Tales of the Intermezzo - Rush Hour
A Transformers Universe Story
copyright 2007 by Dave Van Domelen
based on properties owned by Hasbro
===========================================================================
"intermezzo - n. A brief entertainment between two acts of a play."
- American Heritage Dictionary
As Fireshot drove down the ten-lane superhighway along the western
coast
of Honshu, he contemplated one of the core contradictions of his
existence.
No, not that he'd been created as a war machine to defend peace, or that
he'd
been built for a war that had moved away from Earth years ago. Nor did he
contemplate the deeper meaning of what it was to be one of the first
"RoadBots," hybrid AIs built using a combination of Cybertronian
technology
and human ingenuity in the wake of the Binaltech Project. Fireshot simply
wasn't that deep.
No, as he wove in and out of traffic, hidden speakers projecting the
engine roar that his exponential generator did not make on its own, he
wondered about the whole point of the disguise in the first place.
"Here I am, holographically projecting a fake driver, making fake
internal combustion engine sounds, wearing a license plate like it was a
dog
collar...and for what? To blend in? If they wanted me to blend in, why
did
they make me a car that costs a quarter mil to drive off the lot?" he
muttered to himself, amusing himself by making the holodriver's lips move
appropriately. "Sure, I look GOOD," he adjusted a side view mirror to get
a
better look at his own left side, "but why waste the time with this
charade?
By now, everyone knows that if you see a candy apple red GT ripping down
the
street, it's Fireshot! At least 'uncle' Mirage could turn invisible if he
really needed to be sneaky."
After a moment, he added, "Or at least TAG could upgrade my shell to
a
'13 GT," he snarled, referring to the Terran Auto Group, leading maker of
the
hybrid technology of the RoadBots. "Honestly...who drives a 2006 Ford GT
around? If you can afford a GT in the first place, you don't keep it for
the
better part of a decade, you trade up every so often! I look like someone
blew his retirement savings on a Midlife Crisis-mobile," he sulked.
The honk of a horn interrupted Fireshot's reverie, and he focused his
sensors on the distraction, making sure his "driver" looked in the right
direction as well. A white SUV, some Mitsubi**** piece of crap, was easing
up
on his right. Now THAT'S a vehicle you'd believe someone would still have
an
'06 model of.
Another honk. The SUV's driver grinned in a predatory manner,
pointing
at Fireshot, then at himself, and then down the road. The man had a
thickset, slavic appearance and a dishwater brown crewcut over beady brown
eyes.
Fireshot sighed. "Another squishy calling me out." It happened
every
so often, given how badly his disguise actually disguised him. Hotshot
human
drivers thinking they could outrace the RoadBot. But this was
particularly
insulting...at least the usual challengers were in riced-up streetrods of
some kind, not glorified cargo trucks. Then again, traffic was pretty
heavy,
the guy must think he'd win on maneuvering.
And on sheer insanity, to judge from some of the dents in the SUV's
sides. So, finesse against demolition derby crazy, eh? Fine. Fireshot
hated Mitsubi**** drivers on general principle, what with that company
leading
the rival Diamond Motors group. In fact, he was on his way to scope out
the
one Mitsubi**** plant left in Japan after they moved their main operations
to
Russia. His bosses at TAG thought they might be up to something.
Fireshot's holodriver nodded and gave a thumbs up. "You're on,
mister!"
he said, exaggerating the mouth movements so that the human could make out
what he was saying.
Well, assuming the guy spoke English.
The SUV swerved abruptly, cutting across three lanes and taking the
lead, but he didn't seem to have much in the way of raw speed, and
Fireshot
snickered. Other drivers honked and a few overreacted and nearly got into
accidents. He stopped snickering. Fireshot didn't have nearly so much
love
for squi****es as some of his teammates, but he did know that if anyone got
killed, he'd get some of the blame.
"All the more reason to show this punk who's the king of the road as
quick as possible, so he gives up," Fireshot hissed, pouring on the speed
and
weaving through traffic to close the gap between him and the white SUV.
Unfortunately, most of his driving experience was on American roads,
and
while he didn't have the human problem with adapting to driving on the
left
side of the road, he still didn't have a lot of experience anticipating
the
reactions of other drivers in Japan. He felt panels flex as he had to
slam
on the brakes to avoid hitting someone who he fully expected to keep
driving
obliviously, but who instead actually attempted to yield to him, screwing
up
his whole trajectory.
He could just make out his opponent laughing as the SUV wove in and
out
of the increasingly heavy late afternoon traffic.
"Not a lot of time left," Fireshot muttered. His navsystems were
hooked
into the traffic grid computers, and told him that despite Japan's
advanced
traffic control systems, a gridlock was coming up. They didn't happen
nearly
as much as they had in the old days, but they still did happen. When they
hit that plug, the race would be over.
