"Hoo-yah!" "Oh!" "Munched!" "Give it up for the baddest beast machines on the planet!" "Would you mind lowering the volume?" "Hey, Ratch, check out the monster-truck rally" "Miko took me to last week." "I compiled some highlights with my cellphone." "Innocent vehicles battling for the pleasure of human spectators?" "Blood sport." "Yeah!" "Yeah!" "You could be helping Optimus in the field right now." "Aw, he doesn't need my help to search for some ancient educational thingamabob." "The "thingamabob" to which you refer happens to be a cybertronian data cylinder." "Hey!" "And there is no telling what vast intelligence it may hold." "During the golden age, dozens of these cylinders were created, each containing the sum total of cybertronian knowledge on any given subject..." "Stellar cartography, medicine, ancient mythology." "When the war broke out, the cylinders were hidden throughout the galaxies to keep them as far as possible from Decepticon reach." "Detecting one signal here, on Earth, is the opportunity of a..." "T.M.I., dude." "Switch it back!" "I want to see the hoedown showdown!" "Ratchet, Decepticon ambush." "The cylinder is at risk." "We require backup." "Backup is what I'm built for." "Go bend some fenders, Bulk." "I have an important mission for you, too, Miko." "Really?" "Aw!" "Ooh!" "Ooh!" "Whoa." "Autobots, stand your ground." "The artifact must not fall into enemy hands." "Come to papa." "Run to mommy." "Say "Uncle."" "Say it!" "Ratchet, come in." "Miko?" "This is an emergency channel." "We need to keep it open for the auto..." "Wait." "Where are you?" "D'oy!" "I'm with the thingamabob." "Thingama..." "The data cylinder!" "Yes." "Can you bridge it out of here?" "I'll reactivate arrival coordinates." "Dude, can you open it any closer?" "Supply coordinates." "Um...50 yards?" "Precise coordinates." "Wha!" "1...2..." "Whoa." "Miko?" "No!" "Bulk!" "You really took one for the team, Bulkhead..." "My team." "Bulkhead, are you..." "Fine." "It didn't even smart." "I helped lose that thing." "I want to help find it." "I need to get back in the field with Optimus." "Eh, eh, you're under my watch now." "Optimus' orders." "And running a full scan of your neural net would be a wiser use of your time." "Come on, doc." "There's nothing up there to scan." "He seems fine to me." "Well, if you insist on making yourself useful, you can help Miko tidy up." "Aw!" "He's mad with power." "That's Ratchet." "No vector squared, all right." "What?" "!" "Hey, we got any paint around here?" "Art project?" "Cool!" "What do you mean, it's empty?" "Lord Megatron, these cylinders are not unlike batteries." "The data is stored within them as a form of energy." "It scanned fully charged..." "That's how we located it to begin with..." "But now..." "Dead battery." "Did you drop it, you one-eyed oaf?" "!" "No, master." "I wasn't gonna touch the thing after it put the zap on Bulkhead." "Hey, you think..." "I know." "And I must find out what that vessel contained." "When it comes to the secrets of the ancients, knowledge can be power." "Seriously, Ratch, you need to see what Bulk's painting in here." "Yes, I'm sure one hasn't truly lived until one has beheld" "Bulkhead's take on still life with lug nuts." "See?" "Did I tell you or what?" "The differential of one-third "R" cubed is RDRR." "That is not art." "It's science." "This hot spot you see here..." "It's information, data, living energy." "Hold on." "It's alive, it's on fire, and it's in Bulkhead's brain?" "Chill, Miko." "The data's only inhabiting a fraction of my brain, infinitesimal by standard neural-net densities." "Wait." "How do I know all that?" "Based on what we witnessed during our skirmish, the living data must have been programmed to eject when it sensed unauthorized access." "A security measure." "It would have jettisoned heavenward, lost to the stars." "Except my fat engine block got in the way." "Every 'con there made a grab for it, but the cylinder doesn't go off until Miko touches it?" "The cylinders originated from Cybertron's golden age, predating the Autobot / Decepticon division." "So it wouldn't consider any native of Cybertron to be a reat." "Only alien life forms, such as humans." "Are we staring at genius or gibberish?" "I do not wish to falsely rally anyone's hopes, but these equations appear to be the formula for a synthetic energon." "We hit the mother lode?" "Miko, do you understand what this means?" "Um..." "Energon provides our fuel, our ammo, our life force." "With the natural stuff in such short supply here on Earth, this could solve a whole lot of problems." "Such as providing us with the edge we need to turn the tide of this war." "Or handing us the key to revitalizing Cybertron." "We got the goods, and all Megatron got was an empty bucket." "How often do I get to use my noggin to save the day?" "Intersection of atomic coordinates indicate convergent tertiary structures..." "Aren't you done yet?" "!" "Resulting in an asymmetric..." "Got to admit, it's weird seeing Bulk in brainiac mode." "Vector l1 norm squared." "Break time!" "How about a lightning round of "TNT Street Racer 7"?" "Energon temperatures and volume proportion..." "Aw!" "Angle trisector construction." "Got another round for you to log, Ratchet." "This is Bulkhead's neural net as you saw it earlier." "This