Uzi's plan to sneak out during the middle of the night was perfect. She started by hacking into the security terminals to temporarily disable the hallway cameras. Then, to distract the main security teams, she set several fires on multiple levels using some oil and an old box of matches. Having stolen the master key from her father's room, she reached the famous blast doors that separated the colony from the rest of Cybertron and was ready to walk through them without a hint of fear.

It was a masterful getaway that was thwarted by the simplest problem: the lever that controlled the mechanism for doors was stuck.

"Oh, come on!" Uzi yelled as she struggled once more to pull down the massive lever in front of the doorway—but it wouldn't budge. The ancient lock was held in place, unmoving no matter how much she pulled against it. "Is this thing superglued or something?" she growled, releasing the lever—and giving it a hard kick.

Instant regret followed.

"Ow! Dang it, what is this stupid thing made of? Durabyllium?" Hissing in pain, Uzi hopped on one foot, clutching the other as if that would somehow lessen the sting.

Frustration was clear on her face as she pulled out the master key, hoping it would somehow unlock the lever. But to her dismay, there was no real locking mechanism, no key slot, and nothing to scan—the lever was just a plain, stubborn switch meant to be pulled down and it couldn't even do that. "Ugh, how is anyone supposed to get out of here if the stupid doors won't open?" she shouted, purely to vent, with no expectation of an answer.

Still one would come to her in the form of a question.

"Did you try asking?" The lever said.

"Oh, the classic 'open sesame', why didn't I think of tha—" Uzi stopped mid-sarcastic response as she realized that the door lever had just spoken to her. "Okay. Either, I finally lost it or you just talked." She would let the sentence hang in the air for a moment as she stared at the lever, and realized that the voice from it sounded like…

The hum of a T-cog broke the silence, and Uzi jumped back as the lever she'd been wrestling with for the past five minutes transformed into—her dad.

"Oh slag."

Khan stood where the lever had been, his expression a mixture of deadpan annoyance and deep disappointment. "Language, young lady, and I certainly hope you're not losing it," he said, voice edged with dry sarcasm, "but maybe that would help answer some questions. Care to explain what you're doing out here this late? And on a school night, no less?"

"Uh," Uzi began, suddenly feeling a mountain of nerves settle on her shoulders. "I was... on my way to make out with a special fella that I totally have?"

Khan actually laughed at that. "Seriously though." In half a second, his face shifted back to the stern, no-nonsense stare. "Uzi, what exactly are you trying to do?"

"Okay, okay. You caught me... I..." Uzi stalled, searching desperately for the right lie to use. She knew that if she told the truth, her father would do everything possible in his power to stop her. "I was actually looking for you."

An unexpected silence settled over the hallway as Khan seemed genuinely taken aback. "Oh. I take it you've heard about the energon chip breaking?" he asked, then shook his head. "Oh, who am I kidding—everyone knows. Someone broadcast the entire thing on the colony's social network." Uzi couldn't help but glance away, knowing exactly who'd been behind that. Lizzy did love to stir things up, and while Uzi was glad that the truth was out, she knew the rumor mill would only add to her dad's stress. "People are saying some pretty awful things there. Some are even suggesting it's a conspiracy. That I'm some kind of evil mastermind that wants us to starve on energon."

"They've clearly never seen you struggle to open a jar of energon cubes," Uzi replied, unable to stop herself from smiling at the memory.

"Exactly!" Khan exclaimed at the top of his lungs, before letting out a heavy sigh, his hands planted firmly on his hips. "Everyone in WDF agrees that leaving would be suicide. But staying here feels like the same thing." Khan rubbed his face in frustration, clearly feeling the weight of the dilemma. "We are caught between a rock and some kind of hard place, kiddo. And I'll be honest, I don't know how to get us out of it."

