Sam didn’t move; he could hardly react. The choice he was being given was no choice at all. Whatever he did would end badly. But he had to do something. The unknown Decepticon wouldn’t wait forever. Standing out in the open, staring, the sunlight was blinding Sam, making his eyes water. He rubbed at them, trying to clear his vision, turning away from the glare and to his left. From which direction yet another figure was now approaching.
Bumblebee.
Advancing in the shade of multistory ruins, the Autobot could not perceive the details of the scene that was being played out farther down the intersecting alley. He couldn’t see the impatient Decepticon. But he could see Sam, analyze his posture, match the expression on his face with others in his data banks,
note the terror in Mikaela’s eyes, and come to a realistic conclusion. Halting, keeping low as he started to back up, his gesturing to Sam was unmistakable.
Distract it.
Wiping at his eyes again Sam slowly started forward, his attention focused on his battered parents. Behind him, a frightened Mikaela was retreating one step at a time, her gaze flicking from him to the monster blocking the alley.
“Don’t hurt them,” Sam implored in his best pleading voice, “just don’t hurt them, okay? Look ...” He held up the sand-filled sock. “This is everything I’ve got. I’m giving it to you ...”
Flying off a nearby roof, a black and yellow shape slammed into the Decepticon from above, knocking it backward. Though caught off-guard the Decepticon reacted with preternatural reflexes, flipping backward even as he unleashed a killing spike that Bumblebee hastily dodged. It slammed into the ground near the Witwickys as they raced toward their son.
The Decepticon was bigger and stronger, but Bumblebee was moving like his terrestrial namesake. For every glancing blow the enemy struck, the lightning- fast Autobot landed several. Metal clanged on metal as shells and short-range missiles tore the surrounding structures to pieces. But bit by bit, the Decepticon was succumbing to the relentless punishment that was being meted out by the furious Autobot.
As his parents stood nearby looking on in amazement and Mikaela moved to join them, Sam stepped forward with fists clenched. “Kill him, Bumblebee, kill him!”
The Autobot needed no urging. Not with his human family at risk and the memory of Optimus’s fall still fresh in his memory. As the Decepticon unloaded a murderous swing, the faster, smaller Autobot ducked beneath it, grabbed hold, and swung around behind his enemy. The force of his forward movement combined with his weight was sufficient to produce a grinding noise as metal joints gave way and the arm snapped. The Decepticon roared, trying to break free and flailing with his remaining good arm. Bumblebee promptly grabbed this one as well and pulled it back behind his foe. Rising into the air, he kicked out straight with both legs as hard as his servos would permit. The Decepticon’s body went flying, but his arms remained locked in Bumblebee’s grasp. As the armless body went rolling into the dirt, a protective shield slid down into place over the Au- tobot’s face.
Serving primarily as a translator and then as an interlocutor, it had been a long time since he had either been in condition or in the mood to don his battle mask.
Sam’s parents embraced their son so forcefully that in their enthusiasm and relief they threatened to knock him down.
“Sam, oh, Sammy,” his mother was wailing,
“thank God!”
Ron eyed his son proudly but briefly. His attention was still diverted by the battling robots. “I don’t know what the hell’s happening here—I don’t even know where we are—but I do know that we gotta move. Follow me.” He started to turn down one of the narrower side alleys.
Sam reached out to stop him. “No, Dad—they’re
after me. You and Mom get in Bumblebee. He’ll get you out of here.” Turning, he whistled and waved. “Bumblebee, take ’eml”
Scored and dented but unbowed and still very much in fighting mode, the yellow-and-black Autobot came close—speaking, for the first time in quite a while, in a voice that was raspy but intelligible and decidedly lifted from a song or old radio show.
“Stayyyy withhhh yyyyooouuuu.”
Ron looked evenly at his son. “He’s right, Sam, this isn’t a discussion!”
