Final Project

Final Project is the final story in the Download/My face not in the mirror/Reunion cycle. However, like all the other stories, it can be read on its own.

I do not own Transformers, I just like to mess with Hasbro's and the movies' ideas.

Chapter One

Ronnie did not want to have this conversation. He was a soldier, and action instead of words had always been more in his line. He would have preferred that anyone else have this talk-but there were only so many people Ironhide would listen to, and Ronnie was on the top of the human list. At times like this Ronnie really missed his mother- but if his mother was still alive, she'd have stopped this problem before it happened. He sighed.

Everyone else- everyone human- had already seen the writing on the wall and eased up on Dad. The only ones that did not- or as Ronnie and his siblings strongly suspected, would not- see the problem were the bots. For that matter, given the choices, he'd prefer to talk to Ironhide rather than Prowl, like Jimmie, or Ratchet, like Jeremy. Poppy had really drawn the short straw. She had to talk to Optimus. Oscar had the next worse, with Bumblebee. They had all agreed that after those had been warned, Minnie would talk to Bluestreak. That would take care of everyone else. There was no question whatsoever about that; tell Bluestreak and you told the base. They had also agreed that all of them would speak to the bots on the same day. Ronnie knew this was going to be the best chance he was going to get.

Ironhide stood reviewing the obstacle course, probably making plans. In an inhabited area, the best defense a human had was to run and dodge. For absolutely decades, Ironhide set up the obstacle course for Ronnie's father and made sure he ran it at least twice a week. That was part of why this would be so hard. "Hey, 'Hide," Ronnie called.

The large bot looked over his shoulder at his liaison with the NEST team and humans in general. "Hello, Ronald," the warrior rumbled. "I'm trying to figure out where the sparklings made changes matter how many times I've told Slag to keep those brats away from the course, they get in and make changes, and I never know what to expect." Ironhide made it sound like he hated the sparklings, when he was one of the few caretakers their teacher trusted to keep them. The bot poked in and looked around the fake buildings again, looking for false exits.

Ronnie sighed. "That's kind've what I've come to talk to you about. If you're going to change it, you might as well do it for the kids." Despite the fact that the sparklings were as tall as he and probably stronger, Ronnie and the other Witwicky relatives called the sparklings 'kids' and the bots, amused, allowed it. In a way, Ronnie thought, they're related to me. Dad was part of creating them.

That did get Ironhide's attention. "What do you mean? If your father is refusing to run this again, I'll have Bumblebee nag him. He-"

"It's not Dad, Ironhide, it's Sheena." Sheena was Dr. Sheena Anderson, the head of the infirmary for the base. "Dad's getting too old." There, he'd said it. The one thing the bots never wanted to hear, tried to deny, collectively, even though it was increasingly clear to the humans who loved him. The ability of the 'presence' to hold off the aging was fighting a losing battle with the human body it was dealing with. "He just can't keep going the way you guys keep expecting him to," he went on. "Dad's ageing faster. I know that for the last few months, he's only been able to keep doing this," Ronnie indicated the obstacle course," because the kids are helping him out. He finally got dragooned into a physical this year-"

"After healing everyone in the infirmary after a major battle? He was flat on his back for two days. Sheena just nailed him down while he was there. Not that I'm not grateful. I got part of that blast too."

"He's the age equivalent of Will Lennox when he died," Ronnie said. Will Lennox was Ironhide's special friend when the bots first came to Earth. Decades ago he died in a sudden massive heart attack, the first human close to the bots to die of non-combat or accident causes. As Ronnie expected, that reminder got Ironhide's attention. Ironhide said nothing for a time. Then the large bot transformed, and the door opened in the large truck. Ronnie got in. "Don't go anywhere," Ronnie said.

"The meadow?"

"Poppy's talking to Optimus there. Oscar has Bumblebee at the energon storage, Jeremy has Ratchet in the infirmary…"

"So we're all getting the word at the same time. Does your father know about this?"

