Chapter 5

Pyrrha woke up to an odd rocking motion and a fog in her brain. It was early morning; last she remembered it was late at night and the sun wasn't up. She groaned and opened her eyes, only to see that she was in a helicopter. Sam, Mikaela and Pyrrha were on one side, flanked by government agents, and on the other side was a blonde woman, a heavyset African American, and an older government official.

Sam looked at Pyrrha with concern in his eyes. The brain fog was rapidly lifting and she was feeling more coherent. When he saw that Pyrrha was awake and feeling fine he turned to the others. They began introducing themselves. "I'm Maggie," the woman said in an Australian accent.

Maggie elbowed the black man. "Glen," he said with a wave. He then rubbed his arm where Maggie elbowed him.

"Defense Secretary Keller," the government official says.

Pyrrha, Mikaela and Sam all introduce themselves. Then Maggie asks, "So, what did they get you three for?"

Pyrrha said, "Sam and I bought a car. Turned out to be an alien robot." She shrugged. "Who knew?"

Glen just mouthed 'Wow' breathlessly. Other than that, nobody knew how to respond to that.

Once the helicopters land, the group is transferred to a group of vans on the way to the Hoover Dam. Once there, Pyrrha, Mikaela and Sam look over the edge at the large drop, like many of the tourists do. They follow the agents to where a group of soldiers are standing at arms. Defense Secretary Keller goes over to them, but the three teens are stopped by Simmons.

"Hey, kids," Simmons began, "I think we got off to a bad start, huh?" He placed a hand on Sam's shoulder and said, "You guys must be hungry. Want a latte? Ho-ho? Double venti macchiato?"

Pyrrha immediately asked, "Where's our car?"

A man came over and said, "Kid, I need you to listen to me very carefully. People can die here. We need to know everything you know, and we need to know it now."

"Okay," Sam began, "But first we'll take our car, our parents, maybe you should write that down. Oh, and her juvie record? It needs to be gone, like, forever."

The agent said, "Come with me, we'll talk about your car."

Pyrrha heard Mikaela say, "Thank you," to Sam. She was happy for what her twin did for Mikaela.

"Man's an extortionist," she heard Simmons say.

They were introduced to everyone before walking into the restricted zone of the dam. Once inside, Simmons said, "All right, here's the situation. You've all been in contact with the NBEs."

A black soldier, Epps, said, "NBEs?"

Simmons replied, "Non-Biological Extraterrestrials. Try to keep up with the acronyms."

Pyrrha's horror grew. That name was prepared before last night… they've seen Cybertronians before. Oh, shit, if he's here, then we're all screwed…

An agent who she now knows is Banachek said, "What you are now about to see is totally classified." When they emerged from the tunnel, Pyrrha's eyes grew to the size of dinner plates. "It's him…" she whispered. Her nightmare come real.

Megatron. Leader of the Decepticons.

Granted, he's frozen, but still, she felt as if one wrong look would unfreeze him and send him on a murderous rampage. Pyrrha gulped and sidled behind Sam.

Keller was stunned and summed up what was on just about everyone's minds. "Dear God, what is this?"

Banachek continued, "We think that when he made his approach over the North Pole, our gravitational fields screwed up his telemetry. He crashed in the ice probably a few thousand years ago. We shipped him here to this facility in 1934."

Simmons said, "We call him NBE 1."

Pyrrha said, "Well, sir, I don't mean to correct you on everything you think you know, but that's Megatron."

Sam said, "He's the leader of the Decepticons. Are you sure he's not going to wake up?"

"Absolutely sure," Banachek said, "We've got backup generators powering this thing in case the original generators don't work. Anyways, he's been in cryostasis since 1935. Pyrrha, Sam, your great-great grandfather made one of the greatest discoveries in the history of mankind."

Should have left him in the ice, Pyrrha thought.

"Fact is, Simmons continued, "you're looking at the source of the modern age, the microchip, lasers, spaceflight, cars, all reverse-engineered by studying him. NBE 1." Getting in Pyrrha's face, he said, "That's what we call it."

Secretary Keller then interrupted, "You didn't think that the United States military might need to know that there was a hostile alien frozen in the basement?"

"Until these events, we had no credible threat to national security," Banachek said.

Another soldier, Lennox, Pyrrha remembered, asked, "So why Earth?"

"It's the AllSpark," Sam replied.

