Breaking Down the Barrier Ch.2

 Story info: Transformers Movie AU
Characters: Annabelle Lennox, Lori, Fred Epps
Summery:  They came. They killed. They took prisoners. They didn't expect the humans to fight back. They were wrong.
Join Annabelle Lennox, as she fights for the freedom of her race along with new and familiar faces. Soon though, she will find that it's not as easy as 'us' and 'them,' and the war will be on its way. Soon she will be fighting for equality. She will be fighting for understanding. She will be fighting for peace. She will be fighting, to break down the barrier.
                                                         
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                                                            Chapter 2

Hope was something that was beginning to get hard to hold on to.  For days, they just sat in the tanks, not really doing much of anything. Annabelle and her team spent a great deal of time right at the side of the tanks, so they could stay close to each other.

Over the days, different robots had come in to look at them. Like humans, they were all different shapes, colours and sizes. Annabelle even thought they showed signs of having personalities, like living beings. But she kept those thoughts to herself, even though she suspected her comrades suspected the same thing.

It was a lot easier to think of the robots as just that, robots. Inanimate objects that were being controlled by something else, something easier to kill. They could find whatever controlled the robots, shut them down, and then find the aliens that built them, and hopefully destroy them. Hopefully was the operative word. The species were obviously centuries ahead of humans in the technology department, so how were the humans supposed to beat them?  

Annabelle didn't really have much hope at all. She could tell that with each passing day, more and more people were losing it as well.

It had started with the little girl and her mother. The girl spent a great deal of time clinging to her mother, too afraid to let go after they lost her father. Annabelle had reason to believe he had been killed in the attack.

Then the first wave of customers came in. One of the robots took an interest in the little girl. It was a horrible sight.

The little girl screamed in terror as the giant pried her away from her mother. Annabelle couldn't get the image of the crying girl and woman out of her head. It was so cruel. The girl was about eight, so she was self-sufficient, but still far too young to be ripped away from her mother.

The robot with the red optics stuck the little girl into the carrying case, leaving the mother wailing on the floor, pounding on the side of the tank.

The store bot with the blue optics almost looked like it wanted to protest, but was obviously intimidated by the customer. That was when Annabelle first became suspicions of the optic colours.   

Ever since then, more humans had been taken from the two tanks. Luckily, none of Annabelle's squad had been taken. They had known from the start that being as fit as they were would make them prime specimens. Whenever a robot was nearby, they would flop over, and try to look as miserably weak and boring as possible.

They weren't getting any closer to a plan or gathering any information they needed by doing this, but they did it anyway, mostly to prolong their time together. When they got separated, it was most likely they would never see each other again.         

"Looks like another one is coming in."

Annabelle looked up at Fred, and then in the direction that he was looking at to see a large silver robot had just entered the store. It hadn't just entered either, it had rolled in.  It had wheels on its feet. She couldn't decide if that was convenient or weird.

Everyone became silent. They all looked down, trying to make themselves as unnoticeable as possible.

Like all the others before it, it bent down and studied them for a bit, going back and forth between the males and females. It had blue optics, and Annabelle wondered if this one would be better than the others.

It tapped the glass.

Okay, maybe she was misjudging it.

It tapped the glass harder.

Yep, defiantly misjudged that one.

It then moved its servos, to the sections of the glass nearest to the group, one servo on the female tank, one on the males, and knocked.

This got a reaction from one girl in particular. Roxy would have gotten up, if it weren't for Annabelle holding her down, and the fact that another girl beat her to it.

"WHAT! What the hell do you want!" It was the Japanese girl. She looked to be about 18, with eyes that were such a deep blue, they looked almost purple. She marched over to the glass in front of the robot's face. "What! Do you think this is funny, a big game?!" she then pounded her fist on the glass. "Tap, tap tap!" she yelled at him as she pounded the glass. "HA HA HA! So hilarious right?!"

The girl, she thought her name to be Loren or something, looked downright pissed. She actually looked quite scary when angered.

This seemed to be the lively reaction the robot was looking for, because it suddenly got really excited, if robots could get excited, and started tapping on the glass again.

The girl pounded on the glass again out of anger, not being able to do more. The robot turned to the sales robot and started making the weird clicking noises they had assumed was their language, while pointing at the girl.

The girl suddenly realised her mistake when the lid was lifted and the robot's servo came at her. She tried to dodge it, but the excited robot was too fast and got hold of her, and pulled her up. All the while she was cursing her head off at it, and pounding at the hand that held her.

The robot cradled the struggling girl against his chassis and started petting her hair. If Annabelle hadn't known any better, she would have thought that it was acting like a kid getting a new puppy.
The two robots then walked out the door into the front area of the store, which they had learned was where all the care supplies were stocked.

Annabelle was almost sad to see the girl go. She had been smart and didn't take any crap, a lot like Roxy, but a bit calmer when not angered.

