CHAPTER 8
Imminent danger had a funny way of slowing time. Ever since humanity had spotted the first lioness lurking in the savannah brush, eyes glimmering in the night, there was a real awareness of that moment between recognizing danger—knowing the lioness was about to leap in the split-second before it leapt, hearing the growl—and needing to act.
It was no lioness, but it roared all the same. The throaty howl of a powerful combustion engine, and something—bright yellow, headlights blazing—burst out of the garage while Jack’s mind was still stuck on why the hell did she say that?
Training, if not reflexes, sent Jack diving for cover behind the patio planter as he heard Arcee’s panels shift—no, not Arcee. A heavier sound. Bigger plates, and more of them. Another Transformer, and one that had to be twice Arcee’s size, at least.
He leaned out of cover and caught Arcee swinging her arms to bear—and she didn’t have hands anymore, just angular blasters—as the bright yellow Cybertronian leveled one arm straight at her. It was bigger than her, with headlights as armored pectorals, and the front doors of a car suggesting wings from its back. Its face did, he noted distantly, look almost like a bee or a wasp. Arcee didn’t waver. Not even as her opponent’s hand folded back into the barrel of a cannon.
“Hey! Call off your vintage Camaro!” Jack shouted.
“Me?!” Sam called, still in the kitchen. “Call off your motorcycle!”
“She doesn’t exactly listen to me!”
“My house, my rules!”
“Your house, your collateral damage!”
Sam grimaced, and shouted something that sounded like she was telling Maya it was an earthquake, and raced for the backdoor. Jack stood up slowly as Sam leaped down the steps, shouting: “Bee! Whoa, Bee, whoa!”
The larger robot pumped its arm, and something shifted in that arm that made Jack think of a safety coming off, and the barrel spun up, gold-orange light kindling from within, like it was about to spit molten steel.
“Go ahead,” crackled a gruff voice, a too-human voice, “make my day.”
“Bee, hey, let’s not make anyone’s days,” Sam said. But she didn’t dare get between them. “Let’s put the laser cannon away, alright? Everything’s fine. I’m not sure we need the...” She waved at her face. “The killer robot hockey mask.”
Jack took a step toward Arcee. “Arcee? Let’s put the arm-guns down. We’re trespassing, and that’s one big guard dog.”
Arcee held her ground. Like she hadn’t heard him, or didn’t care. Then, her browplates furrowed, and her arm-blaster wavered a fraction. “Wait. B-127?”
The other robot blinked, then nodded, and shifted its cannon back into a hand. The bright yellow ‘hockey mask’ slipped back over its head. It warbled something that sounded more like noise than words. Arcee cocked her head.
“What am I doing here?” she asked, stowing her arm-cannon and stepping up close, getting right up in the Camaro’s space despite the size difference.
“What are you doing here?”
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“So, they’re friends,” Sam said, later. “That’s weird.”
Maya had been sent home with one of the pizzas and, thankfully, no knowledge of what had happened. Jack and Sam had divided the rest of the remaining slices between them and eaten in silence. Sam kept staring out the back window, where a beat-up yellow Camaro and an emerald green Suzuki were just... chilling on the back lawn.
“Yeah,” Jack replied, because he wasn’t sure what else to say.
“But they didn’t know each other were here.”
“Seems that way.”
Silence.
“That’s weird, right?”
“Maybe a little.” Jack gathered up the pizza box and took it to the kitchen. “Still think your great-grandfather was crazy?”
“I don’t...” Sam huffed. “It’s not that simple. I didn’t know what you wanted. I had to protect Bumblebee.”
It struck Jack as an odd name for an alien robot.
“Arcee called him B-127,” he remarked.
Sam shook her head. “It’s Bumblebee. That’s what I named him. On account of the yellow and black stripes. And besides, he likes it.”
“You can tell?”
“Well, yeah. I don’t know. He talks through the radio and he’s never complained about it. B-127 ain’t a name. But I called him Bumblebee and he was all ‘float like a butterfly, sting like a bee.’ So, I think he likes it. Maybe he just likes boxing.”
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Jack set about washing up the plates and cutlery, if only to keep his hands busy. “Maybe. Arcee seems to like our music. When did you meet him?”
“About three months ago? My dad took me to buy a car and, well...”
“You bought a giant robot.”
Sam nodded slowly. “Yeah. Crazy, right?”
“It seems to be the flavor of the week.”
“I didn’t know there was more than him,” Sam said, glancing back again. “He couldn’t even tell me he was an Autobot or whatever. I mean, when your voice is all radio broadcasts, you’re kind of limited to what people have already said. It was like trying to figure out riddles. He was hiding from something, he’d been hurt. I knew I had to protect him.”
“Protect him?” Jack asked. “From what?”
“I don’t know. Us, I think. He’s said all sorts of things. ‘Fuck the police.’ ‘Here come the Men in Black.’ That’s why I didn’t want you to know about the journal. Like, I don’t talk to cops. Former soldiers are kinda the same thing. No offence.”
“None taken,” Jack said. “But I really do need to see that journal.”
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“Up here,” Sam said, “In my creepy attic.”
She went up the ladder first. Jack emerged into a dusty attic filled with just about everything he expected: trunks, tubs, and cardboard boxes. Moonlight streamed through the skylight as Sam rifled through a small box of things, pulled other things out. Glasses, telescope, sextant...
“Okay, first things first,” she said, turning around with the journal in her hands. “Tell me why you want it.”
