[ DATA CHIP DETECTED... ]
[ INITIATING UPLOAD... ]
[ UPLOAD COMPLETE. ]
Where is that sound coming from?
Consciousness flickered in the void. Nathan tried to open his eyes, but the command terminated in silence. His eyelids felt nonexistent.
It was the sensation of a lucid dream—the mind churning sluggishly while the senses remained drowned in a heavy, suffocating darkness.
Wasn't I watching a movie?
Did I pass out?
His final memory was a chaotic blur: a desk cluttered with fried chicken and cola, the glowing monitor playing Transformers, and then… static. The image had dissolved into vertigo.
Classic. Worked overtime for a month straight only to crash five minutes into my day off.
Nathan dismissed it as exhaustion. He mentally sighed, attempting to jolt his limbs awake.
Nothing happened.
Panic, cold and sharp, began to seep in. No matter how hard he pushed his will against the darkness, he could not feel his hands. He couldn't feel his chest rise or fall. The body he knew was gone.
No way. I'm too young to end up as a karoshi statistic on the evening news.
"Lord Starscream, you have arrived!"
A sudden voice sliced through the void, arresting Nathan's spiraling thoughts.
He suppressed his terror, focusing his audio receptors—ears?—on the source. The voice was close. It chattered with a bizarre, clicking cadence, the syntax twisted and alien.
Nathan was certain of one thing: this was not a human language.
Yet, the meaning decoded instantly in his mind. He didn't just understand the words; he felt the sickening layer of sycophancy and terror dripping from them.
Starscream?
Nathan's mental processes stalled. That's the character from the movie I was watching. Is this a hallucination? Daydreaming about the plot because I fell asleep watching it?
Before he could process the absurdity, a second voice cut in—shrill, arrogant, and dripping with disdain.
"Enough, you wretched tentacle-bot. Get out of my way. Where is Scalpel?"
"Lord Starscream, the Master is inside."
Scalpel?
Nathan's thoughts raced. The Decepticon Chief Medical Officer? The Doctor from the movies?
He knew the lore. He had watched Transformers until the lines were burned into his memory. Autobots, Decepticons—he knew the players, the politics, the endless war.
Clank. Clank. Clank.
Heavy, rhythmic impacts vibrated through the floor—metallic footsteps drawing closer. The dialogue sharpened, the audio resolution clearing.
"Scalpel. You know why I am here." The shrill voice dropped an octave, menacingly low. "I have waited long enough. Tell me my requirements have been met."
"Ze-ze-ze~ Rest assured, Starscream."
The response was a manic, high-pitched rasp.
"The Information Chips you requested? I have formatted them into the cerebral modules of this entire batch. Every single drone."
"Wait until they possess a Spark—or an energy unit. The moment they activate, they will be the most loyal soldiers you have ever commanded!"
"Excellent, Scalpel. You haven't disappointed me."
"Look at this. I modified it using Cybertronian storage tech. A concentrated Energy Core. It should serve as a sufficient substitute for a natural Spark."
"Understood, Starscream. Leave the rest to me."
The conversation ceased. Seconds later, the air filled with the clamor of metal striking metal—drills whirring, saws grinding. The noise grew louder, closer.
In the darkness, Nathan felt a looming presence. A pressure against his hull.
Cerebral modules? Energy Cores? What is this insanity?
The term 'Information Chip' sounds familiar... but something feels wrong. My perspective... it's shifting.
[ WARNING! ]
[ CRITICAL SURGE DETECTED! ]
A piercing alarm shrieked inside his skull.
Gah—!
Nathan's consciousness convulsed. It felt like a spike being driven directly into his brainstem.
The pain vanished as quickly as it arrived, replaced instantly by a sterile, emotionless mechanical synthesis voice:
[ ENERGY CORE INSTALLED. ]
[ SYSTEM INITIALIZING... ]
[ ENERGY CORE ONLINE. ]
What the hell is this?
