Transformers Dark of the Moon (12 page)

“As I mentioned, I didn’t know about it during the first mission,” said McCandless. “But once the first contact was made, CAPCOM and mission controllers were brought on board so we wouldn’t have to worry about being out of touch with the astronauts for lengthy periods of time.” He glanced in mild annoyance at Aldrin.

Aldrin rolled his eyes. “It’s been forty years, Bruce. Let that out of your teeth, wouldja?”

“Fine, fine, okay,” he grunted, and then continued. “We landed six missions in total. Obtained thousands of photos and samples, locked ’em away for all eternity. There was no way to disassemble the ship.”

“But you searched it entirely?” said Optimus. “Including its crash vault?”

McCandless and Johnson exchanged concerned looks. Aldrin said, “I can’t speak for subsequent missions, obviously, but we barely had twenty minutes in the ship.”

“It wasn’t a ship,” Prime said. “Not
just
a ship.” He paused, and his voice sounded thicker with emotion than Lennox was accustomed to. “Its name was the Ark. I watched it escape Cybertron myself. It was carrying an Autobot technology that would have won us the war. And its captain …”

“Who was its captain?” said Mearing.

It took Optimus a few moments to get the name out; that was how painful it was for him to recall the events of which he was speaking. “The technology’s inventor: the great Sentinel Prime. He was commander of the Autobots … before me.”

“Then …” It began to fall together for Lennox. “The Decepticons are hunting for whatever happened to that ship.”

Optimus Prime nodded. “It’s imperative that I find it before the Decepticons learn of its location. You must launch another moon mission. And,” he added gravely, “you must pray it is in time.”

An old Russian oil tanker truck was rumbling down the cracked, dry, and dusty road of the African savanna, making such a racket as it approached that a flock of swans was startled into taking flight.

Seconds later they were nothing more than a flock of pulped flesh and scattered feathers, blasted into oblivion courtesy of Laserbeak, who had annihilated the flock mainly because he was feeling itchy after having not killed anything for at least a day.

The tanker rolled up to Laserbeak, and then it began to change, just as the Autobots had in their various missions on behalf of humanity. There were two differences: First, the tanker had no interest in aiding the hairless apes that populated this misbegotten world, and second, his metamorphosis was taking much, much longer. It was almost painful to witness, like watching a former Olympic sprinter who was now wracked with arthritis and trying to navigate a flight of stairs.

It required a full minute for the mass of twisting metal to assume the dreaded form of Megatron, and even then he was almost unrecognizable. Hunchbacked, leaking Energon from his devastated face, the once proud leader of the Decepticons made for a sheltered clearing while dragging a sack. Trailing along behind him was a head with spidery legs. Megatron had the feeling that he once knew the head, back when it had sat perched upon the body of one of his followers. But time and lack of interest
had erased the name from his memory. Now it was little more than a dog whimpering at his side. He had taken to calling it Igor for no particular reason.

Megatron thudded heavily to the ground and loosened the cords on the sack. What tumbled out would have looked to any non-Decepticon eye like a living nightmare. They were hatchlings: a cross between organic and metallic life, partially developed protoforms dripping slime.

He leaned over the hatchlings so that the Energon dripping from his face fell down upon them, providing them with the sustenance they needed. He kept talking to them as they squabbled over the food. “Don’t be greedy. Don’t be greedy. Greed is not a plan.”

The disembodied head was putting in its own bid for nourishment, scrambling around and trying to get anything it could that fell to the side.

There was a roar in the air from overhead, and Starscream slammed to the ground in front of Megatron, kicking up a huge cloud of dust as he did so.

“My brave and wise master,” he said. “Starscream hears your call! It pains me to see you so wounded, so helpless, so weak—”

Igor let out an incoherent, scolding babble directed at Starscream.
“Hurgl! Snurgl!”
That was followed by something more discernible: “My master! Mine!”

Having no patience for such moronic distractions, Starscream kicked the head, which rolled away. Then he turned his attention back to his master. “No harm meant, my lord! It’s an excellent strategy: hiding. Hiding and scheming. Going very well.”

