Paddles

Paddles

Jean Rabe

He could sense the sand shifting above him. He couldn’t feel it, at least not in the way the creatures of this world could register smooth and coarse sensations and pressure against their skin. But he could tell that the sand was moving… slowly and deliberately, not blown by the gusting wind as it usually was in this remote place. He could hear exceptionally well and there was not even a whistle of a breeze to speak of.

And so the sand was being brushed away by something, and this piqued his interest. He listened closely, trying to pick through the shushing sound the grains made as they rubbed against each other, trying to discover precisely what was unearthing him.

He’d been under the sand for… how long? He’d noted the passing of twenty-seven years before he stopped counting. No reason to continue, he’d decided early into the twenty-eighth year. Counting was not an easy thing to do, quite taxing to his limited brain. Besides, helplessly trapped under the sand, time didn’t matter.

He ceased to matter.

Sometime in the first year of his counting he’d wondered if he was dead and if his Spark had joined the Matrix — that perhaps he only imagined he was counting the passage of time. A dream of endless numbing numbers. But in the second year of his counting he’d become confident that the Matrix would not feel like being buried in the sand. The Matrix likely would be free of sand and earth and perhaps anything that one would stand on.

The Matrix would be something glorious. Wouldn’t it?

In the Matrix he would have contact with others of his kind who went before him. Perhaps Grimlock and Snarl… if they had also died in these more than twenty-seven years. But he’d had contact with no one — and he was certain he should have. Too, he was certain he would be able to see in the Matrix. The only thing his visual receptors discerned here was an unending sheet of black. The sand atop him blotted out all light.

So this was not death and not the Matrix, he’d decided well into his third year of counting. It was worse — it was life in a hopeless state of being buried beneath a mound of accursed sand.

It was a life of listening to the grains stir and the wind blow and sometimes a jet passing high overhead, all of it tedious and now terribly, terribly uninteresting and maddening. And the deeper the sand piled over him, the less he deigned to pay attention to it, and the more he prayed for some sort of release. And so he’d slept after he stopped counting time. It wasn’t the sleep creatures of this world enjoyed. There were no dreams and recuperation. It was more a cessation of awareness. Only occasionally did he wake himself and bother to pay attention, and this was when something out of the monotonous ordinary roused him. Those occasions had become increasingly rare and altogether fleeting as the years passed. And there had been nothing to prickle at his awareness in… how long he couldn’t say, though it felt like quite some time.

But today… his curiosity was being firmly nudged. The sand continued to be moved by something other than the wind.

It wasn’t an animal digging… he’d noted that sound late in the sixth year of his counting, and again in the eleventh and the twelfth. He’d noticed no animals investigating this area since then. This was rhythmic and persistent and almost careful. And this digging had been going on for… according to his internal clock that still functioned… more than three hours now. An animal lacked patience and would have given up and moved on. Whatever force was above him continued to push away the sand and seemed to have plenty of patience and time.

Time. How much time had passed since he’d stopped counting? More than twenty-seven years, he knew. Maybe twenty-eight years. Twenty-nine. Maybe one day more than that. Maybe one hundred.

He continued to listen, picking out a buzzing amid the shushing of the sand. Insects? He waited. Not insects. At length he decided that the buzzing was a string of words. He remembered words — and voices. His commander’s, his fellows’, his enemies’. Optimus Prime’s.

Was it any of them talking?

No, he decided sadly after a few minutes more. The loudest, clearest voice he picked out certainly was not Optimus Prime’s. And it was not those of any of his former comrades — Slag, Grimlock, and Snarl. The voices of his fellow Dinobots were all different than what he was hearing now. Those voices were metallic and loud, Grimlock’s especially booming and annoying and filled with himself: “Grimlock fly now! Grimlock smash Decepticons! Grimlock transform! Dinobots follow Grimlock!” Grimlock. Grimlock. Grimlock.

Oh, how he missed Grimlock’s irritating, thunderous, egotistical voice!

These voices were softer and rushed and nearly perfect. He continued to focus on them, and within several minutes he had mastered the nuances of the strangers’ speech. They were talking about him.

What passed for his heart leapt in joy.

“Randall, the imaging recorder says there’s something big buried a few more meters down. Really big.” The voice was clear and deep, almost musical. “Didn’t really expect to find anything way out here… except coconut fossils… if there are such things. I figured they sent us here to dig because our grades are sinking. Sent the ‘A’ students to China where there are plenty of things to find.”

“Good restaurants, the Great Wall to visit. Places to buy souvenirs. Temples.” This voice was pitched only slightly lower and was punctuated with a ‘tsk-tsk.’ “Yeah, I’d’ve really liked to see the Wall.”

“Sent the ‘C’ students here to this desert island to look for coconut fossils. My parents won’t be pleased their tuition money is paying for this… this… desert vacation.”

“Desert schmesert.” There was another tsk-tsking, then: “Desert island… now that makes me think of palm trees and pretty girls wearing flowers and not much else. A bottle of Toohey’s in a bucket of ice. Ed, my friend, this isn’t a desert island. It’s a hot, empty sandbox floating in the sea.” There was a pause as more sand was brushed away. “And you know I’m not usually a ‘C’ student. Just having a little trouble this semester.”

The voice called Ed laughed, and the buried Dinobot found himself enjoying the sound. Each word was a piece of priceless treasure to one that had been buried beneath the sand for more than twenty-seven years. Each word was superb.

Please, Ed, talk more!

There were other voices, but these were farther away and the conversations not so nearly as interesting, nor the pitches as pleasing. And the words were not about him.

The Dinobot wondered what Ed looked like, and more to the point what Ed was. Not another Dinobot… those were powerful, sentient robots, and they would have easily unearthed him by now. Not an Autobot… for the same reasons. Plus, he hadn’t heard the sounds of jets or wheels that usually announced the presence of an Autobot.

So Ed must be a man! The Dinobot allowed a hint of excitement to race through his brain. He’d been told about men, and he’d seen them from a distance — while he was flying behind Grimlock. And he’d heard tales of a youth called Spike, someone Grimlock and Slag counted as a friend. But he’d never seen Spike, and he’d never been up close to a man.

Dig faster, he urged. Please, please, please dig a little faster.

“Ed, does that imaging scope tell you what this ‘really big thing’ is?”

There was more of the wonderful laugh. “It’s a little scope, and cheap, Randall. Borrowed it from an archeology grad assistant before we left. Shelly Marie Willicott, you know her?”

“Yeah, I’ve seen her around. Okay looking. Nice smile. You sweet on her?”

Ed didn’t answer. “This scope is something of an antique, I ‘spose. You’ve got to whang it on the side to get it to work. So, no, Randall, it doesn’t tell me what this ‘really big thing’ is. Just that there is something really big down there.”

“You are sweet on her, aren’t you?”

Ed fiddled with a box the size of a large radio. There were several dials on it, and a cone-shaped device attached to a thick wire. He dangled the cone into the depression they’d been creating with their various sweeping tools. He muttered a string of curse words and ‘whanged’ the box on the side. It crackled and a dull green screen came to life, showing…

“See? It’s something really big.”

“Could be a rock. Bet it’s a rock. All this digging for a hunk of granite.”

For several minutes the voices stopped, and the only sound was the sand being brushed away and the crackle from the imaging recorder.

“It can’t be a rock, see? It’s an odd-shaped thing, with something like a curved tube coming away from it. It doesn’t look like… oh, I don’t know, Randall. It just doesn’t look like a rock. And, I don’t think this machine would pick out a rock anyway. I don’t think that…”

“All right, Ed, it’s not a rock. So let’s keep digging and find out just what it is. Maybe it’ll push us up to a ‘B’ before the term ends.”

“Careful, though. Uncover it just like the textbooks say.”

There was a chortle. “Careful? That would be for the ‘A’ students in China, wouldn’t it, Ed? You got me curious what’s down there. Let’s dig a little faster, and with luck we’ll get enough credit so we can skip the final.”

A few hundred yards behind the archeology students sprawled a base camp, a collection of canvas tents, satchels of equipment, and various-sized crates — the latter of which were open and ready to house whatever artifacts Ed, Randall, and the others dug up. Two more students worked just beyond the tents to the east. The rest were over a dune about a mile north. There were a dozen in all, currently supervised by a graduate student Randall slyly called Dim Tim, as the professor was currently with a second team of students on the far north end of the island.

Ed fiddled with the scope again. “Doctor Boxer’s going to be surprised we found something so big.”

Randall shook his head. “Yeah, the Prof.’s gonna be all over himself that we’ve found a prehistoric egg-shaped rock.”

“Just dig, Ran.”

The Dinobot would help them if he could, but his servos were too badly damaged. It was why he was under the sand instead of on top of it. The gears in his legs were slagged, taken out by a pulse canon burst from a Decepticon more than twenty-seven years ago. He didn’t have enough energy to repair even one servo, let alone an entire leg.

And so he couldn’t budge an inch.

It had been, he guessed, quite some days more than twenty-seven years since he’d been able to move. Quite some days more than twenty-seven years that he could walk, and when the mood struck him, or when Grimlock told him to, turn on his jets and fly.

That he was able to listen to the beings called Ed and Randall, and that he was able to think, was only because his brain hadn’t been damaged. It was the one thing intact. A blessing and a curse. His mind alive, he couldn’t reach the Matrix. His body dead, he couldn’t move.

If only he’d fared better in the last fight. It was he and Snarl against a trio of the enemy robots called Decepticons. They were all on the southernmost point of what Optimus Prime had dubbed Dinobot Island, a mysterious place that had been hidden by a power field and that was dotted with volcanoes and tar pits… an energy paradise. The Decepticons wanted to plunder the island, taking all the energy so they could turn it into energon cubes, not caring if they ruined the land and slew the real dinosaurs that lived there. But he and Snarl were protecting the island and the prehistoric reptiles, and they’d brought the fight to the southernmost point, where there was nothing but a big sandy beach and nothing of any real significance the Decepticons could destroy during the ruckus.

It had been a long and magnificent battle! He had replayed it in his mind hundreds of times during the past twenty-seven or so years. Two Decepticons sent limping away to hide in the sea, one remaining, he and Snarl closing in on it. He’d fared well, right up until the end when a lucky burst of fiery breath and a laser beam from the remaining foe cut into his armored hide. Then the pulse-canon burst found its way inside and slagged everything. As he was falling, he saw Snarl move in and finish the Decepticon.

Then the wind picked up and the sand started to cover him, and unable to raise his head for a better look, he could no longer spot his Dinobot brother. He expected Snarl to rescue him. Figured his brother would share a little energy, just enough so he could repair the servos and get his legs moving, or a little more so he could transform and kick in the jets to fly out of here.

He tried to call out to Snarl, but there was something wrong with the hinges in his jaw, no doubt locked because so much energy had leeched from his massive body. But he could still hear, and he heard Snarl trundling away, transforming and then flying. Perhaps he was going after the two Decepticons that had escaped. That was it! Snarl was going to challenge the two who fled, then was going to return.

Or if not return, at least not right away, Snarl was going to tell Grimlock. Then Grimlock, Snarl, and Slag would find him and share some energy so he could repair his servos.

But his brother Dinobots never came. Not in the more than twenty-seven years he’d been buried in the sand.

“Randall, look at this! I told you it wasn’t a rock. It’s just what we were looking for…. a friggin’ dinosaur. A big-as-you-please friggin’ dinosaur. What the rest of the class is digging for in China, and what they probably never thought we’d find here. A dinosaur!”

“Ed…”

“A big-as-you-please dinosaur.”

“Ed…”

“Big and gray…”

“Ed…”

“And red and yellow.”

Moments passed, and the faint breeze that picked up blew the sand and dried the sweat on the faces of Randall and Ed.

“Dinosaurs weren’t red and yellow, Ed.”

They continued brushing the sand away, piling it up around the edges of what had become a sizeable hole. It took the rest of the day, and the two days following that to completely unearth their find. Ed remarked that it should have taken them longer — had they followed the proper techniques in the texts, and had the professor, Doctor Boxer, not been at the north end of the island with the second team. And had Dim Tim been paying attention. Then they would have done everything by the proverbial book. But the professor was at the north end of the island, and so Randall had done things clumsily and quickly. And he let Ed know that their fellows in this very team were working a site just on the other side of the tents with the same rapidity and carelessness — in an effort to uncover their find first.

So it had turned into a contest, with some of the other students visiting to check on Ed and Randall’s progress.

“And we won,” Randall pronounced on the third day of digging. “If you can call that winning.” He spat in the hole.

What they’d thoroughly uncovered looked for the most part like an elasmosaurus — as those aquatic-based dinosaurs had been portrayed in various textbooks and in computer studies. It had an ovoid body that stretched roughly fifteen feet, and sported a tapering neck that was at least that long. It had fins instead of feet. The fins were red, the tail red at the tip. A ridge above its eyes on its heart-shaped head was yellow, and a navy-blue tooth stuck out from a lip frozen in a curl. A thin bony-looking ridge that ran down its back was alternating stripes of red and vellow.

“That’s an elasmo…” Ed scratched his head and searched for the word. “An elasmosaurus.”

“Sort of,” Randall said.

“Yes, an elasmosaurus.” Ed’s voice grew more confident. “I remember reading about them. They were aggressive and strong and fast. They could turn quickly. And when they were in the water, with their body submerged and their head and tail floating, they looked like a snake. Something would come to investigate, thinking there was an easy meal in the lagoon, and… bam! Old elasmo would strike.”

Randall made a sound like he was clearing his throat. “So the books say, Ed. No one ever saw a real dinosaur. You know that. It’s all just guesswork. Educated, but guesswork.”

There was a rent in the elasmosaurus’s leg, jagged and mean-looking, and a few thin wires stuck out that Randall smugly pointed to.

“Not a real dinosaur, huh, Ran?”

“If it was real, Ed, it only would be bones. Fossils. This is…”

“More than bones. It’s an entire dinosaur.”

“Yeah, one with red and yellow on it. A blue tooth. And look at the wires.” Randall made a snorting noise and waved his hand as if he was swatting a fly. “It’s metal. Ed.” Then he grabbed the imaging scope and tossed it in the hole. The contraption clanked loudly against the metal hide of the Dinobot’s leg and made a sputtering sound.

“Geeze, Randall. I told you I borrowed that scope from a grad student. Sheila Marie. If you broke it, I’ll…”

“Have to buy her another one? You shouldn’t have any trouble affording one a lot better than that. All you have to do is sell that thing for scrap metal.” A pause, then: “If you can find a way to get it off this sandbox.”

Ed stared down into the hole. “All right. All right. All right. It’s not a real dinosaur. I can see that. But it sure looks like one. Something maybe an artist did, welded it all together.”

Another snort. “Yeah, and put it on this island in the middle of the sea. Like that makes any sense. Something from an amusement park is more like it. Dropped off here with a boatload of trash. Sorta fits. Harcourt and his partner found a big jukebox.”

The two alternately stared into the hole at the Dinobot, and then at each other.

The Dinobot looked at them through a sand-dusted eye. Ed was the tall one, several inches over six feet, lean and always shifting back and forth on the balls of his big feet. He had arms that seemed overly long, and strong-looking hands that were covered with sweat and sand. His face was careworn and haggard looking, a thoroughly exasperated expression on it.

Randall was shorter and stocky, muscles upon muscles and a curly shock of black hair streaked white from the sand and sea salt. His eyes were small and steady and hinted at intelligence and skepticism.

Men, up close!

The Dinobot considered them beautiful.

“Makes no sense, does it Randall? This metal dinosaur buried in the sand?”

Randall looked at his tall friend, then back at the metal dinosaur. After a few moments of silence, he turned away and walked toward the collection of tents.

“Randall…”

Randall stopped and let out a great sigh. His big shoulders sagged. “No, Ed. It doesn’t make any sense,” he said as he glanced back. “Maybe Doc Boxer had someone put that thing there for us to find. A joke on the ‘C’ students. Maybe he thought we weren’t good enough to dig up the real thing. At least it’s a little more interesting than the oversized jukebox Rich and Harcourt are still working on. I’m going to get Harcourt so he can come take a look at our iron elasmo. And when Doc Boxer comes by tomorrow or the day after… when he’s done with team two… I’m going to ask him if this is all a joke.”

“And if it is?” Ed asked almost too softly for his friend to hear.

“Tm going to change my major to political science or English.”

The sun was setting before beautiful Randall and Ed shuffled away to join the rest of the students for dinner. All of them had ogled the Dinobot, and all had made comments about him being an amusement park attraction.

They didn’t know he was from another time and another world, a Dinobot brimming with power and ready to battle the forces of evil… battle them if he could just get the energy to repair himself.

And that was something he intended to do before this “Doctor Boxer” returned from the north end of the island and ordered him dismantled and crated up — something a student named Harcourt suggested and that the rest agreed upon. Even beautiful Randall and Ed.

His sensors told him something was cooking out of his range of sight. He couldn’t smell what it was, as his nasal receptors were clogged with sand. But whatever was being served was occupying all the students, even Dim Tim. No one watching, the Dinobot concentrated on the scope that lay atop his injured leg. There was energy in it, a crude solar chip array backed up by common batteries. Not much, but perhaps enough. He coaxed its waves to spill inside the rent in his leg, to flood the exposed wires and the cells beneath, then to pulse up toward the generator that was buried deep in his chest.

All he needed was a flash, a spark that would make the generator…

Yes! The Dinobot’s mind screamed in exultation. He felt the generator purr ever-so-slightly. The scope hadn’t provided much energy, and it wasn’t the type of energy he’d fed on before. But it had been just enough. The purring grew slightly louder and the Dinobot concentrated on first one damaged servo then another, the generator repairing itself in the process.

After several minutes, the Dinobot lifted its serpentine neck, its head barely reaching above the mound of sand that rimmed the hole. There were beautiful Randall and Ed, the latter laughing wonderfully at someone’s joke. A dozen men he counted. All so close! Wait until he told Snarl about this!

Wait until he found Snarl and Grimlock!

The men weren’t looking this way, and though a great part of him wanted to join them and study them up close, the cautious part kept him back. He didn’t know if the men would be afraid of him, or if they’d ever seen a Dinobot in action. He didn’t want to panic them — after all, they’d freed him from a sandy prison of more than twenty-seven years. And after more than twenty seven years, he could wait a little bit longer to join his brothers.

The stars began winking into view by the time the Dinobot had made as many repairs as he could. He needed more energy, a lot of it, to fully heal himself. The rent in his leg would take help — maybe Bumblebee if he could be found. He wasn’t a Dinobot, but he was a friend, and handy with repairing things. Bumblebee had been to Dinobot Island before.

He tried to be quiet, struggling to stand in the depression. It had been so long since he’d stood! More than twenty-seven years. The weight on his flippered feet was good, and he bent his knees and swiveled his head this way and that before climbing out. It was awkward, moving on the sand.

And there was so much sand!

When he’d battled the Decepticons at Snarl’s side, there’d been some sand, as they were on a beach. But now there was sand as far as his visual receptors could see. Where had all the sand come from? Where was the jungle?

To the north, he thought. There would be jungle and volcanoes, real dinosaurs and tar pits to the north. And there would be Grimlock and Snarl, other Dinobots. What passed for his heart swelled in happiness and anticipation. It would be good to see his friends.

Had they missed Paddles? Would they celebrate his return?

Paddles. It wasn’t an especially proud or powerful name, but it was what Grimlock dubbed him shortly after they’d all arrived on Dinobot Island. He was trying to navigate around the base of a volcano, having trouble on his flippered feet. That was the day Grimlock named him Paddies. He preferred using his dinosaur form only in the water, where the flippers worked to his advantage. He’d been jealous of Grimlock’s tyrannosaurus rex form… until he realized just how well he moved around in the water.

It would be good to hear Grimlock order him around again. “Grimlock want Paddles to patrol the shore!” “Grimlock want Paddles to transform!”

Paddles wanted to transform, too. Right now. It would be easier to walk on two manlike legs than on these four flippered ones. But he couldn’t transform without more energy to make the remaining repairs. And so he toiled to crest the sandy ridge that rimmed the hole, and then to waddle past the students’ camp and to the north.

He was certain they hadn’t heard him. Several were snoring, the sound a bit discomfiting and oh-so-foreign. If Paddles hadn’t studied humans, he would have thought the sound signaled their death-throes. Wait until he told Grimlock about the snoring… and about Ed’s wonderful laughter!

Paddles didn’t see Ed emerge from his tent, stretch and look to the north — wide-eyed to see what the students had thought a metal sculpture or amusement park attraction trundling away. And he didn’t hear Ed wake Randall, and the two of them rush to the pit to discover the drained imaging scope.

Paddles was too absorbed with the notion of finding his brothers and getting entirely healed, and of covering up that ugly tear in his leg that had allowed sand to slip inside and fill up the cavity around the servos and wires. He was sick of this sand… and he was seeing no end to it.

What had happened to all the trees? He remembered their leaves and branches being so thick they could block out he sky. But he had an unobstructed view of the stars and the still-darkening sky. Where in the name of Optimus Prime were the trees?

“Where?” His voice sounded scratchy, muted by the sand that was lodged in his throat. Bumblebee would help with that problem, too. “Where are the trees?”

And the volcanoes. He should see them rising in the distance. Instead, there were only mounds of sand. How could the island have changed this much in more than twenty-seven years? Unless a lot more than twenty-seven years had passed.

Had the Decepticons plundered all the energy, and the land dried up?

Or had so many, many years passed that time had naturally done this?

“Where?” He shouted the word, a boom of scratchy sound that stretched to the dune ahead. Too late he realized that his voice might wake up the students and send them searching. “Where?” This word much softer.

But a moment later there was another boom, then another even louder. It was a thrumming boom that became as steady as an energy pump.

THROOM, it sounded. THROOM. THROOM. THROOM. THROOOOOOOM!

Paddles swiveled his neck so he could see behind him. The sound was coming from the students’ camp, and before he could make out the details, the throoming was followed by shouts and screams.

“By the will of Optimus Prime!” Paddles croaked.

Looming above the tents, purple and black and cut by orange and silver stripes was a Decepticon. It was the one he and Snarl fought, the one who slagged Paddles’ servos… slagged everything and caused him to lie beneath the sand for quite a bit more than twenty-seven years.

“Raze!” Paddles shouted. It was the name of his foe. And it was just what the Decepticon was doing — razing the tents of the archeology students. Where had Raze come from? Why was he standing? From a prone position more than twenty-seven years ago Paddles watched Snarl finish Raze. How could the Decepticon have repaired itself? “How by the will of Optimus Prime? Not possible. Not possible!”

But it was possible, Paddles realized. Just as he had repaired himself by leeching energy from the scope, Raze had somehow repaired himself. Paddles remembered Ed and Randall talking about another find their fellows were unearthing. Something that looked like something called a jukebox. It was Raze, buried in the sand like Paddles! Was Snarl buried somewhere too?

And just how had Raze repaired himself? Was it possible a student left equipment nearby… with enough energy for Raze to steal? Was it possible Ed and Randall had discovered Paddles missing, saw the drained scope and thought to power up the jukebox? Had the students raised Paddles’ old foe?

The Dinobot had no way of knowing that Ed had done just that out of curiosity. All he knew was that the Decepticon looked in better shape than he did.

Raze had a manlike form, in that he had a barrel chest and thick legs. His head was boxy and for the most part uninteresting, but his eyes alternately flashed red and purple and highlighted the silver cables that ran from his cheeks and into the base of his segmented neck. His arms were heavy metal cylinders that he pounded against the ground to set off tremors. Left. Right. Left. Right. THROOM. THROOM. THROOM. THROOOOOOM!

Great cracks formed in the earth, the sand spilling into them, the tents and the students following.

“No!” Paddles shouted, sand bursting from his mouth. “Stop! Fight me, Raze! Leave them alone!”

In the starlight Paddles could see Raze’s face clearly. There was a smile dancing along those twisted metal lips.

THROOM. THROOM. THROOM.

Beautiful Ed and Randall slipped into a growing crevice.

“No!”

“Fight me, Dino-clutz!”

Paddles made a move toward what was left of the camp, then spun on his flippered feet and headed north again. He wasn’t running away — he would never, ever run away. But he was trying to lure the hated Deceptcion away from the archeology students. There were a few left on top of the sand, and maybe they could rescue beautiful Randall and Ed.

“Run away? Fight me, Dino-clutz! Fight me, you oversized robotic iguana!”

The ruse worked. Raze was following Paddles, throoming as he went. The Dinobot had trouble standing, the earth was trembling so.

What happened? Paddles wanted to ask Raze. Do you know where all the sand came from? Where is Snarl? Just how many years more than twenty-seven has passed? Did you count the years while you laid beneath the sand?

Instead, the Dinobot put all of his efforts into speeding up. If only he had the energy to transform. His manlike legs would carry him faster, or the jets on his back would take him above all of this, and then he’d… what? He’d swoop down on the Decepticon and finish the battle that was started more than twenty-seven years ago.

He reached the nearest dune and turned around to face Raze. The Decepticon filled his vision. He couldn’t see the students’ camp, and had no way of knowing how many had survived or if beautiful Ed and Randall had been pulled from the crevice.

“Please let them be safe.”

“Safe, Dinobot? Nothing is safe from Raze!” He throomed his cylinder-arms against the ground, opening another crevice and nearly toppling Paddles into it.

The Dinobot retaliated, pulling the energy from his servos and locking his legs in place in the process. He opened his mouth and more sand shot out — followed by a great gout of searing energy. The bolt struck Raze in the chest, sparks showering away and looking like a cloud of angry fireflies. The Decepticon staggered back, catching himself on his cylinder arms and barely managing to right himself.

Paddles breathed a second gout of energy, then a third, the first striking Raze in the abdomen, the next melting part of his ugly face. Paddles tried to breathe again, but the energy was gone. He’d asked too much of his body and the scant energy that had been powering it.

“Die, Dinobot!” Raze hollered. He drove both arms against the earth, widening the crevice. At the same time, the vibrations brought down the dune behind Paddles. “Die… now!”

The ground quaked and bucked and the Decepticon and Paddles toppled into the crevice. Like the maw of some great prehistoric beast, the crevice widened again then folded in on itself, the sand covering the seam and the earth swallowing the robots.

He could sense the sand shifting above him. He couldn’t feel it, at least not in the way the creatures of this world could register smooth and coarse sensations and pressure against their skin. But he could tell that the sand was moving… slowly and deliberately, not blown by the gusting wind as it usually was in this desolate place. He could hear exceptionally well, and there was not even a whistle of a breeze to speak of.

And so the sand was being brushed away by something, and this piqued his interest. He listened closely, trying to pick through the shushing sound the grains made as they rubbed against each other, trying to discover precisely what was unearthing him.

He’d been under the sand for… how long? He’d noted the passing of thirty-nine years before he stopped counting. No reason to continue, he’d decided early into the fortieth year. Counting was not an easy thing to do, quite taxing to his limited brain. Besides, helplessly trapped under the sand, time didn’t matter. He ceased to matter.

It wasn’t an animal digging. And it wasn’t Raze trying to dig himself out — Paddles had determined into the second year of counting that the Decepticon was truly dead. It was a man digging. Like Ed and Randall had dug more than thirty nine years ago.

Paddles patiently waited to be unearthed again.