Optimus replayed the conversation he and Sam had shared in the graveyard as he watched the sun come over the treetops. He was alone in the graveyard, the Matrix active, the Ancient Primes feeling closer than their usual distance, wondering and working with him to try to make the wisest decision in this situation. Looking down where the boy had stood, the Prime spoke.
"Prowl. Jazz."
They melted out of the trees, having followed him as unofficial bodyguards while Ironhide stayed with NEST.
"I need your minds."
He replayed the conversation a third time, looping them in real-time. He needed to know what it was that unsettled him about the boy's mannerisms. And they were experts for tactics and cultural adaption, xenolinguistics and alien body-language. They watched through Optimus' gaze at the interaction.
"Huh. You won't give me a week, huh?" Sam had said, climbing over a ledge, Bumblebee waiting in alt mode behind him. "You won't give me one week in college."
"Kid looks nervous."
"I agree," Optimus murmured.
"I'm sorry, Sam. But the last fragment of the AllSpark was stolen."
"Stolen, like, what, Decepticon-stolen?"
"We placed it under human protection at your government's request. But I'm here for your help, Sam, because your leaders believe we brought vengeance upon your planet. Perhaps they are right. That is why they must be reminded by another human of the trust we share."
"This isn't my war."
"Samuel stands defensively."
"Agreed. Jazz?"
"Kid's trying to deny something. Dunno if it's his failing relationship with Mikaela, or his involvement with our race and war. It certainly is his war, Optimus. He knows it. He knows that there's been a connection between his family and the leaders of Cybertron since his great-grandfather discovered Megs chillin' on ice."
Prowl narrowed his optics at the recorded words that Optimus had spoken. "No. Not yet. But I fear it soon will be."
"Why did you lie to Samuel?"
Wincing, Optimus began to answer, but he was clearly cut off by Jazz. "You remember how you were resistant to becoming a tactician, Prowl? Not wanting to become the very thing that drove Detrious to death? Th' kid can't handle knowing how much we already rely upon him. An' we can't tell him any of that until he's willin' t' pick up that responsibility to our race."
"Your world must not share the same fate as Cybertron. Whole generations, lost."
"I know. And I'm . . . I wanna help you. I do. But I'm not some alien ambassador. You know, I'm a normal kid with normal problems. I am where I'm supposed to be."
"Buulll," Jazz growled, then sighed. "Damn."
"Samuel and I, when I was at his maturity level, share many of the same traits of wanting to run from that which scares us the most: fate." Prowl rested his hands upon his hips, head bowed in thought. "Optimus, he is still young yet. Why did you press this?"
"We need him," the Autobot leader said firmly. "We need his words, his sincerity. He holds many of our secrets, more than Lennox and Epps know. This, you both know and understand." Venting air, he continued the recording.
"I'm sorry. I really am."
"Sam, fate rarely calls upon us at a moment of our choosing."
"You're Optimus Prime. You don't need me."
"We do. More than you know."
The top three Autobot officers stood in a sketchy triangle, facing each other as they contemplated all this. Finally, Optimus broke and began to walk carefully among the graves.
"He's lying to himself, you know," Jazz called after his leader, sighing. "But I just can' figure out what he's lyin' about."
"Time will tell. Return to Oklahoma. With the Decepticons starting to become truly active again, I cannot risk your discovery, nor can I risk the Sparklings."
"Yes, sir," the Bonded mechs chorused, watching their leader's heavy shoulders disappear among the foliage.
"She-it," Jazz muttered before he and his lover transformed and returned to the highways. This was a situation that they clearly didn't need to deal with right now.
.o.
Wet.
More than just "wet."
Waterlogged.
Snarling, optics activating, there was a moment of peace, staring up at faint lights surrounding him, the flowing shadows abstract and wavering. Then they snapped into focus as some former-Guard, former-Militia. Combiner. Gestalt.
The boy.
Death. Darkness. The Pit.
AllSpark.
Gone.
Rolling to his feet in swift movements that spoke of a lifetime of gladiator duels, Megatron looked around him, grinning savagely at seeing the symbiote Ravage. Soundwave was in orbit, then, just as he had commanded the mech to do before he had perished. He pushed off of the sea floor with the activation of his jets, leaving roiling, boiling water behind him as he surfaced. Seeing the primitive submarine-type watercraft of a species useful only because of their prolific mating abilities, he grinned, deliberately aiming for it.
