Transformers: Prometheus

CHAPTER 21

This is NBE-1.

He was standing in the shadow of a titan. Even frozen in inches of ice, icicles hanging from the gantries that held him like bars in cage, Megatron was so tall, taller than Optimus, than Blackout, that Jack had to tilt his head back to look at him—and, after a second, tell himself to breathe.

He was the gunmetal juggernaut from Optimus’ vision. Huge, massive, armored, intimidating—every single inch of him conveyed a sense of indomitable threat and unimaginable power. Sleek interlocking plates covered most of his body, and Jack couldn’t even think to guess at his vulnerable points. God, that massive cannon on his right arm, the one that had blown an Autobot to pieces with one shot...

The architect of Cybertron’s fall. If the Autobots were angels, then he truly was one of the highest of that order—the archangel of doom, of might, of destruction. Beneath the ice, Jack could glimpse the scars of countless battles, and just make out details on his armor that went beyond Arcee’s tribal glyphs, the regalia of the Lord High Commander. A body that had been so obviously made for war, and so terribly forged in the conflagration that had devoured an entire planet.

This, Jack realized, was a genuine Cybertronian. Not a single trace of any human vehicle, not a single part, not a single component. This was how Megatron had appeared on his homeworld, and how he had left it. The platonic ideal of war and conquest and victory. An incarnation of absolute supremacy for the battlefields of a conflict that defied any conception of warfare humanity had ever had.

And fate had drawn him here.

“What the hell is that?” Lennox asked.

“The answer to the greatest question of our time, Captain,” Banachek replied. “‘Are we alone in the universe?’ The answer to that question was ‘no.’ Like Sergeant Darby was saying, Archibald Witwicky made one of the greatest discoveries in the entire history of humanity. He discovered NBE-1, buried in the Arctic Circle, in 1897. We have held him, here, since 1935.”

Jack shook his head—seventy years? Okay, he’d already guessed that the powers-that-be had known for longer than he could imagine, but seventy years? His mind whirled, but he couldn’t take his eyes off Megatron’s frozen form.

“But if we answered that question,” Banachek continued, “we found others—just who are we sharing this galaxy with, and what are they? Witwicky’s so-called Ice Man became the core of Sector Seven’s most important work: Project Prometheus.”

“You’re looking at the source of the modern age,” Simmons said, sweeping one arm at Megatron. “The microchip, lasers, spaceflight, radar, cars, stealth composites—all of it, reverse-engineered by studying him.”

“Our Prometheus,” Banachek added. “Is proof of alien life, and proof that it comes in a form that, until his discovery, was well beyond the realm of fantasy. Project Prometheus is Sector Seven’s effort to unlock the secrets of this form of life, and prepare us for our next encounter.”

“The next encounter?” Lennox asked. “You mean, SOCCENT?”

Banachek shook his head, then said: “Essentially. On a larger scale.”

Some connection closed in Jack’s mind. Humanities class. Greek mythology. Prometheus. The god of fire and forward thinking. The titan who stole fire from the gods and granted it to humanity. Prometheus, bound to a rock, and punished by Zeus for his transgression. Prometheus, NBE-1, humanity’s first contact with another form of life.

And Sector Seven’s Prometheus was Cybertron’s tyrannical Lord High Protector.

“That’s Megatron,” Jack said.

Banachek’s eyes set on Jack, and his frown deepened. Jack cleared his throat. “His name is Megatron,” he said. “The leader of the Decepticons. He’s, ah— Well, where do I begin?”

They’d been studying him. An old sea captain had stumbled upon a demigod in the ice, and humanity decided to dig him up and drag him home. And so Sector Seven had hidden the evidence, covered it up, let the Witwicky family think their ancestor was crazy...

“Whoever he is,” Banachek replied. “We think he must have crash-landed here a few thousand years ago. There was no visible damage to his structure, so, it did not appear that he had been shot down.”

There was a story Jack’s mom had read to him when he was a kid. Gulliver’s Travels. Where a man had washed upon a distant shore, and awoke to find himself tied down by a race of miniature beings, lashed by dozens and dozens of miniature ropes. And for all their skill at tying him down, all their belief they had contained the giant, all their hard work and pride, all it took for Gulliver to upend their society was the desire to stand up.

If he wasn’t dead...

“Darby said the Decepticons are bad robots,” Lennox put in. “Same as the helicopter, the scorpion, and the satellite. And this guy is, what?”

