“Daytona 500,” Epps said. “It’s like catnip to them, so we keep a looped feed on a TV set in there, 24/7. When they get too obnoxious, this just sends them off to la-la land. So”—he indicated the shuttle craft with a nod—“you believe this is really happening?”
“It’s happening whether I believe it or not, but … jeez.” Sam shook his head. “Where’s it supposed to take them?”
“Any planet but here,” Epps said ruefully.
“My God, I don’t believe it,” Sam said.
“Yeah, I know. It sucks big-time,” said Epps.
“No, not that. That.” Sam pointed.
Epps looked to see what he was indicating.
Rolling toward them in an electric wheelchair was Seymour Simmons. His manservant, Dutch, was right behind him. His right leg was in a cast and elevated, and he had a crazed look in his eyes. Well, a more crazed look than usual in his eyes. He was shouting, “Clear a path! Outta my way! I wanna talk to whoever’s in charge!” Then he rolled within sight of them. “Well, well, Charlotte Mearing.”
“Former agent Simmons. I see you managed to survive Washington.”
“Washington, Egypt, heartbreak. I survive. It’s what I do.” The comment about “heartbreak” seemed directed at Mearing, but Sam instantly dismissed the idea as being simply too ludicrous to contemplate.
“Would you mind telling me how the hell you got in here?” Sam said. “And how are you even functioning? Aren’t you in like ten kinds of pain?”
“Guys like me laugh at pain. As for how I got in, I got fans down here, kid. Fans who appreciate how a real American hero goes about his business. Fans who are willing to wave our rental car right through the main gate because none of them are any more thrilled with what they see warming up on the launchpad than anyone else, and they’re hoping that I’m gonna find a way to make it not happen. Fans who believe that I am the last, best hope for integrity that America has left.” Sam was amazed. “Really?”
Simmons let it hang there for a moment and then said, “Nah, not really. I’m flying on so many painkillers that you could chop off both legs with a pair of rusty scissors and I wouldn’t feel it. I’m popping oxycodone like M&Ms.”
“Aren’t those addicitive?”
“We should be so lucky that the world survives long enough for me to become addicted. As for how I got here, they’re bringing everybody in, kid. Putting all the intel on the table. And what I gotta say is this.” He shifted his chair back so that he was facing Mearing. “If you think deporting the Autobots solves a damn thing—”
She didn’t let him finish the sentence. “This has gone way above my pay grade, agent. If there’s a war for Earth, humans will fight it. It doesn’t matter if I agree with it or not. That’s the play my government has called, and it’s my job to execute it to the best of my abilities. And I think you know that.”
“Here’s what I know: If humans are fighting this war, it won’t be much of a fight. Spent my life studying this alien species.” His voice rose. “This is what I know. This is who I am. Those Autobots are the only chance we have.”
“They might be,” Mearing admitted, “but it’s out of my hands.” With that pronouncement, clearly feeling that that was the end of the discussion, she turned and walked away.
Simmons angled the wheelchair to face Sam. “Tell her she can’t let this happen. Tell her everything you know about ’em!”
He’s right. Clinically insane but right. I have to make her realize what the stakes are. I have to tell her everything I know, and I have to start with what’s on my … … wrist?
He looked down at his wrist and saw that the spider watch was gone.
Sam gaped, unable to believe that it was over that easily, but he wasn’t about to waste the opportunity. He opened his mouth …
And suddenly he had no air.
He clutched at his throat and discovered that the spider watch had taken up residence there, reshaping itself. It obviously didn’t want to take any chances that Sam would listen to the blandishments of Simmons, but it also apparently had decided that shocking him into submission—or perhaps even killing him outright—would be counterproductive. So instead it re-formed itself into something resembling a broad silver necklace and, having wrapped itself around the bottom of his throat, proceeded to clamp down on his larynx.
Simmons stared at him quizzically. “Uh … what are you wearing?”
