A Timeline of Human Evolution, Exemplified by the Case Study of Dylan Gould

Chapter 3

Laserbeak didn't say goodbye; that apparently wasn't his thing, or maybe wasn't an alien robot thing in general. True to his word, he didn't wait around for the new fax machine to show up, either. He stayed for two more days, barely talking to Dylan or his father after that point, and then left sometime before the next morning.

They put up a little sign that the fax machine was completely dead and they'd be getting a new one, and by the end of that week, everything was back to normal.

Just like the first time he'd met the aliens, though, just like when he was eleven years old and trying to make sense of this new truth of the universe, and embracing it as a desirable truth... Just like it hadn't back then, it didn't feel like everything was back to normal now, either.

This time around, though, it all felt different. He felt hyperaware; he found himself staring at office equipment and other appliances as if he might see movement or a flash of lights that would clue him in on its real nature, found himself watching cars as they passed by or sat parked across the street. And he didn't know if he was worried that something else would be an alien in disguise, or if he wanted it, but either way he felt like he was waiting for it.

He ended up waiting for a long time. Again. He hadn't known what to expect, after Laserbeak's arrival, and he hadn't known what to expect after his just as abrupt disappearance, but if he'd had to venture a guess, it wouldn't have been this. Maybe that was just wishful thinking; they'd stayed away for over a decade last time they'd left, so it wasn't like this was breaking any patterns. He wondered, not for the first time, how long they lived, and wondered if this was normal for them, if they just thought nothing of not speaking with someone for years, only to pick back up like it had only been a few days.

He settled on the less attractive truth that they were just busy with their own concerns, and had no real reason to care about interacting with humans unless it was absolutely necessary.

Years passed, again. Fund went exactly where the Decepticons wanted them to, and the Hubble Telescope got its "spectacles," correcting its optical focus. That was apparently a satisfactory fix, because it got radio silence from Soundwave, which Dylan's father assured him was a good thing. Things were still... tense, between the two of them, but they were on speaking terms again, if only for the sake of business.

Dylan got his Master of Science in Finance degree, though it took longer than the "normal" three years; it was 1995 when he completed it, at twenty-seven years old, and his father granted him full partnership in the company. By that point he'd stopped feeling quite so on edge, though still he watched cars pass by and planes fly overhead and wondered, sometimes. How could he not? When you knew you weren't alone in the universe, and that alien life had reached Earth and was capable of hiding so completely, right under your eyes, how could you look at the world in the same way? And he had too much spare time, now, time to schmooze and give orders and wonder.

He needed a hobby. Desperately. And he ended up finding it, ironically, in cars.

He'd stopped driving his Thunderbird several years before he graduated, replacing it with a Mercedes-Benz, but he hadn't traded it in or sold it. There hadn't been any need to, so he'd kept it, and kept it in good shape. He found a 1925 Bugatti Type 35 Grand Prix to restore and, a little while later, a 1935 J12 Cabriolet that needed very little done to it. His father didn't seem to get it, but also didn't seem to mind -- not even when Dylan mentioned eventually buying a gallery to display these works of art in, only half joking. Not even half, really.

But his dad seemed happy to let him do and have whatever he wanted, so long as he also did well for the company and the Decepticons. Maybe he was trying to make up for things, but there was a rift between them that Dylan wasn't sure could ever heal. It only seemed to get worse the older he got, and the more he realized how fucked up it was that his father had driven him out to an abandoned warehouse when he was eleven to get him involved in an alien war with beings that he was personally afraid of.

Sure, Dylan had ended up into it, though he was starting to wonder more and more what was going to happen, but that didn't excuse how much of a kid he had been, or how careless his father had been, and Dylan couldn't shake the idea that his father didn't care so much about him as he did having an obedient heir who would follow his plans and orders.

Then Dylan's father died. January 28th, 2002. No enemy attack, no execution for betraying country and species, no "you've outlived your usefulness." Just a heart attack at age fifty-four, one he never fully recovered from, and complete heart failure at age fifty-six, and this time, Dylan's life didn't change... at all.

Oh, he became owner and CEO of Hotchkiss Gould Investments, like had always been planned for him. He shifted into his father's role entirely, like had always been planned for him, liaising with the other humans working for the Decepticons and becoming the sole person to check Soundwave's communications advising him on how to run the company without screwing everything up. His father died and he stepped into the dead man's shoes and just picked up and kept going smoothly.

But he felt, at most, a few ripples from it. He didn't feel shock, he didn't feel the world changing for him like it had when he'd seen Soundwave's transformation, when he'd been nuzzled and purred on by Ravage, when Laserbeak had unfolded himself from the fax machine. It was just a thing that happened and that he had to adjust to, and he adjusted to it.

The Decepticons didn't say anything about it for months, and then there was a light tapping sound at his window one evening, and he looked out to see metal and bright, round red eyes, and he moved to open the window before he even really got a good look at his visitor.

