Transformers-Revenge of the Fallen

  The phone rang again and Sam answered with the same inflection as before. “Hey, Beautiful.”

  “I’m breaking up with you,” the wonderful voice of his wonderful girlfriend insisted less than wonder­fully. “So there’s no point in me coming over to say good-bye. You’ll just have to remember me the last time you saw me.”

  “Last time I saw you?” His grin widened. “Let’s see, as I recall the last time I saw you we were ...” She hurried to cut him off. “Never mind that now. That’s all in the past. Like our relationship.”

  He was checking drawers one last time. “Wow, you sounded almost serious that time. Guess what. . . ?” The phone conveyed her sarcasm excellently. “You found your future wife in the freshman Facebook?” He found what he was looking for. The cigar box held fragments of the recent past, each one replete with not only memory but also physical significance: a web-cam, mix CDs, a familiar and extraordinarily significant pair of old glasses scored with minute yet mathematically precise scratches, a battered old badge labeled SECTOR SEVEN, and more.

  “No,” he finally replied in response to her jibe. “I’m making you a ‘long-distance relationship kit.’ It’s got a preset webcam so we can chat twenty- four-seven: all Witwicky, all the time. Some of our fa­vorite mixes, a ‘fragrance of love’ scented candle, some poetry—not all of it rhymes, but it’s from the heart.” Even in the absence of an image on the phone he was sure he could feel her smiling.

  “Lotta junk,” she told him. “Anything worth­while?”

  “Just a few souvenirs from the event that cannot be mentioned when we’re on cell phones. Badge, glasses—how ’bout my shirt? You want the infamous D-Day shirt?” Digging into the back of the drawer he pulled out the ratty, torn, folded shirt he had been wearing when he had helped to save the world. Her response offered something less than the ego boost he was anticipating.

  “You kept your sweaty, dirty, shredded clothes?” “You kidding?” he shot back defensively. “I bled in this thing. It’s like my Super Bowl jersey.”

  In the restoration shop, the voice that called out to Mikaela was simultaneously businesslike and endear­ing.

  “ ’Kaela! Where’d you put the clutch covers?” her father inquired gruffly.

  “Second shelf,” she yelled back. “Next to the cam shafts. If they’re not there, look on the floor by the softail.”

  Sam recognized the deeper voice in the back­ground. He and Mikaela’s father had yet to be for­mally introduced, but while the recent deportee from formal state incarceration had yet to give his ap­proval of their relationship, neither had he objected to it. Sam had the distinct impression that as long as her father was able to drift contentedly in a sea of grease, oil, and assorted mechanical lubricants while plying his chosen trade, his interest in the outside world, including that of his daughter’s future, verged on the minimal. While Sam didn’t approve of the in­difference, he had to admit that it made dating a lot easier.

  “How’s the old man holding up?”

  “Y’mean my man-child father?” Mikaela’s exas­peration was unmistakable. “Fixing cars instead of stealing ’em, so that’s a step up.” She looked back over a shoulder as she spoke. “Right now he’s hum­ming the proverbial happy tune. One time I heard him say he wasn’t going to go to heaven if there were no cars or bikes to build.”

  “Kinda like relationships,” Sam segued smoothly.

  “Which reminds me: I’m gonna say it again. Come with me, Mik. Just because the dorm’s paid for with the scholarship doesn’t mean I’ve gotta live in it.

  There’s reasonable apartments near campus and ...” She interrupted firmly. “I told you, he’s only been on parole four months. I gotta help him get on his feet. He’s been clean so far, but with all that he’s been through the past few years he doesn’t have a lot of stabilizing influence in his life. There’s just metal and me, and I’m the only one who’ll talk back to him and tell him when he’s screwing up. He listens to me, Sam. If he’ll listen long enough, after a bit he’ll get to where he won’t need somebody to tell him when he’s screw­ing up because he will have stopped doing it. Just for a little while.”

  She wasn’t exactly pleading—that wasn’t part of Mikaela’s makeup. But in her own way, she was ask­ing for his understanding.

  It did not keep him from beseeching, however. “C’mon, Mik. Don’t make me say g’bye on the phone.”

