Transformers Dark of the Moon (16 page)

She should have known. She really should have known, and inwardly she berated herself for doubting Sam even for an instant.

Carly couldn’t help herself. Even after all this time, she gaped at the behemoth because it just wasn’t easy getting used to it. “Hello, Bumblebee,” she said. “Long time, no see.”

Sam wasn’t quite so convivial. It was humiliating being knocked around like that, plus considering all that he had accomplished, it certainly didn’t seem the proper treatment for a hero. Brushing off the dirt from his chest and shoulders, he said scoldingly to the Autobot, “What’s with you, huh? I know your black ops stuff’s important, but we never see you anymore. You can’t even spend one night in the garage? Just hang?”

Bumblebee continued to be the least verbal of the Autobots, his vocal apparatus having never fully recovered from having been damaged in battle. Typically, when he did endeavor to communicate, it was either with indecipherable squawks or through his radio. Now, though, he just looked sullen and apologetic, staring at the ground rather than directly at Sam. Carly wasn’t sure, but it looked like he was scuffling one of his feet.

Sam picked up easily on the visual cues but wasn’t the least mollified. “Yeah, I hope you feel bad! You
should
feel bad. Look at this thing I’m driving now,” and he pointed at the Datsun. “I feel bad every day.”

Through the open gates came running another soldier, one who, by the way the others reacted, was clearly in charge. “Stand down, everybody stand down,” he called out somewhat unnecessarily since no one was aiming a rifle at Sam any longer or trying to slam him around. Then he approached the two civilians. “Sam? And …?” He paused and then came up with, “Carly?”

“Have we met?” she said, confused.

“Colonel Lennox.” He shook her hand briskly. “No, we haven’t. But you’re in Sam’s file. Also, Bumblebee’s mentioned you.”

“Has he?”

Bumblebee’s radio suddenly switched on. There was a brief crunch of static, and then Joe Cocker’s voice filled the night air, crooning, “
You are so … beautiful …
”

She smiled. “Flatterer.”

“Fine, fine, allis forgiven, you big lug nut,” said Sam. Then, looking around, he called out, “Okay, so … everybody raise your hand if a flying psycho-ninja copier tried to kill you today.” He held up his hand and waited. “No? Me? Only me?” Then, having proved his point, he flipped the envelope to Lennox. “Okay, G.I. Joe, let’s go somewhere a little more private so that we don’t have to talk about the end of the world while standing in the middle of the street.”

Charlotte Mearing, the director of national intelligence, was her typical icy-calm self. Once upon a time, she had had to concentrate on controlling every aspect of her demeanor so as to appear utterly unflappable. She’d learned her lesson the one time, while training in Quantico, when she’d attended a party, let her hair down, and wound up in a romantic entanglement with another spy in training. It had been short, intense, passionate—and by any measure a total disaster. She’d
ended it before it could derail her focus and clamped down her emotions for good. By this point in her career, it had become so second nature that she was beginning to wonder whether she was professionally detached or if she had just stopped feeling anything at all.

She certainly knew that she was amused by the astounded looks on the faces of various top army brass, aides, key politicians, and the like. They were standing on one of the upper catwalks of NEST’s main facility room. It was cavernous, ringed with observation windows and various rampways enabling scientists and technicians to reach the highest points. The NEST emblem—a circle with a skull in the middle and three protruding triangles, each of which had a lightning bolt embedded in it—adorned a vault door at the far end. The door was partway open, and five pillars—one of them longer than the others and all of them covered with cryptic alien symbols—were being loaded into it.

Of particular interest to everyone watching, however, was the central figure. It was a gigantic Autobot, larger even than Optimus Prime. It was mostly silver but had red trim laced throughout its body. It was suspended on huge girders that almost resembled a throne.

A voice sounded over the public address system, warning loudly, “We are ten minutes to attempted contact. All NEST officials, clear the floor.”

Mearing was in the middle of bringing the observers up to speed. Referring to the pillars, she said, “It’s some kind of Autobot technology. They say he was the Robert Oppenheimer of their civilization. We’re locking them up until we understand more …”

Her voice trailed off. She couldn’t quite believe what she was seeing.

