Alias

Rational

Cleaning the woman up took a considerable amount of effort, but although she was covered in blood, it soon became clear that her injuries looked worse than they actually were. Despite her clothes being so bloodstained and filthy that they had to cut them off her, the initial scan Ratchet ran while Cade rushed to get a set of sweats to replace them didn’t show any broken bones. Apart from blood loss, the medic declared that most of her wounds were not severe.

But the more they revealed, the more it became clear that what happened to her had been no simple assault.

As they cleaned the blood and filth away, they revealed evidence that what had befallen her had been much more deliberate. Red abrasions marred her wrists and ankles. Bruises and electrical burns covered her thin, dehydrated body like a grid, absolutely regular in their placement, some darkly new while others had faded to a greenish hue. Three fingernails were gone from each hand, leaving raw, ripped wounds that left no doubt of how they’d been lost. The only injury that didn’t match the pattern was the one Ratchet declared most concerning–a hard, hot knot on the back of her head that pulsed in time with her heartbeats, and which was clearly the source of much of the blood.

By the time they’d treated her burns and eased her into the sweats Cade contributed to replace the clothes she’d lost, there was no doubt about what had happened. She’d been tortured. From the amount of healing present in the oldest bruises and burns, whoever had done it had held her for several days, perhaps up to a week.

After twenty minutes of following Ratchet and Wheeljack’s first-aid instructions–their hands were simply too big for the job of bandaging the much smaller human–Cade could no longer ignore the increasingly nervous looks the Autobots kept sending toward the doorway. “Who is this woman and how does she know Optimus?” he asked, staring down at the Autobot tattoo that he’d just revealed on the front of her left shoulder–exactly where Optimus had his own Autobrand. “And don’t even try to lie. Bumblebee insisted on bringing her here instead of going to a hospital–and not just to the base, but specifically to Optimus. You’ve all been terrified that he’ll come in since we rolled in here. Someone clearly wanted something from her, and this–” he pointed at the tattoo, “–is the last straw. Give it up, guys. What the hell is going on here?”

The two exchanged glances before Wheeljack replied. “Her name’s Dr. Anna Elias,” he said with obvious reluctance. 

When it was clear he wasn’t going to say anything else, Cade prompted, “Sounds vaguely familiar, but some elaboration on that would be nice.”

There was another loaded glance between the two robots before Wheeljack spoke again. “She’s a theoretical physicist and engineer with a specialty in energy. She worked for NASA before we arrived. Then she worked with us for a while.”

That explained why her name seemed familiar–he read a lot of engineering studies, after all, especially those about the Transformers. Cade again waited for more information but it didn’t come. All right, so he’d have to pull teeth. “Worked with you, how? I thought you avoided people as much as possible when you arrived.”

This time, Ratchet answered. “Optimus didn’t land well, Cade. He crashed onto a granite outcrop and was severely injured. Anna found him and patched him up almost as well as I could’ve. Without her, he might not have made it.”

Again, silence fell. Cade persisted. “And why are you two so sure that Optimus is going to be pissed enough to need Skyfire and Ironhide to restrain him when he finds out that the woman who saved his life is here? You’re not making any sense at all, guys.”

No one replied for a long moment. Finally Bumblebee started playing When A Man Loves A Woman.

The music only lasted a moment before Ratchet shushed him and Cade laughed… but then he noticed that no one else looked even the slightest bit amused. That tattoo suddenly took on a new kind of significance and his jaw dropped. “Wait, are you serious right now? Are you honestly telling me that Optimus fell in love with her?”