"Well jeez, that was a mistake," Brad said, "If she keeps that up, it's going to kill her."

The group of soldiers were sitting in their usual spot, close together at the side of their tanks.

"And you call being someone's pet 'living'?!" Roxy glared at Brad through the glass.

"No, but there's still hope. We just need a plan."

Roxy shook her head at him. "Shut up Bradley." Throwing Brad a glare, Roxy got up and walked to the other side of the tank, away from the men's tank. Brad looked a little crestfallen.

"Hey, don't take it to personally Brad, we're all a little shaken, and Roxy's such a free bird. This must be eating her up inside," Carlin tried comforting the shaggy haired brunet man.

Bradley just turned away from the clean-cut blond and continued to stare at Roxy longingly.

Fred motioned for Annabelle to follow him over to the corner that was against the wall. They both made it to the other corner at the back and slid down in them, with their heads against the glass, as close as they could get with the few feet between them.

Fred and Annabelle had been friends since they were babies, with their fathers being best friends and all. Fred was the youngest and only boy of the five children Robert Epps and his wife Monique had. He had been born only a year before Annabelle, so the two of them had been close.

Fred looked a lot like his father, but he had his mothers hazy green eyes, and instead of shaving his head bald, he left just enough hair for it to be considered a buzz cut.

"Poor guy doesn't stand a chance in hell with her," Fred muttered just loud enough for her to hear him.

Annabelle smirked. "Yeah well maybe someday, if we ever get out of here." And the conversation was over before it even began. That seemed to be happening a lot lately. Somehow it would always turn back to their capture.

"We gotta come up with something Anna, or else this'll keep happen'en till there no more free people left for 'em to take."

"First we have to determine who's controlling them," Annabelle paused, "...but, to be honest, I'm not so sure there being controlled by anyone."

There was a pregnant pause. Neither one of them had to say just how bad it would be if the robots really were the ones they were fighting against.  

Fred finally spoke. "Alright then, we gotta figure out how their system works. Do they have some type of government, or do they just program in the next leader that's in line," he snickered.

"This ain't no time for jokes!" Both their heads snapped up to see Roxy coming over to them. "I've been watching them, not just what they do, but their body language." She sat down beside Annabelle. "Whenever some of the consumers get to poking around too much, the manager, or whatever you wanna call it, starts watching 'em real close."

"Yeah, so?" Carlin and Brad had come over

"So, it's watching them for theft."

The revelation told them a lot more information than they ever wanted to know. Annabelle realised, along with the others, that her theory of them having different personalities could very well be true.

"It could just be a regular function, don't worry," Carlin pointed out.

"I think it's time we stop fooling ourselves, we've all been watching them, they act like us," Roxy seemed determined to make progress, and she was right, they had to get somewhere.

"She's right," Annabelle stated, "at this point we can't rule anything out. We have to gather as much information on these things as possible." She stopped. Everyone knew what was coming next, though they didn't want to say it. Saying it out loud would make it final. It would meant they would finally have to make a move. "We can't do that from in here," she finished.

There was a long silence.

"Well, how are we going to get back in touch?" Brad asked.

"We don't." It was no surprise that it was Carlin who said it. The logical man never beat around the bush when it came right down to it.

"We could come across each other again, but it would be a long time in waiting, so in the meantime, we would be doing it solo. We need to gather any info, and think of something we can do to help the people that are here, or stop the robots from getting more," Annabelle looked around at the group. "If we are going to get taken, I would prefer it if they weren't the ones with the red optics."

"So you noticed the pattern too," Fred exclaimed.

"Was kinda hard to miss," Roxy put in.

"Well at least one of us should get taken by one of the ones with the red optics. The reds were the ones that captured us, and all the reports on Earth said robots with red eyes. So something tells me that they are more involved with shipping humans here than the blues," Carlin said.

"There aren't that many that come through here. I wonder if it's a society thing. Like you know, the way coloured people used to be treated."

"Stop being stupid Brad," Roxy said, raising her arm to smack him in the head, then lowering it when she remembered the glass. "They're robots, they can change anything about their body that they like. It would be more like clothes, tattoos or even a uniform."

"She's probably right about that," Fred told Brad.

"It's too bad we can't make up a solid plan. I hate just making it up as we go along," Carlin said.
"Well, that's as good as it's gonna get man," sighed Fred.

"Well anything is better than just letting them keep us as pets," Roxy muttered darkly.

Annabelle was a bit worried about her. Roxy wasn't the type to just lie down and get told how to live her life. She was sure Roxy could handle herself though; she was a strong girl.

"All right then, when we get taken, we need to gather as much information as possible, and then we should just pass it on to any humans we come into contact with, and tell them to pass it on. It's the only means of knowledge we have, so we're just going to have to make the best of it," Annabelle announced confidently.

Having a place to start seemed to help lift her spirits a little bit. Annabelle felt better knowing that she was going to be doing something rather than just nothing, and for right now, that was enough for her.