"Sheena's told him what I'm telling you. I knew he's been trying to think of a way to talk to all of you. He didn't tell us, but he gave Sheena permission to talk to us a long time ago, and she's worried. Dad's babysitting Minnie and Oscar's kids right now." There was a moment of silence. "Look, I'm not saying Dad is going to die tomorrow. He just can't work as hard as he used to when he was younger. If he doesn't slow down soon, he's going to break down." He still works with Optimus on the high level stuff with Annabelle and Minnie, Ronnie thought. He's been up to his elbows with Bert working on those new energy devices. He wants to spend time with us and his great-grandkids, and then he's worn out. He needs to sleep more now, and he gets tired faster." He needs to stay in shape and everything, but he shouldn't do this kind of rough physical stuff anymore, Hide. He should have the right to choose what he wants to do, which right now is work on the space energy devices." Not to mention spending more time with his growing family, Ronnie added silently.

"How much longer does he have, Ronald?"

"How can anybody know? His parents died in their nineties, but they weren't in real good shape, nothing like Dad is." His grandfather was barely able to move due to his arthritis, and his grandmother had dementia so badly she often did not know Dad. "He could have another three or four decades left, if he takes care. He can work a full work week and keep in shape, but he can't work sixty to seventy hours anymore and not pay a price for it, and he shouldn't be doing the obstacle course anymore. Sheena said that for sure."

"But his safety…"

"Hide. At this point he's in more danger of hurting himself trying not to disappoint all of you than he is from not being able to run from the Decepticons. The presence in him can slow the aging, but it can't stop it. If you guys don't let up on Dad some now, he's going to die on you sooner. It's that simple."

There was silence from the truck. "What exactly do you suggest, Ronnie? And does Sam agree?"

You know damned well he'll give up the obstacle course, Ronnie thought.

"Dad'll agree. Optimus has to accept Minnie and her team instead of Sam in the liaison office. Annabelle told me that she's got her assistant at the point where she rarely needs Dad anymore."

Annabelle's comment to Minnie, passed on when Poppy assembled the family to try and deal with the situation, was "You know, for the first time since I've worked here, he looks as old as I do." Annabelle Lennox, sixteen years younger that their father, added with some right, "And about time, too." But Annabelle Lennox did not and never had looked her own age- always a decade or two younger.

"All the rest of you need to understand that Dad needs to slow down-not be coddled," the bots had gone through period of that and it drove his father nuts," but slow down. Dad's a vorn this year, remember? Most humans don't live that long, much less work fifty hours a week and run obstacle courses. Look it up if you don't believe me."

Silence, then "I know that humans don't live very long. I've seen too many of them die not to know, Ronald. I just hoped Sam- "and the bot fell silent again. It was the same with all the bots, Ronald knew. They wanted to believe that Ronnie's father would never age.

It occurred to Ronnie that Ironhide might not want to give up his time with Sam.

"If you're really worried about Dad defending himself, then maybe you need to work out some strategies for him," Ronnie suggested. "More time on the firing range, maybe."

The door opened, and Ronnie got out. Ironhide transformed. "Hmm. Maybe a new kind of weapon. Something smaller than what he has."

"That would work." Dad would like that, Ronnie thought. "That or improving his aim."

"Don't ask for too much," the weapons specialist grumped. Major Ronald Jasper Witwicky grinned, and in that moment Ironhide saw Sam Witwicky's mischievous side, shining clearly through in his youngest son.

Six months later, Sam told Bumblebee,"I don't know whether to kick Poppy or kiss her for that intervention." Bee was giving him a ride home from Research and Development, where Sam was spending most of his work time now. He still gave Minnie and her team a day a week.

"Why do you say that?' Bee asked. "I know that you don't run the obstacle course anymore and that Ironhide is working on a better laser weapon for you. I know you dropped your time with Minnie and her team to one day a week and that Annabelle's only called you once for help. Isn't that what you wanted? " Of all the family, Oscar had the easiest time; Bumblebee had already seen the strain on Sam. For a time Bumblebee stopped being Sam's guard because Sam almost never left the base, though the two remained close friends. When Sam started working with Research and Development, which was in the town and not on the base now, Optimus reassigned Bee. After some lengthy argument over what Sam needed, they worked out a routine, and Bumblebee picked up other duties.

The yellow bot looked Sam over, noting the changes that had occurred in the last few years. Sam's hair was almost completely white, and his face showed a few wrinkles. He could not move quite as quickly as he used to, and Bumblebee knew he tired faster than he used to. The change in work and the easing of strain told in Sam's more relaxed moods. He was much more cheerful now.