After all, all work and no play makes for an irritable Lord Protector.
He shot into the atmosphere, opening vents, dragging air through waterlogged systems and clearing them out before he shot into space. The last thing he wanted was his frame to be frozen again.
"Lord Megatron."
Slowing to a halt beside the considerably-smaller Soundwave, he allowed himself a laugh. "Soundwave, loyal as you have always been."
"I serve only you."
"Good. Make sure you keep it that way, and I'll continue to let you live, perhaps even give you your own city once Cybertron is revived."
"Public positions: unwelcome. Serving Lord Protector: preferred."
"We shall see. Continue to monitor this disgusting organic planet. Have you been in contact with your Pretender?"
"Affirmative. She is close to the target."
"I have some business to take care of. When I return, we will set and spring the trap."
"Affirmative. All Hail Megatron."
Shooting off over the moon, he paused, seeing something that he hadn't seen before and settled himself just upon the dark side, staring at the wreckage and the marks where crates, items had been dragged from the ripped-open cargo hold.
"The Ark," he whispered, moving closer, careful so that his footsteps weren't pressed in distinctly. The last thing he wanted was to cause his backup plan to fail. Smelt it all, so the old pain in the aft actually made it.
Walking in, seeing the dead bodies of Autobots, he grinned. They served their purpose well. Megatron laughed in the lack of atmosphere, pressing the release that would open the doors into a chamber he knew so well. Sentinel, running on a few ounces of energon and fumes, came into view. "Well, now, fancy seeing your stasis-locked aft in once piece," he mocked, walking closer and looking at the secondary seat. "And with your guard-dog so faithfully watching you, too."
He pinged Soundwave with a query, getting the answers. So, they already had human agents. Well, the insects would be lead to believe that they were important. For now.
Terratron would be a problem, if the mech were to wake up. He had more fuel in his system because of his tank size and the control he always was able to exert over his Spark and frame, able to control how much precious energon it absorbed. It was a wonder that his old Spark was still going strong. But this was his secret. And he couldn't kill Terratron. Not yet. To injure the frame in a way that wasn't related to a crash-landing would stand out when they led Optimus to this place.
So he would wait.
For now.
"I will see you dead, mentor," Megatron snarled into the stillness. "I will see your Spark extinguished and your frame rusted. I don't need your precious skills to rule. Puah! And you will see the death of your precious Prowl, just as Prime saw the death of his precious Jazz. You will die hopeless."
Laughing, Megatron closed the cargo doors, making sure that they stayed jammed partially open in the same position they had been in when the humans made their footprints in here. He had to see about the spawning of the drones, the "hatchlings" that Starscream was so enthusiastic about breeding and rearing. Those creatures weren't much more than animals.
He never saw violet optics activate malevolently, nor heard the guttural, roiling half-snarl, half-growl of a mech whose own vows would not go unfulfilled.
.o.
The symbols kept coming and going, distracting him. His dreams were filled with things that were, things that must have been, but were far too amazing to actually have happened. There was a level of reality to his dreams, a level of complete understanding that this was what was, that he didn't usually get. Sam stared at the ceiling, his mind going through and processing what he had seen.
Metal cities beyond the term "vast" to a human scale.
Individuals who were born, loved, laughed, cried, grieved, and died.
Sparks.
Millions, billions of Sparks.
He rubbed at his face. He was going crazier than his great-grandfather.
"Yo! Sam! Time to get up! Astrology One-Oh-One is callin' our names! Dress code says no sleepwear, and dude, you smell like you slept on an engine all night long. Like gasoline, man. What, your 'friend's car' has a bad gas problem? I'm still pissed that you haven't told us that you had a Camaro! Damn! That's one slick ride! Think that you'll help us snag a couple of the Freshman Fifty?"
Groaning and rolling out of bed, ignoring the questions out of practiced habit thanks to all but living with Miles during the summer, Sam grabbed a towel, shampoo, toothbrush, and shuffled off to the showers. After cleaning himself up and brushing his teeth while under the hot stream of water, the boy walked into the room just as Sharsky, who was way too alert this early in the morning, was hissing, "Another sighting! And it's in-state, man!"
Snarling unprintable curses under his breath, Sam moved to keep an eye on what the guys had found. He rubbed at his eyes, then squinted. "What, they couldn't capture anything in HD?"
"You almost sound like you might care, Samuel," Leo teased, grinning.
