Transformers Dark of the Moon (27 page)

She was at the party. She was at Dylan’s damned party.

Okay, well … fine. Let her be there. Let her be with the people she cared about. The people from work. She had made it abundantly clear that she had no patience for him anymore. Hell, the things she’d said to him …

Except …

They weren’t just his war stories anymore. It was everybody’s war now. The Decepticons were everywhere, and everyone was knee-deep in it.

“She needs me,” said Sam, and he was certain that he was right. Whatever she thought of him, the fact that he
did
have the benefit of knowledge meant that he had the best chance of keeping her safe during what was sure to be a time of paranoia and upheaval. She needed him by her side …

 … and he needed her. That was what it really came down to for him. He knew he needed her, and he knew she needed him, and the only problem was that
she
didn’t know it.

And the reason she doesn’t know it is because I just haven’t made it clear to her
.

And I have to. Right now
.

He snatched the piece of paper with the address on it from the mirror. “Fine. Let’s party.”

As Sam steered his crappy car up the circular driveway to Dylan’s opulent, Old World–style estate in Potomac, he could see that the party was winding down by the fact that very few cars were lining the drive. He pulled as close to the mansion as he could manage and forced the Datsun’s creaking door open. After he got out, he slammed the door shut behind him, hoping the force wouldn’t cause it to fall off the vehicle.

He fully expected servants or security guards of Dylan’s to intercept him and stop him from barging in. He was, after all, hardly dressed for it. His hair was disheveled, he needed a shave, and he probably still stank from the smoke from the battle at the Mall. It probably wouldn’t make any difference to them that he had been invited. It was doubtful they’d believe it, anyway. This was clearly a world into which he had no business intruding.

To his surprise, though, when he did encounter servants and guys who were obviously security guards, they just smiled and waved him on and even said, “Good evening, Mr. Witwicky.” “Glad you could make it, Mr. Witwicky.” “Can I get you a drink, Mr. Witwicky?” To which Sam replied, “Thanks,” “Thanks,” and “No thanks,” in quick succession without quite understanding why they were not only taking his arrival in stride but obviously recognized him. If he’d stopped to give it any real thought, it might well have set off alarm
bells in his head. But he was so preoccupied with Carly that he didn’t waste any extra brain cells on it, which, as subsequent events proved, turned out to be an unfortunate lapse on his part.

He had been right in his assumption, though: There were very few guests left, which made sense because of the late hour. Those who were there seemed to be in the process of leaving.

Carly was not one of the ones who had departed or were heading home.

He found her on a patio that was the size of a football field, laughing as if she had just heard the funniest joke in the world. And who was the one who had told that joke? Why, Dylan Gould, of course. Dylan Gould: businessman, Renaissance man, stand-up comedian. The complete freaking package—that was him.

At that moment he had his hand on Carly’s shoulder while pouring her a glass of wine. Carly looked so stunningly gorgeous in her blue cocktail dress that it made Sam want to sob.

Their backs were to him, and as he approached, he realized that he was the topic of conversation. That prompted him to slow down a bit so he could hear just what they had to say about his favorite subject, namely, his many shortcomings.

“It’s truly a man’s greatest challenge to strike that delicate balance between love and career,” Dylan said, oozing sympathy from every pore. “If I were him, I wouldn’t let you out of my sight.”

“Things are complicated for Sam right now,” Carly said.

That’s my girl. The master of understatement. Or mistress of understatement
.

Carly was still speaking. “Look, it’s late. I really should go.”

Okay, well, that’s good. At least she isn’t talking about staying over
.

“I bet it would help,” Dylan suggested, “if I was able to talk to him. Sometimes it just takes a mentor, a big brother, for a boy to be a man.”

Right, right. A big brother to help with the younger brother. That worked out great for Cain and Abel
.

Sam was now close enough—and annoyed enough—to make his presence known. “Yeah, funny,” he said, prompting the two of them to turn around in surprise. “I was just thinking,
‘I need some advice from that Dylan.’
”

If Dylan was put out by Sam’s arrival, he did a splendid job of hiding it. In fact, he was actually selling the whole notion that he was pleased to see him. “Sam!” he said, spreading his arms so wide that he looked like a cheerleader shouting,
Gimme a Y!
“Welcome! Just the guest I was hoping to see.”