“I’ll be right back,” she told the group, keeping her tone as casual as ever. She walked quickly away from
them and toward the three people who had caught her attention.

One of them was Lennox. Seeing him around there wasn’t particularly unusual. Seeing the other people he was talking to—a young man and woman, presumably a couple since she had her arm looped through his—was, however, unusual. Also a problem. The kind of problem that could wind up with certain people in jail.

As she drew closer, she recognized the young man, although not the woman. But it didn’t matter who they were. They sure as hell were not supposed to be here.

Lennox was staring at some sorts of papers that the young man had handed him. “Excuse me,” she said sharply, interrupting their conversation. “What’s going on?”

The young woman glanced her way, but the young man ignored her, apparently feeling it more imperative to continue whatever narrative he was in the middle of than to acknowledge her presence. That was a dangerous move on his part. “He recognized me,” he said to Lennox. “Said I need to warn you. Something about the dark side of the moon.”

“Honey,” said the young woman, “it’s called the far side, actually.”

“Yeah, I know.” He looked mildly annoyed at the correction.

“He mentioned the moon?” Lennox said, unable to hide his concern. The man continued to have no poker face at all.

The young woman spoke up again. “But why would Decepticons want to kill humans? I thought their war was with the Autobots.”

“I’d say they’re after what we just found,” Lennox said.

Mearing considered grabbing one of the guard’s guns and shooting all three of them. It would be really easy.
They weren’t even moving. The cold fury of security breach burning behind her eyes, she said sharply, “Excuse me, Colonel Lennox!”

Lennox turned and said, “Director Mearing, this is Sam Witwicky. He’s the civilian who—”

“I know his name, Colonel. I want to know who gave him clearance.”

“How about Optimus Prime when he landed in suburbia looking for my house?” Sam snapped back at her.

Her lips thinned, making her look like a bespectacled piranha. “Disrespect of a federal officer. Hmm. Maybe that’ll get you somewhere.” She turned her attention to the young woman. “And who’s this?”

“Carly, my girlfriend,” said Sam.

She stared blankly at the two of them. “Which makes this … what? A date?”

Apparently this Carly was no more easily intimidated than her boyfriend. “Let’s see,” she said with a toss of her hair. “I was home, cooking dinner. Normal night. Next thing I know there’s ten machine guns to my head.”

“Carly knows all about the Autobots, Director,” said Lennox “I can vouch for her.”

“Well, thank you, Colonel,” she said, dripping with sarcasm. “Now let’s find someone to vouch for
you.
”

Sam Witwicky actually made the ill-advised move of stepping right up to Mearing and practically snarling in her face. “How ’bout we talk about the Decepticon that tried to murder me today?”

Mearing fired a look at Lennox that quite clearly said,
Rein him in. Now
.

Lennox gently but firmly pulled on Sam’s shoulder, withdrawing him a few critical inches away form Mearing. “Um, Sam,” he said in a low, warning voice, “This is the U.S. intelligence director. She can authorize bad things to happen for the rest of your life.”

“Well, that sounds illegal,” Sam said defiantly.

“Do tell,” said Mearing.

For a long moment he met her gaze and then wisely lowered his.

First smart thing he’s done
, she thought.

Lennox, meanwhile, handed over the collection of papers and photographs that he’d been poring over. “A software engineer at Sam’s office was murdered. He was involved with NASA’s moon mapping probe.”

“Are we trusting national security to teenagers?” she said icily. “Did I miss a policy paper? Are we doing that now?” She let that hang there for a moment and then turned the full force of her patriotic indignation on Sam Witwicky. “I don’t care who you are or what you’ve ever done for your country. You speak a word about what you see in here, you will do time for treason. Do you understand?”

Without backing down in the slightest, Sam said, “I’ll take my orders from the Autobots, thanks. I know them. I don’t know you.”

She brought her face toward him, looking him squarely in the eye. “You will,” she said intensely. Then she turned away from him, thinking,
I have
got
to brush up on my patriotic indignation skills
.