Nathan was bewildered, his irritation spiking. If this is a dream, let me wake up! One thing after another—is there no off switch?
As if mocking his internal plea, the cascade of system prompts accelerated, scrolling across his internal vision:
[ CONSTRUCTING ENERGON CONDUITS... COMPLETE. ]
[ OPENING NEURAL PATHWAYS... COMPLETE. ]
[ ENERGON FLOW: STABLE. SYSTEM ACTIVATION IMMINENT. ]
[ CEREBRAL MODULE: ONLINE. ]
[ WEAPONS SYSTEMS: ONLINE. ]
[ T-COG: ONLINE. ]
[ SERVOMOTOR LINKAGE: SYNCHRONIZED. ]
With the final chime, the world slammed into focus.
It was not the groggy awakening of a human. It was a sudden, violent clarity. Sensory data flooded in—not the warmth of skin or the smell of air, but the cold hum of hydraulics, the heavy tensile strength of alloy, and the thrum of a reactor spinning up in his chest.
The dream-like haze evaporated. This was real.
This metallic weight... this cold power... my body...
Nathan, fully lucid, realized he was no longer flesh and blood.
Before he could inspect his new form, the HUD flashed again.
[ UNIT ID: T-22 ACTIVATED. ]
[ EXECUTING LOYALTY PROTOCOL... READING DATA CHIP. ]
Something forced its way into his mind.
It was invasive—a hard-line download of alien data jamming directly into his memory banks. It wasn't human knowledge. It was a stream of jagged, complex Cybertronian glyphs and tactical algorithms.
The file size was small, barely a blip compared to the twenty-odd years of human memories Nathan retained. It failed to overwrite his personality.
But the metadata told him everything he needed to know.
He had transmigrated.
He was in the Transformers universe.
The data scraped from the chip contained basic faction identification—Autobot, Decepticon—and one overriding, hard-coded imperative: Loyalty to Starscream.
I stayed up late to watch a movie and wound up inside it? And not just inside it—I'm a Decepticon grunt.
Unit T-22. A mass-produced soldier for the Decepticon cause.
In his past life, Nathan was a cog in a corporate machine. He worked, he slept, he consumed media. He had no family, no debts, no anchors.
I just wanted to rewatch a classic, he thought, the irony bitter in his processors. Instead, I get to live the reboot.
Fine. I'm here.
Being a wage slave was slow death. Being a Decepticon? At least the sky is the limit.
He adjusted his mental parameters with frightening speed. Denial was inefficient. He had read enough novels to know that panic led to death.
How I got here is irrelevant. Survival is the only metric that matters now.
And honestly... this world is far more interesting.
He had no desire to be human in this universe. In a war between titan machines, humans were insects. Ants beneath the feet of elephants. To be human here was to pray you didn't get stepped on or crushed by falling masonry.
Being a Decepticon had its perks. He was durable. He was armed.
But a warning subroutine flagged in his logic center.
Decepticons are the villains. And in the movies, villains die.
He didn't know if this reality followed the movie script exactly—if the Autobots had plot armor or if destiny was fluid. He wouldn't bet his life on it.
I need to be careful. I am currently a "Mid-Tier" warrior. Better than a drone, but mass-produced. And artificial.
Artificial...
He recalled the conversation he had overheard.
My creation wasn't natural. I am a project. Starscream and Scalpel built me.
Starscream provided the Energy Core. Scalpel performed the surgery. He was a tool forged for a coup.
A voice boomed through the chamber, confirming his deduction.
"Look at these little ones! Are they not magnificent?"
"Awake, Decepticons!"
"I AM YOUR MASTER! I AM STARSCREAM!"
Nathan processed the audio input. The tone was distinct—arrogance mixed with desperation.
He seized control of his new motor functions, rerouting power to his optical sensors.
Time to face the world.
With a sharp mechanical hiss, Nathan's optics flared to life, glowing a menacing, deep red.