Flung outward in a soaring arc over the four-hundred-foot-deep gorge, Ratchet seemed to hang in the air for a moment. Then he began to fall, steeling himself for the impact. His entire internal system sustained a shock as he slammed up against the curving face of the dam. A check ran instantly and automatically. To his relief nothing was broken and all his parts remained in working order. Digging feet and fingers into the concrete a hundred feet above the river below, he leaned his head back as far as he could in order to assess his immediate surroundings. The result of Salvage’s throw could not have been better. It stood as a perfect tribute to Autobot ability.
Ratchet had landed directly beside the damaged portion of the dam.
Internal generators went into overdrive. The Autobot’s hand began to glow softly, then more intensely. On contact with him, the leaking water turned to steam, hissing as it rose upward. Straining internally, Ratchet continued to put out more and more excess heat. The outside of his metal body now blazed white hot.
Around him, cracked concrete and the rebar within began to melt and flow, forming a sealed whole that was stronger than the material it replaced. The now molten metal and re-forming building material also sealed the small cracks that had appeared in the dam face. The ominous trickles of water dried up; puffs of steam faded away. Always the healer, Ratchet had halted the nascent structure failure by using internally generated heat to reseal the concrete and metal area beneath him.
Below and on the opposite riverbank, an enraged Payload continued firing steadily. Frustrated in his efforts to crack the dam, he concentrated on trying to hit the hardworking Autobot. First he would terminate the interloper. Then he would resume his assault on the human edifice whose structural integrity Ratchet had managed to temporarily preserve. A surge of satisfaction washed through the Decepticon. Not only would it not take long to conclude the task at hand, but he would have the added pleasure of finishing off one of the hated Autobots as well.
One shell after another slammed into the area around Ratchet. Even as he continued the work of repairing the dam face, he managed to dodge most of them. But not all. He winced when the occasional heavy round detonated against his back. His armor could only take so much. Nevertheless, he would hold out as long as he could. If he could repair the dam while occupying Payload’s attention, it would give Optimus or Ironhide time enough to intervene.
Someone finally did, but it was not one of the other Autobots.
Deep within the dam control center Lennox, Epps, and Andronov finally encountered a senior technician. Panting hard, Lennox challenged him.
“How come you didn’t flee with the others?”
The white-haired tech adjusted his glasses. “This dam is my pride and the pride of my country. If it goes, so do I.”
Epps was peering out the heavy glass window that ran the length of the room and looked out over the gorge below. Payload had not moved and was continuing to pump shell after shell into the dam face. “He’s still there!”
“Good.” Lennox’s attention had shifted from the technician to the wide, complex console in front of him. “I’ve been in a place like this before but I don’t know how to operate anything here.” He looked over at the elderly tech. “Do you have an emergency release?”
“Emergency …? Yes, certainly, but I cannot even think of triggering such a thing without authorization from Lusaka.”
Standing nearby, Petr raised his rifle. It did not fire bullets and in any case he had no intention of using it on the old man—but the technician didn’t know that.
“Here is authorization, Russian-style. Activate emergency release.”
“Do it now,” Epps added. “As one tech to another, I’m telling you that it’s the best thing. You gotta do this—fast.”
The senior technician hesitated, his gaze darting between Epps and Lennox. “I take no responsibility for the consequences. There will be damage downriver.”
“There’ll be nothing at all downriver if you don’t,” Lennox told him. “Do it.”
Andronov gestured with his weapon. Lips tight, the tech reached for the console and flipped several switches. Green telltales above each switch went to red. The hip-hop bleat of an alarm filled the control room. There followed a moment of further hesitation. The technician raised a protective, transparent plastic cover to expose two red buttons beneath. He pressed one. Lennox knew enough from the time he had spent at Hoover to encourage the tech.
“Both of ’em,” he ordered. With a regretful sigh, the man complied.
His movements restricted by the need to complete his repair efforts, Ratchet felt himself steadily weakening. Another direct hit from Payload’s multiple guns might penetrate his deteriorating armor and split his back. A follow-up shot would tear into his vitals, destroying essential components and interdicting critical circuitry. Nevertheless, he was determined to keep working as long as possible. With the repairs complete, it would force Payload to begin the process of destruction all over again somewhere else.
A rising rumble filled his aural pickups. Had he already suffered a fatal blow, one that was distorting perception of his surroundings? His vision must be going as well, he decided. The blue sky before him, visions of river below flanked by steep hillsides and green forest, had also disappeared. Now he could see nothing but whiteness.
This is wrong, he told himself. If his senses were failing, everything should go to black, not white. Nor should the white be in motion. It was then that he recognized what he was seeing. There was nothing wrong with his senses, auditory or visual. What he was seeing above him, in front of him, and all around him, was water. An immense, unrestrained rush of water. And it did not spring from a massive leak or a failure of the dam.
The emergency floodgates had been opened.
Released by the override, thousands of tons of water burst from Kariba’s two floodgates directly above the Autobot. Under pressure from the enormous lake behind them, the twin discharges shot an incredible volume of liquid into the narrow canyon below. Sweeping up trees and sand and huge boulders before it, the man-made flood thundered down the gorge.
