Chapter 253: Carly's Disappointment

Chicago, Carly's townhouse.

Knock, knock, knock.

The front door cracked open, and an older man with white gauze wrapped around his forehead poked his head inside.

"Sam, you better not be stringing me along. If you are truly out here saving the world, here are the personnel files you asked for."

"Thank you, Mr. Brazos."

"Hold on, hold on!" Just as Sam moved to close the door, Brazos clamped a hand onto his forearm with a desperate grip.

"Don't shut the door yet, Sam."

"You have to let me see an Autobot. Just a peek."

"A minute. That's all I need."

Getting internal personnel files from Accuretta was never going to happen through polite small talk. To pry them out of Brazos's hands, Sam had been forced to let a few secrets slip about the Autobots.

Looking at the eager, almost pleading look on the older man's face, Sam hesitated before finally giving a reluctant nod. "Alright. Just a couple of minutes."

Inside the living room, Simmons and Chuck were seated side by side, their fingers flying across two open laptops.

After hanging up with Sam yesterday, Simmons had packed his gear and rushed straight to Chicago. With no place of his own in the city, Sam had turned his girlfriend's townhouse into a makeshift command post.

No matter how many times Simmons had tried to talk himself into staying retired, the moment he heard those classified terms over the phone, every safety precaution went straight out the window.

Simmons looked up from his screen, wondering where Sam had disappeared to, only to see the kid escorting an elderly stranger into the foyer.

"Good grief, look at that!"

The moment Brazos stepped past the entryway, the sight of Bumblebee crouched under the ceiling stopped him dead in his tracks. Seeing a living titan in the flesh was nothing like watching grainy footage on television.

As for Simmons and Chuck, who were staring at him with open scrutiny, Brazos ignored them entirely, simply assuming they were Sam's hired hands.

"Hey there, big guy! You're Bumblebee, right? Come on, show your old pal a move or two!"

Brazos stepped forward, waving his hands playfully toward the yellow scout. Meanwhile, Sam hurried over to the table and slid the folder into Simmons's hands.

"These are old contractor records linked to NASA. In 2008, the agency issued an operational directive to resume mapping sweeps."

"Jerry wrote code for their telemetry arrays. But he planted intentional errors into the calculation models to keep the agency from mapping the far side of the lunar surface."

"The dark side."

"I knew it!" Simmons flipped through the pages, his eyes lighting up with realization. "Tying up loose ends!"

"The Decepticons recruit these assets, lean on them, force them into dirty assignments."

Simmons drew a finger horizontally across his neck. "And the moment the task is complete... lights out."

"So Jerry was working for the Decepticons all along?"

"There is no doubt in my mind. At first, I thought your coworker fell out that window because he stumbled across something he shouldn't have seen. Turns out he was in deep."

"Get over here, kid," Simmons waved Sam closer to the screen. "This isn't just about hunting for salvage on the Moon. They are burying something."

"Bring up the roster, Chuck!"

"On it, Mr. Simmons."

Chuck pivoted his laptop so the display faced Sam and Simmons.

"What is this?" Sam asked, squinting at the dense list of names.

"A manifest."

"Whose manifest?"

"Every cosmonaut from the old eastern bloc who had flight hours booked after we touched down."

Simmons dragged his finger down the screen, tracing each foreign surname. "Every single one of them is dead."

"Wiped out over the course of twelve months. It spreads like a targeted hit list."

"Missing in skirmishes, bizarre domestic mishaps, highway wrecks, unexplained homicides... as if these people were qualified to fly into deep space, yet couldn't manage to drive a car down the street."

"It's completely absurd!"

"You're saying," Sam said, catching the thread, "someone deliberately stopped them from ever reaching the Moon?"

"Spot on, kid," Simmons shot him an approving nod. "And the culprit behind it is—"

"Hahaha! Look at that!"

A burst of laughter cut Simmons off mid-sentence.

"That's it, big guy! Show me what you've got!"

"Come on, let me teach you a thing or two..."

All three turned toward the commotion. In the center of the room, Brazos had just been lifted by one of Bumblebee's massive digits and casually tipped backward onto a sofa.

"Did someone drop him on his head as a baby?" Simmons smacked his own forehead in pure frustration, raising his voice across the room:

"Sir! This is an active cross-agency extraterrestrial intelligence session! You do not hold the clearance to stand in this room!"

