The Veiled Threat

by Alan Dean Foster

  “While operating among the civilian populace,” she continued, “I’m sure I don’t need to remind the Autobots of the need to maintain their terrestrial disguises whenever possible.”

  “We are aware of the effect our natural appearance has on humans,” Optimus assured her. “We have no desire to cause a panic. Besides, exposing our actual selves would only serve to alert Starscream that we are closing in on him.”

  “Cannot he detect your Sparks?” Petr wondered aloud.

  “Much depends on distance, which internal perceptors are active at the time of seeking, and other factors,” the leader of the Autobots explained. “To a certain degree our bodies also mask the Spark within. Can you hear the heartbeat of your neighbor?”

  “Only when I place certain specimens of arachnid in their hands to be admired,” the AI expert replied.

  “Everyone understands the mission, then, and what is expected of them.” With a wave of her hand Ariella deactivated the screen. “You leave at oh six hundred tomorrow. Gentlemen, ladies …” She hesitated. “Autobot.”

  “I am happy to respond to ‘gentleman,’ ” Optimus informed her.

  She smiled. “I’ll remember for next time. Better to be overly careful than to give offense.”

  “It is difficult for humans to offend us,” the leader of the Autobots explained. “Though not impossible. I am put in mind of a certain member of your now disbanded Sector Seven organization who—but that is in the past.” His electronic gaze focused on Lennox. “Until tomorrow morning, then, Captain.”

  Pushing back his chair, Lennox nodded. “Get some sleep until—oh, right. I forget. You guys don’t sleep.”

  “No, we do not. But we rest and power down certain heat-sensitive circuitry, and I will surely do that.”

  Outside the conference room, Kaminari found herself walking alongside Epps. “I’ve been wanting to ask you, Sergeant Epps, out of everyone here, you and Captain Lennox have the most experience in fighting the Decepticons. Are they really so difficult to destroy? I have read all the reports, of course, but that is not the same as actually engaging in battle.”

  “Until we figured out to use sabot rounds we didn’t have anything that would do more than knock one of ’em back a couple of steps.” Epps’s tone was somber. “Even utilizing sabots, you have to hit a vulnerable spot between their heavy armor exactly when it flexes in order to have any effect at all. These guys have been fighting one another for thousands of years. They’ve gotten real good at it.” His tone darkened further. “Real good.”

  They turned a corner, and Epps continued. “Take a modern marine armored division. Now remove all the humans. Give all the weapons intelligence of their own. Combine them into a single entity. That’s a Decepticon. Or, thank God, an Autobot.” Breaking away from her, he headed in the direction of his own quarters. “Just be glad of one thing.”

  “What’s that?” she called after him.

  “That we’ve got Optimus Prime and the other Autobots on our side. Otherwise we’d end up fighting Starscream with the equivalent of sticks and stones. I understand you’ve got a new weapon to be field-tested, though?”

  “Yes, though I’d have a bit more confidence if I could have tested it first in a controlled environment,” she replied. “But I don’t think that any of the Autobots, even Ratchet, is willing to act the guinea pig for this.”

  “How does—or should I say how do you hope it will work?” asked Epps.

  Kaminari hesitated only a moment before replying, “It is a portable, directional EMP weapon. Using internal focal points and Gamma reflectors, I’ve managed to build a prototype that fires an electromagnetic pulse in a single direction, instead of a burst that radiates out three hundred sixty degrees from the origin point. In theory it should work to temporarily destabilize a Transformer’s Energon imprint, rendering him impaired, if only slightly.

  “The only problem that I have not been able to overcome is the relatively short range of the device. I’d have to be quite close, and that’s not generally ideal when it comes to twenty-foot-high killing machines. I understand Petr has his own specialized toy; I’m curious to hear his proposed solution to the human–Decepticon imbalance.”

  “All due respect, but I’ll keep the sabot rounds,” said Epps, turning in to his quarters. “In other words, better you than me.”