Uzi held herself back from commenting, though she had a lot to say about the Worker Defense Force as she believed that it was a joke. Not even a funny one. It was filled with nothing but useless cowards that did nothing but play cards all day and night—literally. She can recall countless times where her dad had to find a new pack of playing cards because they played cards so much that the numbers would become worn out. How does anyone do that?

But…

They were still her father's friends and colleagues. So, she will at least spare him by not saying such cruel words. Even if they were true.

Uzi was pulled from her thoughts, as she saw her dad stepping toward the blast doors, his palm resting on its cold surface. "I wish things were simple," he said, his voice turning softer now. "I wish we could just make a door and solve everything. But doors take energon, and we've gotta start cutting down on a lot around here."

She watched her father trail his hand along the door, a touch of sadness in his eyes. "I'm so sorry. And we were really set on giving you a new addition for you too. Maybe in a different time. I promise, dear."

"...Dad, the doors aren't gonna talk back to you," Uzi said dryly, as if needing to bring him back to reality. Of course, she wasn't entirely sure it wasn't possible for a bot to transform into a door—she had read somewhere about drones who could turn into chairs, so who knew.

Her comment seemed to give her father a small smile. "They used to. Long time ago, at least. When she was..." He looked as though he was about to say something more, but stopped himself. "Ah, never mind that." He turned back to her, the fatherly suspicion now in full force. "Let's get back to it, young lady. What exactly are you doing here? Can't just check in on me, though, it's nice that you did."

Uzi hesitated as she thought up her best possible lie that would certainly get her dad's attention. "I...need to measure the exterior hydraulic mechanism of door one for a school project."

Khan's brow lifted, his stare pressing. "Really?"

"Yes!" she insisted, scrambling to sound credible. "We're covering, uh, structural integrity, you know? The, uh, pressure points required to open and close massive doors. For math class."

"Math class, huh? And this 'project' required you to hack security cameras, start fires as distractions, and stage a 3 a.m. break-in?"

"Well, I figured with everything going on, people could use a few more distractions."

For a moment, Khan just looked at her. Then, to her surprise, he chuckled. "You're just like your mother. always taking the more fun route with things." Uzi felt her shoulders relax, a smile creeping onto her face despite herself.

She liked when he talked about mom.

"Good job, Uzi," the short drone muttered to herself as she trudged through the snowy, metallic wasteland. The shattered skyline of Kalis loomed around her, ghostly in the dim light. Once it was a vibrant city, now it was just a graveyard of twisted metal and silence. "Keep proving the Decepticons are just a bunch of liars, exactly like the Senate wanted. Megatron would be so proud of you." She sighed as she stared down at the wrench in her hand. Her father's words echoed in her mind.

'Here, the wrench I used to tighten the bolts on my first door prototypes—and to put your mother out of her misery, when that Angel of Death got to her with his nanite acid—I want you to have it.'

Uzi rolled her eyes at the memory. She wondered just how much he and the other drones in their colony could benefit with some therapy. Although, a pang of guilt did tug at her spark chamber. For all his quirks, her dad was likely the only one who'd miss her. The moment he'll realize she is gone, he'll be worrying himself sick. She did leave a note in her room explaining her plans. But she doubts it'll actually put him in any ease.

After all, she was outside. She was walking the surface of Cybertron.

It was a surreal experience. With no more walls and no more feeling trapped underground—She should be happy, she should feel the rush of freedom, but instead all she could do was just stare in awe of what was once a civilization. She'd put a mile of walking between herself and the colony before she stopped to really take in her surroundings. It allowed her to truly take in what was left of Kalis.

Whatever it had once been didn't matter anymore. It was now a maze of ruined metal towers and crumbling vehicles stretching as far as her optics could see. The skeletal remains of skyscrapers loomed overhead, jagged and blackened, their twisted frames webbed with patches of frost-laden snow. Here and there, faint echoes of a long-faded civilization clung to the darkened beams, as if frozen in time by the cold blanket of an uncaring sky. A moon was barely visible through a thick haze of overcast gray, its dim glow casting pale shadows that deepened the shadows all around. The faint roar of thunder could be heard from far away.