“No, it’s not,” Sam agreed, drawing himself up. “ ’Cause this is my scene. Both of you do what I say. You don’t hide, you don’t stop. You get to safety and I will find you. You understand? Vve got things I have to do.”
Ron Witwicky stared at his son. Who was the young man standing before him and speaking so resolutely? The same tentative, almost timid youth he had so recently seen off to college? Shifting his gaze, he eyed the black-and-yellow metallic life-form standing silently behind Sam. No—his son had become something else. Something more.
It seemed that not only alien robots were capable of striking transformations.
The same epiphany had affected Judy Witwicky. Reaching out, she put a hand on her husband’s arm, her face glowing with pride and understanding as she smiled at her progeny.
“Ron, it’s okay—let him go.”
Throughout the fleeting conversation, explosions had continued to detonate all around them. Some were coming closer. Changing shape, Bumblebee roared forward and skidded to a halt beside the waiting humans. Doors flung themselves wide. Ron glanced in the Camaro’s direction, then turned back to his offspring and nodded in understanding.
“We’re with you, son—whatever happens.”
They embraced—father and son, then mother and son. As his friend carried his mother and father away from the scene of battle, Sam stood gazing after them. Only a touch from Mikaela broke the emotion-laden reverie into which he had fallen. She glanced down at his right hand.
“I know you’re not going to give up that sock, but if you don’t relax your fingers you’re liable to break your own bones.”
Towering above Simmons and Leo, the colossal Decepticon took stock of his surroundings. Significant if not prominent among them were two humans and a pair of comparatively diminutive Autobots. That was sufficient motivation for Devastator to open a great, whirling cavern of a mouth. A wind rose immediately—not from the south, nor from the mountains to the north, but from within the Decepticon himself as he leaned forward and directed it toward his targets. Sand, then rocks, and finally boulders rose to vanish into that widening maw.
Simmons had already started backing away. Now he turned and yelled.
“RUN!!”
Not all of the construction equipment at the quarry site was capable of animation. Some was exactly what it appeared to be: little-used or abandoned machinery. The ex-agent took cover behind the biggest dozer he could find while Leo dove into a car that had spent too much time out in the desert sun. Behind them, the Twins ran for their lives. Bravado and boldness were indefensible attitudes when faced with a Decepticon the size of Devastator.
It did not matter what was sucked into that bipedal tornado—rocks, chunks of wood, small bits of machinery—Devastator drew them in, ground them up, and spit out a steady stream of gravel, chips, and metal fragments. When Leo felt the shell of the car in which he had taken shelter begin to shudder, he scrambled madly out the opposite door and rushed to lock both arms around the railing of an iron stairwell.
Not that his efforts would do him much good if the Decepticon chose to consume the stairwell as well.
Mudflap likewise managed to secure a grip on a solid structure, but his counterpart was not so fortunate. Struggling to hold on to a steel beam, Skids found himself lifted off the ground and sucked toward Devestator’s vast mouth. As it slammed shut with the smaller robot inside, Mudflap let out an electronic howl as piteous as anything Leo had ever heard emerge from the mouth of an Autobot.
Devastator started toward the remaining two humans and the twin of the Autobot he had consumed— and then started to wobble. Standing up straighter, the giant halted in his tracks. His head shook to the le
ft, then to the right, then left again. A peculiar grinding noise came from deep within the massive head.
Skids exploded out of the Decepticon’s right eye, not only unharmed and very much alive but firing directly into the colossus’s face while clinging to its jaw. Hurt and enraged, Devastator stumbled wildly as he sought to get a grip on the fast-moving Autobot. He couldn’t fire at Skids without shooting himself in the face. When one gigantic foot slammed down too close to Simmons’s own hiding place, the ex-agent burst from cover and started running again—this time straight at the Decepticon.
“Only safe place is right under it!” Simmons
shouted back. “Run at it! Run for its feet—it’s big, but it’s slow.”