"Right, and Optimus isn't insisting that I supervise Minnie anymore; she's doing fine and so is her team. Annabelle says her assistant is doing fine. But every bot I run across is still looking me over, to see if I'm about to fall apart." They reached the bot's area of the base, and Sam got out. Bumblebee transformed. "Thanks for the ride. Do you want to go over to Poppy's with me later?" Sam insisted that he could move around on base safely, and bought a new sports flar of a very recent model. Bumblebee and the twins all immediately scanned it.

"I have patrol tonight," Bumblebee said with real regret. "I'm taking one of the sparklings with me, and Arcee's going to have the other two. How is the project coming?"

"Moving in leaps and bounds since I've been able to give it more time. That engineer I found on one of the chat rooms, Wheeljack, has been a real help, though some of the ideas he comes up with are a little on the wild side. He's on one of the space stations, if I understand him right, and his information's been helpful. Bert's been talking to another one, Perceptor, and he seems to be a little calmer, but some of the stuff he's come up with has been a little-out there. "

"Hmmm. Good," Bumblebee said. "I've got to go. You better move, too, or Arcee'll dump the sparklings on you again." Bee was being a little unfair. Every chance the sparklings got, they came over to see Sam as one way of sneaking away from their guardians, as Sam's add-on was one of the safest areas on the base. Sam included them as part of his family, and made sure he spent time with them several times a week.

Sam laughed, but he moved to the door pretty quickly. A few minutes later he emerged and got into his normal flar. He regularly spent evenings with various members of his family. Tonight he was going to Poppy's house, but Poppy was not going to be there long, All the great-grandchildren and Ronnie's kids were coming over, with Sam to ride herd on all of them while their parents enjoyed a night out. At this point his youngest grandchildren were in their teens, and the three great-grandchildren were three, two and eleven months.

When the grandparents and parents came home, all of the children, teens included, were sound asleep in various areas of the living room, and Sam was working on his e-mail. He looked cheerful and exhausted. Ronnie and Isabelle took a teen apiece as Minnie and Jeremy their two, and Oscar and his plump wife Carol gathered theirs. All of the various parents wondered just what Sam and the kids had been up to. The next week, Ronnie's daughter Lynette sent around a music video she had made from the pictures on her camera phone, taken by both the teenagers. Sam had started playing old music videos, and the eleven month old had started moving from foot to foot, in imitation of the videos' dancers. The three and two year old had joined in and Sam knelt down and held hands with all of them, one and two at a time, while they laughed and danced. The video ended when Sam swung the baby up in a circle, the baby still kicking, and both Sam and the baby laughing.

Sam got the video and smiled, and forgot about it. When Lynette asked for permission to enter it in a school contest, he gave her permission, telling her it was her creation and she could do what she liked with it.

The space solar energy battery was undergoing its first tests in simulated space. Sam could talk of nothing but how well the tests were going on the rides home in Bumblebee. At the end of the week came the day he worked with Minnie and her team. Today he was earlier than usual, having decided he could get coffee at the office instead of making it at home.

Once at the office, he found everyone huddled around a computer watching something. He dropped off his laptop at the desk he normally used, got his coffee, and headed over, curious to see what had everybody so intent. He could see Minnie in the middle of the huddle, and could see that what they were watching was a popular morning show that would show a music video sent in every morning. He maneuvered himself to an open area on the very edge of the group, just as the host introduced the video.

There the video of Sam and his great-grandchildren was, showing on live television. He watched the whole thing in complete disbelief, coffee untouched. At first the only thing he could think was how white his hair looked now. Everyone squealed and whooped and one or two of the more sentimental wiped their eyes, until Sam said, very clearly, "I am so going to kill Lynette." Everyone scattered in seconds, leaving Minnie to deal with Sam. Most of them knew from experience that it was hard to really get Sam angry, but when he was no one wanted to be in the blast range, and the rest followed their lead.

She had the sense to get him into her office. "But Lynette said you gave her permission. That's why the rest of us were okay with it."

"I did what?" He reviewed the last few e-mails he'd exchanged with his granddaughter. "I told she could enter it in a school contest, I know that- oh, crap." He considered. "I told her it was her video and she could do what she wanted with it."

"That's it?" Minnie said, and he could see her mind working.

"You thought she told me about this," he waved his hand at the vague area of the office where the television was. Minnie nodded. He whooshed out a breath. "How long before the fallout starts?" he asked rhetorically. His cell rang. He looked at the number. "Jimmie," he said in relief, and answered.