  “Did I say I was gonna do that? Big difference be­tween me moving to the East Coast and wishing you a safe trip there. Lemme finish up, make sure there are no bubbles in this lacquer I’m working on, and I’ll be over in twenty.”

  The connection went dead. He eyed the phone a moment before pocketing it. Could he stall his par­ents for another twenty minutes? If his mom main­tained her slow packing pace he wouldn’t have to find a reason to delay. And anyway, there were still a few last-minute details that required his attention.

  First and foremost was the rag of a shirt. Holding it up, he started to fold it as neatly as the embedded dirt and grime would permit. His expression one of mild disgust, he started brushing at the filthy fabric. As he did so, something that had been caught in the material of the inner pocket came tumbling out. He grabbed reflexively at what appeared to be a charred ember. There had been plenty of that during the bat­tle for Mission City. Except—the splinter was not a charred ember, not a fragment of singed concrete, not a length of scorched wood.

  It was a tiny sliver of the Allspark.

  It shook him, and he staggered into memory.

  Trapped in a hole in the street with metal titans battling above him. One of them falling to the ground. Slamming the Allspark into Megatron’s chest and turning his face from the fiery, flaring, explosive consequences. Hundreds of alien symbols akin to those that had embellished the Spark shimmering in his mind’s eye, threatening to overwhelm him, screaming at him to ... to . ..

  He stumbled backward, wildly waving his burnt hand as he tried to cool the tingling flesh. Reactivated by the contact and then flung aside, the sliver hit the floor of his room and promptly burned its way right through the hardwood floorboards, the intervening insulation, and the ceiling below. As it seared its way downward, it sliced through the wiring embedded in the floor. Momentarily overloaded, the circuitry run­ning to his room sparked and began to smoke. The

  sliver landed in the kitchen, bouncing off the center cooking island as it emitted a small but unmistakable pulse blast.

  Sam staggered toward the doorway as every wall socket in his room spat sparks. Wallpaper above a couple of sockets turned black and began to curl up­ward. Only the fire retardant with which the material had been treated kept it from bursting into flame. He raced out the door, his tone frantic.

  “Oh, no—Dad!”

  Ron Witwicky couldn’t hear his son’s shouting. He was whistling cheerily to himself as he loaded yet one more of Sam’s packed boxes into the car.

  He also failed to hear—or see—what the pulse burst from the sliver of Allspark had done to his kitchen.

  Not to the kitchen itself, but to its machines. A cen­tury or so earlier, in the absence of electronics, the pulse would have provoked little or no response. In contrast, the previously unoccupied room was now alive with a clashing of appliances that had been brought to frenetic life by the surge from the spark.

  Heedless of what it might hit and indifferent to multiple targets chosen at random, the animated cap­puccino maker sprayed small fireballs in all direc­tions. Spinning on the legs that had sprouted from its underside, the toaster whipped what could only be described as mini-nunchucks in front of, around, and behind it, smashing to pieces everything from ceramic plates to an innocent set of salt and pepper shakers. Bashing its way clear of the prison beneath the sink, the now-multilimbed garbage disposal defended itself against all comers with a set of whirring blades only slightly slowed by remaining scraps of the previous night’s meal.

  A cell phone that had commenced ringing insis­tently at
the first touch of the sliver’s life-giving pulse found itself snatched up by the now fully animated microwave. Slamming the phone into its middle, the appliance turned itself on. The ringing from the trapped phone gave way to unsettling shrieks as it began to smoke, then spark, and eventually burst into flame. Disdaining its usual ring tone, the microwave clicked its door wide to eject the charred remnants of the unfortunate phone.

  On the floor above, Sam’s initial panic had swiftly succumbed to common sense. Halting his headlong flight, he located the upstairs fire extinguisher and raced back to his room. He turned it on one of the two electrical fires that had begun to creep up the walls of his room. Unfortunately, the extinguisher was both old and empty, regular checkups of such de­vices not being a part of the annual routine at the Witwicky household.