Having learned to listen to the ex-agent’s advice, Leo released his grip on the dubious stairwell and rushed to join the older man. Run at it—yeah, sure, he thought. That makes sense. Jump on your enemy’s foot. But as he joined Simmons in a potentially lethal dance beneath the immense, slow-moving feet, he had to admit that hiding in plain sight had one virtue: the Decepticon couldn’t bring any of his weapons to bear between his own legs.
Meanwhile, Mudflap scrambled up the nearest tottering leg to fire a cable toward his brother. Grabbing hold, Skids swung safely to the ground, firing continuously at point-blank range as he did so. Both Twins landed cleanly right in front of the two scrambling humans.
In town, Sam and Mikaela did their best to stay out of sight by keeping to the smaller alleyways as they ran. A succession of intensifying concussions caused Sam to look back the way they had come.
Yet another Decepticon had appeared in their wake. Leaping rather than running, pogo-sticking its way across town, it pulverized every structure it encountered. Alerting Mikaela with a tug and a nod, Sam led her sideways just as the building behind them was flattened.
At this rate, he thought as he rolled over and spat out plaster and mud, pretty soon there wouldn’t be anyplace in town beneath which to take cover because there wouldn’t be any town left.
The fully armed jets sat on the deck of the Roosevelt locked to their catapults and ready to go. All they needed was the launch command.
They had been sitting thus, in carrier-launch terms, for quite a while now.
In the Pentagon, Chairman Morshower was listening to the quiet but firm complaints of the officer in command of the Roosevelt battle group.
“We can’t remain at this level of readiness indefinitely, Admiral. No matter how good the acrobat, sooner or later he’ll start to lose his balance.”
“I know.” Aware that the eyes of numerous senior officers were on him, Morshower held his ground as he responded. “Hold as long as you can. Nobody leaves until I have confirmation. ”
Devastator started after the Twins—and then suddenly and unexpectedly stopped, turned, and started off in the opposite direction. Unable to flee without revealing themselves, Simmons and Leo stayed beneath the striding Decepticon as he headed back toward the quarry wall.
“Keep directly underneath, kid.” Simmons was whispering as he tried to match his pace to the stride of the colossus towering above them. “When he looks
distracted, we’ll make a break for it.” Keeping pace
alongside him, Leo nodded nervously.
The massive Decepticon began climbing the steeply pitched side of the excavation site. It was all the two humans could do to scramble up the side while keeping under the hulking beast. At the top, standing immutably as it had for thousands of years, was the great pyramid.
Simmons barely had time to regret his choice. The sky above cracked open like a blue eggshell. There was a brief vision of—something. Another world, another place, another incredibly far distant corner of the space-time continuum. It did not last long, because the view was largely blocked by a shape that was coming through the gap. Simmons did not have to look at the apparition to know that it represented something—or someone—of great importance.
He knew because the gargantuan Devastator bent low in supplication and abasement. And because alongside the swirling, metallic shape, Megatron looked only—ordinary.
“Master. Your Machine remains in place, where it was hidden.”
The Fallen surveyed his surroundings. They were not to his liking, but that did not matter. Very soon now he would simply change them to suit his wishes.
“Where is the Matrix?”
“With the boy,” Megatron informed him.
The Fallen was mightily pleased. “Then we are very near. Bring it to me, and our destiny will be complete.”
“Near to what, my lord?” Megatron inquired uncertainly.
“Why, to our apotheosis, my prodigal. And to the end of this foolish and Energon-wasting war on which you and yours have been forced to expend so much time and energy.” An immense arm rose and gestured. “Go now. Exultation is at hand.”
Unlike Devastator, Megatron did not bow, but he did turn obediently to bullet off in the direction of a nearby and presently human-occupied desert town.
The battle there was not going well for the defenders. As explosions erupted all around them, a pair of Blackhawks arrived and began to unload special forces troops. As they rappelled down to a pair of adjoining rooftops, one was blown to fragments by a rampaging Decepticon. Debris, shrapnel, and body parts rained down over a wide area as the second chopper broke off. Trying to provide covering fire, both Ironhide and Sideswipe took repeated hits. The Autobots were outnumbered and the presence of a few human allies, no matter how experienced and well trained, was hardly enough to make up the difference on the battlefield.