Sam was able to clear just enough space in his throat to gasp out, “Choker.”
“You’re a weird one, kid,” said Simmons, which Sam had to think sounded pretty strange, considering the source. “Thanks for nothing! Charlotte!” He rolled off after her. “Charlotte!”
Epps had already headed off to deal with the Wreckers, so Sam was alone. Yet the creature remained around his throat a moment or two longer, as if to remind him who was in charge and that daring to fly in the face of the Decepticons could be a truly fatal mistake.
For him … and for Carly.
“Message received,” he whispered, and the creature promptly released its hold and skittered back down his arm. It wrapped itself back around his wrist and sat there, waiting for him to do what he was supposed to do.
ii
Mearing was walking as quickly as she could, yet, annoyingly, Simmons was able to catch up with her. What the hell was with that chair? Was it turbocharged?
Bringing him here had been a mistake. A huge mistake. A mistake of epic proportions. She was absolutely sure of that, and knowing Simmons, he was going to go out of his way to prove it.
She could not have been more correct.
“So, Director,” Simmons said, driving his chair alongside her. “Moving up in the world.”
“Yes, I am.”
“Which of course enables you to leave people like me behind.”
“Not everything is about you, Simmons. In fact, almost nothing is about you. And I didn’t leave you behind. I went my way, and you went … yours,” she said with obvious distaste. “Your own, unique, totally insane way. The choices you made, the direction you decided to head with your life … aren’t my problem or my responsibility.”
“Right, right, I can’t argue that. In fact, I never said otherwise. But just for the record, I want to say: You still smell nice. Great ass still.”
She stopped dead and turned around, halting the forward roll of his wheelchair with her foot. Her voice low, her eyes glancing around to make sure that no one was within earshot, she said, “If you ever speak a word to anyone about what happened that night in Quantico, I will cut out your heart.”
For one moment, just one, Simmons set aside his usual bombast. His voice perfectly flat and sincere, he said, “You already did.”
She had nothing to say back to him.
Then, stiffly, he said, “Thank you for bringing me here, ma’am,” and then he pivoted the chair around and headed off toward Dutch, who was waiting for him.
And she never would have admitted it to another living being, but she loved it when Simmons—and only Simmons—called her “ma’am.”
iii
Sam kept waiting for something to happen to avert the inevitable. Some sort of presidential pardon, even though the Autobots hadn’t actually done anything wrong. Or maybe Congress would come to its senses. Maybe the population of America would arise as one and storm the nation’s capital, demanding that their elected officials do the right thing.
But if any of that was happening, word of it wasn’t getting to them there in Florida.
Instead, what got to them was the Autobots.
It reminded him of that moment in The Right Stuff when the Mercury 7 astronauts were moving toward the camera in slow motion. The Autobots, walking side by side, standing proud in the face of such despicable behavior as the humans had displayed. So many times had the Autobots been there to protect humanity, and so many times had they come through. And now, the first time the Autobots needed someone to stand by them …
Get off your high horse,
Witwicky, he scolded himself even as he ran toward the Autobots who were heading toward the shuttle. Yes, a bunch of totally lame politicians stabbed the Autobots in the back. But you’re their friend, or at least their supposed friend, and here you are trying to catch up with them solely so you have the chance to do the exact same thing.
Where do you get off thinking you’re any better than anyone else, when by any reasonable measure you’re worse?
He caught up with them as they were approaching the bottom of the launchpad. The gantry had been set up for them to have easy access to the shuttle, which was mounted on what looked like a two-stage Saturn V rocket. “One side,” came an unexpected voice from near the ground.
He looked down in surprise. “Brains? Wheelie? You’re here, too?”
“If the Decepticons are running the joint, we wanna be anywhere but here,” said Wheelie. “Planet’s not big enough for the both of us.”
“But how did you know that—?”
“They’d be here? I figured it out,” Brains said. “Of course I figured it out. Got a brain the size of a planet.”