Payload saw it coming. Realizing instantly that he could never escape the flood in his present terrestrial guise, he started to change shape. The wall of water struck him as he was only partway through the process. Unable to get a grip on anything solid, the Decepticon found himself picked up like a leaf and swept downstream. In the crazed, roiling current he was sometimes shoved upward toward the surface of the flood only to be thrust immediately straight downward by its roiling currents. By the time he had fully shifted into his normal shape he had been slammed time and time again into the unyielding rock of the riverbed. His cognitive systems had been battered to the point that it was all he could do to maintain consciousness.
High above, Starscream saw the flood race madly down the canyon. For an instant he felt the triumph rush through him, only to have the sensation turn to fury as he saw that the dam was still intact. At almost the same time he lost Macerator’s signal. When Payload also failed to respond to repeated requests to report, the frustrated Decepticon considered diving and strafing the Autobots who were clearly visible and exposed atop the dam itself. But as soon as he dove within range of them, he would likewise find himself in range of their own weapons. This was neither the time nor the place to confront the despised Optimus and his deluded companions with a final challenge.
“Get out of there!” he broadcast crossly to Dropkick. “Macerator has ceased all contact and I cannot raise Payload. Retreat to the agreed-upon meeting place!”
“I comply, Starscream.”
Below, Dropkick dodged a blow from Ironhide, backed up, and altered. As the Autobot weapons master fired, his adversary spun and shot away. The explosive shell detonated just behind the squealing pickup truck. Dropping into a crouch, Ironhide sighted along the top of the dam and prepared to unleash a stream of missiles in the wake of the fleeing Decepticon. A metal hand came down on his arm.
“No,”
Optimus told him. “You cannot shoot. The far side is crowded with humans, and our friends are somewhere over there as well. Anything you fire that misses is liable to kill others.”
Temptation tugged hard at the veteran Autobot. “I have a clear line of sight, Optimus.”
“Clear enough so that you can be sure every shot will hit home instead of streaking past?”
Ironhide hesitated. Then, muttering under his breath, he straightened. His gaze followed the accelerating, fleeing Decepticon. “It pains my internals to let him escape. There are debts yet to be paid.”
“I feel the same.” Optimus gestured behind him. “But we cannot risk the injury to many humans.” Tilting his head back, he scanned the sky. “Starscream has fled. We have won the day, and struck a heavy blow against our enemies. Macerator is dead and Payload is at least injured.” He nodded in the direction of the escaping Decepticon. “Dropkick cannot do much harm on his own, and we will eventually run him down.” Looking to the far side, he found himself studying the terrain with increasing anxiety. “I see Salvage, but where is Ratchet?”
“That old complainer?” Ironhide grunted derisively. “Probably sitting in the shade watching the battle and waiting to see who gets hurt.”
Dropkick, in the meantime, did not know why Optimus Prime and Ironhide were not firing at him, but he was more than willing to accept that which he did not understand. The encounter had not gone as planned. Macerator was gone, probably killed, and Payload had failed to bring down the human construction. But he, Dropkick, was still alive and relatively undamaged. The ruined gateway lay just ahead. As he drew near, traveling at high speed in his terrestrial guise, a few of the surviving human soldiers noted his approach and resumed shooting at him. The occasional small-caliber slug bounced harmlessly off his exterior.
Then he noticed that a single human was running toward him. Deranged, he wondered, or simply brainless? For a moment he considered shifting his course just enough to one side to run the figure down. It would provide some small measure of recompense to see it go flying, broken and dead, to the pavement. But Starscream had ordered him to save himself, and he reluctantly decided to hold to the quickest course.
As he sped past the human, the figure thrust something toward him. It could do no damage, of course, and so he ignored it. Then he felt himself lurch as a pulse slammed sharply against the driver’s-side door.
On the access road just off the dam, the pickup truck skewed wildly in surprise, barely regaining control as it started up the first slope that led out of the canyon. Halfway up it changed. Looking down at himself, Dropkick saw the small dark spot where the end of the stick had contacted his epidermis. He felt slightly—drunk. Too startled to retrace his route and confront his unexpectedly unsettling attacker, he pressed one hand to the discoloration and resumed working his way up out of the canyon. With each step he increased his stride. Soon he was out of sight. But he would not forget what had happened.
Below and behind, Salvage had rolled up alongside a panting, sweating Kaminari. She held her weapon at her side. Depressing a button, the apparatus ceased humming.
“Well struck, Kaminari!” In his excitement Salvage was about to give the female warrior a congratulatory shove, until he remembered that such a push risked fracturing her fragile human bones. “That’s one Decepticon who will think twice before passing so close to a human.”
She holstered the weapon in the lightweight sling on her back. The sling was actually composed of a single long, flexible linear battery that would recharge the weapon while it rested against her spine.
“Well, it knows what one human with two advanced degrees and training in martial arts can do.” With the Decepticon now out of striking range, she turned her attention back to the gorge. “Ratchet!”
They waited while the battered Autobot climbed up the face of the dam and over the side wall to rejoin them. Safe again among friends, human as well as Autobot, the limping Ratchet proceeded to analyze his own injuries.
