More than meets the eye...

[Scrasamax]

The news covered the story as a terrorist attack against the hydroelectric dam, the damage done was consistent with a terrorist bomb, and a later firefight between the surviving zealots and the local militia that had been called in. Except that it was a complete and total lie. There weren't bombs that ripped turbines out of reinforced concrete bunkers, and the militia didn't have weapons that could crack the face of the dam. Senator Debusk stared at the grainy pictures that had been taken by the dam security cameras before the electric system went offline. A jet, looking remarkably like a soviet built Su-21 swooped in towards the dam, but rather than hit it, it accomplished some sort of acrobatic contortion that turned the aircraft into a hulking robot of some sort. Stranger still were the two others who followed it.

The trio made short work of the security personel with what his aides had called blasters, like this was some sort of Star Wars fandom. He dismissed one on the spot and sent the other on a futile fact finding mission at the county annex. The jet-bots, as the fired aide had called them procedded to blast open the turbine housing, and removed one of the massive turbines. About that time, they were attacked by astoundingly another set of vehicles cum-robots. These more resembled automobiles, one of which looked like a car that had been chased by the police a few days before. The robots engaged in a firefight that ended when the dam had been damaged, and the jet-bots had taken one of the turbines and escaped, leaving the ground based robots behind.

It was the sort of thing that made him wonder about those pain killers that the doctors had him on for his prostate. d**ned thing, d**ned robots, d**ned elections. He pushed himself up from the chair and forced a smile on his face as the retired General Casey entered his office.

"It's been a long time Doug, has this attack at the dam got you that flustered?" Casey asked.

"It's more than you know Leon." The senator said. "It looks like Al-Queda teamed up with MIT and James Cameron to put a hit on us." Casey laughed for a moment but stopped when he saw that Debusk was serious. The senator showed Casey the security photage.

"Has any of this been sent to the higher ups?" Casey asked.

"Went priority 1 to Washington, took no chances. It would destroy us politicially if this ended up as some sort of publicity stunt." Debusk sat down. His head was throbbing again, and he longed for a pull of gin, but his doctor had put him off of that six months ago. "What do you think Leon?"

"Well, its looks interesting, they move like military, have some sort of insignias. Anything on those?" Leon asked.

"Nothing but a partial hit on some obscure toys made in Japan about 20 years ago. Useless information." Debusk said.

"You don't think it might be the Japanese or the Chinese do you?" Bebusk shook his head.

"One of my former aides identified two of the aircraft in the photage as American make. I don't think the Chinese would go through the trouble of making robot fighter planes that look like ours. I mean how did they even get here without being noticed?"

"Good question. I'll call some of my academy buddies on this, some of them went CIA and FBI after getting out of the service." Debusk nodded.

"I'll owe you one Leon."

"Yeah, maybe this weekend you can wager that graphite driver of yours on the links."

[manfred]

Now that's a point of view I can better relate with. The humans of a not too distant future caught in the firefight of a much more advanced race (if such a descriptor makes sense for living machines).

On the other hand these giants stuck on a backward planet with technology barely sufficient for use, trying to establish a home base, and return to the stars once again. With aid of advanced technologies they can handle a lot, but are very few if compared to the monkeys.


Makes for interesting inter-racial dynamics... with no side wanting to give the humans their secrets - just out of spite of 'for their own good'.

[CaptainPenguin]

Transformers, robots in disguise
Transformers, more than meets the eye

[Scrasamax]

"Preliminary satelite photography shows that a large amount of construction is currently going on in the vicinity of Lookout Mountain. THe sat's show what look like giant robots doing the work, as well as what looks like the ass end of some sort of vessel." Casey said, dropping the file folder on the desk of the Senator. "I had three photography specialists go over these to make sure they weren't some bit of hacker boredom. THey say the photos are the real thing."

"I'm not surprised." Senator Debusk said with a grimace. "They are infiltraiting our society, like mechanical parasites."

"Now you are starting to sound paranoid Doug, and that's not like you." Leon said, pulling out a chair and taking a seat. "You didn't look this rattled after our first go through in Iraq."

"Yeah, but they can change shape, they can be anywhere. I have one at my house, likely as we speak." Doug said. He eyed the bottle of gin he had purchased earlier in the day. The AA group he had gone to to help kick the habit had gone on about crap like wellsprings of spiritual fortitude and spirit animals and crap like that. "My son..."

"Clark? He's a good kid, watched him last week nail a solid 30 yard pass against Steamboat." Leon said, the kid had a bright future, looked like Colorado State would offer him a full scholarship for his passing arm.

"Yeah, he got a new car last night, won't tell me where or how he got it, just mumbles something about recruiters. Except that recruiters just dont give away bright yellow Ford GTs." Doug said.

"Wasn't one of the robots in the d**n photage a GT?" Leon asked. Doug nodded.

"Color is hard to guess in that black and white film, but it was a light color, white yellow or a light blue."

*****
"So, do I need to make sure to use premium or what?" Clark asked as he shot down the mountain road, the wide bodied GT making short work of the curves and hills.

"Premium what?" Sunstreak asked, his voice vaguely synthesized and metallic. To Clark it sounded like the voice was coming not from the sound system, but from one of the air conditioner vents.

"You know, premium gasoline, $4 a gallon, 97 octane premium..." Clark said as the sunburst yellow car accelerated to pass a farm truck that was barely doing the speed limit. "s**t, this is a no passing zone man! I don't want to get a ticket."

"So that is what the lines mean. Don't worry. There aren't any law enforcement units in the area, and there were no oncoming cars." Sunstream said. "Inquisitive...I can guess. one of my autobot brothers has assumed the form of one of your police units. We know how to listen in on their radio traffic.

"So you're an autobot? Sounds like something from Japan, or one of those self propelled vacuum cleaners that my mother is always harping about." Clark said. "So you got a destination in mind, or are we just going to run until you run out of gas?"

"I don't use this gasoline that you speak of, we occassionaly consume some hydrocarbons for lubrication purposes, but we metabolize energon to run. I believe that some of the flyers can and do use gasoline to extend their energon supplies in flight."

"Sounds heavy..."

"Whatever that means..."