“Been a pleasure working with you,” Wheelie said.
They moved past him, and then Sam approached a familiar, looming figure. “Optimus!” Sam called out to him.
Optimus halted his approach. The rest of the Autobots kept going, continuing to make their way to the shuttle that served as their means of departing Earth.
The gigantic robot looked down at him, but Sam couldn’t hold his gaze. After all, he had this … this thing on his wrist that was determined to make him betray the Autobots, and he wasn’t sure he had the strength to resist it.
“Look, Optimus … I don’t know if anyone has actually said this to you, but on behalf of, y’ know, the whole human race, I want to apologize for what they’re doing to you.”
“It is I who should apologize, Sam.” Sam could barely stand to hear the utter defeat in the Autobot’s voice. “This was all my fault. I told them whom to trust. I was wrong.”
He started to walk away, but Sam ran around him so that he was standing in front of him. He looked up at the Autobot leader and said insistently, “That doesn’t make it your fault. Just makes you human for a change.”
Now ask him. Ask him what they need to know.
Again he flinched inwardly, and again he looked down at the tarmac.
“Remember this, Sam. You may lose faith in us. But you must never lose faith in yourselves.”
Once more Optimus started to head for the shuttle, and suddenly the creature on Sam’s wrist bit him even more insistently, and there was serious meaning in that bite. It seemed to say, Do you think we’re joking around? Do you think Carly is going to make it through the day? Your last chance to save her is about to head up that gantry. You either betray him or you kill Carly. Come on, Witwicky. This is a no-brainer.
But you have a brain. Think of a way around it. Think of a way to—
And again another bite, even sharper than before, and Sam shouted out, “Optimus, I need to know how you’re gonna fight back!”
Optimus stopped once more, and when he turned to regard him this time, there was what looked like something … Sam could only think of it as determined curiosity.
He knows something’s up. Or at least he suspects it. Sam could practically sense the spider bot on his wrist pausing, waiting eagerly. Sam’s mind raced. He had about a half second to figure out how to warn Optimus in a way that wouldn’t destroy Carly.
“You’re coming back, right? You have some plan? You’ll … bring help. Reinforcements? Something? What’s the strategy?” He paused, because Optimus was still just staring at him, his head slightly tilted to one side, clearly far more curious about the way in which Sam was asking than why he was doing so. And suddenly, pitching his voice in a more nasal, wheedling manner, sounding like a shady used-car salesman and hoping that the spider bot picked up only on words rather than intonation, he said, “You can tell me. No other human will ever know.”
For a second Optimus’s gaze flickered to Sam’s wrist. Sam couldn’t tell whether he was imagining comprehension dawning in the Autobot’s eyes. Drive it home, Witwicky! Drive it home! “You know we’d never be able to live with ourselves if we just do what they want.”
He wasn’t sure what he was expecting Optimus to do. Grab his arm, maybe, and pluck the thing off his wrist, squishing it between his fingers as if he were popping a pimple. Instantly dispatch the Autobots to head full speed back to Washington to rescue Carly.
Instead, after a long moment, Optimus said, “You are my friend, Sam. You always will be. But your leaders have spoken. From here, the fight will be your own.”
With that, he turned away for the last time and headed up to the Xantium.
The last Autobot in line was Bumblebee, and Sam shouted, “Wait! Bumblebee! Bumblebee!”
Bumblebee crouched so that he was as close to eye level as he could get to Sam. The damage to Bee’s voice capacity had been such that he could indeed talk, but it required a great deal of effort. Since the radio required none, and since there always seemed to be something available to express what was on his mind, it was his preferred method of communication with Sam.
Not this time, however. Clearly he had no desire to have another voice, no matter how melodious, speak on his behalf. Slowly, laboriously, he said, “I will … never … forget you … Sam …”
“This is your home,” Sam said insistently. “Earth is your home.”
