"Ancient Sumerians used to call the Gulf of Aqaba the 'Dagger's Tip,'" Valerie told them in the car. "I never thought that Ms. King's Geography class would help me in my life. Anyway, it's part of the Red Sea. It's in the middle of Egypt and Jordan, as sharp as a tip of blade."
Sam nodded. "First thing we've got to do is get Optimus to the Dagger's Tip," he said.
Leo frowned. "How are you gonna get him halfway around the world?" he asked.
"We're gonna make a call," Valerie answered, grinning. "Uncle Will can get him here." Suddenly, there was a siren behind them, and Valerie looked out the window. "Cops, guys."
The Autobots took a sharp turn, which threw the cops off of their tail temporarily. They headed towards a village, where Valerie grabbed Sam and pulled him down behind a wall. Everyone else besides Bee, Skids, and Mudflap followed. A few seconds later, the cops passed by and disappeared. Valerie let out a deep breath that she hadn't realized she'd been holding.
"Man, stupid cops!" Mudflap exclaimed. "Ha!"
Skids grinned. "This is what's called blending in like a ninja," he said.
"Shut up or I'll blend my fist in your face," Mudflap snapped.
Valerie rolled her eyes at the twins as Mikaela spoke. "They're gone," she told them.
Sam nodded. "Okay, we're running out of time," he said. "I gotta make the call to Lennox-"
Simmons interrupted. "You're on the Worldwide Wanted List. Try calling one base, they'll track you here in a second. CIA is all over this place!"
"You're gonna call," Sam stated calmly.
For a second, Simmons looked shocked, but he recovered. "Oh," he muttered. "Okay. That's a good idea."
"All right," Sam agreed.
Simmons kept talking. "I mean, I just had my mind on other things... like ending up in Egyptian prison," he said.
Valerie rolled her eyes again and shoved the phone into Simmons' hands. "Just call," she ordered, dialing the number.
After a few minutes, they had gotten Lennox on the phone. "Lennox, I'm with the kid," Simmons said into the phone. "The kids. You know, the one with the attitude and the one with the hair, right? We need the truck. The truck."
"Tell him the other lovebird," Valerie told him.
Simmons nodded. "The other lovebird," he repeated. "We got a possible resurrection going on over here. You're not gonna believe where we are. Code Tut, as in King Tutankhamen. Back of a one-dollar bill. Coordinates for airdrop, 2.95 north, 34.88 east. Write it down. Write it."
"Did someone ever tell you that you repeat things a lot?" Valerie asked him, causing Simmons to glare at her. She glanced behind Simmons and saw Leo running up, panicked, and instantly got the gist of what was going on. "We got to go now." Valerie yanked the phone from Simmons and slammed it back into the booth, causing it to fall of with a clang.
They all headed to Bee and got off of the road, heading away from the village. Valerie stared out the window as Sam and Simmons tried to figure out what the message that was in Sam's head meant.
"When dawn alights the Dagger's Tip, the Three Kings will reveal the doorway," they said together. "That's what he said. You know what it means?" Simmons asked.
Sam shook his head. "No, what does it mean?" he replied.
Simmons shrugged. "I have no idea," he answered. He turned to Valerie. "Hey, Little Lady! Any ideas here?"
"When dawn alights the Dagger's Tip, the Three Kings will reveal the doorway," Valerie muttered, frowning. "No, I don't. I really don't."
Simmons let out a groan. "Like I said before, we're porked," he complained.
A few minutes later, they reached a checkpoint. "Oh my God," Leo muttered. "Oh my God. Checkpoint. Checkpoint. I don't have my passport."
"None of us do, idiot," Valerie snapped. "We'll have to wing it. Does anyone have a plan?"
Outside, a man shouted something in Egyptian. "Pass-port!" he ordered in a strange accent, causing Valerie to start cracking up. Mikaela nudged her, and Valerie bit her lip but couldn't hide her shaking shoulders and the merriment in her eyes.
"They got cameras at the top," Sam reported, looking out the window concernedly.
Valerie yanked him back into the car. "Don't show your face, then," she hissed as the man started walking towards the car. Soon she realized that the man had been standing on a crate before and was, in reality, about four and a half feet tall. She started cracking up again.
"Oh great, a frickin' munchkin," Wheelie snapped, causing Valerie's laughs to double. "Little people are mean. Tell him he's tall."
The man finally reached the car, and Simmons started talking. "Ashu-fanah," Simmons said. Valerie raised an eyebrow in speculation. "The Dagger's... Tip? Right? Egypt, Jordan. We want to go there. Me and my family. This is my family."
"Not me," Valerie spoke up, not wanting to even entertain the thought of being related to Simmons. "I'm his girlfriend." She leaned closer to Leo and rubbed his leg, smiling at the officer.
Simmons rolled his eyes. "This is my son," he said, throwing his arm around Sam. "This is my other son, and my daughter. We're tourists, from New York."
"New York?" the officer asked. Simmons nodded. "Fifty kilometers."
Simmons grinned. "You look like the guy that runs my falafel stand," he told the officer. "Thank you. Thank you very much."
