The good news: the glasses were exactly where Nathan predicted, hidden within the cluttered confines of Sam Witwicky's bedroom.
The bad news: they were buried at the bottom of a heavy storage chest, necessitating a less-than-surgical retrieval.
Nathan extended his arm through the second-story window, his titanium-plated fingers navigating the cramped human space. He ignored the rhythmic clatter of falling trophies and textbooks as he seized the chest and gave it a controlled, high-frequency shake.
RATTLE. CLATTER.
A pair of antique, round-framed spectacles spilled out from the debris. Nathan caught them between two micro-manipulators with a delicacy that defied his nine-meter stature. He withdrew his arm, the cool morning air of Los Angeles greeting the prize.
This is the artifact that cost a million years of war?
To the naked human eye, they were unremarkable—cheap frames, dated glass. But Nathan's multi-spectral sensors locked onto the left lens. A specific fracture pattern, etched by a localized energy burst nearly a century ago, held the secret. He activated his high-resolution scanning beam, a narrow crimson light tracing the cracks.
[ ANALYZING QUANTUM-ETCHED DATA... ]
[ COORDINATES EXTRACTED: 36.0155° N, 114.7377° W ]
[ CRITICAL ANOMALY: SECONDARY DATA-LAYER DETECTED... ]
Nathan's cooling fans spiked. As the scan deepened, a second set of information began to populate his HUD—a complex array of Artifact-Command Strings.
A Source Code for the AllSpark.
He felt a surge of systemic excitement. The glasses didn't just contain a map; they contained the operational protocols for the artifact itself. Specifically, a sequence designed for Chassis-Evolution and Energy-Catalysis.
Most Cybertronians, including the leaders of the great factions, viewed the AllSpark as a blunt instrument—a source of raw power to be tapped through physical contact. It was a primitive approach. The AllSpark was a rule-based cubic matrix, its surface etched with the language of the Primes. To unlock its higher functions, one needed the correct command strings to trigger the internal folding mechanisms.
By inputting this specific sequence, a user could force the AllSpark to refine and transmute their internal spark-structure. For Nathan, this was the key to turning his Synthetic Core into a true, high-tier Spark without the risk of an unguided energy surge.
Archibald Witwicky didn't just record a location, Nathan realized, burning the code into his permanent memory bank. He recorded the manual. And Megatron was too frozen to know he'd given it away.
Nathan looked at the glasses. Part of him wanted to crush them to ensure his monopoly on the data. But his strategic logic overrode the impulse. He needed the timeline to remain stable; if the glasses disappeared, the Autobots and Decepticons might change their search patterns, rendering his "future knowledge" useless.
He carefully reached back into the room and dropped the glasses onto the floor, mimicking a spill from the overturned chest. The glasses were just a vessel; he had already drained the wine.
Two Days Later. Kernas Great Canyon, Nevada.
The thunder of an afterburner echoed through the jagged ravines as a black interceptor plummeted toward the canyon floor. Just before impact, the thrusters flared, and the craft reconfigured into a towering bipedal form.
THUD.
"Curse Soundwave and his constant interference! I was within cycles of a definitive Matrix-lead!"
Starscream strode toward the fortress entrance, his wings twitching with an agitated, violent frequency. He entered the base with a predatory speed, ignoring the logistics drones that scurried out of his path. Any drone that didn't move fast enough was met with a kinetic strike that sent it dented against the walls.
He reached the Comm-Vault, the secondary heart of the fortress. Interstellar transmissions—especially those spanning the light-years back to Cybertron—required massive energy draws and specialized transceiver arrays that no individual chassis could host.
Starscream entered his clearance codes and stepped into the vault. The room was dominated by a massive obsidian screen and a console bristling with multi-colored control nodes. He deployed his clawed fingers, tapping a rapid sequence into the interface.
The screen flickered, a static-filled image coalescing into a terrifying, featureless faceplate. Soundwave.
"Starscream," the monotone, digital voice rumbled across the vacuum of space.
"Soundwave. I trust there is a critical justification for this interruption?" Starscream replied, his voice dripping with practiced, oily charm.
"Status update: High Protector Megatron. Location: Pending?"
Starscream's optics flickered. "Patience, Soundwave. This planet is a chaotic mess of organic signals. I have deployed my Vanguard squadrons. The search is wide-spectrum. Do not forget the humans here possess primitive, but annoying, detection capabilities."
The screen remained silent for a long beat. Soundwave's silence was more menacing than Megatron's roar.
"Three days," Soundwave finally projected. "Shockwave and I have reached a consensus. If the High Protector is not located within seventy-two Earth-hours, I will initiate a sub-orbital deployment to your coordinates personally."
"What? Soundwave, that is impossible! Three days is not enough time to—"
CLICK.
The screen went dark. The link was severed before Starscream could finish his protest.
"Gah! Arrogant, multi-legged piece of scrap!" Starscream shrieked, kicking the console with enough force to crack the outer housing.
He was trapped. If Soundwave arrived, his secret operations in Egypt would be exposed, and his dream of leadership would be crushed under the weight of the High Protector's return. He had seventy-two hours to find a miracle—or a scapegoat.