Chapter 7
Midnight was driving around the city aimlessly until he spots a familiar male human in a suit coming out of a donut shop with a box of donuts. He slowly drives by the human to get his attention and then rolls around a corner into a secluded alley. There he parks himself until the human ambulates unsuspectingly into the alley.
"You drew quite the attention the other night," Bill begins speaking with the dark blue car. "You have no idea what I had to do to explain what happened to my superiors."
"At least no one took pictures of me," notes Midnight.
"Oh, you bet your horseshoes there were pictures," scoffs Bill in annoyance. "Rafael worked tirelessly to scrub your mug off the Internet. Optimus wasn't exactly thrilled either."
"I did what I had to do," Midnight responds simply.
"Well, for that, the hostages all came out unscathed at least," admits Bill. "Our boys in blue and green, not so much."
"My condolences," Midnight offers his sympathies.
"It's not like you knew MECH was going to open fire on us like that," sighs Bill. "At least they're all gone for good. No more Silas, no more MECH."
"What was their deal anyways?" wonders Midnight.
"New world order, stuff like that," Bill rambles. "Without a leader, MECH just dissolved into recklessness."
The agent looks over at Midnight and scratches the back of his head.
"I heard about what happened with Zero…" he begins.
Bill is suddenly interrupted by his cell phone ringing. Shifting the donut box to left arm, Bill grabs his phone and accepts the call. The solemn atmosphere suddenly turns to high alert as Bill's eyes open wide in shock.
"You're kidding me!" he exclaims. He flips off his phone and turns to Midnight. "Looks like we didn't finish them off after all."
"MECH?" deduces Midnight.
"There's one of them left and he's threatening to blow up an elementary school to prove a point," Bill reports grimly.
Midnight didn't hear anything else as he speeds off in the direction of Noah's school. Memories of the time he spent with the boy from the day they met until recently flash through his mind while he drifts corners and burn rubber through the streets. He even went as far as change into his robot form to leap over an old lady crossing the street only to land on the other side back in car form.
Soon enough, Midnight sees the school up ahead and hopes against all hope that the MECH survivor hasn't chosen that school for his political commentary. As he gets closer to the school, he could make out the shape of an adult human standing in front of the school with arms outstretched to the sides.
He tries to push his engines to the max to get to the man in time but as soon as he got within meters of the school, an explosion erupts from within the building. The force of the blast was so great that it sent Midnight reeling back into the houses across the street and knocking him out.
Midnight came to sometime later in a forest clearing. Looking down at himself, he discovers he's still in car form and quickly changes into robot form when Bill approaches him.
"Where am I?" asks the bot.
"You were pretty thrashed by the blast," begins Bill. "We had to tow you secretly out of the area to make sure no one saw you."
"What happened… to the MECH soldier?" Midnight inquires hesitantly.
A somber expression overtakes Bill. "We tried to evacuate all the kids, but…"
Midnight tries to keep himself composed, but it was hard to hide the anguish in his face. Somewhere in the back of his mind, he hopes Noah made it out safely.
"There…" Bill rubs the back of his head uncomfortably. "There will be a… service… for those that didn't make it…"
"I understand…" Midnight replies with melancholy.
