Rodgers began his third attempt to inform the Autobots on this new threat. "As I was saying," he said. "The bomb was developed by using a power source so amazing, it nearly blew our minds. Literally."
The scientist's voice grew more and more excitable. "From what we have observed from Mr. Prime and his soldiers, they use energon for one thing and one thing only: life. Everything has a flip-side, thus what gives life must give death."
Ratchet started to speak, but fell silent at Jack's piercing glare.
"In 1939, two scientists began the development on an atomic bomb based on the idea that the power inside an atom was the greatest power of all. The philosophy then as is now: What gives life-"
"Must give death," June muttered.
Rodgers nodded. "Exactly. Atoms make up everything in the universe. However, there are differentiations. For example, the atoms in a diamond are much stronger than the atoms that make up human skin. Thus, there are differences in atoms. Using this knowledge and philosophy, we attempted something never done before: we split an energon atom."
"Preposterous!" Ratchet could no longer keep silent. "That could not be done by humans, not in ten years, not in a hundred!"
"And that, doctor, is precisely why Autobots have yet to truly understand how humans work," sneered Sanchez. "Since our heads and bodies are not covered in metal armor day and night, we have to learn to adapt. And as we adapt, we grow creative. We may be bugs beneath your feet, but on our planet, termites can fell trees, and viruses can destroy villages."
"Anyway," said Rodgers, hoping to diffuse what was looking like the beginnings of another argument. "We split the atom of energon after realizing the amount of power that energon contained. But we were faced with a problem: how to store the atoms.
On the screen the shard of energon that was still revolving topped and the camera zoomed into it until millions of virtual atoms could be seen.
"After billions in research, we discovered that each of the atoms contained electrons normally found in the atomic orbital field around one of the rarest minerals of all: adamantium."
"Adamantium?" echoed Miko. "As in Wolverine adamantium? Awesome!"
Raf pushed up his glasses. "But adamantium isn't real. It's just some metal created by a comic book company."
"Every story has a grain of truth in it," said Jack quietly. Somehow the boy had managed to get back to his bed and lay down without anybody noticing. Though he looked drained and his face was pained, his dark eyes hadn't left Rodgers, or Sanchez for that matter, once. "If there was some super-metal that was virtually indestructible, do you think that the government would let it come out? There would be a World War III over something like that."
"Right," said Rodgers, somewhat uneasily. Something about this boy was dark and dangerous. Perhaps Darby hadn't always been this way, though. Rodgers had a feeling this attitude had been sprouted through the seeds of M.E.C.H's torture. What had they done to the kid?
Rodgers wasn't the only one who could see the difference in Jack. June could of course see how fractured her son's emotions and psych was, and it brought tears to her eyes. And Arcee was startled and a bit terrified for Jack and of Jack's new and domineering assertiveness. She didn't know how to handle this; neither did she know if it could be handled.
"Adamantum," Rodgers continued, ignoring Jack purposefully now. "Is the hardest metal known to man. However, it is still metal, thus it is still susceptible to a magnetic field. Therefore, the answer was simple: we took extremely powerful permanent magnets and warped their positions until we were able to contain and isolate two single energon atoms within their fields. Then we placed them into an adamantium cylinder and placed several magnets within it in order to allow the separate field to surround and continually move the atoms.
"Thus the bomb works as such: when taken from the electric stand a 24 hour a timer starts up, generally as a precaution to a power failure. However, we never got around to creating a failsafe for an event such as this…" Rodgers trailed off, and then continued. "The problem is that as the electromagnet weakens over time and thus fails completely. And the energon atoms that have been bouncing around then collide at an incredible speed."
"Resulting in an atomic energon explosion." Ratchet whispered.
"And if M.E.C.H has it…" trailed Arcee.
"Then we are almost, most certainly screwed," finished Fowler.
Yeah, most of this was completely bull when it came to science. Props to anyone who can figure out where the atomic cylinder reference came from. And no, this isn't a Marvel crossover. I just used that metal to accent how top secret this entire operation is.