Academic Recognition
Disclaimer: Transformers is property of Takara-Tomy and Hasbro. I'm just borrowing it. Other characters are property of their respective owners.
"Hey! Sam! Take a look at this thing I just found," Leo Spitz stage whispered to his room-mate while staring at his computer screen.
"Ughhhh. Leo, it's 2am," Sam complained as he rolled over in bed.
"Yeah, yeah, yeah. Come here," Leo demanded. Sam, knowing that Leo was implacable when he was in one of these moods, forced himself out of bed and staggered over to Leo's computer.
"What's so important?" Sam grunted as he rubbed his eyes.
"Look at this paper I found! It's a real, honest to God, archeological paper about alien artifacts under the Great Pyramid," Leo enthused.
"Well, duh. The whole world knows about that. Devastator ripped the top off the Great Pyramid to dig up the sun harvester," Sam countered.
"Yeah, but this paper was written in 1984."
"Move over. Lemme see," Sam demanded before shouldering Leo out of the way. Leo spent the next 10 minutes uncomfortably hunched over while Sam read over his shoulder. "Leo, this doesn't say anything about alien artifacts. It's a translation of Khufu's proclamation starting the construction of the Pyramid. There's some stuff in there about building a mountain over the demons' temple, but nowhere does the word 'alien' show up."
"Man, you are so blinded by the system! The demons' temple is the sun harvester, and the sun harvester is an alien artifact. You've gotta put the pieces together. Read between the lines!"
"We know about alien artifacts now, but there's no indication that this prof did."
"Come on, Sam. How long would any professor last if they said in writing that they thought there were alien artifacts under the Great Pyramid? I'm thinking about 10 seconds. He obviously knew it, but self-censored to avoid getting caught by The Man."
"Leo, you're insane," Sam said before standing up, stretching, and walking back to his bed. He flopped down onto the bed and stared at the ceiling for a few minutes. "I take it back. You're not insane. The government was looking for aliens and Simmons was one of them."
"Sector 7!" Leo crowed.
"Shhhhh!" Sam chided Leo for the noise in a slight panic. "Okay, you've got a point. E-mail the address of that article to Bumblebee and we'll see what he says in the morning."
"Deal, but you've got to admit to the big guy that I found this."
"Fine, Leo," Sam rolled to face away from his room-mate and did his best to go back to sleep.
"I have a document that I believe you will find interesting," Bumblebee transmitted to Optimus Prime.
"You may transmit it," Optimus replied. In a flash, the PDF of the scanned article crossed the world from Pennsylvania to Diego Garcia. "The implications of this document are indeed interesting. The humans obviously constructed the pyramid atop the sun harvester, not our forbears, so the harvester must have sat exposed to the elements for some years."
"Reference to 'demons' indicates that societal memory of The Fallen remained, even if he and his troops were absent," Bumblebee added.
"So it seems. Pharaoh Khufu's end of reassuring his people that the danger of the demons was past seems to have succeeded as mention of metal demons has made few, if any, appearances in archeological data from Egypt."
"Vowing to spend eternity inside the 'demon temple', beneath an artificial mountain, just to allay some fears seems extreme to me," Bumblebee commented.
"You must remember, old friend, that the humans of Khufu's time were not the people we know. They were far more superstitious and unscientific. Khufu's promise held great weight under the cultural and religious traditions of his people."
"That sounds right, I guess. I have thinking that humans were not always as they currently are."
"Many of our own people have difficulty remembering that we have a past that predates any living memory. If it were not so, we would never have forgotten the original Primes."
"Heh. I just remembered that you were in charge of the archeological dig that uncovered the Primes' resting place. I only sent the document to you for curiosity's sake, not professional interest. My apologies."
"No apologies are required. I believe that I will look into this further. It will do me good to have a hobby. I don't think I've had time for pleasant diversions since the war started, but with Megatron licking his wounds and the continuing new arrivals, I finally have some downtime. Thank you, Bumblebee."
"My pleasure, Prime. I did a bit of background research. The author is still alive, but is retired. The two individuals who wrote the translation manual he references, W.P. Emerson and D. Todros, are both deceased, but copies of the translation manual are available on Amazon or eBay. The manual appears to have fallen out of favour because it covers multiple rarely-seen dialects and grammatical structures of Ancient Egyptian that most scholars consider superfluous."
"You have done well, Bumblebee. Is there anything further?"
"Only that I was specifically instructed to inform you that the document in question was brought to my attention by Leonardo Ponce de Leon Spitz."
"Indeed," Optimus laughed. "Good night, Bumblebee."
W.P. Emerson and D. Todros are property of Elizabeth Peters. They are used without permission and for no monetary gain.