Broken Allegiance | Transformers Prime [2] (On Hiatus)

𝟎𝟎𝟏𝟐

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Ember

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   My own face mirrored my concern, my mouth turned inward and down, and my eyebrows knit together as I tried to decipher what was going through his mind. He hadn't spoken yet, but the silence between us was heavy, like a storm about to break.

Kairo's elbows were propped against his knees, and his black hair fell forward, completely obscuring his expression, save for his lips, which were also turned downward. His whole demeanor radiated tension, and I couldn't help but feel a growing unease settle in the pit of my stomach.

   "There's something you should know,"  

I felt a chill run down my spine, and my powers inadvertently hum. His tone, the way his hair shielded his eyes, him leaning forward and his voice lowering an octave, it all screamed that whatever he was about to say was something that would change everything. 

He hesitated as if searching for the right words. "Do you remember how the detective said that the missiles Russia launched were intercepted?" 

The dread that had been creeping up on me now gripped me fully, tightening my chest. I knew exactly where this was going, and it made me want to shrink away from the truth that was about to come crashing down on me. But I didn't move, didn't flinch. I just waited, my heart pounding in my ears. 

"Well," he shifted his weight and his hair swayed along with it. "They were intercepted by Egyptian ones." 

There was a long, suffocating pause. I could feel my pulse quickening, the walls of the room seeming to close in as the weight of his words settled in. My mind was racing, replaying those awful moments from when I nearly destroyed the world, nearly destroyed the bots-

Finally, I forced the words out, my voice barely above a whisper. "I know," 

Kairo's head snapped up slightly, golden eyes widening. "How do you know?" His eyes locked onto mine, searching for answers. 

I took a deep breath, the words tumbling out of me, not in defense, but in a cold, matter-of-fact tone that could only come from someone who had been trained to expect the worst. "Because I am Russian," I said, my voice steady, yet tinged with a quiet resignation. "I know how the game is played. And I knew that someone would be waiting for us to make that move." 

   "The different kind of Russian," Kairo remarked, "the ones that are high above average." 

"It was over the radio while I drove down Jasper earlier last month. It was saying something about Egypt deflecting those missiles and how they released a gas in the upper atmosphere to rid the air of toxins and radioactive fumes," 

"Cadium and Boron-10," Kairo raked a hand over his hair. "And other meta and nanomaterials such as Photonic Crystals, which were designed to manipulate electromagnetic radiation, potentially scattering or absorbing harmful radiation in the environment, and Nanozeolites, which were used in the Egpytian missiles' filtration systems or dispersal systems to capture and contain radioactive particles." 

I blinked. It seemed Kairo knew a whole lot about this stuff. Then again, this was prime black ops we were talking about. "How are we already talking about Egypt futuristically developing technologies capable of neutralizing the impact of a nuclear bomb?" I asked. "I mean,  that's never happened before, not in the history of anyone who's ever detonated one of those before." 

    He sighed, leaning back slightly with a pensive expression. "It's not something they advertise, Ember. This isn't public knowledge, and it's not something even the most advanced nations have fully grasped. But Egypt's been working on this for a long time, quietly developing technologies that most of the world doesn't even know exist,"