"It'd be my luck that a storm starts the day I finally decide to run away," Uzi chuckled to herself as she swung her bag from her shoulder and began to rummage through it. She ticked off her checklist mentally. Energon goodies? Check. Blueprints for my gun mode? Check. Map of Cybertron cities? Check. Satisfied, she pulled out her own personal notebook, flipping quickly to her hand-scribbled plan. "Kaon is east of here. Two hics—that's… far. But not impossible. I think." She sighed and glanced back at the desolate cityscape. "Which way is east, though?"

Her eyes flickered with worry as she searched through her bag again, she hoped that she was not dumb enough to forget to bring a digital compass of some kind. To her utter horror, it would turn out she was. "Primus, damn it!"

She slumped down onto a broken support beam and mulled over her options. Going back wasn't an option; she couldn't face her dad again, not with the explanation she'd have to give—as well, she had been gone for so long he would have checked and found out she was missing. If she did return, there would be no way for her leave again, not anytime soon. And time wasn't much of a factor with the energon chip being broken. The entire mess of a situation made it feel like she was already lost.

"Guess I'll just pick a direction and hope for the best," she muttered, barely convinced by her own words. But as she closed the notebook in her hand, she looked at the Decepticon symbol that she had drawn on the front of it. It made her think of their unwavering resolve and the stories of Lord Megatron as he pushed through any obstacle to reach his goals. She laughed as she thought how ridiculous it was to give up at her first setback.

"I'll find Kaon. I know I will." she said firmly, standing back up, her eyes brightening with renewed determination as she took her first step into the unknown. She felt determined, she felt strong. She felt confident, and she felt hope burn within her spark. It lasted for a solid ten minutes of walking, before she rounded a corner of an overly large piece of rubble and saw… the Spire.

Uzi had expected to find a few dead drones here and there, maybe the scattered remains of some old skirmish, or even a mass graveyard or two. What she didn't expect to find was something out of a nightmare.

Before her was a twisted, towering spire—a monument made not of metal and stone, but of broken drones, piled high in a grotesque display. The tangled limbs jutted out in every direction, as though each drone had tried, in some last desperate moment, to reach toward something—escape, salvation, or just a final, futile struggle. Visors were frozen in various states of flickering failure, some still bearing the haunting glow of [Fatal Error] in red, staring blankly at nothing.

"Vector Sigma," she whispered, barely breathing the words out as she stood frozen in place. Her optics were wide, scanning up the length of the towering pile of bodies stacked to the heavens. It seemed to disappear into the murky clouds, lost in the gray mist above.

"It's real. It's shocking real." There were stories of such a thing. Of the drones that had left the colony, returning with scars and dead loved ones. They brought with them tales of monsters and horrors. One of them being this. Uzi laughed at them, said they were hysterical. That it would only be a pile of a few hundred dead at most. She was certainly wrong.

The resolve she'd felt only second before felt laughably hollow now. She took a step backward, barely able to will herself to move away. "Okay. Not this way," she muttered, her voice quavering, the words spilling out faster as if she could talk herself out of her shock. "Other way it is."

She quickly turned, but the instant her foot hit the ground a creak echoed from beneath her. She glanced down, dread filling her circuits as she pulled her foot back to see a cracked visor staring up at her, still flashing the dreaded red message of [Fatal Error] across its screen. She'd stepped on the face of a dead drone, half-buried under snow, its twisted body hidden until she'd disturbed it. Only now did she realize that the snow-covered ground was dotted with metal fragments and broken bodies. Some drones lay exposed, others were partially covered by the snow, like bones in a shallow grave. Metal hands were reaching out of the frost as if they were pleading to Primus for mercy.

The sight made Uzi's spark turn cold. She was standing on an entire graveyard, stretching across this entire part of the city in every direction. There must have been thousands, hundreds of thousands even—possibly more—laid here, their cold bodies filling the streets.