"New York!" the officer said happily.
Bee started rolling forward, Skids and Mudflap following. "I know. I know you from somewhere," Simmons told the officer.
"Go Yankees!" the officer shouted as they pulled away from the checkpoint.
Valerie rolled her eyes. "If all Egyptians are into Yankees as much as that dude, we should be able to meet the President," she commented. Then she frowned. "Does Egypt have a president?"
"You were the one in the AP classes," Sam reminded her.
She glared. "I don't remember that stuff," she stated.
After a few hours, they reached Giza. Valerie spotted an old building and picked the lock with one of her bobby pins, and she pulled open the doors. "C'mon, guys," she said, entering the building.
"Shh," Skids muttered. "Undercover, yo. You got to blend in with your surroundings. You know, you got to be part of the landscape." Bee bumped into Skids as he walked by. "Ow!"
Simmons, meanwhile, started talking. "Awesome!" he exclaimed. "I think aliens built that. Yeah! Yeah, yeah. Come on." He entered the building behind Valerie.
Soon night had fallen. Sam and Mikaela had grabbed a spot outside on the scaffolding, but Valerie, Simmons, and Leo stayed inside the building. Valerie sat as far away from Simmons and Leo as she could and ended up on the scaffolding on the other side of the building. She looked up at the stars as her feet dangled over the scaffolding.
She started thinking about Optimus. Did she dare to get her hopes up that she might be reunited with him, only to possibly getting them crushed again? She hoped so; she missed Optimus more than she had ever missed anything in her life. Valerie started thinking about how easy it had been for her to open up to him and tell him all of her current problems. It had been so effortless to be with him...
There was a noise behind her, and Valerie turned to see Simmons sit down next to her. For a few seconds, he didn't say anything. But then he broke the silence. "Heard you got into something with the big guy," he told her.
"What about it?" she asked cautiously, looking from the stars to him.
Simmons glanced at her. "You all right?" he said, ignoring her question. "With all this resurrection business and all? The hope?"
Valerie shrugged. "I guess so," she replied. She took a deep breath. "I just want someone to talk to like I used to talk with him. I could tell him everything I wanted and I knew that he would listen. He took care of me, too. He always made sure that I was completely happy." She glanced back at the stars. "And when he was too... overwhelmed with being a Prime, with being strong, I tried to help him. But... for some reason I feel like I failed. I never knew what I was doing half the time when he needed comforting."
He put a gentle hand on her shoulder and squeezed. "I'm sure you did fine, Valerie," he told her. She noted that he called her by her actual name this time. "And if you ever need someone to talk to, I'm here. We're all here." Then he stood and headed back to Leo, who was already asleep.
Valerie stayed on the scaffold for a few more minutes, thinking about what Simmons had just said. Was he acting... fatherly towards her? She had never had much of a father figure in her life- her own father had always been too busy being a soldier to really be there, even though he tried. What was up with the sudden change in attitude?
A few minutes later, there was a clatter from back in the room. Valerie turned quickly, hand on her Transformium in case it was a Decepticon. However, a brief glance told her that it was just Sam and Mikaela.
"Simmons! Leo!" Sam shouted. "Wake up! Where's Valerie?"
She stood up and headed inside. "Here," she said. "What's up?"
He turned to Leo. "Listen, astronomy class, page 47," he stated. "Remember the class?"
Leo gave him a cross look that Valerie assumed was partially related to Sam waking him up. "No," he snapped. "No, I was only in college for two days. Remember that?"
Sam sighed. "Here," he said impatiently. "Get up. Up, up."
"What are you talking about?" Leo demanded, but the three of them followed Sam and Mikaela back outside.
Sam instantly started talking. "Okay, you see those three stars?" he asked, pointing to the three stars that seemed to be hovering on top of the Pyramids of Giza. "You see how the last one touches the horizon? That's Orion's Belt."
"Also called the Three Kings," Valerie continued. She grinned. "Sam, you're a genius!"
He continued. "The reason they're called the Three Kings is that the three Egyptian kings who built the pyramids of Giza built them to mirror the stars, so it's like an arrow staring us straight in the face."
"They all point due east, towards Jordan," Simmons commented.
Valerie nodded, mental map of northeastern Africa popping into her head. "The mountains of Petra," she said.
The next day, they were all clustered around a structure carved into the mountains of Petra. They climbed over the huge step to get into the building. "Got to be around here somewhere," Simmons said as they looked around the empty room. "You see the size of this? You see this? Huh?"
"Spec-tacular," Skids commented as he entered.
Simmons took another look around the room. "Amazing," he declared.
"I sense it," Valerie informed them. "But it's... strange. I know we're near it, but the signal is shielded. I don't know exactly where it is. The Primes must have done something to block the Hudsons from finding it.
Sam glanced around. "It's here somewhere, guys," he said.
Leo scoffed. "Yeah, why?" he asked. "'Cause, uh, we're trusting Grandpa Blackbird who doesn't even know what planet he's on."
"In his defense," Simmons muttered, head craned upwards, "this is the biggest doorway I've ever seen in my life."