scan was recorded just minutes ago." "It is as I feared." "The data seems to be actively and aggressively rewriting Bulkhead's neural net." "I had hoped he was purging the data, but he seems to be merely transcribing it as it..." "Consumes his mind." "From all indications, by the time Bulkhead completes the formula, his own thoughts, his memories could be wiped clean." "But if we stop him, goodbye, synthetic energon." "You assume we possess a means of stopping him." "I don't exactly have instant access to the wisdom of the ancients." "I will not allow another one of our own to be sacrificed, no matter the cost." "If the living data transmitted itself from the cylinder, perhaps we could somehow coax it back inside." "How are we supposed to get it back from the Decepticons?" "Megatron will bring it to us." "Coefficient quotient of the subset amplified..." "You want amplified?" "Proving preceptor's paradox is nothing of the kind." "Aah!" "What is that?" "!" "Metal." "You love this song." "I'm trying to concentrate." "You're starting to sound just like Ratchet!" "Who?" "Ratch, I think Bulk's losing his mind." "You...already know." "Miko, we didn't want to frighten you." "But rest assured, Optimus has a plan." "Optimus isn't Bulkhead's doctor." "I just need to know, when Bulk's done spitting out that formula, he'll go back to being regular old Bulkhead, right?" "Lord Megatron, we've detected a familiar energy profile." "The data?" "Bulkhead must have left the shielded radius of their base." "Breakdown and I will..." "Fail me again?" "Optimus." "You're certainly not the Autobot I expected to find here." "But let me guess." "You rigged a transponder to mimic the frequency of the data I seek." "Megatron, I have a proposal." "I'm..." "Listening." "Surrender the cylinder, and I will return it to you fully restored." "This trinket right here?" "And, pray tell, what trifles did it hold that you are so anxious to give away?" "Accept my terms, and you will find out." "Do you remember the time you watched wheeljack lob his only grenade into the Decepticon heat exchanger?" "Who?" "Wheeljack!" "Your best bud?" "!" "Besides me, of course." "Oh!" "Do you even know who I am?" "Of course." "You're..." "Equivalent to the flattening of the oblate spheroid to the nth power." "Internal energy of isolated "E" remains constant." "Keep them coming, Bulkhead." "Come on." "You want to finish your formula, don't you?" "Do you accept my proposal?" "Lord Megatron." "Give me a moment." "Did you find what you were looking for?" "It's complicated." "Well, breakdown and I may have located the bogey, fully charged." "Proceed." "Just one hitch." "We don't have the cylinder." "Then bring me the head of Bulkhead." " Look!" " You love monster trucks." "Remember when we snuck in here after the show last week?" "Mass times diffusion rate squared is constant." "Is any of this ringing a bell?" "Bell curve?" "No, no, no." "That wouldn't factor in." "How about our Sunday-morning dune bashings, rocking out to slash monkey, helping me with my homework?" "Ha!" "Trick question!" "You know I don't do homework." "Don't you?" "Okay, forget the past." "Starting now, we can make new memories." "The cube root of the exothermic energon yield Delta "E"" "violates clank's law of energon conservation." "Bulkhead, I know somewhere inside, you will always remember me, and I just want you to know I'll never forget you." "Boo-hoo!" "I'm shedding lubricant." "Follow me right now, or these guys are gonna..." "Steal the formula!" "My equations?" "Come on, come on!" "Not like Bulkhead to run from a fight." "I'm afraid our friend has had a little too much to think." "Lord Megatron, we're good." "Optimus, upon careful consideration, if you want the cylinder, you'll have to take it." "Okay, then." "Fun and games." "Come out, come out, wherever you are." "The 'cons are scrambling the signal." "The trisector of the polygon is an integral subset." "Shh!" "Quiet!" "And whatever you do, keep still." "I'm gonna see if I can get far enough to call for backup." "Bulkhead..." "Is that you?" "Breakdown, forget the human." "Games are only fun to play..." "When you're winning." "I think I'm warm." "En3 divided by the square root of the propulsion factor equals..." "You painted my paint job!" "Prepare for surgery!" "Heads, you lose." "No!" "Well, in that case, no one gets it." "Optimus, Bulkhead and Miko have abandoned base." "I have their ground bridge coordinates." "Bridge us back immediately." "Aah!" "Not again!" "Get down!" "I did it again?" "Bulkhead?" "Dead battery." "Megatron will peel our paint for losing that data." "So we're gonna have to peel you." "Or peel out of here." "Bulkhead..." "The data has been fully expelled, but Bulkhead remains completely unresponsive." "Because the energy took Bulkhead's mind with it, heavenward, lost to the stars." "It's my fault you'll never know the rest of the formula, and it's my fault Bulkhead's gone forever." "Miko, your quick thinking prevented the formula from falling into Decepticon hands." "If anyone would have backed that play, it's Bulkhead." "It's simply too early to know the extent of his condition." "Something as simple as a familiar sight or smell, perhaps even a sound, could trigger Bulkhead's awakening." "Bulkhead?" "I love that song!" "Miko?"