Keller asked, "AllSpark? What's that?"

"You know, they came here looking for some cube-looking thing."

Pyrrha picked up, "Anyways, as my brother was saying, Mr. NBE 1, aka Megatron, that's what they call him, who's pretty much the harbinger of death, wants to use the Cube to transform human technology to take over the universe. That's their plan."

"You sure about that?"

"Yeah." Sam and Pyrrha replied. Then they realized something. They looked at each other and said, "You guys know where it is, don't you?"

"Follow me," Banachek said.

They walked down another tunnel. Lennox asked them, "So you guys' names are Sam and Pyrrha, right? So, how do you know about these guys?"

Pyrrha said, "Well, we met our first Autobot a few nights ago."

Epps asked, "Autobot? What's that?"

Sam spoke up. "Well, there's two factions of Cybertronians. It was kind of like the Civil War, except a bit more extreme. The Autobots are like the North; they want peace and prosperity for all species. The Decepticons were like the South and want to enslave or exterminate all they see below them, which is just about everyone. They've been locked in a war now for millions of years, one that's consumed their planet."

"Where are they now? I'm sure that they wouldn't want the AllSpark falling into the Decepticon's hands," Lennox asked.

"Well, they're probably on their way to the Cube's location," Sam said. Suddenly the three teens smiled. "That means that they're probably on their way right now!"

"What you are about to see is our crown jewel," Banachek said, leading them into an office. Out the window, sitting at several stories tall, is a metal cube. Pyrrha felt a tugging in her chest, and everything faded until all that was left was the sound of blood pumping in her ears and herself and the Cube.

Sam broke her out of it when his hand was placed on her shoulder. "Pyr, you feeling okay?" he asked.

"Y-yeah," she replied. She turned to Banachek, who was talking.

"Radiometric dating puts the Cube here around 10,000 BC. The first seven didn't find it until 1913, when they followed Native American legends to this area. Legends that spoke of a giant metal cube that came from the sky and radiated an electric aura." Pyrrha whistled in appreciation. "They knew it was alien because of the matching hieroglyphics on the Cube as well as NBE 1. President Hoover had the dam built around it to hide its energy signature from anyone or any alien species on the outside."

"Wait, back up," Maggie said, "You said that the dam hides the Cube's energy. What kind exactly?"

"That's a good question," Banachek said. They followed him into a room with a box in the center. "Please, step inside, they have to lock us in," he said.

"Oh, wow," Glen said, looking at the series of slash marks on the metal wall.

"What's that? Looks like Freddy Krueger done been up in here or something?" Epps observed.

"Oh, no, man," Glen replied, "Freddy Krueger have four blades, man. That's only three. That's Wolverine!" Glen started laughing. Nobody else was, though.

"Anyone have any mechanical devices? Blackberry? Key alarm? Cell phone?" Simmons asked.

Pyrrha handed over her phone, "Here," she said, tossing it over to him.

"Ooh. Nokias are real nasty," he said, turning it on, "You've gotta respect the Japanese. They know the way of the samurai."

Maggie said, "Nokia's from Finland."

"Yes, but you know, he's, you know, a little strange," Keller commented, "He's a little strange."

Everyone pulled down the goggles they were given and looked at the box. A lever with what appeared to be a little ray gun was brought down and placed over the phone. "We're able to take the Cube radiation and funnel it into that box." An electric shock lit up the box, and when it was done, the phone started shaking before it transformed into a small Cybertronian.

The phone bot started slamming into the box, trying to get out, but was shocked for its trouble. It transformed out a mini RPG and a machine gun and stated shooting at the glass. Pyrrha couldn't help herself, especially when Simmons was about to kill it. She held her hand out and the bot flew through the glass and into her hand.

"What did you just do?" Simmons asked Pyrrha, who was soothing the little thing. It was shaking like mad and appeared scared.

"Saved its life," Pyrrha responded. "How would you like it if you were just born and you had people staring at you through a glass tank like you were a fish?" She then turned her attention to the tiny bot in her hand. It was snuggled up to her thumb and was calmed down. Its eyes turned blue when she said, "Don't worry, you're safe. I think I'll call you Nox." The now named Nox made a cooing sound before transforming back into her phone.

"Well, that was a thing," Sam said, stunned. He looked at her concerned, and Pyrrha mouthed, "I'll talk to you about it later."