Its body was almost insectoid, and small compared even to the other small Decepticons that Laserbeak had seen. Ravage had been bigger than him, probably a little bigger than most humans overall, and Laserbeak had been the size of a human, but this one was about the size of his head, but incredibly skinny, with many sharp skittery legs and antennae, and no visible mouth. He squinted at it; tiny little speakers, maybe? Two of them? Was that what he was seeing?

He didn't have the chance to greet the alien first, or even wonder if it was animal or, as Laserbeak had been, animal-y person. It was speaking up while he was still taking it in. "Mister Dylan Gould. I'm from Soundwave -- Scalpel. The doctor."

He blinked. The little bug-doctor's voice was heavily accented, a German accent of all things, its English totally understandable but sounding imperfect, and it spoke in quick, simple, clearly-enunciated bursts. "Scalpel," he repeated. "Soundwave... sent a doctor?"

"Yes. Be looking you over." Scalpel leapt from the table by the window onto his arm, and he froze, overriding his instinctive urge to flail his arm to try to get it off. It climbed swiftly up his arm onto the front of his shirt, which it clung to with those sharp feet, stretching up to peer into his eyes with its own. "A check-up."

"Oh. O...kay." He held very still, awkwardly still, hoping Scalpel wasn't tearing up his shirt with his feet, and then Scalpel's eyes flared up bright for a moment and Dylan just managed not to clap a hand over his eyes. "Agh!"

"Pupil dilation is sound," Scalpel announced to the air, and hopped back down as Dylan was still blinking. "Now we need a blood sample!"

"Blood... blood sample," Dylan murmured, then refocused on the doctor, following him over to the table despite his apprehensions. "What's this all about?" Wait. He had a guess: "My father?"

"Yes, yes!" Scalpel jumped up onto the chair, not seeming to have any problem with that distance, then onto the table proper; Dylan winced at the idea of the scratches he would leave on the wood, but when he looked closer he didn't seem to be leaving any. That was a relief, anyway. "Death came young -- even for a human! They want to know your health." Scalpel peered up at him, flipping the extra set of lenses -- almost like spectacles -- down over his eyes. "And your mind."

"My mind?" Dylan took a seat at the table and, after a moment's hesitation, laid his arm and hand on the table, palm up. Scalpel skittered over.

"Mind, heart... Emotions! Psychology," Scalpel explained. Dylan hissed, but didn't flinch, as the doctor sliced open his palm with his front foot, blood welling up. "You have suffered loss."

"They're worried about my emotional state?" This wasn't exactly giving condolences, but Dylan was honestly surprised that they'd sent someone to check on his mental health, on how he was holding up. He supposed that if someone was too deep in grieving, they might not be of much use to them for a while, but still...

"Humans are fragile. And you aren't a soldier! Your first death?"

That seemed to be a question, so Dylan admitted, watching the blood pool in his palm with mildly horrified fascination, "There were my grandparents, but I didn't know them very well... So I suppose you could say that." He'd been lucky; he really didn't know anyone else who'd died.

"There we are." Whether he was talking about what Dylan said or the amount of blood in his hand was unclear. It wasn't actually that much, about the size of a nickel if even that, but bloodletting was so alien to him that even that much looked like a lot. Scalpel dipped his antennae into the blood, seeming to concentrate. Was he able to assess Dylan's health with his own body like that?

"That's amazing," Dylan confessed, and Scalpel didn't glance up at him, his head lowered as it was -- and he didn't even have mouthparts -- but Dylan still thought he detected a smile in his voice.

"Danke sehr."

There, that wasn't just an accent, Scalpel didn't just sound German-ish: "You speak German?"

"I spent much time in Germany, at first. Learned Earth language, local." As if sensing that Dylan was about to ask what he'd been doing in Germany, he waved his hands -- arms -- front legs? -- in a sort of 'stop' gesture, backing off from Dylan's palm finally. "Vergiss es. Never mind! You're healthy-- no cancers, heart is strong."

It was reassuring, but strange that Scalpel could tell all that so quickly and from such a minor procedure. "Thank you."

Maybe it was the accent; Dylan almost expected Scalpel to get all Freud on him, and how are you feeling? He didn't, and there wasn't even any more German; he seemed to be mostly trying to stick to English. "No problem! I will return clean bill of health." He sounded happy with that fact, expression oddly smile-like even without the mouth or eye movements to be able to smile with.

Or maybe Dylan was just reading too much into that little face, humanizing an alien robot -- unfairly humanizing, even -- but he smiled back, anyway. "I'd appreciate that. I want to settle any concerns they might have about whether or not I'm still up to the task of working with them. It's true that I'm mourning my father, but it hasn't been a problem for me, and it's not going to be. We weren't particularly close these past ten years."

Scalpel was peering up at him again, watching him closely. "You are angry with him?"

