Optimus Prime's unusual Charge

The telephone game and Grinding gears

Much earlier, back at the base...

After Jack had called Arcee, he and Raf tried finishing their homework.

Agent Fowler kept calling in and showing up, but each time met with disappointment over the bots 'not being home at the moment'.

The boys couldn't keep their minds off Miko either. They worried about her, considering what they knew what Arcee and Bulkhead potentially walked into when they went through the Ground bridge. The problem was, they couldn't call any of the bots and risk distracting them in the middle of a battle. Then Raf got an Idea; "Hey, how about we call Miko on her phone? She never leaves the base without it, and she's always taking pictures, so she's bound to have it on hand, right?"

A smile brightened Jack's face, and he nodded in agreement and started calling her number.

Miko was keeping an eye out for Prime, when her phone rang...LOUDLY!

{"Miko! We must remain silent, for this plan to work!"} Optimus reprimanded her.

She panicked and lowered the volume all the way down to Silent mode.

{"Sorry, SORRY! Won't happen again."} She hurriedly slipped the phone in her pocket and forgot to check who it was that was calling.

Just then, Jack's mother rolled into the base with her car. Noticing how her son was on the phone, she didn't disturb him and simply brought the lunchboxes out of the shopping bag she was transporting them in and placed them on the crate that served as a coffee table.

Jack kept holding the phone up to his ear, but Miko never picked up. His smile fading with every ring that went unanswered. "She's not picking up..." He sighed after hanging up.

"Who's not picking up, Jack? And where's Miko?" June asked worriedly.

"That's exactly who's not picking up, Nurse Darby. Miko followed Bulkhead into the ground bridge again, and she hasn't been answering her phone." Raf explained.

"Oh, but that's okay...If Bulkhead has her, she'll be fine, right?" June tried to cheer the boys up.

Jack and Raf looked at each other with a worried look on their faces and explained the whole story to Jack's mother.

"What's worse, we can't call the bots for fear of distracting them in battle or giving their location away, in case they're on a covert mission and they haven't called us back either." Raf concluded.

"We're worried something might have happened, mom." Jack added.

June thought for a moment... "Here, eat up and I'll keep trying." She gave the boys their meals and took the phone from Jack's hands and started calling Miko again. She tried several times, but no luck. She hung up again for the tenth time. She thought and thought...seeking deep down for some guidance from her 'mother's instincts'.

The boys stared at her while they ate, trying to read her thoughts to no avail. They felt crestfallen when they saw her hang up and not dial again for a while, but before any of them had a chance to say anything, she started up again. This renewed their hopes. She wasn't about to give up. She decided to go ahead and try with the bots anyway...someone HAS to pick up eventually. She didn't tell the boys, though.

First she tried Bulkhead; he's Miko's guardian after all, if she had to be anywhere safe, it would be with him.

Bulkhead was walking into position to get his plan into motion, when a call came in from Jack's phone;

Bulkhead: "Hey Jack, I'm kinda busy right now..."

June: "Hi Bulkhead, it's me; June..."

Bulkhead: "Nurse Darby? Where's Jack?"