Transformers Dark of the Moon (28 page)

It must have been agony for her to draw in another breath to make her voice heard, yet Carly managed it: “He’ll never work for you!”

“No? Never?” Dylan said, feigning disappointment. “As in never
never
ever?”

Then she shrieked, and Sam thought he was going to die as well just from hearing the agony in her voice as Soundwave applied a bit more pressure. Sam shouted for them to stop, and once again Soundwave did so, but there was even less room than before for Carly. One more application of the unyielding pressure from Soundwave, and Sam was afraid the results would be fatal.

“That sounded to me,” said Dylan, “like the cry of a young man who would do anything, absolutely anything, to save the life of his lady love. Hmmm?” He cocked an eyebrow. “Am I close? I am, aren’t I? Here’s the thing, Sam: They
will
slaughter her, do you understand me? In the time that it takes you to blink. They will do it to her, then they’ll do it to me. So try to show a little more respect when someone offers you a job.”

“You …” Sam gulped. “You make it sound like we’re in the same fix or something. We’re not. Because you’re enjoying this way too much, you sick bastard. I can see it in your eyes, hear it in your voice. You would’ve wound up screwing people over, hurting them, making them do whatever you wanted even if the Decepticons had never shown up. It’s just that this way, you have an excuse. You can tell yourself that, oh well, you didn’t really have a choice. When the truth is that on your own, you’d’ve been a sadistic asshole. Now you’re just a sadistic asshole with robots.”

Dylan’s self-satisfied smile never wavered. “Sticks and stones will break her bones, Sammy. You want to roll those dice, or do you want to shut your piehole and listen up? And be grateful. Most people have to work a job twenty-five years to get a special wristwatch. Here you get yours on your first day.”

Whereupon Dylan extended his arm and his wristwatch
disengaged from it. The watch leaped to the ground, flipping in the air as it did so. Four tiny legs extended from either side of the watch face, eight in all, cushioning the watch’s landing. Then it skittered across the ground straight toward Sam.

Automatically Sam started to struggle, until he was halted by Dylan’s derisive, “Ah, ah. Wouldn’t want to put lovely Carly into an even more pressing situation, would we?” Upon hearing that, Sam immediately halted his attempts to pull free. The guard holding his arm angled it toward the approaching creature. As Sam watched helplessly, it hopped onto his hand and settled upon his wrist. It probed around a little bit as if it were a cat kneading in before making itself comfortable.

As it did so, Dylan circled Sam. “You are to track down Optimus Prime, because you are the only human he trusts.”

“Track him down? How am I supposed to track him down?” Sam’s voice sounded squeaky to his own ears, breaking with fear for Carly’s life. “It’s not like I have his phone number. What do you want me to do? Shine a picture of a big truck on a passing cloud?”

“You’ll figure it out, Sam. I have confidence in you. You’re a clever lad. And once you have accomplished this goal, you will ask him this question: How does he intend to fight back? We want their tactics, strategy, everything.”

The spider watch, apparently having found the space it wanted, bit down into Sam’s wrist. Sam let out a pained cry and felt like a wimp for doing so. He wanted to be strong. He wanted to show that he could handle anything these creeps could dish out. Instead he yelped at something as relatively insignificant as a bite from a spider watch. But he couldn’t help it; it hurt like hell.

“Okay, boys, let him up.” Dylan gestured for the guards to release their hold on him and they did so. Sam
got to his feet, dusting himself off and glaring at Dylan the whole time. He also fired an angry look at his brand-new jewelry.

“Got a nasty bite, doesn’t it?” Dylan said with his typical mock sympathy. “
Very
high tech. Lets us see what you see and hear what you hear. And it taps your nervous system. Electrical feed right to the spine. So if you so much as try to signal Optimus or any of his pals as to what’s really going on …”

At that point Sam understood why Dylan had let him up.