"I'll be hearing you guys complain because of pixilation on this for at least two weeks."
Fassbinder snickered, "Yeap. Noob knows how it really is, man! Woah."
There was a suddenly-sharp shot of the alien, and Sam blinked.
It was Optimus. And two others. One silver, one white and black.
"Mother damn."
"Denying the truth anymore, Samuel? Load it, fellas! FTJ!"
Thankfully, his alarm went off again, causing Sam to flinch, grumble, and go in search of his clock. He pulled his phone out and texted Bee: PROBLEM. op 2IC 3IC sighted video online roomies realeffingdeal site.
The response was instant. On it.
It took thirty seconds. Sam pulled his bag together for the day, grabbing a pack of Pop-Tarts. He opened his mouth to say that he was going to class when three groaning screams of inarticulate rage chorused through his room. He had the feeling that everyone figured that they were playing Halo or something because of how noisy they were. He peeked into the second room timidly.
"Uh, guys?"
"It's the government! Dammit, I knew it!"
"Uh . . ."
"Government's keeping a lid on the aliens," Leo grumbled, leaning against his desk and staring blankly while his mind whirled. His open palm hit the side of the furniture once, and he sighed explosively, looking genuinely frustrated at not getting "the truth" out there and not just obsessed with something so that he could be famous. "They have to be. As soon as we tried to get that video up, it was gone. Looks like this is an official conspiracy to keep the public down and out of the info loop."
"But if that's the case, why haven't they just shut down the sites?" Sharsky asked, leaning back in his chair, arms crossed over his chest.
"Freedom of speech?" Sam guessed.
"Naw. This means that it's government. The speed that they hacked was insane. I've heard rumors of two hackers who can do anything, and I'm bettin' it was one of them. The video's down everywhere. Not on the site we found it on, not on our servers, and not on our computers or backup computers. As a rule, we download and lock down everything that we upload. We got nothin' in our files systems anymore."
"Hackers?" Sam wondered out loud.
"All we have are first names and online handles. Maggie and Glen. PoizinIvy and Riddler. If I ever meet them online or IRL, bro, I'll wet myself like the excitable little puppy I am."
He'd have to pass that bit of info onto those two. "Well, that's nice and everything, but we have class to get to, right? So I'm gonna shuffle my way over there now."
One hour later, Sam resisted slamming his head into a wall repeatedly. He ignored his phone. He could see the symbols running through his mind. They flew through the air. They crawled over his hands, over his books, over his computer and television screens. He was hallucinating. Crazy was inherited, some said, and his great-grandfather was fruitier than a Christmas cake. Mikaela was coming. Bee was worried, and his phone kept ringing off the hook, which was a dead giveaway that his Guardian knew something was wrong.
Why couldn't he just have a normal life?
The boy buried his head in his arms, feeling the crazy start to take hold again.
.o.
There were three things in life that he cared about. Fuel. Pleasing his masters. Surviving. Not always in that order, either, and not all three had to weave together for him to be happy.
Right now, Wheelie was surviving. He was in a box. The girl had the shard. They were going somewhere. Probably to the boy.
The boy had more information.
Wincing, probing at his ruined optic and hissing at the painful errors that ran across his HUD, the young mech sighed, wondering what his masters would do. They wouldn't come after him, that was for sure. They claimed he was a maintenance and scrap drone, but that if he had performed well on this mission, Soundwave would give him the honor of becoming one of his "children." But everyone knew that Wheelie was just this side of useless, when you compared him to true symbiotes like Frenzy, Rumble, Ravage, Lazerbeak and Ratbat, for starters.
They wouldn't come for him.
And drones didn't have Sparks.
He rested his chin upon his arms.
Drones didn't remember being transferred from a Sparkling body to a drone frame because the metal was needed for repairs and his Caretakers were dead.
Drones weren't Younglings.
Clicking softly, Wheelie buried his head in his arms.
Drones weren't valuable.
Sparks are valuable.
Then why wasn't he valued?
.o.
Author's Note: Short chapter this time around. Sorry for that, but sometimes it happens. I gave you a few good long chapters just prior to this, so I feel pretty justified in only putting up 7ish pages of text that feels as fragmented as ROTF did. I did this deliberately, so please don't shoot me for this.
BTW: HOLY CRAP! Over 400 reviews? Thank you, thank you, thank you! I can't believe that this story has come so far. It's all because of you guys.
Song is: "In My Life" by The Rasmus.