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With a strained smile, Bumblebee accepted the highball glass passed his way. The man who had approached him with two glasses held in one hand leaned in far too close for his liking, practically a hairbreadth away from knocking right into his projection. "A rum and coke, for the lady sitting all by herself."
"Thank you," he pretended to curl his fingers around the glass, panic surging through in his computer as he watched the stranger sit beside him at the two-top. "You shouldn't have." Like… really shouldn't have.
"But how could I not?" He exclaimed with a shrug. His combed-back black hair shone in the low lighting of the bar. With a smug smile of his own, he brought his glass to his lips, "You looked in need of company."
It rankled somewhere within to know that Bumblebee had indeed been playing into his chauvinist worldview, sitting alone with the hope that somebody would approach.
In truth, Bumblebee had come to this bar practically religiously since swapping over to the nearby safe-house as per Optimus' orders. After so many years in solitude, Bumblebee craved activity as much as he craved companionship. The occasional run-in with a human out of the streets was great and all but it would never scratch the itch of those days spent on the Arc in the rec room with his friends. This bar got close enough that Bumblebee frequented it more than reasonably he should have.
But considering he didn't have any money of his own, and couldn't actually partake in drinking whilst in this form, Bumblebee… Well, he wouldn't say he lured humans into buying him drinks, but he definitely tolerated the presence of more than a few outright losers for the sole purpose of not getting kicked out.
Better him than somebody else, he figured. A win-win… of sorts.
"Bottoms up," Bee said with a tight pull of his face, dragging the glass closer to the edge of the table. Like all the other times before, he had zero intention of 'drinking' and would leave it untouched for the rest of the night.
In contrast, the man swallowed generously from his own glass. He set it down with a sharp clink, an interested glint to his eyes as he… waited in anticipation.
"More of a whiskey fan?" he asked curiously when Bee still hadn't interacted with the glass beyond the bare minimum.
It wouldn't have been conducive for his disguise to frown, but Bee really wanted to purse his lips at that moment. Normally, those that bought him a drink didn't tend to stick around. Sure, they usually hassled him for—what they didn't know was—a spoofed number, but after Bee sent a 'confirmation text' proving it real they tended to walk off more than satisfied with just that.
Not this guy, though. It looked as though he fully intended on ruining Bee's evening by providing his generous companionship.
"Actually, I'm not a fan of alcohol at all," he said easily, gesturing toward the stage all the way at the back of the bar. Bobbing his head slightly, Bumblebee smiled, "I usually come for the music more than anything else."
On a casual Tuesday night, his newest haunt usually found itself light in the way of patrons. Which left plenty of room for him to slip in, sit and look pretty while he waited for someone to buy him a drink, and then he could spend the rest of the night listening to the live entertainment. Were it any more crowded, his illusion would fall apart in an instant—a human pushing their tipsy friend into his non-existent 'back' was all it would take for them to realize he wasn't actually taking up a seat.
At least, not in the way that an actual human could.
Bumblebee really shouldn't have been playing around with his cover like this, but what Optimus didn't know couldn't hurt him. Plus, if Prime ever found out—which he doubted, but in case he did—Bee could claim that he was merely researching more into the social aspect of Earth culture. Surely Prime would appreciate his efforts? He wanted oh so badly for his lovely Autobots to adapt to Earth, blegh.
"Hmm, but it would be such a waste if you didn't even take a sip," he insisted.
Unable to express his displeasure at the pushy attitude, and even more unwilling to cause a scene, Bumblebee had no other choice but to display an awkward look on his projection and acquiesce. "I guess a little couldn't hurt."
Interacting with objects was always an interesting challenge whilst in this form. The miniature drones that he used for broad actions like pushing open a door or pumping gas into his tanks never required finesse. They weren't really designed for anything more than providing reasonable cover for a short period of time, but the drones were equipped with anti-gravity tech that theoretically allowed him to pick things up. Nothing crazy but, doable.
Drinking was another obstacle altogether. Yet… Bumblebee would manage, he always did.
Slowly, he used both of his hands to grasp the cocktail and lift it up. All his other sensors dulled as Bumblebee put his focus in pulling off this trick of the light—even the ones in his actual frame, parked in alt mode not even a few parking spaces down the street faded into the background.
Bringing the glass to his lips, he carefully tilted it up. The liquid shifted down, reaching where an actual human's mouth would open up and swig from the glass. But if Bumblebee did that now, the liquid would splash down instantly revealing him, so instead he projected his lips to close around the glass deeply—not settling at the rim, but as far as they reasonably could go without it coming off as strange.