A third of Megatron’s face was missing, but now a mouth formed upon it made from sheer Energon. “Silence, you insipid fool!” Megatron said with a snarl. “You know what you are told, which is nothing. While I lay prisoner here those many years, beneath their
wretched dam, Soundwave was watching over this planet. Perhaps you remember a ship called … the Ark.”

Soundwave, as if out to display his many talents as the foremost spy of the Decepticons, seemed to appear in the camp out of nowhere. Laserbeak landed on his shoulder and gave off what sounded like a sadistic purr.

“It has been found, Lord Megatron … by the Autobots.”

“Then we will race them to it!” Starscream said. “We will get it before them! And if they arrive while we are there, we will confront and destroy them! We—”

Megatron growled in a way that immediately silenced Starscream. “Let the Autobots do our work for us,” he said. “Let them bring the ship’s cargo to me. And as for your ‘human’ collaborators, Soundwave.” He glanced toward the sky. Despite the fact that it was daytime, the faint outline of the moon was visible. “It is time to ensure their silence.” And then his Energon-created mouth vanished.

Laserbeak squawked in delight at the prospect.

Madeline Singer, all of seven years old, was playing jacks in her backyard when she spotted the most adorable robot toy she had ever seen. It looked like some sort of animal, down on all fours, with a pointed tail on one end and a long neck attached to a head with glowing red eyes on the other. She didn’t know where it had come from. One moment it hadn’t been there, the next it had. But she was at an age at which she didn’t question such little miracles. Instead she laughed with delight at the way the little thing lurched toward her with a stilted gait.

“Hello!” said Madeline, springing to her feet, causing her golden ringlets to bounce around her face. She ran toward it, and it stopped in its tracks. It looked neither right nor left but just stayed there. “Who are you?”

It didn’t answer.

Experimentally she stepped backward and was thrilled to see that the toy mimicked her as it moved toward her in synchronization with her backward step. She stopped. It stopped. She moved back a few more steps, and it followed her. She clapped her hands and then knelt so that she was on eye level with it. “Would you like to come to my tea party? We can have it upstairs in my room. We have to be quiet because my daddy is taking a nap, though. Okay?”

The robot nodded eagerly.

The little girl led him inside.

Her mother, Julia, was on the phone in the kitchen, sounding particularly irritated as Madeline walked past. “Look, any kid who pukes in my Volvo no longer gets to carpool with me!”

“Mommy, I have a robot I’m taking upstairs for a tea party.”

Without even looking her daughter’s way, the harried mother waved her off. “What? No, Bob and I have a party. The NASA gang’s finally sending up the Atlas X. No, don’t worry about me. I’ll drink my way through it.”

She continued to chat as she finished preparing dinner. After a few minutes, she called Madeline down for dinner and asked her to wake up her father on the way down.

Another thirty seconds passed during which time she shut off the carrots cooking on the stove top and slid the meat loaf out of the oven.

Then Julia heard a sound that would stay with her the rest of her life: a scream of mortal terror ripping from her daughter’s throat.

Instantly she dropped the phone and sprinted up the stairs, taking them two at a time. She reached the upstairs landing and saw Madeline on the floor outside her parents’ bedroom, her hands to her face, still screaming. The door was wide open, and as Julia ran toward it, she heard Bob screaming, “No! No, you don’t have to do this! We can still work together!”

And then his pleas were cut off by the shattering sound of small arms fire.

Now Julia’s screams joined her daughter’s.

In the bedroom, a robot crouched over the unmoving, perforated body of Bob Singer. Then it turned its attention toward the terrified mother and daughter.

Laserbeak chattered happily.

So this is what it’s like to be an Autobot. To be able to move around and be capable of doing so many things, but nobody notices you because you just blend in with everything else
.

Those were the thoughts going through Sam’s mind as he pushed his mail cart through the aisles of cubicles in Accuretta Systems. Once in a very great while, a coworker might address him by name, or at least try to (“Thanks, Sid”; “Much obliged, Sol”) or thank him for delivering some letter or package she or he was waiting for. Especially grateful on this particular day was Mickey in cubicle 27A or, as Sam thought of him, the baseball nut. He kept his cubicle decorated with everything from bats to balls to mitts. When Sam handed him a small box, Mickey started telling him about how it was a signed ball he’d gotten off eBay, and how if his wife knew how much he spent on this stuff she’d kill him, and on and on until Sam finally found a way to excuse himself so he could continue on the rounds that he really didn’t want to do anyway.