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Being treated with care was not enough for Lori Suzuki.

Since being 'bought' from the store, she had been locked in a tiny cage, a pet carrier was what it was, and had been constantly poked and prodded at since her and the robot got 'home.' It was annoying to say the least.

They had gone into what looked like an apartment building, and gone up several floors, or what she assumed to be several, it was so big it didn't make a big difference to her. The silver robot had rolled into his home, and set her down on the floor in the middle of the first big room they came into. He left for a few minutes, and Lori considered trying to open the cage. It probably wouldn't be to hard considering the robots thought they were too stupid to know how to do anything beyond basic instincts. She decided against it though, it would be smarter to let it think she was dumb for now.
The robot came back quickly and knelt down and opened the front of the cage. It looked like it was going to reach in and grab her, so she sprinted out before it could. That thing was way too grabby for her taste. It responded by laying its arm down in the ground in front of her to block her from running off.

"Wow, you're stupid," she told it, even though she was well aware that it couldn't understand her. It did stop moving to stare at her intently though. "What? Why are you looking at me like that? What do you want?" It shifted and moved its head closer to her. Oh joy, it was excited to see her talking.
This thing obviously wasn't used to being around humans and anything that she did would probably pique its curiosity.

She crossed her arms over her chest and looked at him. There was a long silence. Neither of them moved for a minute.

The robot started shifting again. So it was impatient, looking for entertainment from her. Oh shit. If she were comparing it to a person, she would say he was like a child that was always looking for something new and interesting. This meant that it would probably get bored of her eventually. What would happen then?

Oh well, it wasn't like she cared at all. It was just some stupid robot that was holding her prisoner. The sooner it lost interest in her, the sooner she could work on escaping. But escape to where exactly?

That thought sparked what she had been holding in for the last few days. She was so far from not only home, but from everything she new. She suddenly wanted her mother, but she was dead, got killed in all the chaos when the robots attacked. Now all she had was the lively machine in front of her.

Lori's chest tightened, and she felt the familiar burning in her eyes that meant tears were coming.

She quickly turned her back to the robot, clutching her chest. It was an automatic response, even though she knew he wouldn't know what her crying meant. Her frame started to shake a little, and she sank to the ground. She fought to not let out a sound, pressing her lips firmly together. Though her eyes were squeezed shut, she heard her captor move around to look at her face. She opened her eyes and looked at its blurry image through her soggy eyes. It stared at her for a second, then it reached out to poke her.

She slapped its finger away angrily. It probably wasn't the best move, but it made her feel better to let some of her anger out.

It didn't seem upset by her reaction though. It seemed that if anything, she got the robot all excited again and it would come back for more. Maybe she should play dead?

That thought flew out the window as soon as it tried to poke her again. Their battle continued until the sound of footsteps came into the room. The silver robot looked excited and began making a bunch of computer-like sounds while making wild gestures at her.

Lori turned around to look at the newcomer. This one was gold. How cliché.

It didn't have wheels on its feet like the silver one, but it did have some very big ears on the side of its head. The shape of them actually reminded her of fish fins. At that moment, her crying suddenly turned into hysterical laughter.

She fell to her knees laughing and clutching her stomach. It felt like forever since she last laughed, and now that she was, she couldn't seem to stop.     

The golden one tilted its head in a considering manner before saying something to the silver one and walking out of the room.

The silver one just leaned in to poke her again.

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It was one of the worst feelings Annabelle had ever had to experience. That moment when they all held their breath, wondering who would be chosen, and if they wanted to be chosen. Annabelle was sure that some of them did after spending so much time in the tanks.

She couldn't fathom how being taken could amount to anything. She supposed people just wanted something to happen. But if they were taken, then that would mean they would only be taken to another location to probably end up in another tank alone. At least here they had human contact.
And it finally did happen; one by one they were taken. Fred was the first to go. It was one of the red eye ones. Carlin had lost his hope with Fred that day. He was the next one taken, and thankfully by one of the blue eye ones. She wasn't sure Carlin would survive with one of the red ones.

Bradley still sulked around as close as he dared to Roxy. She had taken to driving everyone away by glaring. It seemed her miserable attitude may have reached the customers because they left her alone.

Annabelle still made a show of being weak and boring. She felt the overpowering need to stay with her squadron till she was the last one.

When Brad had been taken, it had been a heartbreaking sight. It seemed to be one of the nicer ones, but Brad hadn't liked going with it anyways. At the last moment he had stretched his arm out in their direction with such desperation written on his face it had made Annabelle want to cry.
Though he had not been looking at her, Roxy had her head turned away.

And then it was just the two of them with few other girls. Roxy became even more closed off than she already was. She pushed herself into the corner near where Brad used to sit and only left when the need for food became too much.

A new shipment came in. It was much the same as before; lots of crying, lots of confusion, and a lot of anger.

Annabelle did her best to help the girls, and in the end, that was probably what got her noticed.