CHAPTER 32
And just like that, it was over.
Finished.
Sam sat in the middle of the street, right next to Megatron’s corpse, astounded and shaking off the last wisps of adrenaline. She was aware of the soldiers coming closer, the people finally realizing that everything was okay again and emerging into the afternoon sunlight, of Arcee, of Jack, but everything felt odd. Distant. Her hands still tingled.
The AllSpark was gone. She’d thrust it at Megatron’s chest. Because if it could kill Optimus, then surely it could kill him, too. And it had. She’d wanted to say something like ‘You want this AllSpark? Then you can have it!’ Or ‘Come and get it!’ Or something, but in the end, she’d just been so terrified that all she could do was act.
But it was over now.
Optimus turned from Megatron’s body, and lowered himself down to her level. His massive face, all of its intricate plates and parts, seemed so very tired.
“Sam,” he spoke. “I owe you my life. We are in your debt.”
What the hell were you supposed to say to that?
Sam shrugged. “Don’t mention it,” she said.
Giant footsteps sounded close by. Optimus drew himself up and turned toward them. The other Autobots approached, limping and wounded. Ratchet, Ironhide (with Jazz’s halves in his arms) and, thank God, Bumblebee.
“The damage was too severe,” Ratchet said, as Optimus took what was left of Jazz from Ironhide and into his arms. “I’m sorry, Optimus. I couldn’t save him.”
“Oh, Jazz,” Optimus murmured, shaking his head. There was a crushing melancholy there. His friend was gone, but, at least, would not have to fight anymore. Optimus turned his gaze to the assembled soldiers, the bystanders who were staring up at him like a god, and drew himself up to his full height.
“We have lost a great comrade today,” he said, “but we have gained new ones. Thank you. All of you. You honor us with your bravery. I do not know what path the future has prepared for us, but I hope it is one we can forge together.”
Someone said, “Permission to speak, sir?”
It was a warm voice, a gentle voice. Sam had no idea who it belonged to.
“Permission granted, old friend,” Optimus replied—and, Sam realized, when she followed the path of his gaze, it was Bumblebee.
What?
“I wish to stay with Samantha.”
Optimus nodded. “If that is her choice.”
Bumblebee turned to look at her, met her eyes with his blue optics. For some reason, Sam felt her cheeks heat up. “Yes,” she said, smiling.
Captain Lennox was there, checking in on all the soldiers, congratulating them or commiserating with them. There was Jack, lying in the middle of the street, arms spread, and just for a second Sam was worried he was dead, but Arcee probably wouldn’t be standing there with her hands on her hips if that was the case. Whatever was up with those two, Sam figured they’d be sticking together, too.
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Epps wandered over, raised one fist to Arcee and said, “Nice job. Bump it.”
“I wouldn’t,” Jack said, pushing himself upright. “She doesn’t know how to pull her punches.”
The war was over, but something else was beginning. Standing there, in the middle of a ruined intersection, Sam remembered something from, of all things, biology class. There were these flowers that only bloomed after wildfires. That it sometimes took an act of incredible destruction to create something beautiful. This, she thought, was something like that. Something new.
Something beautiful.
And yet—
Sam Witwicky glanced down at her hands, flexed them.
They still tingled.
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After the battle, came the chaos of the bureaucracy. Debriefings, but not like any that Jack had ever attended before. The ones in small rooms within large complexes that most people had no idea existed, and the people there liked it that way. Himself, Lennox, Epps, and the rest of the Mission City veterans. An exclusive group who had gone toe-to-toe with the giant alien machines, and won.
And some, like Sergeant Jackson Darby, who’d done it twice. More than that, actually, but Jack figured it’d be seen as bragging to correct them.
Secretary of Defense John Keller was a man who seemed too jovial to be one of the most powerful people on the planet, but one day he stepped into their debriefing room and laid out the government’s plan for the future.
Luckily, Soundwave’s global network attack had helped prevent news of the Transformers—that was what they were calling the Cybertronians now, it appeared—from getting out. A sudden solar flare, they were calling it. Keller wouldn’t explain what the government was doing about Mission City’s residents, all those eyewitnesses, but Jack figured that was above his pay grade, anyway.
Sector Seven, Keller said, was to be disbanded by explicit order of the President. All information they had on the Autobots was to be shared with Optimus Prime. What that meant for the future of Human/Autobot relations wasn’t clear, but it sure sounded like someone was drafting up the paperwork for something more official.
“As for the dead aliens, the Decepticons,” Keller said, “the President has ordered that they are to be disposed of.” He gestured to a map of the North American continent, a point indicated off the eastern coast of Canada, deep in the North Atlantic.
“The Laurentian Abyss is four miles below sea level. One of the deepest places on our planet. The massive depth and pressure there, coupled with the subfreezing temperatures, will crush and entomb them. Leaving no evidence.”
And three days later, they did just that. Jack was there, with Lennox and Epps and the others, on the flight deck of the USS Abraham Lincoln as they dropped the wrecks of the Cybertronians into the depths of the ocean. One by one. Megatron, Blackout, Brawl—and lastly Jazz. It wasn’t much of a hero’s burial, but it’d been by Optimus’ request. Given what Sector Seven had done to Arcee, Jack saw the reasoning.
They hadn’t managed to account for Starscream, Barricade, or Soundwave. The Decepticon F-22 had been last seen retreating from Mission City, and Barricade had vanished during the opening phases of the battle. Neither had reappeared. Soundwave had seemingly deorbited during the chaos. Whether the Decepticons would continue their crusade with the loss of their leader and the cosmic power he had sought was unclear, but Jack figured it could wait for another day.
Back on land, everything felt normal. Maybe for the first time since SOCCENT. Given the possibility of a Decepticon retaliation, the Autobots went where they were needed: Ironhide with Lennox, Bumblebee with Sam, and Arcee with him.
“See you on the flip side, Darby,” Lennox said, as he climbed aboard Ironhide. Jack watched them go, one hand on Arcee’s handlebars.
“Where’re we headed, partner?” she asked.
For a moment, Jack turned his eyes up to look at the sky, at the stars, and brushed a thumb over his scarred hand. He smiled.
“Home,” he said.
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But, there, at the end—
Mission City was quiet once more, as Optimus’ shadow fell over Megatron’s corpse. “You left me no choice, brother,” Optimus intoned quietly, as the last embers within Megatron’s optics flickered and went out.
It was over. The battle and perhaps even the war. The struggle of eons, the unceasing doctrinal conflict between Autobot and Decepticon, had found this world—and been ended.
And yet—
So focused on celebration, everyone was, of having survived, that no one really noticed as Optimus bent down over Megatron’s remains. Reached toward his chest, toward the melted remains of his spark chamber. Of how, gingerly, he pulled from the molten morass a shard of the AllSpark, no bigger than the tip of his finger. No one noticed him study it, the way his optics narrowed.
At the end, standing over Megatron’s body, no one noticed how Optimus Prime closed his hand around the shard, and frowned.