Touching Sam’s chest, Bumblebee said, “I will always be … here … fight them … forever …”
Then he rose to his full height and, still looking downcast, went to join Optimus and the others.
Technicians were already starting to clear the area. Sam knew he had to do so as well, because nothing was going to be served by standing close enough to the engines to get fried. Even so, he remained as long as he could before he started to walk away.
Suddenly he felt a cessation of pressure on his wrist.
He looked down. The spider bot had leaped clear and was skittering away, moving so quickly and being so small that nobody was noticing it. Sam wanted to run after it, to try to grind the miserable little thing under his foot.
But somehow it just wasn’t worth the effort. Despite Bumblebee’s admonition never to stop fighting, at this particular moment in time, Sam simply didn’t have it within him. The spider bot didn’t have any interest in him? Fine. To hell with it.
To hell with everything.
iv
In the launch control facility, feeling as if they were watching a piece of human history coming to an end, the onlookers monitored the countdown as the primary ignition sequence in the main rocket fired up. The shuttle Xantium clung to the outside, waiting for its lift out of the earth’s atmosphere.
“Saturn V?” said Sam.
Epps was standing at his side. “It was when it got started. The Wreckers completely redesigned it, though. It’s more theirs than ours by this point. Made it forty percent more efficient. At least that’s what they claimed, and who am I to tell them they’re fulla crap?”
“The Xantium couldn’t just, y’ know … take off on its own? I mean, it’s just hard to believe it would be dependent on us.”
“It’s not,” said Epps. “But according to the Wreckers, the engines are too powerful. It’s not constructed to function on our world. If they ignite down here, they’ll tear a hole in the atmosphere that’ll make the one we already have in the ozone layer look like a gopher hole. So the Autobots felt it would be safer if, should a departure ever become necessary, we enabled them to piggyback out of here.”
“So they were watching out for us, even to the end.”
“Pretty much,” Epps said, not sounding any happier about it than Sam was.
Simmons had a ringside seat by the wide windows at the front of the facility. As the countdown reached its inevitable conclusion and as the booster rockets fired up to their full capacity, he spoke out in a voice that rang
out above the technicians who were monitoring the impending launch. “Years from now, they’re gonna ask us: Where were you when they took over the planet? And we’re gonna say we just stood there and watched.”
Mearing was near him when he said it. She glanced at him, her jaw set in a determined line, but she said nothing.
“Three …,” intoned the voice of mission control, “… two … one … ignition.”
Nothing happened, and for a second Sam rejoiced inwardly, thinking that there was some sort of malfunction and the Autobots had been granted a reprieve, even if it was only in the form of mechanical failure. But then a roar filled the area, and despite all its shockproofing, the launch facility trembled slightly as a mass of smoke and flame erupted from the bottom of the rocket.
It was the fulfillment of a lifelong dream for the child still living inside Sam Witwicky: He was getting to watch a rocket liftoff and had a ringside seat for it. How cool was that?
The adult in him, however, felt no joy. The words “end of an era” were commonly bandied about, but never had they had a meaning that was both as significant for the whole of humanity and as deeply personal for one young man as they did right then.
Sam followed the trajectory as the rocket hurtled skyward. Within moments the first-stage booster dropped away, the ignition of the secondary booster propelling it higher and faster now that the weight of the first booster was gone. Against the bright blue cloudless skies, the rocket remained clearly visible.
His cellphone rang.
Sam pulled it out and looked. The caller ID read CALLER UNKNOWN, but it didn’t matter. He knew who it was going to be. He stepped away from Epps, who didn’t even seem to notice that Sam was trying to distance himself from them. Once he was sure that he was unobserved, he brought up the phone and spoke tersely into it.
“Well? You get what you wanted?”
Dylan’s voice came back to him. “That Bumblebee, God, so friggin’ adorable. But that Optimus … come on! Guy needs to learn to lighten up!”