章 49: Chapter 41
Prime, an awestruck Mikaela decided. She could not take her eyes from it as they were led inside. Neither could Sam. Such a spectacle was completely new to Maggie. He simply stared, nervously rolling a last trio of Fruity Pebbles back and forth, back and forth, between his fingers. "Oh my God," she murmured as she gazed up at the mechanical colossus. If it was any consolation, the secretary of defense was no less flabbergasted than she was. "I'll be a son of a bitch," Keller murmured as he regarded the metal leviathan. Aware that he was privy to information denied to all but the highest level of government, there was a note of pride in Simmons's voice as he joined Banachek in leading the group forward.
"This baby's the first we found." Banachek offered more detail. "We think that when it approached our world, it came in too low over the North Pole. Maybe there was an especially active aurora at the time, or maybe it miscalculated the strength of our gravitational field, or maybe a sudden solar flare screwed up its navigational instrumentation. Though we remain ignorant of the cause, it was fairly clear from the position and attitude in which it was found that it did not make a controlled touchdown. We surmise that it crashed into the polar ice, was seriously incapacitated, and subsequently became frozen in place by a series of active cross-current pressure ridges."
"We call him NBE One."Simmons glanced at Epps. "Acronym."
"I got it," the tech sergeant snapped irritably. Eyes fastened on the gigantic frozen form,
Simmons then turned to Alex and said,"So anything you want to add about him."
Alex stepped forward. "His name is Megatron" He nodded at the towering shape. "Leader of the Decepticons, as we would call them. He is vicious and so are his followers, they came here looking for what they call the All spark, but wasn't able to find it."
"Basically, the bad guys," Mikaela added helpfully.
Lennox eyed her admiringly. "Yeah, I kinda got that from the name."
As they conversed, a tiny mechanical spider-shape was working its way around the perimeter of the enormous open space. When workers threatened to come too close, Frenzy merged into the background until they had continued on past. None of the passing humans noticed anything out of the ordinary. How could they, when the slender Decepticon could transform itself to become an indistinguishable part of their surroundings?
While Simmons and Banachek got an understanding of what the All spark was.
A tight-lipped Keller was glaring at Banachek. "I guess no one thought I might, as secretary of defense, need to know that the government is keeping a hostile alien robot frozen in the basement of Hoover Dam?"
The agent waxed apologetic. "I'm sorry, but it's always been that way, sir. Presidential discretion. Roose-velt never told Truman we had the atomic bomb, and he never told him about this, either. Being a military man, Eisenhower was informed. He understood the need for continuing the secrecy. Other presidents have maintained the practice, wishing above all to avoid anything that might cause a general panic. And until now."
"That's a question." A curious Lennox spoke up."Why 'here'? Why Earth?"
" All spark or Energon Cube."All of them now turned to stare at Alex. He'd always wanted to be the center of attention—but not necessarily here, and not necessarily now. He indicated the towering, frozen shape. "The way it's been told to me, Mr. NBE number one here, aka Megatron, is like the conqueor and tyrant. He pretty much wants the Cube so he can transform all machine 'life' and take over the universe one technologically oriented world at a time. Starting with ours." He turned a slow circle"So now do we ally with good ones or not."
Banachek and Simmons exchanged a fleeting glance.
While Alexander said,"I already guessed you found it."
Banachek nodded to Simmons, who answered,"Yes, we found it. And it is right here."
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