Panic shot through her like an electrical surge, and her only thought was to leave, to escape this valley of the dead. She began to retrace her steps, moving as quietly as she could, as if even the slightest sound might disturb the silence and awaken the ghosts of the city. Or worse, the ones that made such ghosts. She didn't dare to take her eyes off the Spire, as she could see that there was an opening upon the front of it. Within was a cavern of some kind. Possibly to house something? Or...

Uzi couldn't help but glance back at the drone she'd stepped on, fully taking in the scale of the Great War that had raged for millions of years. If this city alone held so many dead, then the planet must be littered with similar sites. "Is the war even still going on?" she wondered out loud, questioning how such a conflict could still be raging if there were this many casualties in just one city. It was too much to think of, it was too awful to even imagine. She had to—

"Whoa. That's a bit extra."

Uzi blinked, her mind reeling at the sudden arrival of a presence behind her. Slowly, she turned her gaze around, not believing for an instant who it was—until she saw the familiar green of his optics. "Hey, Uz," Thad said, nodding casually before glancing toward the Spire. "I mean, I'd heard the stories, but it's insane to see it for myself. Must be, like, hundreds of thousands piled up to make that thing. Maybe even—"

"Thad," Uzi interrupted, blinking hard as if that might make him disappear. But to her horror, he didn't. "What the shock are you doing here?"

Thad continued to act as if it were no big deal that he'd ventured outside the colony and was standing outside a living horror show with her. "Oh, we came out to look for you," he said, gesturing over his shoulder. Uzi leaned to the side and saw that Lizzy and Doll were standing behind him, both staring up at the Spire with varied reactions. "Yo, loser, you're in the way of my shot," Lizzy said, holding up her Hasbro to snap a selfie with the Spire in the background. "Class is gonna flip their circuits when they see this. Doll, you want in?"

Doll shook her head at the offer. "(I prefer to admire it from afar rather than be part of it. Besides, it's a bad omen to take pictures with corpses—you might end up as one of them,)" she replied, making Lizzy scoff in a playful way. "Oooh, look at you, being all foreboding."

Uzi took a couple of seconds to process the storm of emotions swirling within her. She was caught between the dread of discovering the Spire and a simmering rage at realizing she'd been followed—by all bots—it was these three. Her classmates, including two who'd never exactly been her biggest fans. Thad was…tolerable, at least, but this? This was almost too much.

"Nope," Uzi abruptly turned her back on the three and stormed off. "No, no, no. Not doing this." She moved quickly, navigating her way through the street and around fallen drones, her only goal to put as much distance as possible between herself and the others. She could already hear Thad's footsteps trailing after her and his voice calling for her to wait up. "I said no!" she snapped, whirling around to face him. Without hesitation, Uzi's arm shifted, transforming into a barrel-like piece of her gun-mode. She knew it was mostly for show—she couldn't actually shoot without fully transforming, and her safety was still on—but the appearance alone was enough.

Thad skidded to a halt, his hands raised in surrender. The would-be weapon had stopped him dead in his tracks. "Back off!" Uzi warned, her tone dangerously low. "I mean it, I swear by Primus! This is my journey to Kaon. I'm joining the Decepticons, and you're not taking me back!"

Surprisingly, Thad stayed rooted in the spot. "Easy, Uz, we don't want to fight. Heck, no one said anything about taking you back," he said, clearly rattled but doing his best to keep his voice calm. Lizzy and Doll, meanwhile, stood off to the side, watching with expressions that bordered on disinterest.

"Can you be any more dramatic?" Lizzy asked with a scoff. "Thad, she can't actually fire that thing. The firing mechanism isn't even connected to her arm. It's linked to her crotch—"

"How do you know that?" Uzi shouted, lowering her arm as a blush loaded across her visor.

