woke up, and, man, these guys party hard, not gonna lie - and he stared dumbly at the group.
Autobots stared back, equally mystified.
Someone moved, shuffling awkwardly, and it seemed to have been enough for the Cassette's brain to kick in.
He turned on his heel, screaming “It's the Bots!” and grabbed the entire rack of tires, sending them flying everywhere.
“Scram!”
‘Right,’ the man in the middle thought, ‘cops would have probably been less of a problem.’
The commotion that ensued, with the half-conscious Decepticons retreating while cursing the entire time as the Autobots gave chase, shooting each other with abysmal aim, some of it denting the building, left Kenny alone in the middle of a mess.
He stood in the same morning sun that annoyed him before, watching the group distance itself further out, towards the ocean, and grinned.
He got back inside the mostly-intact structure, got to the phone, and called the real cops.
The station has been robbed, after all - and this time, the damage wasn't just the Decepticons.
Oh, the insurance was going to love this.