"Back on Cybertron, you plotted against me. Now, even on this wretched rock, you refuse to grant me autonomy!"
Starscream's optics burned with a manic, flickering light. His faceplates were twisted into a mask of pure hatred. Back on the homeworld, it was Soundwave and Shockwave who had dismantled his bid for the throne. Now, after barely a week of freedom on Earth, Soundwave was back to barking orders across the interstellar void.
The seventy-two-hour ultimatum was a death sentence for his plans.
Three days. It's a statistical impossibility, Starscream calculated.
He knew the limitations of his T-series units. They were grunts—scavengers forged in a hurry. Finding Megatron in seventy-two hours was a gambler's dream. He had deployed them primarily to create a smokescreen, drawing the eyes of the high command away from his illegal excavations in Egypt. But Soundwave's move had collapsed the board.
The Spymaster held too much leverage. Soundwave's archives contained every "discrepancy" and "unauthorized excursion" Starscream had ever committed. If Megatron returned and Soundwave shared those logs, Starscream would be recycled for scrap.
I have to contact The Fallen, Starscream realized. The ancient master will understand the strategic necessity of my failure.
But a deeper paranoia gnawed at his processors. How did Soundwave know so quickly about the new batch of T-series drones? Starscream turned his gaze toward the lower levels of the base, specifically toward the medical sector.
"Scalpel," he hissed. "If you've been leaking my logistics to the Spymaster, I will enjoy your disassembly."
Nevada. Hoover Dam. Noon.
The desert sun hung high in a bleached sky, radiating waves of heat that blurred the horizon. A red-tailed hawk, its wings heavy with the stifling air, circled the canyon searching for a reprieve from the glare.
It spotted a sleek, black muscle car parked in the shade of a massive rock overhang near the dam's restricted access road. The hawk banked, aiming for the car's roof, but as it drew near, a high-frequency rhythmic pulse erupted from the chassis.
BZZZT. CHIRP.
The bird screeched in alarm, its internal equilibrium shattered by the electromagnetic interference. It flapped frantically, banking away toward the cliffs.
Inside the car's processors, Nathan watched the bird flee with a clinical amusement. He refocused his sensors on the dam.
Two days. And still, the board hasn't moved.
He had been in "Passive Surveillance Mode" since acquiring the AllSpark coordinates in LA. His plan to "intercept a player" was proving to be a test of his endurance. He hadn't seen a single Section 7 convoy leave the facility.
The Americans are staying dark, Nathan mused.
It was a strange discrepancy. With six other Decepticon squadrons causing havoc across the continent, Section 7 should have been on high alert. They should have been deploying teams to investigate the "meteor strikes" and "industrial accidents" the T-series units were likely causing.
Maybe I should have let E-13 out of his cage, Nathan thought. A little chaos in Florida might have drawn the rats out of this hole.
He pushed back into the shadows of the rock face, avoiding the direct solar glare to keep his cooling fans at a minimum noise level. He occupied his cycles by "surfing" the human web—a habit from his past life that had translated into high-speed data-mining. To a Cybertronian, the human internet was an open book. He drifted through satellite feeds, news cycles, and social media, looking for any ripple that might signal an Autobot landing.
While Nathan waited in the desert, his "Forward Operating Base" in Miami—the abandoned Aethelgard Industrial plant—was no longer empty.
Two weathered vehicles rolled down the overgrown access road: a white light-utility vehicle and a faded sedan. The low rumble of their engines broke a silence that had lasted for decades.
The cars stopped before the rusted primary gates of the chemical plant. Six teenagers—three male, three female—stepped out. They radiated the restless, unearned confidence of youth.
"Yo, Sean! This is the place?" a boy named Karl asked, slamming his car door and looking at the crumbling brickwork.
"The one and only," Sean replied, adjusting his floral shirt with a grin. "The rumors say this place is haunted by the ghosts of the chemical spill. I bet half an hour in there and you'll be begging to go back to the beach."
"Ghost stories are for kids, Sean," Karl shot back, clearly unwilling to lose status in front of the four girls. "Let's see if your 'haunted' house actually has a pulse."
"Guys, stop it," a girl named Alicia interrupted. "It's Karl's seventeenth birthday. Let's just see if there's anything actually cool inside before we start the posturing."
They were looking for a thrill. Specifically, they were following a local urban legend that had started only days ago.
Despite Nathan's strict orders for silence, the E-series drones were not built for patience. Left alone in a dark warehouse for forty-eight hours, they had begun to "tinker." A passing truck driver had heard the sounds of grinding metal and high-voltage electrical arcs echoing from the plant. By the time he reached the next rest stop, the story of the "Haunted Factory" was already spreading.
Sean's father was a long-haul trucker. He'd told his son the story over breakfast. Now, fueled by curiosity and the invincible arrogance of seventeen-year-olds, the six teenagers were pushing through the rusted gate, unaware that the "ghosts" they were looking for were nine-meter-tall engines of war with very short tempers.
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