It was so he could fall down again as more pain than he had ever experienced lanced through his spine. It was like being tasered except, he had to believe, a hundred times worse. His arms flew wide, his legs buckled, and his mouth was open in a soundless “o” of agony. He didn’t even feel himself hitting the ground because it felt like every single molecule of his body was being blown apart. Lying on the ground, he spasmed out of control and then lay there gasping as it subsided.

And Carly, ever defiant, even with her own life on the line, shouted, “Sam! Don’t do what he wants!”

Sam knew of a certainty that if it were simply his own survival at issue, that would be exactly the course of action he would follow. He would have told Dylan to forget it. He would have taken every bit of punishment that this Rolex from hell was inflicting on him and more besides before he gave up Optimus Prime and risked dealing a lethal blow to the last line of defense humanity might still have. The worst they could do was kill him. It would be a slow and excruciating death, but eventually death
would
come, and he would die knowing that he hadn’t let his friends down.

Perhaps sensing the depths of Sam’s resolve, Dylan knelt next to him and once again put on that “we’re in the same boat” attitude. Like a bartender offering sage
advice, he said, “What can I tell you, Sam? Relationships have consequences. I’m here because of my father. She’s here because of you.”

And then he heard Carly’s scream, and he was absolutely certain that it would quickly be followed by the sound of her ribs, her spine, even her skull, snapping like a wishbone at Thanksgiving.

“No! Stop!”
In his voice was more than just a protest or a plea for mercy. It was abject surrender to the terms being presented to him.

Dylan had heard what he wanted to. “Soundwave!” he said sharply and with finality.

The steering column retracted, and the seat instantly returned to its normal position. Then the door popped open, and Soundwave essentially spit Carly out. She fell onto the driveway, her arms crisscrossed around her body, alternating between sobs and trying to get her breath back.

“You do your job,” Dylan said easily, “and she’ll be safe. You have my word.”

With pure venom in every word, Sam shot back, “I’ll kill you. You have
my
word.”

Dylan faked a shudder. “Mmmm. Just got goose bumps. I can see why she formerly used to like you.” Then, like a businessman who had just closed a deal—which, as far as he was concerned, he probably was—he informed Sam, “I invest in the future at this company. I’m leveraged heavily in Decepticons. And I just bought you. You go find your Autobots now. How they plan to fight back and all we want to know.”

He nodded to his guards, who started to reach for Sam’s arms. He shook them off and headed toward his Datsun. The guards followed him to make sure he didn’t try anything, although what he would possibly try, Sam couldn’t begin to guess. What was he going to do? Make a break for it and run home instead of drive?

Dylan looked to Carly, who was still lying on the driveway, curled up in almost a fetal position, gasping for breath. “I like him,” he said cheerily. “Still think you’re settling, but hey, your call. Because one thing I value in any employee is a strong sense of what it will take to survive.”

And he smiled a crocodile’s smile.

The first fingers of dawn were stretching over the horizon. The sun was coming up on not only a new day but a new world. For the first time in the history of the planet, the whole of humanity had to deal with a common enemy.

Lennox had never been in the situation room of the White House before. He supposed it was absurd to be thinking, as he was just then, that he wished it had been under better circumstances. It was the situation room, for crying out loud. When would there be a good circumstance for having to use it? The president was monitoring the situation from
Air Force One
; it was felt that the best option of all the bad ones currently before them was to keep the chief executive on the move.

The joint chiefs and assorted others were grouped around, studying the data pouring in from all over. None of it was giving any of them the warm fuzzies.

Still, considering that they were humans who had been thrown into combat with beings that they should, from an evolutionary standpoint, never have been forced to battle—like cavemen slugging it out with dinosaurs—they were doing their best to stay ahead of the curve.

General Morshower said, “Our combat commands are now at DEFCON 1 around the globe. We’ll have our eyes in the sky over the twenty largest U.S. cities within
the hour.” He cast an expectant glance to his right. “Colonel Lennox?”