Once again, Leo scoffed. "Okay, well that's great," he said. "Let me do a quick search, all right?" He twirled around the room mockingly. "Uh... nope. Ever cross your mind, guys, that archaeologists have been here before? There's nothing here."
Valerie glared. "The archaeologists didn't have someone who could sense Transformium with them, Leo!" she snapped. "We haven't come this far just to give up. The riddle has to be right- the Primes even had certainty that this would work. We're close to the Matrix, guys, but we just need to search harder! We're bringing Optimus back to life!"
"Why am I even listening to you?" Leo demanded. "You're in love with a giant alien robot! Oh, wait, let me correct myself! A deceased giant alien robot."
She instantly felt a sudden rush of rage fill her, and she stormed towards Leo, ready to punch him in the face. Sam placed himself between them. "That was a low blow, Leo," he said. "And Valerie, calm down. He's just frustrated."
"Frustrated?" she shouted. "Frustrated? We never should have brought him along in the first place! He doesn't belong with us! All he's ever done is cry and plead to go home to Mama!"
Leo's gaze hardened. "It's over," he said. "It's done."
"Why are we still listening to you, little punk-ass?" Mudflap asked. "I mean, what you ever done for us except ding my rim?"
Skids glared. "Killed Megatron," he answered. "How bout that?"
"Well, he didn't get the job done," Mudflap protested. "You know what I mean, 'cause he's back now, and he's-"
Skids interrupted. "Are you scared?" he demanded.
Mudflap scoffed. "Scared? Scared of your ugly face!" he retorted, causing Skids to charge at him. Sam, Simmons, and Leo let out a shout and hurried to get out of the twins's path.
"Calm down, guys!" Valerie ordered, but they ignored her and kept shouting at each other. "Guys! Do you think that Optimus would want us fighting each other? Save it for the Decepticons!" They ignored her again, and Mudflap threw Skids into one of the walls, causing it to crack. Valerie let out a groan. "Bee, get them out of here!" Bee nodded and tossed them out of the room.
The humans all gathered around the wall, where there seemed to be a piece of Transformium with symbols on it. Valerie instantly knew what it was.
"It's the Tomb of the Primes, guys," she said. "We need to get in there."
Sam nodded. "Bee, shoot it!" he told Bee, and the Autobot charged his cannon and destroyed a nice, small area of the wall. Valerie pulled away the remaining pieces of the wall and climbed in. Instantly they were plunged into darkness, and Valerie turned her Transformium into a flashlight.
The other humans followed after her, and they looked around the room. All of the bodies of the Primes made up the walls, and the hand of one of the Primes was sticking out in the middle of the room. Valerie hurried towards it, the others following her.
Instantly she saw the Matrix. It looked exactly like Jetfire had showed them with the holograph, with the glowing blue gem in the middle of a beautifully carved piece of black Transformium. For a while, they stared at the Matrix, but Sam eventually stuck his hand out and reached for the Matrix.
The instant he touched it, it turned to dust.
"No, no, no, no..." Sam muttered, falling to his knees and placing his hand in the dust. "This isn't how it's supposed to end."
Valerie stared in shock at the dust that used to be the Matrix. That had been the one chance that she had had of bringing Optimus back to her.. and it had turned into dust right in front of their eyes.
What had they done wrong? The Primes had clearly stated that Optimus would come back to life (maybe not clearly stated, but she had been able to infer what it meant), and they had probably intended for them to use the Matrix. But why had it turned to dust? Transformium didn't normally erode like that! Something must have gone wrong, but for the life of her, Valerie couldn't figure out what.
Suddenly she heard the noise of planes coming from outside the ruins. "C-17's," she announced, having grown used to the sound after two years in N.E.S.T.
Simmons instantly ran outside, and Leo followed him. Valerie, Sam, and Mikaela, however, stayed in the Tomb of the Primes.
"You can't bring him back, Sam," Mikaela said gently, placing a hand on his shoulder.
Sam shook his head angrily. "Look! Look around you. We didn't just go through everything we went through for no reason at all and to just have it end like this. There is a reason we are here. The voices and the symbols in my head and Valerie's message from the Primes led us here for a purpose." He pulled off his sock and started shoving the dust in it. "Everyone's after me because of what I know..." he muttered. "... and what I know is that this is going to work."
After hesitating for a few seconds, Valerie dropped to her knees beside him and started helping him shovel the dust in. "We have to believe," she told him. "We have to believe that this is going to work."
"It will, Valerie," Sam said. "It will."
A few minutes later, Valerie, Sam, and Mikaela joined Simmons and Leo outside, staring at the plane. Valerie watched as Optimus's limp body was pushed out of one of the planes.
"Dropping the big boy," Simmons commented. "Sam, you think you can bring him back to life with that pixie dust?"
Sam nodded. "Absolutely," he answered.
Simmons turned to Valerie. "And you, Little Lady?" he asked.
Valerie nodded. "I'll do whatever if there's even a small chance that it'll bring back Optimus," she told him. "Let's go."