"You're a courier, sir. Please vacate the premises immediately."

The phrase sounded uncomfortably familiar to Sam. Shaking it off, he rushed over, helped Brazos back to his feet, and whispered, "Mr. Brazos, you really need to go."

"Huh? Right, sure. I'm on my way."

"Sam, thanks for letting me in. That machine is something else."

Straightening his tie and patting down his hair, Brazos cast several lingering looks over his shoulder before finally closing the front door behind him.

Click, clack.

The moment the civilian was gone, the laptop sitting beside Simmons began shifting its chassis, folding upward with sharp metallic snaps until a tiny robot perched on the table.

"Brains, what do you have?"

The little bot shook his head, spitting out words with his usual edge: "The cosmonauts from the successor state that took over the old space assets."

"They scrapped a crewed lunar landing back in nineteen ninety-two."

"Two of their pilots slipped into this country back then and never left. I just pulled a lock on their current coordinates."

"You're a genius, Brains..."

SLAM.

"Sam, I'm home... ah!"

Before they could review the coordinates, the front door swung open once again.

This time, it was the owner of the house.

Fresh off her shift and dressed in an elegant white dress, Carly froze in the doorway, staring in utter disbelief at the collection of men and machines occupying her living room.

Catching sight of her, Bumblebee panicked, ducking awkwardly to conceal his bulk, only to knock his shoulder straight into the ceiling fixture.

CRASH.

The glass chandelier shattered across the floor, snapping the awkward silence.

"Can anyone explain to me what is happening in my house?"

"Who are you?" Simmons spoke up first, stepping forward with an authoritative squint.

"Who am I?! Who are you?! This is my home!"

"Chuck, search her!"

"On it, Mr. Simmons."

"Don't you dare touch me!"

"Hold on! Stop!" Sam leaped in between them, waving his hands frantically. "She's my girlfriend!"

"Your girlfriend?" Simmons tilted his head, sizing her up before calling off his aide with a wave. "Fine, Chuck. Stand down."

"Sam?" Carly's voice was laced with anger.

"Carly, let me explain... this is work. Really, I'm working."

"I am so sorry about the mess."

"Wonderful. We're homeless," Carly shook her head, brushing past him toward the stairs. "Sam, don't lie to me."

"Does she actually own this place?" Simmons asked, watching her climb the steps.

"Yes, she does," Sam threw back over his shoulder as he took the stairs two at a time.

"Chuck, look at that," Simmons muttered. "You had a clear opening for a pat-down."

"Mr. Simmons," Chuck said, leaning against the counter. "For the record, I have a girlfriend."

"Since when? What's her name?"

"India."

"India... sounds exotic..."

Upstairs in the bedroom, Sam pushed the door open to find Carly already changing out of her office clothes.

Her bare back was turned to him, but his mind was entirely consumed by the mess downstairs.

"Sam, you promised me this would just be a phone call. Did you forget?"

"I didn't forget," Sam said, running a hand through his hair. "But my friends... they need me. Right now, I can't just—"

"Are you telling me the Autobots and the entire military can't handle this on their own?"

Carly slipped into a dark blue off-the-shoulder evening gown. She turned around slowly, looking at him with quiet, distant disappointment.

"Do you want to know why I always liked hearing your stories about Egypt? Because they were in the past. They were supposed to stay memories, not something that drags you into the next war."

"Listen to me, Carly," Sam urged, stepping closer. "I know this brings up what happened to your brother, but that was different. This situation—"

When Lennox had vouched for Carly's military background, he had been speaking the truth.

Her brother had served with the overseas division based in the Middle East, deployed right in the path of the alien assault. Like thousands of soldiers that day, he had been cut down under heavy Decepticon bombardment.

With their parents having passed away early in their lives, her brother had been her only family. She carried that loss deeply, keeping a framed photograph of them together on her bedside table to this day. In the portrait, a rugged young man in desert fatigues smiled beside her.

Carly was born and raised in this country. Working discreetly for an overseas diplomatic mission didn't change where she came from. It was no different from multinational firms hiring local talent to handle regional affairs, keeping things running smoothly on home turf.

At the end of the day, field work usually boiled down to a simple transaction: carrying out the assignment for the compensation provided.

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