  Feeling that the underground air-conditioning was beginning to give her a chill, she broke into a jog as she headed for her own room.

  There were preparations to be made.

  “One pastrami on rye, mayo instead of mustard.”

  Mayo instead of mustard? Mayo instead of mustard? The flint-eyed gaze of Seymour Simmons, former chief agent extraordinaire for Sector Seven, narrowed as he focused on the customer standing at the order counter in Tova Simmons’s Manhattan delicatessen. His tone was as rigid as it had been when he had been in charge of dozens of black-suited operatives, and he spoke with great deliberation.

  “You—cannot—have—pastrami—on—rye—with—mayonnaise.”

  In the middle of a typically rushed Manhattan lunch break, the customer blinked at the lanky, white-aproned attendant behind the counter. “Aw, c’mon, man—I haven’t got time for this! That’s how I like my pastrami.” To the amusement of those waiting in line behind him he managed a credible imitation of Simmons’s incongruously apocalyptic tenor. “On—rye—with—mayo.”

  “You can’t.” The change in Simmons’s expression from severe to smiling was so abrupt that the customer was visibly startled. “It isn’t good deli. It isn’t New York. It isn’t—American.”

  The customer sighed. “All right, then. Have it your way. No pastrami with mayo.”

  “Good.” Simmons’s fingers hovered over the automated input that would send the order to the kitchen. “What can I get for you?”

  “I’ll have a hot corned beef on rye.” The customer paused for effect, until he could no longer repress the grin that was bubbling up inside him. “With mayo.”

  Simmons froze. His smile returned, harder than ever. As the man was about to high-five the customer behind him, the former agent reached across, grabbed the man by his shirt collar, and yanked him bodily halfway across the counter. Their faces were now inches apart. Simmons’s eyes found those of the startled customer and locked in.

  “This is my mother’s deli. We do pastrami here. We do corned beef. We do brisket and sturgeon and gefilte fish. We don’t do comedy. Comedy clubs you will find in the Village.” His fingers tightened on the man’s collar. By now the customer’s self-satisfied smirk had vanished completely, to be replaced by an expression of an entirely different kind. “Would you like me to recommend something?”

  The man’s hands fumbled at the iron grip holding him by the throat. “Hey, leggo of me! Are you out of your …?”

  A strong feminine voice interrupted. “So, Seymour, what’s this? Is there a problem?”

  Still maintaining his agent’s grip on the customer’s neck, Simmons looked over and down at the compact diesel of a woman who had come up beside him. “This guy’s a wiseass. Ordered pastrami with mayo. When I called him on it, he switched it to hot corned beef with mayo.”

  The dark-haired woman made a face at her son. “When you ‘called him on it’? Listen to me, boychick: this isn’t Washington. It isn’t even Virginia. You’re in charge of the register now, not national security.” She turned her attention to the struggling customer, whose face had begun to turn red. “You want pastrami with mayo?” The man hesitated, eyed the resolute Simmons, then nodded. “You’re an idiot,” Mrs. Simmons told him flatly. She turned back to her son. “You also are an idiot, Seymour. Nu? Idiot number one, give idiot number two what he wants.” So saying, she turned and headed back to the kitchen and the never-ending battle to make sure that part-time employees were not pocketing her sugar and other condiments.

  Simmons did as he was told. In his years as a senior Sector Seven operative he had grown used to giving orders. Well, he could ta
ke them as well as dish them out. Straightening his shirt, the customer looked quietly triumphant. Simmons ignored him. What did the fool know? As he rang up the order he let his gaze rove over the busy restaurant. What did any of them know? A few images from nearly a year ago, splashed across the media. Brief images of rampaging robotic lifeforms meting out a limited amount of urban destruction. Then—nothing. Secrecy had descended around the entire incident, just as the world’s political and military establishment had closed ranks around hard knowledge of what had really happened.

  Alien machines had come to Earth. There had been a couple of incidents. That was in the past and they were being intensively studied by the world’s best engineers and scientists.