Hugging the glass in this way, it appeared as though he supped the honey brown mixture. Really, it sat hidden from sight and when he pulled away as though savoring it, his 'sip' would rejoin the liquid surrounding his mouth without him needing to 'open' his lips again. His throat 'flexed'—swallowing what had never been consumed in the first place.
For extra pizzazz, Bumblebee edited his form so that his upper lip glistened from contact with the cocktail as he pulled the glass away. And after depositing its back down on the table, he brought up a hand to 'wipe' away the remnants of the drink and returned to his previous file.
"Like I thought— Not for me," he announced with a cheeky grin. Now, Bumblebee wouldn't need to 'drink' any more of it and the man would hopefully leave him alone.
"You didn't find the taste to your liking?" he asked, resting his chin on his palm.
"Nope!" With the threat of the drink done and handled with, Bumblebee could dedicate a minute amount of processing power into observing him. At least, more than he had already written him off as his current sucker for the night.
He had a rectangular head shape, with a very strong chin and even stronger cheekbones. He was clean shaven, well groomed, but dark rings sat underneath his eyes that almost broke through that façade of his being put together. The man looked… unwell, if Bumblebee had to place it.
Sickly.
Although, as his cameras shifted over to adjust his combined reticles on the tied off end of his dress shirt, perhaps Bumblebee shouldn't judge too quickly.
Sympathy put aside, that didn't change the fact that the man had been acting downright creepy to him and he would rather he go already.
As if to prove his point, a pervasive leer crossed his face as he leaned closer to Bee. "Nothing… off about it?"
"Not particularly," he muttered, computer whirling as he tried to deduce the meaning of his words. "It's like I mentioned, I'm not a fan of alcohol."
Thankfully, he receded back to his seat proper. "I see."
Tense now, Bumblebee waited to see if he had anything else to say, but his attention dragged over to band. After about… five or so minutes, Bumblebee allowed himself to relax too. Getting absorbed back into the music, he figured that he'd leave after the next two or three songs if the man didn't take a hint and skedaddle.
"You know, we've actually met before."
"We have?" Confused, Bumblebee couldn't stop from letting it bleed into his projection. He wracked through his processor to try and face-match the man with anyone that he had encountered whilst out and about in this form, but failed. Again, his drones weren't really designed for this level of processing power and the dim lighting in the bar didn't help either.
"I don't suppose you remember me," he continued.
"I just moved into town," lies baked in partial-truth were always the most solid, and besides Bumblebee had been in such a rush to establish himself that he didn't doubt that he'd left an impression on more than a couple of the humans in the area, "So I've been all over the place. I'm sorry about that…?"
"Meridian." With a name to the face, Bumblebee noted it for later. Maybe the main computer in his actual frame would have a larger database to cross-reference. "Dr. Meridian."
"Meridian," he accepted the name easily. "I don't suppose you'd want to give me a hint about where we ran into each other? Was it at the park?" Bee didn't worry nearly as much about lounging in his projection in open spaces like that. "Or the grocery mart all the way down on Main St.?"
"Not at all. It was in San Francisco, some off years ago now." Alarmed, Bumblebee's projection stiffened up—unnatural and more akin to a default rest position that a 3D model would have. Reconnecting back to his drones so that the stillness wouldn't have been noticed, he laughed uncomfortably.
"It's been a long time since I was in San Francisco, I think you have me mistaken for somebody else."
"No, I'm fairly certain that I have the right person. Or, would I be wrong in assuming that, Bumblebee?"
All music died. Not literally, of course, but it might as well have as every single component to his disguise locked in on Meridian and flooded out useless external input.
Meridian watched him carefully. At a distinct disadvantage, Bumblebee gave up any attempt at keeping his projection within the range of realistic human mannerisms.
"Who are you," he demanded, face blank but voice aggressive.
"Surely you haven't forgotten my name already–"
Interrupting him, Bumblebee demanded, "State your affiliation. Are you with GHOST?"
"Not any more, but at one point, yes." A heated glare seared into Bumblebee from the man, as Meridian snarled. "Does the Battle of the Bay ring any bells?"
Damn it. Solus forbid, Bumblebee remembered it well. A nightmare of a battle with–
His eyes darted back to the man's missing arm.
–too many friendly fire casualties at the hands of the Autobots against their human comrades.
"I'm sorry," he apologized, regaining some slight composure so as to puppet the illusions head down. "That day was horrible for all us, but… Worse for some others than most. We should've been more careful and there's no amount of apologies that I can give you now that would make up for what happened."
"Your attempts at remorse would have been charming at one point," Meridian said. "But unfortunately for you, I'm in no mood to entertain them. I've come here for other matters entirely."
"And… those would be?"