  Cursing to himself he tossed the useless device aside, spotted a nearly full water bottle, and managed to douse the location where the fire had spread to the floor. Charred wood hissed as quenched flames gave birth to choking smoke, and the water that was not turned to steam ran down the hole in the floor.

  The remaining trickle landed atop the agitated blender standing on the kitchen center island. Tilting back, it investigated the source of the unexpected drip. Within what moments earlier had been inert metal, rudimentary thought processes suddenly sprung to life processed this information and came to a deci­sion. Leaping down from the kitchen island, the al­tered blender scrambled toward the stairs. It was followed by the microwave, the garbage disposal, and the rest of the ghastly mob of animated and armed appliances, including the now-hysterical cappuccino maker that was laying down a track of coffee residue

  behind it as it ran.

  Gathering outside Sam’s room, they alternately flailed and beat at the door. When it remained shut, they began to stack themselves one atop the other until the electric mixer’s twin whirling limbs were on the verge of reaching the doorknob.

  Downstairs and still oblivious to the mechanical carnage that was on the verge of attacking his son, Ron Witwicky entered the kitchen and immediately noted the trail of dark spots that had been left on the floor by the animate but now absent coffeemaker.

  “Awww, no. Hey, Judy!” Awaiting a response from his wife, he crouched and tentatively sniffed at the markings. His brow furrowed, reflecting his confu­sion. “What the ? Dogs’re crappin’ cappuccino?”

  Equally ignorant of his father’s current aromatic conundrum, Sam shook the last of the water from the bottle as the final remnants of the fire sizzled into oblivion. He had barely enough time to feel relieved when the door to his room burst inward as the hall­way unleashed its horde of low-powered horrors. His eyes went wide and he threw up his hands defensively.

  The gesture failed to keep him from getting nun- chucked in one knee by the homicidal toaster. As he stumbled backward clutching at his bruised leg, the whirring blades of the advancing mixer changed into a pair of spinning turrets resembling the most mini of all mini-guns. Revolving at speed, they sent a fusil­lade of equally miniaturized bullets in his direction. As their intended target dove wildly to one side, they proceeded to shred the wall behind where he had been standing.

  Meanwhile the advancing blender let loose with a newly morphed mini-cannon that missed Sam but blew the fish tank to fragments. As it and the mania­cal blender swiveled their weapons in his direction, Sam upended his desk. It took the brunt of the second salvo and he climbed out the window, hung for a mo­ment from the sill, and then dropped into the cush­ioning bushes below. Carefully nurtured and lovingly pruned branches snapped under his weight and he knew that his mother, the dedicated horticulturist, would Not Be Happy.

  Struggling to his feet, he nearly ran into his father. Hearing the uproar, Ron Witwicky had come tearing around the side of the house as fast as his middle- aged legs could propel him.

  “What’s all the racket... ?”

  Waving his arms wildly, Sam pushed his father and half dragged, half shoved him backward. As he did so, berserk altered appliances crowded the open win­dow as each sought a clear line of fire. Equipped with more weapons than brains, they jammed the gap so tightly that none could get through.

  That did not keep them from unloading a volley of tiny missiles in the general direction of the two fleeing humans. Taking cover behind the fountain that was one of Witwicky pere’s pride and joys, divots of lov­ingly tended turf erupted around Sam and his father. Identifying a secondary structure as a smaller dwell­ing, two of the berserk appliancebots promptly blew the Witwicky doghouse to smithereens. Sam’s shout of desperation just managed to rise above the clamor, confusion, and general destruction.

  “BUMBLEBEE!”

  Responding to this call with alacrity if not discre­tion, a yellow Camaro came smashing out the side wall of the freestanding garage. Halfway out, it had already begun to change into the brilliant black and yellow bipedal shape of the Autobot who had been charged by his colleagues with looking after the note­worthy descendant of Captain Witwicky. Appraising the situation with admirable speed, Bumblebee speed­ily unlimbered his own weapons and proceeded to reduce the pack of rabid appliancebots to scrap. Clinging to the awning above Sam’s window, the al­tered microwave dared to return fire. Bumblebee’s re­action was to unload the full fury of his weaponry on the remaining bot, obliterating it.