Oh, sure, Fireshot could just transform and run on ahead, but that
would
be cheating. Clearly, the first person to reach the traffic jam would be
the
winner...assuming he didn't crash in the process.
"Still, it wouldn't exactly be cheating to go up on two wheels,"
Fireshot grinned as he did just that, squeezing into a gap between two
delivery vans and racing ahead of the white Pajero. Seconds later,
traffic
slowed to a crawl and the grid...locked.
"Victoly!" Fireshot shouted, pumping the fist of his holodriver and
shooting his opponent a sneer.
His opponent sneered back, then the man vanished...and the vehicle
transformed into another RoadBot!
"Come on, old man!" the Diamond Motors RoadBot called back over his
shoulder as he started running between the cars. "This triathlon's just
starting! Hope you can swim!"
"You little...Mitsu...PUNK!" Fireshot shouted, assuming his own robot
mode and giving chase. "We're not at war, we're not at war, we're not at
war," he reminded himself as he ran. The Terran Auto Group and Diamond
Motors were merely business rivals, not warring factions like the Autobots
and Decepticons. Of course, there were rumors that DM had been heavily
infiltrated by Decepticons as a way of keeping an eye on Earth after being
driven off the planet in 2007, but TAG had never managed to prove
anything.
Still, even a business rivalry had treaties and forms to observe.
Japan
was officially aligned with TAG, which meant DM RoadBots weren't really
welcome. Clearly, his mission to check out the Mitsubi**** plant was a
success now, he'd found something suspicious. In fact, unless he missed
his
guess, since he didn't recognize this guy from the public rosters, the
Pajero
was a fellow Class 32 RoadBot. Experimental, cutting edge at the time of
their building, his classmates also had a reputation for being unstable,
something that tended to dog him unfairly. But it also meant that "enemy"
Class 32s were even more unwelcome than the more proven Class 18 series.
Heck, the cor****ate mascot Class 12s were more welcome, since you knew
that
at least they'd only misbehave on direct orders.
"Watch where you're going, Diamond-head!" Fireshot shouted as he
nimbly
danced around the far more fragile human-driven vehicles.
"You think I'll stomp someone?" the other RoadBot sneered, speaking
in a
faint Russian accent. "Ha! You may be faster on the flat than I am, but
Rockhound is all about rough terrain, Dog-TAG!"
The slow-moving traffic had now come to a complete stop, with the
humans
terrified of getting stepped on by the five meter tall metal titans racing
down the road.
"Looks to me like you have all the grace of a bear, Russkie!"
Fireshot
spat back. "I doubt your bosses'll like it if you step on someone, even
if
it doesn't slow you down!"
Rockhound laughed and jumped over a customized Civic, coming so close
that he almost peeled off one of its neon yellow decals. "Bears can be
quite
graceful, nyet?"
"Congratulations...I'll get you a tutu and a unicycle and we can put
you
in the circus," Fireshot snarled, wi****ng he could just pull out his
plasma
lance and drop the Mitsu before this got out of hand. But he was under
strict orders to keep all weapons stowed unless the other guy shot first,
and
Rockhound had to know that. After all, it was part of the publicity
campaign
that helped convince the general public that it was perfectly safe to have
human-built Transformers roaming around in the open.
"Now, we come to the aquatic ****tion of this race!" Rockhound
chuckled
as he dove off the side of the road, into the inlet below. "Can you keep
up?"
Fireshot sighed and stopped. He wasn't very good at swimming, and
saltwater played hell with his finish. He'd hoped to be able to finish
this
himself. But no worries.
A sound of crunching metal told him that Rockhound had met Fireshot's
backup, Seablade, called in by radio as soon as the Diamond Motors RoadBot
had transformed. Seablade LOVED to swim....
==============================================================================
Author's Note:
http://www.eyrie.org/~dvandom/BW/Alt/RoadBot1
has the background I
created to put the RoadBots into TF continuity, as well as Fireshot's and
Rockhound's techspecs. Seablade is the second wave 1:32 scale Toyota, and
his fellow 1:32 scaler, a Mitsubi**** Lancer, will probably get named
Skyscythe. Once I get them (already have 'em preordered) the review will
most likely be http://www.eyrie.org/~dvandom/BW/Alt/RoadBot2.
If Fireshot seems a bit slow on the uptake in terms of realizing
Rockhound is a fellow RoadBot, keep in mind that RoadBot minds aren't as
advanced as Cybertronian ones. Also, Rockhound is a much newer model,
with
better passive defenses against detection and so forth. And Fireshot's
ego
certainly plays a role. :)
Finally, like the Actionmaster War and Battlecross, this is a setting
I'm likely to return to at some point.
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