"For one, determining if my suspicions were true and that you truly were the presumed dead Autobot scout," Meridian chuckled. "As you can imagine, I would know a thing or two about that. Faking your death, I mean. Although, your disguise was quite convincing— I hadn't know it possible for you Cybertronians to be able to pantomime tangibility in such an impressive and… promising way."
Not only had Bumblebee blown his own cover, but he had just blown the lid off of one of the Autobot's closely guarded secrets—second only to their transformation cogs.
Optimus hadn't wanted any of their allies to know what they were fully capable of. He claimed that it would frighten them, finding an uncanny eeriness from falsified human projections, but Bumblebee knew better:
Optimus didn't want to lose the element of surprise.
An ace up his sleeves, as the humans would phrase it. Prime never failed to think ahead like that and here Bumblebee had just screwed it up for him. Some cavalry scout he was.
"What gave me away?" he asked, not because he particularly cared but because he needed to know what flaw he had revealed. Bumblebee wasn't sure how this night or interaction would end, but if he could send a warning out to Optimus… Maybe he'd forgive him for his selfishness.
"Not much. As I said you're very convincing. However, you haven't accounted for one thing." Meridian tapped a finger against the counter top. "By this point, the Rohypnol I slipped into your drink should have taken effect." Meridian slipped out of his seat as warnings continued to blare throughout his internal computer, practically blue-screening at the deluge of information coming at him. "Your words are too succinct, your movements too coordinated— Well, they had been up till the mask of mimicry slipped off."
"You– You drugged me?" Bumblebee stammered, a strange fear constricting his systems. He had never been put in a position such as this and the lack of prior experience to draw upon scared him.
"Of course not, after all, you're not real," Meridian slipped around the back of his projection and leaned his head close to Bumblebee's. "You made quite the show however, but these sensors of yours," he reached around and grasped at Bee's hand, crushing the drone located there. His fingers glitched, the presence of an object clipping through them breaking through his illusion, before the hand disappeared entirely. "Lack humanity."
In all his years of life, Bumblebee hadn't ever felt so uncertain. "What are you going to do to me?"
"The question isn't about what I'm going to do to you," he whispered back. "But rather what I have already done."
Meridian snatched his hand away, leaving behind the crumpled and twitching drone so that he could pull out a make-shift controller from his pants pocket. Before Bumblebee could react and abandon his drones altogether—casting away the projection without a care for who could glimpse an entire person vanishing—he pressed down on one of the buttons.
Instantly, his actual body jolted in an excruciating amount of pain. It centered from underneath his shell, as small mechanical creatures dropped down from his undercarriage. The speaker attached to his project glitched out, a high-pitched static noise breaking through the music.
Were he cognizant, he would have felt his grasp over his projection flicker in and out of reality as his computer thrashed in agony, but Bumblebee could do little else but succumb to the wave of numbness that flooded throughout his frame.
And then… Awareness ripped away from him entirely.
…
…
…
Meridian stood alone in the bar, staring distastefully at the collection of small drones that clattered to the ground as the Transformers' disguise collapsed. He brought a boot up and crushed the rest of them underneath his heel, not leaving a single one intact so as to prevent Cybertronian technology from falling into the hands of the imbeciles inhabiting this bar. Only someone of his intellect would have been able to collect the broken pieces to study or repair them, but he doubted the chances of that.
A few patrons gasped out in shock as he stalked by to the exit, not entirely comprehending the display that occurred at all. One minute a young lady sat at the table and the next she dissipated into the night. Undoubtedly, it would make the news of this dreary town but it would die there. Croft and her lackeys would ensure that.
He ignored them all even as they clambered to ask what had happened and made his way out into the street. Down the block sat an idling yellow car, engine rumbling obediently.
Meridian approached, grasping at the driver's side door and pulling it open. The lack of resistance sent a thrill down his spine, truly. Running a hand across the roof of the car, he informed his newest Cybertronian pet, "We have much work to do. I'm sure you'll be delighted to rejoin a few of your adversaries—now comrades—back at my lab."
Entering, Meridian couldn't help himself from cruelly cocking a brow at the dashboard. His dutiful Arachnamechs scuttled out from under the car and tumbled into the vehicle as he pulled the door closed,
It had been too easy, offensively so. For a scout acclaimed, he should have picked up on the approaching mechs. Perhaps his plan had worked a little too well, tripping up the Transformers by pressuring him into 'drinking' but still the end goal was the same.
Meridian now had a formidable Autobot under his control, and better yet…
His experimental mind-shell had been lodged beneath the alt of this pathetic scout. Meaning… When Bumblebee transformed into root mode, well, there'd be no undoing this possession over the scout.
After all, what better place to protect his control device than for it to sit nestled within the interior chassis of one of his most hated enemies? Meridian could barely wait for all that they would achieve with him in command instead of that Prime.