Moving forward quickly, Sam took Carly firmly by the elbow and said, “I need to talk to my girlfriend about something important. That okay with you, Mr. Inappropriate?”

“I’m your girlfriend again?” She pulled her elbow away from him, although she didn’t seem to know whether to look peeved or grateful.

“I never stopped thinking of you that way, and we really need to discuss this somewhere else.”

“You get that I’m still upset with you, right?”

He hated seeing the amusement in Dylan’s eyes. He felt like he was providing entertainment for him. To make matters worse, Dylan was still trying to sound conciliatory. “I really think I could help you, Sam. I remember a talk Dad once had with me. About making hard choices—”

“Not a good time,” Sam said. “We’ll set something up.” Then, in a voice so low that only Carly could hear,
he said, “Please, you said you were leaving anyway. Leave with me. Don’t hang me out to dry with this guy. I’m begging you.”

The emotion was so raw that Carly’s expression softened to sympathy. “Fine. But we still have a lot to talk about.”

“And I swear we will. We’ll talk about it all.”

She walked alongside him, although she seemed slightly puzzled by the urgency with which he was moving. And Dylan, who apparently hadn’t tumbled to the notion that Sam didn’t want his damned advice, followed them. “ ’Course, that was way back when Dad’s firm was in charge of budget review for NASA.”

Carly had been moving quickly to keep up with Sam and so was completely thrown off stride when Sam abruptly came to a halt, nearly tripping before righting herself. She looked to Sam in confusion.

Sam felt a pounding starting in his temples.
Aw, you gotta be kidding me
.

“And the thing he taught me,” Dylan went on, “was this: When it’s not your war, you join the side that’s gonna win.”

They were standing at the front door, which was wide open. It gave Sam a clear view to the front yard.

Perched atop a branch in a tree, his red eyes gleaming, was Laserbeak. The Decepticon gave Sam a long, slow wink.

Sam hurriedly pushed Carly toward her Mercedes, which was parked nearer than the Datsun. Carly was aware that something had fundamentally changed—that Sam had gone from urgency to barely contained panic—but she didn’t yet understand what was going on. It wasn’t her fault. There was no way she could, and these weren’t exactly the best circumstances in which to explain it. “Get in the car,” he said hurriedly.

She jumped into the front seat, fumbling for her keys
in her bag. Sam jumped into the passenger seat, and she looked at him in confusion before casting a glance at the Datsun some yards away. “What about your car?”

“
I never liked it anyway! Just drive! Go!
”

Dylan was standing at the front entrance of his mansion, doing a superb job of looking wounded by Sam’s determination to get out fast. “Too sudden? Too strong? Is it me?” He sighed heavily. “It could have gone the easy way, but it’s always the hard way.”

He snapped his fingers.

Carly found her keys, but the car started up before she could get them in the ignition. She looked at the keys in confusion and then at Sam.

His heart sank.

Now how did I
not
see
that
coming?

“Get out of the car!” he shouted to Carly. “Get out before it’s—”

Too late.

The car began to shift, and that familiar clanking sound that Sam found so comforting coming from the Autobots filled him with fear when he heard it now. They had no time to get clear as the car grew and changed and, seconds later, Soundwave of the Decepticons was throwing his hapless passengers onto the driveway.

Carly, on her back, stared up at him, her eyes widening in horror, beginning to grasp the immensity of what she had been thrust into. Then Sam was yanking her to her feet.
“Come on! Come on!”

Deep down he knew it was hopeless, but he refused to give in to that realization. He charged down the driveway, hauling Carly behind him. She staggered and kicked off her high-heeled shoes, desperately trying to keep up with him.
“That’s … that’s …”
she managed to gasp out.

“Welcome to my world!”

With a steady clanking, Soundwave came right after them. He could have overtaken them with a couple of quick steps. Instead he paced them, in no hurry to catch up. Seemingly bored with the chase, though, he leaped, more than covering the distance and landing squarely in front of them in a feral crouch. Carly screamed and Sam screamed even higher, and he grabbed her by the hand and yanked her in the other direction.