Suddenly, the lights began flickering as a metallic groaning sound echoed. "Gentlemen, they know the Cube is here," Keller announced.

"Tom, what's going on?" Banachek asked a man over a radio.

"Well, the NBE 1 hangar has lost power, and the backup generator is not going to cut it."

Lennox ran over. "Do you have an arms room?" he asked.

Everyone ran out of the room, and Banachek ordered all staff to the NBE 1 hangar. Then they ran to the arms room. "They're popping our generators," he said.

In the arms room, everyone was grabbing weapons and ammo, specifically sabot rounds, which they were informed worked on Cybertronians. Midway through, there was a crash and the lights flickered. Pyrrha and Sam ran up to Simmons.

"You've gotta take us to our car! He's gonna know what to do with the Cube," they told him.

"Your car? It's been confiscated."

"Then unconfiscated it," Pyrrha demanded.

"We do not know what will happen if we let it near this thing," Simmons exclaimed, shaking his head.

"Well, you don't know," Pyrrha said.

Simmons responded, "Maybe you two know, but I don't know."

Sam got angry. "You just wanna sit here and wait to see what happens?!"

"I have people's lives at stake here!" Simmons exploded.

Lennox grabbed Simmons and pressed him against an armored buggy. "Take him to his car," he growled out. Agents and soldiers took out their weapons, the soldiers took down the armed agents quickly, and Pyrrha used her semblance and grabbed a pole and a small manhole cover and shaped them into a sword and shield.

"Get behind me," she told Sam and Mikaela, which they did.

"Drop your weapon, soldier," Simmons said. Nox climbed onto Pyrrha's shoulder and took out his gun and mini-RPG. "There's an alien war going on and you're gonna shoot me?"

"You know, we didn't ask to be here," Lennox said.

"I'm ordering you under S-Seven executive jurisdiction."

Epps responded, "S-Seven don't exist." Zing! Pyrrha thought.

"That's right. And we don't take orders from people who don't exist."

"I'm gonna count to five, okay?" Simmons said.

"Well, I'm gonna count to three," was the reply.

Keller cut in then. "Simmons?"

"Yes, sir?"

"I'd do what he says. Losing's not really an option for these guys."

Simmons looked from the gun pressed to his chest, to Lennox, to Keller and back, and said, "Alright. Okay. Hey, you want to lay the fate of the world on two kids' Camaro? That's cool." Lennox let Simmons up, and they went to retrieve Bumblebee.

When they got there and heard Bee's pained screams, Sam, Mikaela and Pyrrha ran over yelling, "Stop!" and pushing the nitrogen sprayers down. Banachek began ordering the men to sop what they were doing, too, and they eventually got the message.

"Are you okay?" Sam asked Bee. He, of course, didn't answer, but pulled down on his visor and activated his cannon, which gave off a low humming sound.

"Listen," Pyrrha said, "The Cube is here and the Decepticons are coming." When Bee kept his cannon activated, she said, "No, don't worry about them, they're okay. Alright?" Sam and Mikaela were telling everyone that it was fine, and to give Bee some room. "Put the gun down, They're not gonna hurt you." When Bee did, Pyrrha said, "Okay, we're gonna take you to the AllSpark now.

Everyone rushed to the AllSpark room, Bee following behind them. When they got there, Bee walked up to it and stared at it reverently for a moment. That's right, it's a holy relic to them, Pyrrha recalled. Then Bumblebee began pressing symbols and a wave of blue energy traveled over the Cube's surface. Suddenly, the Cube broke down and began shifting and sliding in smaller cubes until it was small enough to fit in Bee's hand. "Message from Starfleet, Captain," Bee said, "Let's get to it."

"He's right," Lennox said, "We stay here, we're screwed with Megatron in the other hangar. Mission City is 22 miles away. We're gonna sneak that Cube out of here and we're gonna hide it somewhere out in the city."

"Good, right!" Keller said.

"But we cannot make a stand without the Air Force."

When Keller and Simmons were figuring out a way to get in contact with the Air Force, Bee handed the miniature AllSpark to Pyrrha. It sparked and the sparks traveled up her arms, but she wasn't hurt. Bee took the Cube back. "You alright there, little lady?"

"Yeah," she said, "It felt kind of tingly." Bee handed the Cube to her again and nothing happened. Bee then transformed and they got into him. Lennox and everyone else got into the turreted buggies and they drove off.

The Battle of Mission City was about to begin.