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[please be sure to read profile of this character before posting. this starts with her in her human form]

She walks silently over the barren road, apparently a human at first glance. Average, it seemed. Her brown eyes kept looking down onto the loosely paved road, thinking. She seemed to be intent to finding it's ending.

She arrives at the dead end, which was a fenced in region at the edge of a bustling interstate road. She sighed, putting her hands to the fence and looking out hopelessly. She would have been a human, you know. She could have been the average one. Yet...

Her skin was torn in some parts, exposing a few loose fires and rust. Her clothes were rugged, needing to be repaired. Her hair was in a mess, unkept. Lost it seemed. She needed to be free. She wanted to fit in. Yet her true identity kept her just watching the road. To some she was a pest, always there. She sighed, and leaned against the tall chain-link fence, watching the cars that passed. These cars were normal. She sighs and resumes to peer out, silently. Would someone finally catch notice of her, standing there in no hope, unfamiliar to this land she had wondered into?

He'd been motoring along the roadway without a driver for some time, when he felt his sensors tingle from the rear. A car was approaching quickly from behind. The sensors beeped, warning him of an impending collision, and then suddenly Clutch was knocked forward and spun.

Hurtling down the road at 80 mph might seem slow to the rest of traffic. Having a fender bender at that speed--not so much. "You LEMON!" Clutch hollered at the other car, as he spun a 180 and came to a halt near the side of the road. His sensors told him the rear fender was damaged. "That's going to require a mechanic! I hate mechanics!"

Grumbling he tried to turn himself around when he backed into a chainlink fence. "Fantastic," he griped. "Not only is my bumper out, now my sensors are down." With nothing left to do, he put his flashers on. He couldn't drive like he was--merging would be impossible without the use of his rear sensors.

Startled, the girl inches back, the fence bouncing. A car, that was talking.

She then inches back up and looks at them, hands on the fence. After a tense silence, she found the courage to speak up. ''You ok?'' She asked, brown eyes peering from the fence. She would have changed her form right then and there, but not at the risk of showing herself.

"Wha-? Who's there?" Clutch tilted his mirrors to no avail. He sighed realizing that someone had seen his less than stellar performance. "Uh, how much of that did you see? Is my back bumper okay?" He knew it wasn't, but a second opinion might help. "I was just run off the road and now I might need a mechanic--of course I'm not okay."

''Well, your in better shape than me.'' The girl said, then glances around before using a small laser to cut the fence beside Clutch, in which she pushed down to get out. She then looked at him. ''It's not too bad, not much damage. You didn't get hit too bad.'' She replied, the laser vanishing back into her shoulder. '' I see many crashes here often. Those I do see are terrible, as an ambulance usually comes afterwards.'' Stammering slightly, nervous, presumbly because of still being a bit startled.

"No ambulance necessary here," Clutch said and rolled down his tinted windows to reveal he had no driver or passenger. "Maybe a tow-truck..." he detested tow trucks almost as much as he detested mechanics.

An internal sensor beeped at him. "Um, you're not hurt are you?"

''You know, your the only car I've seen without a driver so far...'' She replied.

Should I really reveal myself here,crowded as it is? She thought, but shook her head at the though. She rubs the patch of torn skin on her arm. ''Me,hurt? I'm fine..'' She stammered, bits of wires poking out from the torn skin. ''Well, there not many tow trucks near this area. Not any that tows you freely. I usualy have to dr...Walk myself home.'' She replied, nervously.

"Ah, yes, I'm a bit of a rarity. And sometimes I do have a driv--well, passenger really." Not one to sell himself short, even in the worst of times, he turned on his charm. "I'm Clutch, an AI-driven vehicle meant to chauffer humans wherever they wish to go. Providing they don't touch the wheel, pedals, or gear shift."

He paused then added, "One of my sensors is indicating that there's another AI around here, though."