“It’s a long story.”
“And it’s ended up with you trying to sneak into my house as a delivery boy, so, I think you owe me to tell it.”
“Okay, okay.”
So, he did. Jack sat down on one of the storage trunks and outlined what he knew. Blackout and his attack on the base. His first encounter with Arcee, and then Ravage, and then how she’d saved his life—or, at least, his arm. Not that he could explain why the Decepticons had come for him.
“And let me guess,” Sam said, “you think my grandfather’s ‘Ice Man’ was related to them. Is related to them?”
“Yeah. I think the symbols he drew are the same as the ones on Bumblebee and Arcee.”
Sam shook her head. “There’s no symbols on him.”
“Huh,” Jack said, but had no idea what to make of it. “Well, Arcee’s got a bunch of them. She called them ‘tribal tattoos.’”
“Maybe she’s from the rough part of Cybertron.”
“Could be.”
Sam flipped through the journal, brow furrowed.
“But basically,” Jack said. “Well, basically, I have to know why my base was attacked. And the only lead I have are those symbols. I’m really sorry to have barged in like this and ruined your night.”
“No, I get it,” Sam replied. “And it’s better to find out there’s more of these from one who’s... Well, look, I’m not going to say friendly.”
Jack chuckled. “I get what you mean.”
“There’s just... something else,” Sam continued. “These symbols? You’re right. They probably are related to those two. I showed them to Bee once and, uh, he turned back into a car and didn’t say anything for a week.”
Jack frowned. “Huh.”
“The other thing is... I’m supposed to go to college next year, dude. It was hard enough thinking about it when I’d have to make sure my dad didn’t sell him or something. But now, like, there’s this alien robot war stuff? And my crazy grandfather was, in fact, not actually crazy?”
She passed him the journal. “It’s a lot to take in,” she said. “But, whatever. Let’s not keep them waiting.”
“Good point.”
They climbed down from the attack and took the stairs down to the first floor. Arcee and Bumblebee were still where they’d left them, in the middle of the backyard. Jack raised the journal as he crossed the backyard, beckoning for the two Autobots to follow.
“Arcee,” he said, once everyone was in the garage. “Here it is.”
With all four of them in the garage, the place was bordering on cramped. Bumblebee was a behemoth in the space. A bright yellow giant. His face was somehow less humanoid than Arcee’s, yet friendlier. Arcee held out a hand.
“Pass it over,” she said, and he did.
“Have you ever heard of ‘please?’” Sam asked, perched on one of the workbenches.
“I’m sure she’s heard of it,” Jack said, shrugging.
The journal was so small in her metal hands. Arcee, for all of her prickly nature, turned the pages with delicate care. “This is...” Her brow plates furrowed, almost loud in the quiet of the garage. “It can’t be. High Cybertronian. These glyphs...” Arcee’s optics narrowed, studying the pages. “Are not written as precisely as I’d like.”
“Well, he was blind,” Sam muttered.
“These... These are numbers. A set of coordinates, perhaps. Just out of order, if we arranged them...” She flipped through another set of pages. “And this. Ah. I think this is the cyberglyph for Lord High Protec— No,” Arcee murmured, shaking her head. “No, it can’t be.”
Bumblebee warbled something. Arcee had gone utterly still. “I told you,” Sam said, “It’s just bad news.”
“Arcee?” Jack asked, taking a step forward. “Hey. Talk to me, what’ve we got?”
Her optics snapped to him. Quick enough, hard enough, that he heard the click.
“You’re in danger. Your whole world is in danger.” Arcee thrust the old journal at him like a knife. “This is why the Decepticons are here! Oh, it all makes sense. Blackout, Soundwave... He’s here. He’s here! Of all the planets...”
“Who’s he?”
A voice erupted from Bumblebee’s radio, that of a fiery preacher: “‘And a great sword was given to him! And he went out conquering and to conquer! A pale horse, and he who sat on it had the name Death, and Hell followed with him!’”
“I don’t like the sound of this,” Sam whispered. “It’s never good when people get all Biblical. Goes double for robots.”
“Arcee, Bumblebee,” Jack began, “let’s keep this factual. What’ve you found? Who is this he?”
“Facts?” Arcee remarked, leaning toward him. “Fine. Here is a fact: this journal contains evidence that the architect of the fall of my world is here, on your world. This girl’s ancestor found him! Him! The reason our world is a desolate wasteland, why our race is scattered among the stars—fact! Why Bumblebee cannot speak—fact! Vicious, cunning, brutal! Hundreds of Autobots have died by his bare hands, their sparks ripped from their chests, the energon sucked from their bodies! All of these are facts!”
Jack raised his hands. “Easy, Arcee. I just need some whos and whats.”
Arcee chuckled, or tried to. She sat back, metal scraping against stone. “You have no idea. You think you know power because you’ve split the atom? You think you’re prepared?” Jack found himself thinking about flightless birds. Squabbling for nests under the shadows of ships with batteries of cannons...
“Arcee,” he said, “Please.”
She clenched her hands into fists.
“There is no worse name in our history than that of the last Lord High Protector of Cybertron,” she said. “The Breaker of the High Council and the Scourge of Iacon. Unicron’s own herald. The Arch-Tyrant himself.” There was fury in her electric-blue optics—but fear, too. Until now, a part of Jack had never thought she could be afraid. She knew Blackout, sure, but she feared whatever—whoever—this was.
She growled his name like a curse.
“Megatron.”