"(It was in the notes you posted,)" Doll chimed in calmly, causing Uzi to groan and slump her shoulders in defeat as she reverted her arm back to normal. "Thad makes sense. Why are you two even here?" she asked, exasperation clear in her tone.

Lizzy just shrugged, speaking as though this whole scene was an inconvenience, as if it was all too much of a hassle for her. "We came as a favor. And, well, we couldn't miss the chance to get out of that colony. I mean, come on," Her demeanor softened as her gaze drifted to the ruined cityscape, and her voice grew unexpectedly wistful.

"It's…home."

Much as Uzi hated to admit it, she understood. They all still dreamed of it—the original 13 Primes, Primus himself, the Matrix, the Allspark, Vector Sigma, Cybertron. The list of names went on and on. To have a chance to experience any of it was beyond words. It was why so many left the colony, despite the many dangers the surface had. They wanted to experience their home. They wanted to desperately be a part of it.

"Didn't peg you for a religious type," Uzi muttered, her voice still tinged with annoyance.

"Oh?" Lizzy's attitude snapped back to its usual nonchalance in an instant. "What exactly do you know about me again?" Uzi just gave a dismissive wave of her hand, and the four of them stood in silence, staring at the ruins. They turned away from the Spire, their gazes drifting upward. Watching as the clouds above shifted and parted, allowing them to see the stars for the first time in their lives.

"Beats staring up at the glow in the dark stickers in the Auditorium, doesn't it." Thad whispers. They all shared a chuckle. It was a somewhat peaceful moment, despite everything. Uzi would have found it comical if it weren't so bittersweet.

"I have to get going. I need to get to Kaon," she said, her voice firm as she began to walk away again. "I promise, I'll come back with a new energon chip. After that, you won't have to worry about me. I'll be with the heroes of the war—"

She was stopped as Thad grabbed her by the arm.

"Uzi, please," he pleaded at her. "Who even knows if there's still a war going on. I mean, we're standing in the middle of a street full of corpses." Uzi glanced down and saw that she and Thad were even still standing on the remains of fallen drones. Many looked as if they'd been torn apart by animals.

"Just look at the sign ahead of you," Thad added quietly. "Don't you think this is all messed up?"

"Sign?" Uzi blinked, she was surprised she hadn't noticed it before. Turning her head, she saw a large chunk of rubble that was no less than a few meters from her with something written on it. As if acting as a kind of morbid welcome mat for those that come to the Spire.

In the human language of English, it read:

ARE ALL DEAD

Uzi froze, the weight of the words settling in her chest. The remnants of the city, the broken bodies around her, all seemed to speak in that single, haunting message. "Okay. That's admittedly very creepy."

"Why would you want to join this?" Thad asked, "You know how dangerous it is up here—we all do. I mean, if the spire is real, what about the other stories of those who left the colonies? The giants, the drone-eating bugs, the one eye robo-satan, the pink tyrant. We're just lucky that it seems the Angels of Death aren't —"

Suddenly, Uzi wrenched her arm free from him. "Oh my Primus, how dense are you? I want to join the Decepticons so I can help end all of this! We live in a hole in the ground, wasting our lives away, doing nothing but hoping that one day we can leave! What kind of life is that, where we stay in your place and if we step out of line we are killed? That's just—" She broke off from the tangent, tilting her head back with a groan of pure frustration. "Why do you even care?"

There was a pause, and then Uzi's expression turned a bit conflicted. "Wait, this isn't some kind of thing where, like, the popular jock has a crush on the weird loner girl, right?"

Thad looked genuinely confused by such a concept. "What? No. I mean, sorry, but… no." He scratched the back of his neck, trying not to seem too blunt. "I'm sure you're great, it's just, you know—" He trailed off, but they both heard Lizzy and Doll snickering nearby. "It's not that, there's another reason."