“Their leader,” Jack said. “The way Optimus tells it, he’s pretty much the harbinger of death. A guy who makes Genghis Khan look like a the world’s leading humanitarian.”

Banachek nodded. “We are aware of the sectarian divide within the NBE civilization.”

That threw Jack for a loop. “What? But that’s—”

“Sector Seven has been preparing for this day for some time, Sergeant,” Banachek said, strangely polite. “There’s much we need to explain. Something is coming, and I’ll bet my absurd government salary that we are running out of time.”

Lennox nodded. “Then how about starting with the reason why this guy ended up on Earth?”

“It’s the AllSpark,” Jack said.

Lennox frowned. “Okay, Darby, you keep using these words I understand but don’t really get.”

“It’s some kind of artifact. From what I’ve heard, it’s basically the Autobot Holy Grail. Ratchet called it the prime mover of their society.”

“The what?”

Simmons said, with remarkable aplomb: “‘That there must be an immortal, unchanging being, ultimately responsible for all wholeness and orderliness in the sensible world.’ Never read Aristotle, huh?”

“No,” Lennox replied, rolling his eyes about halfway. “Believe it or not, it wasn’t on the professional reading list. You’re telling me they’re looking for their god, Darby?”

Jack shook his head. “No. They call their god Primus. The AllSpark...” What had Optimus called it? “They call it Primus’ Gift. It’s like the power source for their homeworld. Or was. And Megatron?” Jack pointed to him, and the thought was absurd—pointing to him, the herald of the apocalypse, the world-ender, because he was right there. Like he’d draw his ire as a consequence. “He killed his whole planet to try and take its power for himself.”

“Okay, fascinating, but what does it do?”

That was the big question, yes. Jack shrugged, and felt a little like he was being quizzed on the bonus question for the toughest pop quiz he’d ever taken. “I don’t know. I asked Arcee. She said it was miraculous. She’d know. But it has to be something incredible if Megatron started a war to claim it. We need to ask Arcee. Director,” Jack began, just as Simmons, frowning, turned his whole head to stare at Banachek.

The Director’s eyes narrowed and he said slowly, carefully: “And you’re absolutely sure about all of this?”

“Yeah,” Jack said. “Why?”

Banachek’s frown deepened.

“Come with me.”

They left the NBE-1 chamber behind. Jack had to stop himself from double-timing it out of there. It was like he could feel Megatron’s gaze burning into his back. Surely he was dead. He had to be dead. After all this time. Jack thought to ask the question, but part of him didn’t want to know the answer.

Banachek led them up a set of metal steps to what struck Jack as a gallery, albeit an old one. The walls were faded from age, the carpet worn from the passing of so many people. To his right, there were seven faded photographic portraits, all monochrome, all dour-faced men, with a bronze plaque: The First Seven.

“For over fifty years,” Banachek said, “we thought NBE-1 was the only example of his kind. That all changed in 1987, when the Earth—or, to be precise, the United States—was visited by three more entities of a similar exoskeletal type. NBE-2 was destroyed by NBEs Three and Four, but not before over thirty innocent civilians were caught in the crossfire.”

Jack found himself wondering if they had been Autobots or Decepticons. Evidently, the government had decided that was an academic distinction.

“Where’d they go?” he asked.

“NBE-3 and NBE-4 left the planet, and we have not seen them since. This led us to assume that NBE-2 was their target. Luckily, they left Two in enough of a condition that we could study its wreck, too.”

“And Simmons said Blackout is NBE-9.”

Banachek nodded. “That’s correct. Over the years, we have identified many suspected aliens, and apprehended most of them. We can not let Earth turn into their proxy battleground. Not until we have the means to defend ourselves.”

Apprehended them, Jack thought. Like they’d apprehended Arcee.

“And you’ve just been keeping Megatron locked in your basement?” he asked. “All this time?”

“Until the events of the past few months, we had no idea we were dealing with a coordinated attack. Sector Seven is prepared to deal with approximately three of these entities. Until now, we had assumed that coordination between these beings was limited. Sergeant, I understand that you have been in communication with an apparently—for lack of a better term—more benevolent faction of this civilization. I need you to understand that, from the perspective of our civilization, those five beings may represent the vanguard of a much more numerous force. One that we are ill-equipped to face on equal terms.”

Jack shook his head as Banachek led them out of the gallery, and into an observation deck. “They’re not.” He thought of telling them about the distress call, but figured he’d hold that card back. Somehow, he didn’t think Sector Seven would take kindly to finding out that the Autobots had been called to Earth deliberately.