“Nothing that can’t be fixed,” he finally announced.
“If I but had a tiny fragment of Allspark for every time I’ve heard you say that.” Ironhide’s tone was gruff as always, but there was no mistaking the affection that highlighted the observation.
Around them, the Zambian guards and technicians were beginning to recover from the shock of the attack. Soldiers attended to their wounded while techs and other personnel embarked on preliminary cleanup efforts. Ratchet turned his gaze skyward.
“What of Starscream?”
“Fled, as is his habit.” In contrast with that of his friend, Optimus’s attention was directed downriver. “We need to find Payload. I’m sure that he’s injured, though to what extent it is impossible to tell. In his terrestrial form he cannot move fast, and among local vehicles he stands out. In full Decepticon mode he will attract even more attention. If we can get to him before Starscream does, we will be able to rid ourselves of yet another foe.”
“I don’t think Starscream in his local mode is strong enough to lift Payload.” Ironhide had moved up alongside his leader to join him in staring down the gorge. “Certainly not for any distance.”
“A positive thought. We should proceed on that assumption.” Turning, Optimus looked back at his human allies. “Will all of you ride with me this time? Better if Ratchet is left to heal unencumbered.”
“This riverine forest holds many wonders that I would like to examine at length,” Petr began, “but …” He shrugged. “I have a feeling that there will be other opportunities for studying of such things.”
Optimus nodded. “Among my kind learning is also a continuous and unending process. It is one more sign of the cerebral, if not physical, relationship that bonds us together.”
Simmons was only halfway through the copy of the ancient monograph and finding it hard going. Untrained in anthropology or archaeology, he was forced to continuously switch back and forth between the material and a translating codex.
There was so much to learn, he had come to realize. Trying to put things together, to come to some kind of understanding about these alien machines. Despite being dismissed from the service, his interest in the invaders—and they were all invaders to him, Autobots and Decepticons alike—had never flagged.
As chief agent for the now disbanded Sector Seven, he had always been more a man of action than academics. Required reading for his job had usually involved skimming manuals explaining the use of surveillance equipment or surreptitious communications gear. Fieldwork required training in the use of weapons, not library catalogs. Since Sector Seven’s dissolution and replacement by NEST, much of his time had been devoted to working in his mother’s deli. Not that he needed the money: his government pension covered all his basic needs. No, he needed something to do, to occupy his hands and body while his obsession with the aliens occupied his mind. So he sliced and diced pastrami and brisket instead of the enemies of the United States and the planet.
Were they enemies? It was one of the mysteries he was trying to unravel. About the Decepticons neither he nor anyone else had any second thoughts. The battle at Mission City had resolved that. It was the Autobots who puzzled him. They claimed to have come to Earth in search of the now vanished Allspark. All well and good. But why remain? Because they had no means of leaving, or because as their leader Optimus Prime claimed their presence was necessary to dissuade further depredations by the Decepticons, who if given the opportunity would make slaves of humanity?
In the convoluted (and sometimes convulsive) mind of former agent Seymour Simmons, something simply didn’t add up. While he was willing to give Prime and the other Autobots the benefit of the doubt, that doubt still remained.
Fortunately, between the Internet and the plethora of libraries and universities in the Greater New York area, he had access to more material than he could hope to process. That did not stop him from devouring everything he could find that he felt bore the slightest relevance to Earth’s new residents. The monograph
copy he was currently laboriously deciphering, for example, was ancient Greek. Prior to discovering it, the only thing Simmons knew about ancient Greeks was that a retired couple ran a gyro restaurant down the street from his mother’s deli.
Occasionally he would look up from his work to cast a hopeful query or a casual curse in the direction of the gleaming metal entity that was firmly clamped to the table in the middle of his basement. Regardless of their nature, comments on his part received no response. What remained of the head of Frenzy sat as stolid and immobile in the center of the table as an overpriced sculpture by Moore or Hirst, and about as comprehensible.
“If you could only talk.” Simmons rubbed at his tired eyes. “You miserable broken excuse for a Rosetta stone. Not your fault that you ended up a cross between a computer and a salad tosser.” In his wilder moments, of which Simmons had always had plenty, he had even considered bringing the alien skull to the deli and mounting it on the wall along with the hundreds of other donated and found objects that decorated the family restaurant.
What secrets the disembodied head must hold, he mused. What revelations, what knowledge. Only by deciphering all it contained might he learn the truth about the two contesting groups of alien robotic lifeforms.
What, after all, did mankind know of them and their origins? Practically nothing except what little Optimus had chosen to divulge. The Autobots had been reluctant to speak of themselves and were even more closemouthed about their advanced technology. Because of the personal relationship he had established from the beginning with one of the Autobots, that smart-ass kid Sam Witwicky probably knew more about them than anyone, and he wasn’t talking, either. In fact, the last Simmons had heard, the kid had turned down all offers to work for the government in favor of going to college. And the authorities couldn’t press him on his choice because doing so would only compromise further their frantic attempts to cover up the true nature of the alien visitation. Not to mention the fact that if they came down hard on him, he could always go to the media.