  Not a word about the fact that the alien machines were also studying Earth. Or that some of those machines’ intentions were less than altruistic.

  Stories selectively planted with the pulp news magazines, gossip sheets, and rumor-bloggers on the Net gave the impression that the whole business was nothing more than another political cover-up for another military foul-up. A few reports insisted that all the widely seen images of explosions and damaged buildings were publicity for upcoming films about giant alien robots invading Earth. When he came across a cover story in The National Enquirer insisting that Elvis’s robot alien offspring were behind the whole thing, Simmons had thrown the scavenged newspaper against the wall of the building he’d been passing. That had resulted in an on-the-spot fifty-dollar littering fine written out by an alert New York cop. The incident had done little to improve the ex-agent’s mood.

  Ex-agent. Of all the iniquities that had been visited upon him since the existence of the Autobots had been revealed, from being deliberately oiled by one of the mechanical monstrosities to being slapped by a delinquent of a teenage temptress, losing his job and its perks had been the hardest blow of all. Despite his earnest entreaties he had not been recruited to join NEST, Sector Seven’s replacement. He had accumulated “too much baggage,” they had politely informed him.

  “Baggage.” How could any undefined “baggage” outweigh his intimate and personal knowledge of the Autobots and their enemies the Decepticons? He knew the real reason he had been dismissed from service, albeit with his pension intact. It was that kid, that smart-ass Witwicky. The aliens’ friend, their good buddy. Him and that—girl. Okay, so maybe he could have been a little nicer to them. Considering events in hindsight, he might have used a little more tact in the course of their initial confrontation. But national security had been at stake. National security! If he hadn’t come down hard on them when they’d first been picked up, someone else in the service would have been sure to question his methods.

  How could the government dismiss him and not want to make use of what he knew? Because of “baggage”? Because there were whispers that he was “unstable”? It was crazy! Madness! Seymour Simmons, unstable. When had he ever given the slightest indication of being even a little bit offline, unbalanced, over the edge, or slipping on the floor of his attic? As he walked back to his apartment he kicked angrily at every piece of newspaper the wind blew his way. Occasional passersby glanced in his direction—which in Manhattan was saying something. Maybe their reactions had something to do with the fact that he kept shaking his head while muttering to himself.

  He didn’t really need the job in his mother’s deli. His severance package combined with his pension took care of his basic needs. But the food at the deli was the best, and anyway he needed something to do. Something to get him out among people. Because if all he had to do was sit in his apartment and stare at the TV or the computer or work on his project while completely out of touch with the rest of mankind, why, even someone as inherently stable as himself might go a little—mad.

  So when his mother, seeing her son adrift, had offered him the job in the deli, he had taken it. Daily contact with others, even thin-tie-wearing twits who were willing to loudly and in public desecrate a pastrami sandwich, helped him to maintain stability. And focus. He needed to focus. As he let the comforting thought wash over him, a knowing and slightly disturbed grin spread across his face. At the sight of it, one couple coming toward him on the windswept sidewalk hurriedly changed course to cross the street.

  If he failed to focus, he would never be able to complete his project.

  Go ahead and dissolve Sector Seven. Hire a bunch of egghead scientists at inflated salaries to feather their own NEST. Ignore the continuing threat from beyond the solar system. He, Seymour Simmons, knew what was going on. He, Seymour Simmons, would take it upon himself to save the world from what he knew was under way.

  Invasion.

  There was no use trying to pretty it up, no point in searching for a less alarming euphemism. Even as he strode purposefully down the side streets of Manhattan, the Earth was suffering an invasion and humanity’s fate hung in the balance. If “they” would not let him participate in its unified defense, then he would do so on his own. One day they would realize what they had sacrificed by not employing him. One day they would know. He would save mankind in spite of itself.

  He would do it from his basement.