Seeking a clear route away from the increasingly desperate combat, the second copter’s flight path took it straight toward the open quarry. The Fallen watched it approach with as much detachment as an entomologist studying a particularly uninteresting species of ant. Unlike the lesser Decepticons, the Master did not unlimber a weapon, did not fire a single shell or missile. Instead, he merely waved a hand in the aircraft’s direction.
The chopper turned upside down as neatly and swiftly as if gravity itself had suddenly reversed. The Fallen looked on with interest as the out-of-control craft zoomed past him to slam into the floor of the quarry and burst into flame.
class="center">* *
Are those helmets I’m seeing ahead of us? Sam wondered as he continued to stumble forward. He and Mikaela had been running, diving, and dodging for so long now that he could not be sure of anything. But the closer they drew, the more the rounded shapes seemed to be sitting on top of people instead of posts.
Another explosion sent earth and gravel vomiting skyward behind them and they were forced to take cover behind a row of pillars. The detonation also drew Lennox’s attention. Spotting the two teens, he yelled at the men on both sides of him to direct some covering fire their way. If the kids could just make it across the last remaining stretch of open ground . . .
Then they might be little better off than they were right now, he told himself realistically. But at least in among his troops they would not be surrendered without a fight.
As Devastator began to climb the side of the great pyramid, Simmons and Leo used the opening his departure presented to make a dash for the smoking ruins of the downed Jordanian chopper. Once they reached the still-smoking wreckage, they worked to help the wounded get away from the rubble and under the cover of nearby boulders. At the same time, they tried their best to keep track of what the Deceptions were doing.
At present, a bemused Leo decided as he squinted toward the crest of the pyramid, the alien activity was not making any sense.
Having reached the summit, Devastator had started banging away with both massive metal fists at the point of rocks that capped the ancient structure.
As more and more stone was smashed aside, something tapering and shiny was gradually becoming exposed. Shading his eyes, Leo continued to stare upward.
“What the hell’s it doing up there? Is it trying to get
inside? There’s some kind of metal spire or something.”
Rising from the injured soldier he had been ministering to, Simmons came up beside the younger man and joined him in gazing toward the line of rocks. His eyes widened.
“Oh God—the machine—the machine that plane, Jetfire, was taking about. The pyramid was built around it! We’re sittin’ at the endgame!”
He hesitated a moment longer, contemplating, planning, and weighing options. Then he turned, snatched a radio comm from one of the bewildered, shellshocked soldiers, and took off toward the base of the pyramid.
On the bridge of the Roosevelt, the captain wished for more room in which to pace. It was something the ship’s designers had not taken into consideration, he knew, none of them ever having found themselves in a position akin to that of a commanding officer.
As he was running over the available options in his mind for the fortieth, or maybe the fiftieth, time, a communications officer looked up sharply from his
console.
“Captain, we have secure radio traffic coming from Jordan using outdated encryption. He wants to talk to you. He’s . . . the officer hesitated, “he doesn’t sound Jordanian.”
The captain’s brows arched. “What does he ‘sound,’ like, Lieutenant?”
The junior officer half smiled. “He sounds like ‘Brooklyn.’ Or at least, New York.”
“Put it through.” Stepping forward, the captain spoke into the nearest pickup. “This is Captain L. W. Wilder, commander U.S.S. Roosevelt. Please identify ...”
Static distorted the voice on the other end, but it could not mute the outrage that underlay the angry response.
“Where the hell are all our people! Our tanks, our planes? We got three hundred friggin’ satellites up there banging off each other! What are they all doing—providing feeds to the Weather Channel?!” Captain and communications officer exchanged a glance. On the bridge, everyone had turned to look up from their own stations. Wilder growled a tense reply.