“They’re here to stop the Decepticons. They’ve given me no reason to be suspicious of them. We need their help. They have to know a way to stop Soundwave and Blackout and however many other Decepticons might be already here.”

“Perhaps, Sergeant,” Banachek said. “But until we know more concrete information, we cannot risk allying ourselves with either side of this conflict. Through here,” he added, ducking through a doorway.

Jack stepped into a small chamber, like an observation post. A series of windows revealed a vast space that made Megatron’s chamber feel claustrophobic in retrospect—and, inside that space, dominating it through sheer size, was something that made Megatron feel like a plastic toy.

“This,” Banachek began, “is our crown jewel. We call it the Cube.” He stood behind Jack as he stepped closer to the window. “Is this their AllSpark?”

It had to be a hundred feet tall, and just as many across. The simplicity of Sector Seven’s name was grandiose in its accuracy: this wasn’t just a cube, it was the cube. Had someone told Jack it was the first cube the universe had made, that this object had been the prototype for all other six-sided polyhedrons, he would have believed them.

Yet, its faces weren’t smooth. The halogen floodlights illuminated Cybertronian glyphs—some massive, many minuscule, not an inch of it left unmarked—and intricate designs and symbols and diagrams and patterns that Jack couldn’t even begin to guess at. No wonder the Autobots saw it as a divine, as a link to their deity. Even standing where he was, even being human, Jack had the distinct impression of entire civilizations blossoming around this immense artifact. To even call it an artifact or a relic felt vulgar and crude.

And even through the window, Jack was sure he felt a distinct hum—in the walls, beneath his feet, in the air. Almost, if he focused, like music...

“Carbon dating puts the arrival of the Cube here at around ten thousand BC,” Banachek said. “The First Seven discovered it in 1913, and the matching hieroglyphics between it and NBE-1 indicated not only a link between the two, but proof of their extraterrestrial origin. President Hoover had the dam built around it. Four football fields thick of concrete. A perfect way to hide its energy from being detected by anyone, or anything, on the outside.”

“Energy?” Jack asked. “What kind of energy?”

“That, we have no idea about,” Banachek replied, and he sounded honest. “The Cube is made of a metal that our tools cannot touch, and our scanners cannot penetrate. But it has a distinct energy signature, one that is unlike anything on our world. At the time, we were merely concerned with our geopolitical enemies learning about it—the Nazis, the Soviets. But now...”

Banachek’s jaw tightened.

“What’d you give them, son?”

Jack looked back at the cube, and thought it over. It was the only card he had to play. “Will you let my friends and family go?”

Banachek nodded. “You have my word.”

It seemed to be worth more than Simmons’, at least.

“Coordinates,” Jack said. “Witwicky had a journal. He’d written down a bunch of alien symbols, from possibly activating one of Megatron’s systems, which turned out to be coordinates. Probably pointing to the AllSpark.”

“Probably?”

“The data was degraded, but I’m pretty sure they’ll be able to figure it out. Which will lead them—”

“Right here,” Banachek said, frowning. “Thank you, Sergeant, you may have just compromised us to a permanent end.”

“Hey, don’t mention it.”

“So, wait,” Lennox said, arms crossed and expression thoughtful. “We’ve got the one thing in the whole galaxy that these guys want, and no idea what it does, but Darth Vader in the next room over might be able to turn it into a weapon.”

Banachek nodded stiffly. “A reasonable assessment, Captain.”

Fowler let out a long breath. “Boy, I preferred it when I thought it was the world’s largest paperweight... Director, we need to consider contacting these Autobots. If this AllSpark thing is their property, it might allow us to negotiate. This installation was never intended to resist a direct assault—and especially not by five NBEs.”

Simmons, shaking his head, muttered something and raised a hand to his ear. “This is Simmons, go.”

He marched over to the far side of the observation deck as Banachek said, “Or we might be signing the death warrant of our entire species, Agent Fowler. Without any knowledge of what this object does, its strategic value, or the relative capabilities of either faction, it is a gross failure of national security to hand it over to any unknown party.”

Jack opened his mouth to say something. Something about how Banachek just had to try talking with the Autobots, to go find Arcee, to hear her explain everything, when Simmons snapped, “What do you mean there’s three casualties at the eastern gate?” and, just like that, he knew, for all of Sector Seven’s clandestine operations, for all of their precautions and theories, everything had gone straight to hell.