"Sam."
"Mr. Brazos?"
After seeing off the investigators he had personally escorted onto the floor, Brazos pulled Sam aside into an alcove.
"I need a favor from you. I don't care what kind of relationship you had with Jerry. Who you share a restroom stall with is your own business."
"I have only one requirement: before the morning papers catch wind of Jerry's death, take a cleanup crew and scrub this place clean."
"He's scattered everywhere down on the pavement: across the asphalt, on the chain-link fences, over the streetlamps, the guardrails, the roadside flowerbeds..."
"Also, I want this company to completely forget he ever worked here. Strip his nameplate off his parking space immediately."
"Get moving. I've already arranged a few assistants for you. They're waiting in the lobby."
"Understood, Mr. Brazos."
Brazos watched Sam head down the corridor before turning back to his office.
In truth, assigning the task to Sam was a way to shield the kid.
Several colleagues had seen Sam as the last person entering Jerry's office.
In any massive corporation, the standard playbook was always the same: minimize the storm, smooth out the edges, and preserve the bottom line.
A PR scandal would send Accuretta's stock price tumbling.
Even Brazos couldn't shoulder the fallout of a market crash.
A single individual was important, but compared to hundreds, thousands, or tens of thousands of stakeholders tied to the firm, one life carried very little weight.
While Brazos was speaking with Sam, an analyst returning to his desk stopped in his tracks, noticing an unfamiliar device sitting beside his monitor.
It was roughly the size of a desktop speaker, resembling a compact custom server unit.
"Now this is a piece of art! Foreign engineering, without a doubt," the man murmured in admiration, running his fingers across the polished casing like a collector examining rare jewelry.
Even Sam, walking past on his way to the elevator, glanced over at the odd machine.
"Imported tech like this is impossible to get a hold of. Who left this at my desk..."
Before he could finish the sentence, a crimson glow flared along the device's housing, followed by a deafening blast.
BOOM!
"Aaargh!"
Before Sam could even turn his head, the analyst was thrown across the cubicles by the shockwave.
The compact machine vanished entirely, replaced by a metallic avian predator deploying razor-sharp wings.
The moment Laserbeak appeared, he opened fire with zero hesitation, sweeping dual machine guns across the entire open-plan floor.
Ratta-tatta-tat!
"Aaaah!"
"Help!"
"It's a monster! Run!"
Screams erupted in an instant, plunging the entire sixty-fourth floor into pure terror.
"What is happening out there?!"
Brazos shoved his office door open, only to see the mechanical bird tearing through the air straight toward him.
"Holy shit! What is that thing?! Get building security up here right now!"
Terrified, Brazos slammed the heavy office door shut, throwing the deadbolt in a panic.
Dammit! A Decepticon!
Sam scrambled through the labyrinth of cubicles, ducking behind steel desks as the mechanical bird adjusted its firing lanes, tracking his every step.
Ratta-tatta-tat!
Rounds chewed through partitions and shattered computer monitors. Sam realized with chilling clarity that Jerry's fall had been no accident.
From the start, he had known something was wrong.
Three years later, the Decepticons had tracked him down once again.
Patter, patter.
Sam sprinted back into the mailroom, desperate to bar the entrance.
Yet the mechanical bird had locked onto his signal, effortlessly matching his pace wherever he ran.
Left with no choice, Sam bolted back into the main corridor, frantically grabbing the first door handle he reached.
"No! Kid, stay out of there!" Brazos cracked his door open, shouting desperately when he saw which room Sam had chosen.
"That's the main server room! That hardware holds the entire company's core assets! You can't afford the damages!"
It was too late.
Sam slipped through the threshold, slamming the door shut behind him.
"We're ruined..."
Diego Garcia, Autobot Garrison.
Wearing dark sunglasses and carrying a sharp, commanding posture, a middle-aged woman marched through the perimeter of the facility, flanked by an entourage of aides.
"Senator, let me remind you," the woman said into her phone as she walked. "Every single time NASA requests budget expansions, you have them call my office directly. Do I make myself clear?"
She spoke to an influential United States Senator as if giving instructions to a junior staffer.
Even a casual observer hearing the exchange would immediately recognize her as someone holding immense institutional power.
Her name was Charlotte Mearing, Director of National Intelligence.
"...Furthermore, intelligence task force operations require my direct sign-off."