In most instances, Mickey notwithstanding, Sam would acknowledge the overtures with a nod of his head or a casual wave.

But his thoughts remained on other things, such as the Autobots, and why he wasn’t working beside them, and how was he supposed to be placing any value on work
such as this when only a few years ago he’d been saving the world.

In the course of his seemingly endless rounds, he noticed that there was one guy—some young Asian fellow—who seemed to be watching him. But when Sam turned around to look directly at him, the guy walked away and Sam started to wonder if he’d been imagining it.

As Sam returned his empty mail cart to the mailroom and headed for his office, he tried to think of the last time he had felt this level of despair and decided it was the time Optimus Prime had died while saving him from that demented Decepticon who had wanted to remove his brain. Granted, Sam had been instrumental in restoring Prime back to life. But at this point he was starting to think that had he realized how little use he’d wind up putting his brain to, Optimus could have saved everyone a lot of trouble by just letting the so-called Doctor have the damned thing.

He sank onto his creaky chair behind his desk. It wasn’t as if he even had his own office, since he shared the cramped space with two eager-beaver interns and one beaten-down devil who had been working in the mail room since stamps were twenty-nine cents. Fortunately, they were all still out doing rounds or whatever the hell they were supposed to be up to.

“So I hear this is where the CEO started.”

Startled, he looked up and saw Carly standing there, leaning against the door frame.

All he wanted to do was crawl under the desk, but he didn’t want to let on to Carly how mortified he was to have her see him there. So instead he said, with forced joviality, “It’s true. This was his desk.” He started pointing to other objects. “His stapler, his Wite-Out, his rubber band ball.” Sam stood and gestured around the room, his “excitement” becoming deliriously over the
top. “There’s an energy in this place. Hold it. Feel it. It’s electric!”

Carly folded her arms and smiled wryly at Sam’s carefully modulated histrionics. “Had a meeting downtown. Okay to stop by?”

He didn’t bother to say what he was thinking, namely, that it was a little late to ask if it was okay. “Not sure. I mean, there’s probably some company policy about it. Unfortunately, my five-hundred-page employee conduct manual isn’t exactly a page-turner.”

“Sam, it’s a job! At last!”

“Oh, yeah.” He was unable to keep out the sound of bitterness. “Autobots are off protecting the world, and I’ve organized four-ring binders. This is
so
much better.”

“It’s not about what’s better or worse! It’s about doing what …”

He wasn’t listening. Instead he was noticing that the same Asian guy who had been watching him earlier was now moving very, very slowly past his office, making such an effort to appear casual that he was instead amazingly conspicuous.

“May I help you?”
Sam shouted so abruptly that Carly jumped slightly. Her head whipped around to see where he was looking even as his personal stalker hustled away. Sam turned back to Carly and said in exasperation, “Creepy Asian guy keeps—” Then, seeing Carly’s confused expression, he waved it off to make it clear that it wasn’t worth dwelling on.

Perfectly happy not to dwell, Carly opted to pursue something she considered cheerier than this office or Sam’s clear frustration over not running around saving the planet. “Listen, this Saturday; Dylan’s throwing a client party at his house. It’s a work thing, but he’s invited you, too.”

He moaned. She couldn’t be serious. She couldn’t be asking what he thought she was asking.

“I want you to come. Say witty things, laugh at my jokes.” She tilted her head in that way she had, accentuating that beautifully slender neck of hers. “It means a lot, okay? Please?”

Sam wanted to tell her that there was simply no way in hell he was going to do it. That it was too much to ask, that it wasn’t fair to him. She knew how fragile he was feeling right now.

Fragile? For crying out loud, Witwicky, stop being such a wuss. Your gorgeous girlfriend is asking you to be there for her for a party. Man up, wouldja?