"Did you see the video?" Jimmie asked, his voice quivering with laughter. Sam growled into the phone. "I'll take that as a yes. Dad, she called me first, and I looked into it for her. They've got her name as the submitter, but she did not say who you were, and she's not required to for submitting the video as long as you knew it was being made. She told the producers that all the people in the video were in her family, which is true. There shouldn't be a problem. I ran it across Prowl, just to be sure, and he couldn't see a problem. Okay?"

"All right," Sam said. He rang off. "Lynette's off the hook, Jimmie cleared it with Prowl first. We better get our tails moving. We're going to be late as it is." Minnie looked at the time and got moving.

"How is the project coming?" Optimus asked when the general meeting was over. The meeting room was constructed for bots and humans, with the humans on a balcony. Sam and Optimus were the only ones left; the rest scattered to work on their various jobs. Sam was packing his laptop into his briefcase.

"The initial tests look good. We have to do some tweaking, but that's to be expected. Before too much longer, a prototype will be ready for field testing, and then it'll be out of my hands," Sam admitted. "We've talked to the company about training someone from them to work on that for us. Bert will go at first, to set up and train that person, and then he'll come home. Since he's gotten married, he doesn't want to stay out any longer than he has to." Sam sighed.

"What is it, Sam?"

"I'd love to go with them for that, "Sam admitted. "I've traveled all over the world, as you know, but I've never been to space, and I'd like to see it." He leaned against the rail. "I don't dare, but I can wish."

"I understand." In the last few years, Sam started going off base again. He began by visiting Sludge, Snarl, and Grimlock at Annabelle's ranch, and progressed to visiting Jimmie. He attended a few meetings for the company when Minnie was close to her due dates and none of her team members were trained enough, though he backed off on those once the team was a little more seasoned. When there were no incidents, he relaxed a little. "What do you intend to do while the project is being tested?"

"I'm going to take it to the next step, I hope. I'm going to look at a way to make energon from sunlight. You remember I started that, decades ago, and never got it to work? I wound up with the solar storage battery instead, and the energon process from the waste material. We just didn't have the technology then, the access to space we have now, and I got into the company administration when Dad couldn't do it anymore. I'm hoping that I can work from this project to make that work in the direct sunlight from space. "

Optimus considered the implications. "Is there a reason you're trying this again, Sam?" the Prime asked.

"The way we're making it is limited," Sam said simply. "Sooner or later, Optimus, this war is going to leave Earth. As long as the All-Spark is here, the war will be here, but the other reason it stays here is energon, and this way that problem is taken care of when the time comes."

"I am in no hurry, Sam. Even should you die, we would not leave Earth yet." How much does he know of the base we have in space? Optimus wondered. How much does he guess of what we never told him, when the All-Spark glows in him more and more strongly over the years, or is it the All-Spark driving him unknowing?

"No," Sam said, "and that's something I wanted to talk to you about, later. Can you spare me some time tonight?" They set a time before Sam picked up the briefcase he was packing while he talked and left.

That evening Sam met Optimus at the base entrance. Optimus was in his alt mode. The ride to the meadow was quiet. Sam was looking at the stars and thinking, and Optimus was remembering this same ride with Poppy in his cab. She had not been afraid of the Autobots from the day she yawned at Optimus from her mother's arms at two days old, and she tended to make her points with the verbal equivalent of a sledgehammer. The Prime hoped that the news Sam needed to discuss was less disturbing. They reached the meadow and went into the shield. Optimus contacted Prowl that they were not to be disturbed.

It was a moonlit night and the meadow was beautiful. Sam, wrapped in his coat against a cool night, took a deep breath and let it out. "I always think of Mikaela here," he murmured.

"She is here," Optimus said, and Sam shot the large bot an amused glance. Optimus was being literal. Her ashes were scattered here at her death. "It is peaceful tonight."

"Yes," Sam sighed. It was even better when I could come here without an escort, he thought. "Do the Decepticons still try to sneak around, or did Prowl's traps stop them?"

"How do you put it? In your dreams?" Optimus said, and Sam snorted. "The traps just make them more wary, though about five around Predator's size have been caught." Optimus was fairly sure that they came hoping to catch Sam or the sparklings alone or vulnerable again. The Prime settled himself onto the grass, and Sam perched on his leg.