  The lower level of a ground-floor walkdown, an apartment already one level below that of the street, was as dark and dank as the inside of a bigot’s mind. Instead of speleotherms, however, the workshop Simmons had set up was festooned with enough tools to stock an entire aisle of a major home retailer. Very few of them were designed for brute-force work. There were no sledgehammers, no oversized circular saws, no industrial-strength lathes or heavy drill presses.

  Instead the well-lit work space was packed with an assortment of gear more suited to an active hobbyist. Dremel accessories and dentist tools decorated most of one wall. A computer-controlled injection molder stood off to one side. Electronic components overflowed from half-shut bins.

  Illuminated by overhead lights, a single rectangular worktable dominated the middle of the room. Resting on it, tightly clamped in place and connected to dozens of color-coded wires that fanned out in all directions, sat what at first glance appeared to be a cross between a Koons sculpture and a space engineer’s idle dreaming. It had a face, sort of. Only vaguely humanoid, it was as full of menace as an inanimate head-sized object could be.

  Entering the basement shop and switching on the last of the lights, Simmons smiled as he walked over to the worktable and patted the head on its head. “And how is my homicidal little friend today? Dormant as ever, I see. That’s good.” Whistling the old standard “I Ain’t Got Nobody,” Simmons strolled over to the workbench that dominated one wall, checked one of three computer readouts, tapped a few keys, and turned back to regard the object that was at once his prize and prisoner.

  “I think today we’ll work on adjusting controlled response as opposed to reflexive hostility. By next week I think I’ll have gained enough sway over your cognitive processors to take a chance on restoring visual perception. Then we’ll see if we can have a conversation where every other word out of your mouth isn’t ‘Kill!’ What do you say?”

  There was no reply from the object on the table. There would not be until Simmons made the necessary repairs and hookups to what he had salvaged from Sector Seven’s ruined facility inside the base of Hoover Dam. He was completely convinced that understanding what he had saved (“stolen” was such a pejorative term, he thought) and learning how it functioned would allow him to discover a means for dealing with the invaders.

  All of them.

  Because despite their actions in defeating the Decepticons and their subsequent insistence that they would forever stand up for the defense of humankind, he trusted the Autobots about as far as he could throw Optimus Prime. If he could learn how they worked, unearth the secrets of their cybernetic brains if not their bodies, then he would know how best to deal with them. How best to protect the planet and its original inhabitants. He would see to it that they would cease to be functionally independent organisms and return to being what they were at base. Simple machines, a
nd nothing more. Tools that could be used by mankind, instead of aggressive entities determined to drag the population of the Earth into an ancient intraspecies war being waged by soulless mechanisms. He, Seymour Simmons, would see to that eventuality.

  In between taking sandwich orders, of course.

  He punched out a few commands on one of the computer keyboards, picked up a small wireless controller, and pointed it at the object on the worktable. “I think I’ve tapped into the correct synapses. Let’s try it and see, shall we?” He depressed a button.

  Something sparked in the air above the table and the object atop it twitched slightly. It could not look at him angrily or glare by way of response because its visual perception had yet to be restored. Nor could it speak. It could only fume silently and impotently. It had no choice but to cope as best it could with whatever crude mechanical and electronic manipulations the human chose to inflict upon it.

  That would change one day. Change when perception and mobility were restored. Then there would come a reckoning. The human thought he had complete control. At the moment such was indeed the case. But it was only a moment, and the object of Simmons’s experimentation was patient. Time was a quantity with which it was far more comfortable than the short-lived organics. Time was a human’s enemy and a Decepticon’s friend.

  Imprisoned securely atop the worktable, deprived of any means to strike back, the partial head of Frenzy tolerated the antics of the disturbed human. While the ongoing delay in defeating the Autobots irritated him almost as much as did the absence of his body, he was not overly concerned.

  He knew he was not alone.

  The underground chamber that had been allocated to the Autobots was the single largest open space in the entire NEST complex—or for that matter anywhere on the atoll. It was larger even than the hangars on the main island that had been built years earlier to accommodate the wingspan of B-52s and stealth bombers.