They continued to run, and Dylan was just standing there, a short distance away, never having stepped away from the front of his mansion.

And suddenly Carly was no longer there. Soundwave was yanking her away and changing back into his Mercedes form. He shoved Carly into his interior, and when Sam tried to get to her, the Decepticon casually slapped him away just before he finished shifting into his alternative form.

Sam hit the ground, rolled, and came up. Then he saw a guest about to pull away in his car, an older man who was barely glancing at what was transpiring right there in front of him. Frantic, Sam ran toward him, flagging him down, yelling, “Hey, you! Help, please!” In truth, he wasn’t sure what sort of help the man could possibly provide in the face of Decepticons, but he didn’t know what else to do or say.

The older man never lost a bit of his equanimity. Instead he called to Dylan, in reference to Sam, “He’s young. He’ll learn.” He then waved, said, “Great party, as always,” and drove serenely away as if a battle with Decepticons outside a luxurious mansion were the most commonplace thing in the world.

Sam was stunned but tried to recover quickly. He turned back toward Soundwave and caught a glimpse of Carly within, pounding at the window, trying to get out, screaming wildly. Dylan stepped between them, blocking her from Sam’s view. “Think you’re so special, Sam?
So unique?” he said mockingly. “Really think you were the first man ever asked to ‘join the noble alien cause’?”

“Who
are
you?” At this point Sam was so overwhelmed by what he was seeing that if Dylan had suddenly broken down into component parts and changed into a giant robot himself, he wouldn’t have been the least bit surprised.

Dylan didn’t answer directly. Instead, his hands draped behind his back, he said, “You know why we haven’t returned to the moon since 1972? Because that’s the year these two”—he indicated Soundwave, who was still holding Carly captive, and Laserbeak, who seemed most amused by the whole thing—“came to my dad. Told him to do some creative accounting. Make it far too expensive to ever go back.” He tried to look as if he regretted the events he was recounting but didn’t quite succeed. “He and others shut the program down, and a lot of families got to live—and they’ve been our best client ever since.”

Sam pointed at him accusingly. “You’ve helped them kill people!”

Sounding indifferent to the accusation, Dylan replied, “You think they give you a choice?” This was clearly a man who, if he had ever felt any sort of moral outrage over the things he was doing or the position he was in, had long ago come to terms with it. “It’s not like I’m personally participating. I’m a liaison. I … liaise,” he said with a shrug. “Hostile takeover time, Sam. Alien mergers and acquisitions. Can’t coordinate ‘human operations’ without a human touch.”

Sam had heard everything he was going to listen to. He drew back his fist to hit Dylan. Gould remained unfazed, not the least bit concerned about physical threat. The reason for that immediately became clear as the bodyguards, moving so quickly that Sam didn’t even see them coming, knocked him to the ground, pinning him.
Sam struggled against them, but he had no chance at all. There were four of them to one of him, but that didn’t deter him from continuing to battle back. He even managed to sink his teeth into the arm of one of them, causing the guard to howl in pain and yank his hand away, giving Sam a bit more fighting room.

Carly had been shouting, screaming his name, but suddenly the sound and pitch of the scream changed from alarm to pure terror. Inside Soundwave, the steering wheel was steadily beginning to push toward Carly. At the same time, the seat was shoving her toward it. The ultimate result was inevitable: Carly’s upper body was, gradually but inevitably, going to be crushed.

Dylan rapped on Soundwave’s hood, and he admonished the Decepticon. “Easy … careful now … she takes such good care of her skin.” He turned back to Sam. “Man, talk about your compact cars. This baby just isn’t the right fit for a family of five. The upside is, you won’t have to go to the gym to get those flat abs you’ve been dreaming about.” He gave Sam a significant look.

Sam got the message. Instantly he stopped all resistance.

In response, Soundwave promptly halted the process that would have reduced Carly’s torso to a bloody pulp.

The guard whom Sam had bit was scowling fiercely, holding a handkerchief to where he was bleeding. Dylan strolled past him and paused long enough to feign concern. “You’ll probably want to put something on that.” Then he came within a couple feet of Sam and looked down at him, smiling. “Had my eye on you for years, Sam. See, the one spy I could never provide was someone close to the Autobots.”