Sam shook himself out of his musings. "Anyway, I wanted to talk about the status of the prototype Cube. It's not finished; that'll take a while yet. But that device of Ratchet's?" Optimus nodded. "I still wear it, and when I download, I put it on the prototype, too. It's sped the process some. Basically, the prototype reached the point that if I die suddenly, the All-Spark is anchored enough to return and complete the Cube."

Optimus considered what to say. Sam was right that the news was good, in that the future of all Cybertronians did depend on a new Cube and Sam had just told the Prime that future was assured. At the same time, Optimus worried about his human friend believing that he was not needed. As far Optimus was concerned, they would always need him. "Does this ease your burden a little, Sam? " His human friend nodded.

"Ever since I found out I had what I thought were only the memories I've worried what would happen to you guys if something happened to me," he said. "I don't see where this news makes any difference at all, Prime, except that we can dump one particular future worry. But after what happened with Swoop- if I had not had the device Ratchet put together," he stopped. That incident had interesting results. Swoop was banished to space, with instructions that should Sam ever go there and need it, the dinobot would help even if it was killed in doing so, and then reprogrammed so that it could not disobey- by the All-Spark.

"Ratchet was surprised that it made a difference," Optimus said, a polite way of referring to the medic's strutting.

Either Megatron would have gotten the Cube and the Autobots would be locked in a vicious war on the losing side again, Sam thought, or Swoop would have the Cube and the war would turn three sided. Neither would be a good thing for the humans on this planet. "I don't want to die," he said instead, knowing Optimus knew the possible results as well as he did. "At the same time, I want to know that if anything happens to me, my family-of both species- will be as settled as I can make them." He looked up at the sky. The thought crossed his mind that he just handed Optimus a reason to relax the Autobots' protection over him

As if the Prime heard the thought, it said, "But your family still needs you, Sam, both families. I would prefer that you keep to your usual precautions."

"No kidding? No, why don't I drop the shield right now?" Sam said dryly. "I think it might be interesting to see how long it takes a Decepticon to get here."

As if to answer their question, there was a roar. Both of them jumped up. "The energon storage!" Sam said.

Optimus said, "I have Prowl- his trap just caught something. " The Prime transformed and Sam scrambled in. The energon storage was close.

The next noise was a shriek that was not a Decepticon, but words, but the words were thrown together so fast no one could make them out. In the next few minutes everything was very mixed up, but eventually the tangle got sorted out. It helped when Optimus shot the Decepticon in the head, which got it off of Prowl, who was trying to release the trap that caught the badly frightened Autobot who had finally tracked them down. Optimus helped Prowl while calling for backup and Sam figured out how to release the new bot.

During the time Sam was patiently getting the trap loose, the bot talked in bursts of run together words. Sam would replay them in his mind, and respond to the questions. Yes, the bot had reached the other Autobots, and yes, they worked with humans, and yes, they had energon. No, the trap was set for Decepticons, because they had come here after the energon several times before and were looking for more ways in.

At this point the trap was off. Sam managed to jump back in time before the bot took off and fell over a tree. Before Sam could even manage a word, it was back up and complaining at fast forward that the ground was uneven. The bot was one of the smaller ones Sam had seen, a size close to Bumblebee. "Stay still and you won't fall over anything," Sam advised as the bot zipped off and fell again. "Have you chosen a designation? And can you slow down? You're moving so fast you're a blur." By that time First Aid showed up and the bots were all sent to the infirmary. Sam could not help but notice that Optimus quietly kept him from the injured Prowl, and sighed inwardly.

Months ago, there was a nasty battle at the energon plant, where a lot of bots were badly injured. There were a few NEST soldiers injured. Sam was in his add-on and went to the infirmary to help. When matters were settled there, he heard that Bumblebee had an injury that crippled the yellow bot temporarily. Sam went to see his friend in the bot infirmary and was speaking to the others on his way when he passed the room where the most injured were. Just as he went by, the spark to one of the bots began to waver suddenly. A fuel line ruptured unexpectedly when it moved the wrong way. Ratchet and First Aid were rushing over when Sam glowed hard enough to make them flinch back at the sudden light. It lasted over a minute.

When the light died, Sam fell flat on the floor curled in a fetal position, unable to move at all, and every bot in the infirmary was fixed. It took Sam several days to recover, instead of the few hours that followed the incident when they gained Sunstreaker. Sam did not particularly want to repeat the experience again. The bots wavered between awed at the display of power and dismayed at the cost to Sam. Sheena and Ratchet made him promise to stay out of the bot infirmary unless he cleared with Ratchet first. He agreed with the stipulation that Ratchet would contact him if a bot was too seriously injured to survive until Ratchet could repair it. After an argument that lasted for some time, Ratchet agreed. The download was still at the infirmary, but moved to a room where Sam did not have to pass the area where the injured were.

