Tom Banacheck took over the briefing from Simmons. "He has been kept in a state of permanent cryostasis since the day he was recovered. We can't be certain if he would reanimate if thawed."
"Think of him as a hibernating bear," Banacheck continued, glancing at the frozen titan. "To keep him in his cave, we have to maintain the illusion that it's still winter. Forever."
He turned his gaze toward Sam. "He was discovered by your great-grandfather. It remains the greatest find in human history. But what you're looking at isn't just an alien lifeform—he is the source of our modern world."
"Cars, microchips, radar... even the core tech for our rockets and satellites. It was all harvested from him through decades of reverse engineering."
Secretary John Keller's expression soured. If this alien had such immense research value, the military could have developed weaponry decades ahead of schedule if they hadn't been kept in the dark.
"Are you telling me," Keller demanded, his voice low and dangerous, "that the Department of Defense wasn't deemed 'cleared' to know you had a frozen alien robot under a dam?"
Banacheck shrugged. "Until the Sanckson Base was hit, we didn't view it as a threat to national security."
"That was then! The situation has changed!"
"This... Megatron," Captain Lennox cut in, speaking for the first time. "Why is he here? What was he after?"
"The AllSpark," Sam answered. He was tired of Simmons, but he respected the soldiers. "That's what they're looking for. It's a cube. A big one."
Sam gestured with his hands, miming a large shape. "Megatron tracked it here. That's why he crashed. And 'Megatron' is his name, by the way. Not NBE-1."
"Are you sure about that, kid?"
"Positive. Do you... do you guys have it? Do you know where the Cube is?"
Banacheck and Simmons exchanged a look, a silent communication passing between them. Finally, Banacheck nodded.
"Yes. Follow me."
Deep in the transit tunnels, Skygnaw continued his slow, methodical advance.
Six hundred meters. In the open air, it would have been a few strides. Inside the fortified maze of Sector Seven, it was a grueling gauntlet.
It took nearly thirty minutes of stopping and starting to avoid patrols before the massive doors of the AllSpark Isolation Hall finally came into view. The main gate was a composite behemoth, stories high, with a smaller alloy security door at the base for personnel.
It looked impenetrable.
Skygnaw felt a flicker of predatory satisfaction. Moments ago, Black Panther had slipped through the security door during a shift change, tailing a group of researchers into the sanctum.
Good work, Panther.
Skygnaw engaged the visual link. A few seconds later, his optics were flooded with the image of the inner research zone.
There, tilted at an angle in the center of the massive hall, was a colossal bronze-colored metallic cube. Its surface was etched with ancient Cybertronian glyphs and shifting, irregular patterns.
The AllSpark. The holy relic of Cybertron.
In the observation gallery overlooking the hall, Banacheck led the group to the reinforced glass.
"What you are about to see is the ultimate treasure of the cosmos."
The observation room was small, with three walls of thick glass. On the concrete wall behind them hung seven grayscale portraits—the Seven Founders of Sector Seven, the men who had first discovered the Cube.
Keller, Sam, and the others pressed against the glass, their breath catching. Below them lay a hollowed-out mountain peak, a space large enough to house a skyscraper. Hundreds of researchers in lab coats moved like ants around the base of a metallic cube taller than a thirty-story building.
"Sam, this is likely what you were talking about," Banacheck said softly. "Carbon dating places it on Earth long before NBE-1 arrived, though the exact date is unknown. The Seven found it in 1913."
The group glanced at the photos of the old men on the wall.
"For years, they didn't know it was extraterrestrial," Banacheck continued. "Not until they found Megatron. They realized the patterns on his chassis matched the engravings on the Cube. By the order of the President at the time, they built Hoover Dam specifically to hide it."
He pointed toward the ceiling. "There is more than two football fields' worth of reinforced concrete above our heads. The walls are lined with radiation-shielding materials and advanced energy dampeners. I guarantee you, no one—not even those things out there—can detect the energy it emits. This base is—"
BOOM!
A violent explosion rocked the room, cutting Banacheck off and shattering his confidence.
"What was that?" Keller shouted, his hand instinctively going to his sidearm.
Maggie Madsen swallowed hard, her question about energy signatures forgotten as the floor beneath them groaned.
Banacheck gripped the railing, his ears ringing. He looked toward the far end of the hall. "The main isolation doors..."
"The doors?"
The group turned as one.
CRASH!
In a shower of sparks and twisted steel, the ten-meter-high isolation doors were torn from their hinges. The heavy thud of metal footsteps echoed through the chamber as a towering silhouette stepped through the settling dust.
"It's him!" Mikaela screamed.
Of all the machines she had seen, this one—standing nearly eight meters tall with a lethal, predatory grace—left the deepest impression. She remembered the refinery, the terrifying moment she thought they had been caught.
This time, the robot looked even more savage. Two massive, serrated blades were visible at its hips, catching the sterile light of the hall.
"They know!" Keller roared, his face flushed with fury. "They knew it was here the whole time! How did that thing get inside, Tom? You said it was undetectable! What the hell is your department doing?"
Glen Whitmann shrunk back, the pressure in the room becoming suffocating. "Maybe... maybe we should retreat? Not running away! I just mean... we can't exactly punch that thing!"
Banacheck and Simmons ignored them, grabbing their radios and screaming into the channels. "All security units to the Isolation Hall! Deploy the tactical vehicles! Load everything! Now! Move, move, move!"
Below, Skygnaw ignored the researchers who were fleeing like headless chickens. He had seen the interior through Black Panther's eyes and decided that subtlety was no longer an option.
He had tasted the AllSpark's power once before to evolve his frame. He knew how fast the reinforcement process was. With this many witnesses, a "secret" theft was impossible.
The meat was on the table. It was time to bite.
As he strode toward the Cube, his optics caught a glimpse of a glass observation room protruding from the wall.
Sam and the others?
Skygnaw recognized them instantly—he had just flown them across the country, after all. The timeline was holding; they were being shown the Cube right as he made his move.
He dismissed them from his processors. The humans were a distraction. The AllSpark was the only thing that mattered now.
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