  In the process, he also annihilated the second-story bedroom that had been Sam’s refuge since preadoles­

  cence.

  Rising slowly from behind the fountain, Sam and his father cautiously surveyed the house and yard. Nothing remained of the insane appliances to suggest to a casual observer that anything other than bits and pieces of secondhand domestic devices littered the ground. Side by side, father and son regarded the smoking debris silently.

  Not so Judy Witwicky. Coming around the front corner, she halted in shock at the sight, mouth agape as she stared at the still-smoking top floor of her house.

  “Holy mother of...!” Lowering her gaze, her eyes came to rest on an abjectly quiescent Bumblebee. “I am gonna melt you down into scrap metal, so help me God”

  The Autobot dropped his head as realization struck home that he might have been a tad overzealous in his defense of the young human still under his protection. It was just a wee bit conceivable that in taking out the last of the rampaging appliancebots, one missile might have sufficed in lieu of the several he had launched. Turning, he moped back toward the gaping hole that had assumed the physical location in the space-time continuum formerly occupied by the north side of the Witwicky family garage.

  He remained there in silent terrestrial guise as sev­eral mobile representatives of the local fire depart­ment arrived and their personnel dispersed to survey and clean up the damage. As a stoic Ron tried his best to comfort an alternately angry and sobbing Judy, Sam slipped into the house in the wake of the diligent firefighters.

  “Better stay out of here till the site’s been cleared, kid.” An officer gestured pointedly upward. “We’ve still got some heat on the second floor. ”

  “I’m looking for my homework,” Sam told him quickly. “I don’t think my Economics prof will buy this excuse.” When this met with a cold stare on the part of the professional, Sam added, “I’ll stay down here and get out fast, don’t worry.”

  This seemed to satisfy the firefighter. In any case, one of his colleagues was urging him upstairs. Sam was left alone in the kitchen. Not to seek nonexistent homework, but something smaller and far more im­portant.

  He finally found it glistening below the kitchen is­land. Having burned a path all the way through the thick oak and the linoleum flooring, it had finally

  come to rest on the concrete slab beneath. Sort­ing through his father’s “miscellaneous” drawer, he found an ancient 35-millimeter film canister and care­fully scooped the lifeless ember into the plastic cylin­der.

  By the time he returned to the yard, his mother had recovered from the initial shock and despair. As she stomped back and forth among th
e ruins of her gar­den, he listened while she unleashed a stream of ver­biage the mildest of which was, “This sucks'.” He looked around worriedly for his father, finally locat­ing the old man deep in conversation with the local fire chief. As he approached the pair, his concern faded. Having dealt with the suspicious agents of the now-disbanded Sector Seven, Ron Witwicky had no difficulty allaying the unease of a local municipal em­ployee.

  “Y’know,” Sam’s father was saying, “we had a pretty old furnace in the attic up there.”

  The fire chief frowned at him. “You kept a working furnace in the attic? Where the heat would just rise? In a wood-frame house?”

  Ron managed to look offended. “Hey, I didn’t put it in. It was there when we bought the place. Gets damn cold on that second floor, but when that fur­nace was going even a little bit, it was nice and comfy.” He turned aggressive. “This ain’t Florida, y’know. If I could’ve afforded to redo the whole heat­ing system with forced air I would’ve done it years ago. Always meant to.” He nodded in the direction of the smoking second floor. “At least now the installa­tion will be easier.”

  The sound of an arriving motorcycle drew Sam’s attention away from the two men. As Mikaela slowed to a stop at the curb he hurried over to intercept her. She didn’t offer a kiss. Instead, she just stared past him at the smoking house.

  “What happened?”

  Using his body to shield the transaction from view, Sam hastily passed her the film canister. “Do me a favor, keep this hidden, okay?”

  She eyed him guardedly. “Am I not supposed to ask what’s in it? Lemme guess—it’s not your undeveloped baby pictures.”

  He looked anxiously over his shoulder. “C’mon, Mik—just do this, okay? I’ll explain later.”

  She rolled her eyes and sighed heavily. “ Why do those three words always fill me with dread?”