Sam put his hands to his ears as the Klaxon blared throughout the cavernous facility and spotlights were brought up to illuminate the girder throne far below. The huge vault at the far end had been closed, and the ominous skull emblem of NEST glowered at the proceedings.

Carly and he had been escorted to the observation deck on the east side of the chamber. There were armed soldiers all around, although Sam suspected they had been assigned there by Mearing mostly to make a point.
No one really thought that either he or Carly presented any sort of danger. Hell, Sam Witwicky was the first friend that the Autobots had developed when they arrived on Earth a few years back. If he couldn’t be trusted to care about their best interests, who could?

Mearing had been all for taking the two of them to a holding facility until they could be thoroughly debriefed. But Lennox had advocated that they be allowed to watch the process, arguing that when it came to the business of the Autobots, a well-informed Sam Witwicky was simply of more value to them than one who was being kept in the dark. Meanwhile, Sam had said he had no intention of allowing Carly to be escorted away, and so after some extended back-and-forth and Mearing ultimately declaring that she had no more time to waste on this, the two young people had been escorted to their current location, where they watched in rapt amazement.

Just when I think they have no more surprises up their mechanical sleeves
, Sam thought.

“Optimus,” Lennox said over his communication device. “Authorized to attempt contact.”

Moments later, a blue and red truck came rolling in. Sam couldn’t help smiling. He had never asked for any of this craziness his life had become. Never asked for Prime and his army of Autobots to drop into the middle of his utterly normal existence and stand it on its end. Certainly he’d never asked to be thrust into positions where his life was in constant peril.

Yet for all of that …

Damn. It was good to see him again.

The truck slowed to a halt and then began to shift and rearrange itself. In short order, Optimus Prime stood at his full height. Getting down to business, his chest compartment opened to reveal a glowing energy ball encased in what looked like a spherical metal cage. It was inset
into a holder that was vaguely diamond-shaped, except either side of it was flared and extended. Overall it had the appearance of a great winged creature with the tip of one wing pointing up and the other down.

“That’s the Matrix of Leadership,” Lennox informed Mearing, who nodded slowly. “Optimus holds the only thing in the universe that could ever repower them.”

“Sentinel Prime,” came the deep voice of Optimus, “we bid your return.”

Optimus Prime then plunged the Matrix into the chest of Sentinel Prime. Sam felt a rush of déjà vu, for it was in a similar manner that he had once restored Optimus himself to life.

The effect was instantaneous. A pulse of pure energy surged through the being called Sentinel Prime. His back arched, and his head tilted toward the ceiling. And then he cried out in pain and primal rage.

It quickly became evident that his warrior instincts had not dimmed with the passage of time. Apparently, his last memory was of being attacked, and that carried over into the way he came out of his lengthy “death.” Barely had he become reenergized than he lunged from his makeshift throne, grabbed Optimus, and threw him to the ground. When Optimus’s body struck, it unleashed a clang so loud in the enclosed space that to Sam it was like standing with his head inside the bells of Notre Dame cathedral while they were chiming.

Even as Sentinel Prime immobilized Optimus, his forearm extended into a deadly blade pointed directly at Optimus’s Spark chamber.

NEST soldiers all around the room immediately brought their weapons up, but they were uncertain as to how to proceed. Optimus Prime was vulnerable, and Sentinel Prime’s capabilities were unknown. When the bullets started flying, they might well end up killing Optimus while simply pissing off Sentinel.

Obviously that was what Lennox was thinking, because he threw his arms wide and shouted, “Hold your fire! Hold your fire! Leave it to Optimus!”

Leave it to Optimus. Worst name for a robot sitcom ever
, Sam thought bleakly, trying to fight down the overwhelming sense of fear that he was about to witness his great friend’s death yet again … and quite possibly forever this time.

And then, the picture of calm, Optimus said, “Sentinel, it is I.”

Slowly, very slowly, the words seemed to penetrate the haze of fury that had fallen upon Sentinel. Lowering his sword arm, he started looking around the room. Other Autobots were now gathering, regarding him with reverence and awe.

“The Ark,” said Sentinel Prime, putting his hand to his head. Each word was heavy, thick, as if he were re-learning how to speak. “It was … spinning … out of control …”