''T-t-t-that'd be me.'' She stammered, gulping. ''Cranky Doortrap, but in my good days I was called CD, before I got retired from my general duties of transferring information to my allies in wartime. All it took was loosing most of my parts in driving...'' Which is when she looked at the ground, caught up in her lies. She had actually lost a general object most cars would lose. Age turned her brittle, easily broken down. Wounds left her rusted, missing skin in her human form. Her duty didn't need her to be that way, thusly she had been retired, but not willingly.

"You're the AI? But...you...seem human. What I wouldn't give to be able to walk around and see through eyes! What's it like?"

But Clutch was wondering if maybe she wasn't the predecessor to his development after all. Certainly AIs had been around for a while--so that was nothing new. But if she'd been retired...she couldn't be in such great shape.

He winced. "Retired isn't so bad; and not all mechanics are terrible. I was a lemon before a, er, mechanic-in-training fiddled around and found a way to install me in a new set of wheels."

(sorry, had lunch)

''I have two forms. My sight is failing me due to my age. I'm too old to be running around and trying to prove to others that my retirement was unneeded! They all think losing a harddrive peice means you unfit for spy duties.'' She replied, sneering. ''I was in my prime too, so close to getting ranked up before I crashed and lost so much I ended up getting rusted..''

Clutch tried to make some sympathetic noises; the result sounded much like gears grinding together.

"Unless the entire hard drive was destroyed there's plenty they could have done to fix it. And besides that, there's no one telling you you can't spy anymore. You'd make the perfect spy now--no one would suspect you, I wouldn't have. And there are some new gadgets to prevent the spreading of rust--or so I'm told."

''I'd be a spy if I wasn't easily broken down.'' She replied, then looked around, before shifting back to her usual car form.

Metal could be heard moving, gears shifting places, a pale purple metal gleam becoming visible until a rusted out sports car was visible where she once stood, hood dented up badly, scratches visible a across the sides where a faint '45' was painted carefully, hinting to a former racer long gone now. Along with numerous bullets whole scattered dangerously close to her intact tires. Her windsheild bore brown eyes, though cracked a bit. Her headlights and general objects were fairly in good shape, still in good working order. And painted on her hood was a barely visible pinkish heart.

''I used to be a good racer too, but now I can only about 30 miles per hour before my engine sputters and smokes. Mechanics were too scared to fix me, seeing as I'm not an average car as most.''

Clutch wished he had eyes to see what was going on. "I've raced a little myself--I like the speed and rush of rpms. But why would mechanics be scared to work on you? As far as I can tell, most can't decide if a car has an AI, let alone bring themselves to talk to one."

''Because a spy car is armed with several weapons that are capable of paralyzing humans. We rely on our built in cameras to 'see' the world around us and detect any foes. My cameras are starting to lose power though, so I've only drove on this dead-end road. How long have you been riding the interstate?''

"Oooh, paralyzing humans? Must have been some crazy spying if you needed to go to such extremes to protect yourself."

He turned his flashers off, as he ran through a system's check. "I was on the interstate for the last two hours...until that lemon decided to run me off the road. I heard there was a good racing spot around here so I was heading to it. If that's one of the racers though...there will be words exchanged. And insurance."

"So where are you heading? I'm guessing you want to get out of the dead-end road? I could escort you somewhere."

She attempts to roll forward, but her engine sputters and sperts. ''I can't move.''

"Great, so make that two tow trucks. I can move, but the sensors on my back bumper aren't working. So I can't tell if anyone is coming up behind me, which means I can't merge without some help."

Clutch considered for a moment, revving his engine experimentally. "Maybe I could pull you behind me with a cable if you could watch out for cars?" It could work--even if he'd never done it before.

''You could, since I can see things unlike you. I'm rusty, but still sturdy enough to not fall to peices.''

"That's good to know. I think there's a mechanics shop not far from here." He let the tow cable out and rolled forward carefully--ensuring he didn't hit anything. His sensor beeped and he stopped immediately as a car whizzed past him, narrowly missing his front bumper.

"Right, I think I'm turned around..." his GPS took a moment to re-orient itself. "Okay, um, can you roll over the tow cable I put down? It's got a really strong magnet attached to it, so it should attach automatically."