Dylan paused. Had he sounded angry? Maybe with that last part; he definitely still resented what his father had done, or rather, what it had told him about his father's priorities. "A little," he admitted. "But that won't be a problem, either. Frankly, I felt more bitter before he died; I don't see any point to it now. It's over and done with."

"A normal processing of grief," Scalpel observed. "I will report. And you've been a good patient, very cooperative!"

"I appreciate hearing that." Dylan got up, holding his hand carefully so that he didn't drip blood anywhere, heading towards the kitchen so that he could wash the cut. He'd probably need to disinfect and bandage it, too, but Scalpel had obviously been careful, and he could already tell he wouldn't need stitches. He glanced over as he ran warm water over his palm, trying not to wince. The doctor was strangely approachable, reassuring in a way neither Soundwave nor Laserbeak had been. That might have been why he actually asked, instead of just wondering in his own head, "You know, my father made it sound like your big war is coming to Earth, Decepticons on one side and Autobots on the other."

"Oh, yes." Scalpel actually seemed to be grooming himself, in an insecty way, on Dylan's dining room table, fastidious with his two foremost sharp metal legs. "There's no doubt."

He felt a chill go through him. War meant death, a lot of death, and he'd just received a clean bill of health and his father had just died three months ago and he didn't want to think about dying himself just yet. "Do you have any idea when? You're the first Decepticon I've seen in over ten years."

"Soon." That was cryptic, and what counted as soon for Decepticons anyway? Dylan still didn't know how long their natural lifespans were. Would Scalpel be saying soon if he meant ten years? Fifty? A hundred?

...All right, ten would still be too soon for Dylan's tastes. He was only in his thirties, he wanted at least another fifty years. Getting to die in his sleep of old age would be nice.

"I'm not sure we share the same definition of soon," he tried, crouching to get the first aid kit out from under the sink.

"Ah, yes. Humans have tiny lifespans!" Dylan smiled, small and fleeting, despite himself. He'd thought as much; there was absolutely no reason that aliens, especially robot aliens, should grow old and die at the same rate that humans did. "It will not be ten more years."

He stopped, first aid kit in hand, still crouching. Then he stood, slowly, after a long moment. His mouth was dry, and he turned to look at the little alien. "You're sure about that?"

"Oh, yes! We're very close!"

He turned back to the counter, feeling numb. He managed to open the first aid kit and pull out the antiseptic and gauze without fumbling, anyway, and he tried to keep his voice businessman-friendly and cheerful. "Well, thank you for telling me that. It's the first solid news I've gotten since finding out there was a war." Over twenty goddamn years ago. What would he have done if he'd known that aliens would be fighting a devastating war on his planet before 2012? What would his life have been like? He'd probably have been a nervous wreck these past few years, anyway.

"Apologies." It was short, but all of Scalpel's words were oddly short and he sounded sincere enough. "Soundwave will return soon. Very soon! Will be checking in with you."

How soon is very soon? Less than five years? He held his tongue. Scalpel was actually telling him things, after all, and being decent, being downright friendly. He didn't deserve sarcasm or snappishness.

"Then I hope he'll decide I've been meeting his standards when he does," he said instead, calmly. As calm as he could muster. He turned to look at Scalpel once again, wrapping his hand as he spoke. "Once I'm done with this," he sort of raised both hands slightly to indicate what he was talking about, then lowered them back again to where they'd been, "can I offer you anything? I should have asked before, I know."

It was pure politeness, not just politics because he honestly did want to be polite to Scalpel, but he wasn't expecting the little doctor to take him up on it. What could he possibly offer?

But Scalpel answered, promptly, "Oil. And screws!"

Well. That actually made a kind of sense. Maybe the oil, at least, would count as a snack, or at least something to drink. That would make this a surprisingly normal host-and-guest interaction, all things considered.

"I won't be staying long," Scalpel continued, rubbing his front legs together with constant restless movement. "But those will be useful!"

Dylan couldn't see why, but he ended up watching fascinated as Scalpel drank the oil, about a quart's worth. Even watching him, he couldn't figure out where Scalpel's mouth was, or maybe he just didn't have one -- maybe there was just some little... tube, somewhere, specifically for absorbing oil. He seemed thoroughly satisfied with it, though as if he'd just had a nice cup of coffee or tea. He didn't do anything with the screws that Dylan could understand, just tucked them away somewhere, then thanked him and jumped down from the table, making his way back towards the still-open window.

Dylan didn't bother closing it after he'd left. After all, there was nothing wrong with a little fresh air, even if it was cold. He'd shut it again before he went to bed that night, but it would probably be very late or, even more likely, early in the morning before he felt like he could get any sleep.

It will not be ten more years.

He wondered, when their war came here, what exactly being a 'liaison' was going to entail, and how safe he'd actually be on their side. What use could humans -- especially single, individual humans -- even be a war between robotic titans, and what reason would those titans have to care about any of them?

It wasn't the first time he'd wondered any of that. Over the next few years, it would be far from the last.