"A friendly reminder: the President has instructed my office to monitor congressional alignments, keeping track of anyone wavering on the administration's strategic directives."
"If your office has vulnerabilities on that front, perhaps unaddressed compliance irregularities..."
Entering the Diego Garcia perimeter, Mearing stopped before the primary hangar bay.
An assistant stepped forward immediately, retrieving a pair of flat tactical shoes from a bag and kneeling to help her switch out of her heels.
Walking out of the hangar, Lennox raised an eyebrow at the display, noting that the rumors regarding Director Mearing's exacting standards were well-founded.
"Director. Welcome to Diego Garcia."
Lennox's detachment officially served to secure the Autobot base against outside intrusion, while quietly monitoring their operational movements for Washington.
Yet professional duties aside, the joint operations over the years had forged a genuine bond between Lennox and the Autobots.
The Autobots, for their part, understood full well that human leadership kept them under a watchful eye.
"Colonel, the time for pleasantries is over."
Mearing bypassed his greeting, stepping forward with an unyielding stare.
"Ukrainian leadership has been burning up my secure lines over the unexplained explosion at Chernobyl. They claim your unit stole state assets from their sovereign territory."
Operating globally, national intelligence assets were often blamed for messy operations, and Lennox's team had used classified channels to slip into Ukrainian airspace.
Naturally, the diplomatic heat had landed squarely on Mearing's desk.
"Tell me the ground truth: is there merit to their claims, was your detachment directly involved, and did this originate from your command or from them?"
Lennox knew exactly who she meant by them. "Hard to say definitively, Director."
"As you know, their operational mindset can be somewhat unpredictable..."
"Colonel, you know my position. I prefer answers that involve analytical thought."
"My apologies, Director. I cannot offer specifics at this stage."
They answered to different command structures. While Mearing significantly outranked him in the federal hierarchy, Lennox held his ground with steady military discipline.
The group walked deeper into the hangar. Inside, Bumblebee was running combat drills with several soldiers.
"Watch the pivot."
Bumblebee dropped into a low roll, allowing two soldiers riding his shoulders to drop clear, slide under his plating, and mimic rapid rifle fire with vocal sound effects.
Seeing the drill, Mearing seized the opening. "Colonel, are you running a military installation or a daycare?"
"I assure you, Director, protocol is maintained," Lennox replied evenly. "Every Autobot operation is documented in comprehensive debriefs. They take field patrols periodically, as you are well aware—"
"Enough!" Mearing stopped abruptly. "Stop calling me 'Director' in that tone. I've had quite enough of it."
She turned to her aides. "Do I look ancient to you?"
"Not at all, ma'am," the assistants replied in unison.
Mearing turned her gaze back to Lennox.
"Understood, ma'am—no, of course not," Lennox raised his hands quickly. "You don't look old at all. It was meant strictly as professional courtesy."
"Let's hope so."
Setting the matter aside, Mearing looked across the expansive floor.
Beyond Bumblebee, nearly the entire veteran Autobot detachment was assembled inside the hangar.
"I consider this one of my finest builds, Hound. Take a look."
"Solid work. I'm eager to see what kind of punch it packs in the field."
"Heads up, everyone!"
Wheeljack had been discussing an experimental weapon with Hound when Lennox clapped his hands, drawing the attention of every Autobot in the bay.
"This is Director Charlotte Mearing, head of National Intelligence."
"Look, brother, a high-ranking human arrived."
Catching the commotion from across the bay, the twins, Skids and Mudflap, jogged over shoulder to shoulder.
"Man, what a drag. Just an old lady."
"Hey, knucklehead, remember the phrase..."
"Right! Guest on site, watch your intake manifold!"
When it came to sharp tongues, the twin Autobots were unmatched.
Fortunately, they spoke in native Cybertronian. Had Mearing understood their commentary, she would have certainly made them answer for it, alien warriors or not.
"Do you have business here, human?"
Wheeljack spoke up on behalf of the team. In his hands, he held a long, chained grappling mechanism fitted with a heavy claw.
It was his latest design: the Grapple Detonator.
The claw assembly functioned as a long-range anchor while housing a directional high-explosive charge, allowing the user to latch onto armored targets and trigger a focused breach.
It packed immense kinetic force.
Quite which piece of human engineering had inspired Wheeljack to fuse a heavy industrial crane claw with high-yield explosives remained a mystery, leaving the finished weapon looking entirely unconventional.
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