Since then the bots were careful not to let him too close to the injured. Ratchet believed that using the All-Spark energy was part of what was aging Sam, and the rest believed the medic enough that Sam was firmly discouraged from doing so. Sam was alternately annoyed and grateful. He disliked anyone trying to take his personal decisions from him; at the same time, using All-Spark energy hurt, and after the healing he was in bed in pain for most of the night, and weak enough to stay in bed for another two days. Considering that Sheena had to threaten and cajole to get him to stay in the infirmary overnight after one of his healings, that was a wake-up call to his family. Thus the intervention happened, and Sam had to endure every bot he knew examining him carefully for months, looking for signs of deterioration.

Most of Sam's family came over to see the new bot in the next few weeks. "He talks like Bluestreak," Poppy noted, while Blurr chased the sparklings around the courtyard.

"He does not," Minnie objected. "Bluestreak never sounded like he was on fast forward."

"No," Oscar admitted, "Blue just never stops talking period, like you used to."

"I resemble that remark," Bluestreak said from the other side of the add-on, where the youngest children were. Everyone laughed. Bluestreak found that the babies did not care if he never stopped talking, and loved watching them. The fears that Minnie would stop spending time with him once she had children died as soon as she placed her first baby in his hand for a few minutes and he realized that this new life was a part of Minnie's family- and so was Bluestreak.

Sam smiled, but he watched the new bot with his mind elsewhere. Like Prowl, Blurr had a hard time finding the Autobots, and Sam did not like that thought. He e-mailed Sludge to see if it had thoughts about making it easier for friendly bots to find them. Sludge had to tell him what Prowl already had, that there was no way to do that without a compromise of safety.

Sam could appreciate the problem; after all, the Decepticons were on the losing side of the war on Earth now. When the Autobots came to Earth, they were losing. The destruction of the Cube and Megatron had changed the war to a stalemate of a kind. After Egypt, when Optimus defeated the revived Megatron and the Fallen, the stalemate continued. The Autobots did not have enough troops, even with NEST, to do more than defend against Decepticon attacks.

When Sam, his father, and his friends built the company and the energon plants, the Autobots did gain an edge. Megatron's main advantage was more troops. While the Decepticons stole energon from the company's plants and used the hatchlings held by the Fallen, Megatron's troops had no energon source and there was a steady attrition rate. The hatchlings made strong but stupid troops and the older fighters off-lined faster without energon. The human backup NEST provided was critical. The shields over the strategic areas made it harder for the Decepticons to pull raids, and Prowl increased security to where the Decepticons were losing more in the raids than they were gaining in energon. In addition, the Cybertronians knew that Sam was the Cube, and that he worked with the Autobots. Decepticons began to desert, leaving Earth for space, and neutrals were better able to hide from the Decepticons if they did not want to join the Autobots.

The Decepticon's last successful raid was an all out attack that had taken Sam as well. Megatron held Sam for months, and forced him to acknowledge that he held the All-Spark. When Sam's family found him and he was rescued, there was a short, vicious battle at the base where Sam was held, and the rogue researcher holding Sam wounded Optimus. Megatron came after Sam and the sparklings with almost every troop it had on Earth, swearing that it would kill every living being there if Sam and the sparklings were not handed over to him.

The Decepticon leader's resounding defeat there turned the tide of the war. On the Decepticon side, only Megatron and Starscream left the field alive. Sam proved publicly that he chose the Autobots as the All-Sparks' protector by healing Optimus on the battlefield. Word of the sparklings spread. The Decepticons did not stop trying, but on Earth their strength was limited. There were rumors reported to Sludge from the neutrals that Megatron was considering retreat from Earth to space.

Sam could not help but wonder at that rumor. The last time Sam heard Megatron, the Decepticon leader told him that it had a use for him and a pen he could not escape. Somehow Sam did not believe Megatron would abandon Earth until it had the All-Spark, and right now, that meant Sam.

Then Slag showed up for the sparklings. Minnie and Oscar went to get their children ready to leave. Sam dismissed the matter from his mind for the time.