Lennox nodded, taking the stage. “We estimate two hundred Decepticons now in hiding. Energon detectors have been triggered as far away as South America. Still no direct sightings, however.”

“We assume they’re preparing to attack. But so far we don’t know when, where, how … or why,” said Morshower.

An aide quickly entered the situation room and said urgently, “General, the UN’s just received an encrypted audio file. They say it is from the leader of the Autobots.”

“All right,” said Morshower, galvanized into action. “Inform them that the contents of that file are hereby classified top secret. Lennox, I want you to arrange for an immediate special courier to—”

The aide cleared his throat. “Um, General …”

“What is it?” he said impatiently.

“The secretary-general decided the circumstances called for a special meeting of the General Assembly. He said that since it was the world’s business, the world had a right to know. They’re broadcasting it right now, on every channel, on radio, and live-streaming it onto the Internet. They timed it so that it would go hot the exact moment they informed us of its existence.”

Morshower went dead white. There were stunned looks from the rest of the brass. “Why the hell did they do that?”

“According to them,” and the aide could not have looked less happy about it, “it was because they were afraid we would classify it top secret and have it brought here by special courier.”

There were moans from around the table.

Lennox closed his eyes in pain.
Fantastic. Fan … freaking … tastic
.

(“Defenders of Earth: My name is Sentinel Prime, the true leader of the Autobots.)

(“For millennia our galaxy was ravaged by a tragic civil war. But now that war is over, and our armies stand as one. We come from a damaged planet, which must be rebuilt.)

(“What we need are the natural resources your world has in abundance. Precious metals, iron, steel. We shall use my space bridge technology to transport an equitable share of such material. And then we will leave your planet in peace.)

(“However, for such peace to exist, you must renounce resistance. You must immediately exile from this planet the rebels you have harbored, or we will deem it your hostile intent, and, through my space bridge, will come more battalions. And you will know our righteous strength.)

(“We want no war with you. Only our planet’s reconstruction. Long live Cybertron. Long live Earth. Renounce the rebels. We await your reply.”)

There was not a word being spoken by the occupants in the situation room as they watched the General Assembly of the United Nations. It was up on a screen on the wall, which was no great trick since it was also being broadcast into every home in America. The only noises to be heard were the ambient sounds of various data streams still coming in through other control systems. They were being ignored by everyone as they all observed the proceedings.

Lennox didn’t know what the generals and the joint chiefs were thinking, but he was getting a bad feeling in the pit of his stomach.

The Autobots have done so much good while they
were here. Going into hot spots where no one else could. Every damned government has come to us at one time or another and asked for the help of the Autobots. Everything from sending them into war zones to delivering supplies and medical aid to nations hit by natural disasters. God may have sent us earthquakes and floods, but he also sent us these metal freaking angels to pitch in
.

And that’s just going to go right out the window, I know it. The first time the going gets tough, the first time the Autobots need us to have their backs, the UN is going to throw them under the cosmic bus
.

The secretary-general slowly rose from his chair to let the whole world in on what was possibly the most cataclysmic decision in the history of the species and one that they would most certainly screw up since fear usually dictated the wrong response to any situation. With a quiet dignity, in words so plain and firm as to command their assent, he said: “For over sixty-five years, it has been our charter to defend refugees from all war-torn nations. Today we are asked whether we shall do the same for those facing an alien war. To stand wth them as they have with us. Whatever danger it may bring to the citizens of Earth, I now ask all representatives who are in favor of allowing the Autobots to stay to stand.”

The delegates began to stand. In later days, many delegates would claim to be the first to have gotten to their feet, and historians would devote thousands of hours to studying tapes from all angles—the Zapruder film received less scrutiny—before finally concluding that it was inconclusive.

But everyone could agree on one thing: It started slowly but gained in speed and momentum as a vast majority of representatives got to their feet. The message from the United Nations—from humanity’s delegates and representatives—was clear and unequivocal and
summarized by a front-page
New York Daily News
headline written in that publication’s inimitable style: