One In A Billion | Transformers Prime [1]

𝟎𝟎𝟑𝟓

Vassily was on screen. Dimitriev Vassilovich freaking Orlov was on screen. 

His features, I could make out from childhood memory. He was donned in Soviet heraldry, with the golden Three-Headed Eagle on his Gymnastyorka—a double-breasted dress coat with a closed collar. He sported an army-green peaked cap with the Red Star of Communism embellished in the center, and his features back then—his hair used to be strawberry blonde. Now, it was greying with age. His eyes used to be lighter, sepia colored with a ring of silver around them but now they were molten cedar, darkly golden. 

There was no mistaking his existence. He was older now, and that got me thinking just how many years had passed since I'd last seen him. He first assigned me this operation when I was nine, I flew over to the U.S. on my tenth birthday...and now I'm sixteen. 

Seven years had gone by in time to outdo myself. But seeing Vassilyovich; my general, my—I bit my lip—father figure—every fiber in being willed my mind not to think about ways to undo the past seven years. 

Instead, I focused back on the man who was staring at Vassily. His hands were clasped behind his back and he looked like he was about to punch something. 

"We're about to put the plan into motion," the buff MECH agent continued. "Your sleeper agents have been instrumental in the preparations."

Vassily's eyes narrowed slightly. 

"They wouldn't be as effective without the enhancements and training provided by MECH," 

A brief pause lingered between them before Vassily switched to Russian, catching the agent off guard. "Про Праксину. Где она сейчас?" (About Praxina. Where is she now?)

My whole body went numb. The agent's entire demeanor stiffened at the mention of me, one of Vassily's best sleeper agents. "Praxina," he echoed in Russian, his tone guarded. "She's been operating as instructed." That made me level a glare at him. This man claims I'd been playing by his rules the entire time I'd been gone? Who does this man think he is?

Vassily's eyes bore into the MECH agent's, a silent demand for more information. "Семь лет, Silas. Семь лет, она должна была уничтожить Автоботов." (Seven years, Silas. Seven years, she was supposed to destroy the Autobots.)

I felt a chill run down my spine. It wasn't from Vassily mentioning that I had evidently been wasting precious time plotting to kill nine Autobots. It was from Vassily mentioning the reason I had come here in the first place.

Silas. 

I studied Silas's features again, laser-focused on the details. This man had a clean aftershave, a thin layer of grey hair that was portrayed in a way that was thought to have been clean cut or downright buzzed off, his eyes spoke volumes, and those scars. 

In my mind's eye, I was trying to picture where I had last seen him. Out on the front yard, across the street, maybe back home? From what point in my life from back home? I had to count backwards from nine and stop at three, since that was the age I could barely comprehend things. After a bit of mental searching, I gave up. Nothing in my databanks registered the name Silas from my childhood. I tried to remember where I had last seen a man with two jagged scars running the length of his face and nose, but I was hit with the same misinterpretation—nothing. The guy, just like online, was a ghost. His files; records, everything about him were wiped clean. But that was only if I looked in the wrong direction. 

I needed to turn a hundred and eighty degrees in the proper direction. And that was in those classified files Raf told me about that obtained everything I needed to know—the truth about MECH. But considering our argument from earlier, those files were within Agent Fowler's reach and no one could access them but him.