Uzi rolled her eyes, trying to hide her slight disappointment. "Then what? Why else do you feel like you have to stop me from doing what I want? I swear, if this is because you think the Decepticons are evil, then—"

"It's because I think you're evil!" Thad blurted, making Uzi flinch as though she'd been slapped. "Uzi, look," he struggled to sound as sincere as possible. "You don't have any friends. You spend all your time alone, watching weird stuff online—"

"Anime isn't weird!" Uzi interjected defensively. "It is a perfectly normal thing to like!"

Thad sighed as he ran a hand along his visor. "...I meant, the videos of the Great War you watch. The ones with live footage where drones are killing each other." A small 'oh' escaped Uzi, the reminder catching her off guard. "You basically hate everyone. You've turned yourself into a weapon—a gun, Uzi—and now you want to join something where you're going to go and kill other drones. Uzi, you are going to kill someone someday if you do this. Doesn't bother you? At least a little?"

"The killing people part? Not really. But that doesn't make me evil!"

Thad's visor darkened, just a bit as he clearly seemed worried. "Uzi, it kind of does."

A sharp clap cut through the tension, making them both drones snap their attention toward Lizzy, who had stepped between them. With her usual unbothered, mean-girl attitude, she addressed them both plainly.

"All right, that's enough from both of you." She turned to Thad first, jabbing a finger into his chest and forcing him back a step. "You need to give her some space. Uzi made her choice, and you need to respect that. Freedom is the right of those who fight for it, and there's no one we know who's more ready for a fight than her."

Uzi blinked as she was completely caught off guard by what was just said. "Wait, you know the Decepticon mantra?"

Lizzy simply flipped her hair, letting the wind catch it as she ignored the question entirely, already moving on. "And you," she snapped her fingers right in front of Uzi's face, "wake up and realize that some people actually care about you. I don't know why—personally, I think you're about as likable as rust in my unmentionables."

Uzi shot her an icy glare, but Lizzy didn't even flinch. "I get that 'not being normal' is your whole thing, but could you, just this once, make an exception and realize that Thad—for some reason—actually wants to be your friend? Which, might I remind you, isn't something you have a lot of."

Uzi opened her mouth to snap back, but the words died before they could leave. Instead, she groaned, slumping forward as she seemed to admit defeat. "Ugh! Fine! You're right, and I hate it." With a reluctant sigh, she looked toward Thad. "I'm sorry, all right. I know I'm kind of a mess. Thank you for being nice to me, I guess."

An awkward silence hung heavy as Thad's face softened with a smile. But Uzi barely noticed as she was too busy glaring daggers at Lizzy, who stood there with an infuriatingly smug grin, hands on her hips like she'd just won the day.

"But for your information, I do have a friend! Me and Meatronrox13 have been messaging each other for years." Lizzy just snickered, not even dignifying the statement with a response, which only fueled Uzi's irritation further. She opened her mouth, ready to start yelling some kind of insult, but her words were caught in her throat as they all heard something in the distance.

A low rumbling that was steadily growing louder—it was the unmistakable sound of engines, closing in fast.

The four teens turned toward the direction of the noise, their eyes widening and turning hollow as the shapes of several vehicles moved toward them. The largest was a military-style armored trunk-tank hybrid, with a large cannon over the top of it.

"Uh..." Thad looked to Uzi as he took a step back. "Decepticon friends of yours, Uzi?"

They were too far away to identify, but their unwavering approach toward the Spire made it clear—they weren't afraid of this place. If anything, they moved with purpose, like they'd been here before or they wanted to come here for something. But who would ever want to come to this kind of place—

"(Cousin.)"

Doll's voice was unnervingly steady as she yanked free a jagged piece of metal plating from beneath the snow. She turned it over in her hands before holding it up for the others to see. The unmistakable Decepticon logo, though weathered and scarred, still gleamed under the dim light—a relic of a long-dead era.

Uzi's optics locked onto the symbol, her systems running cold. Her vents hitched, a slow realization creeping in like frost settling over her frame.

"Autobots."