When it was like this, when it was late and the great power plant was manned by just a skeleton crew, that's when she heard the Voice.

Help me.

She knew what it was, of course. All of the plant workers were warned about the Voice. Evil alien homing beacons hacking into the cybernetic implants in their heads, trying to steer them to madness and destruction. If any of them heard the Voice, they were to report it, immediately.

She hadn't reported it, had gone on, trying to ignore the Voice. Reporting it meant getting removed from the plant, and she was close, so close, to Supervisor.

Besides, the Voice didn't sound dangerous. Only hurt, and very, very sad.

Please come to me.

She wondered how the aliens had learned to mimic human emotions. They came from the stars, soulless machines following an unknown signal. The first had landed untold ages ago, and had been their only specimen for so long. Them more came, and more, and a war had started. Now the Sector caught every machine that fell from the stars, caught them and what they did with them, she did not know. Her brother was on one of the Hunter teams, and all he could say was that they delivered the captured machines to Simmons. Whatever happened to them, the technology gleaned from the things was incredible, and she didn't envy her forbearers, who died of injury and disease and old age at such a young age, rarely living past their first century.

Then she would hear the Voice, as she flipped switches and monitored the power distribution across five hundred miles of the east coast. And she wondered what it wanted.

Help me.

It got louder in the plant itself, near the great room where the Core rested, a windowless cylinder fifty feet tall. No one went into the Core; energon from the refineries flowed in through pipes, crackling electricity filled the wires out. The Core itself stayed sealed.

Please.

And something inside wanted out.

A few times, a few terrifying times, she found herself at the single hatch that led to the inner Core, listening to the Voice and coming close, oh so close, to opening the door. But she would pull back, would walk away.

Help me.

And she was there again, the steps between Operations and the Core a blank, and her hand was on the latch.

Help me.

And oh, she was going to pay for this, but the Voice swayed her, strong and powerful and sad, so very sad.

She opened the door.

He was huge, a great scarlet and azure man made of metal. He stood in the center of the Core, arms spread and bolted into steel harnesses above his head, his great feet locked into concrete locks on the floor. His chest was ripped open, metal plates peeled back like the skin of a fruit. Energon pipes ran into his chest, spliced into tubing like arteries, and power lines tapped into-

Into-

She didn't know what the power lines tapped into. It glimmered and jumped in a cavity in his chest, a living spark of lightning in a nest of wire and metal.

He was looking at her.

His face was turned towards her, a solemn countenance that matched the Voice now ringing in her skull, as if the walls of the Core had shielded her from the full force.

Release me.

She stared up at him, aching for him. "How?"

"You can't."

She whipped around, her heart seizing in her throat. Simmons. The leader of the Sector, an ancient crone of a man, more machine than human from all the artificial enhancements he'd had done over the decades to keep him alive. He was staring up at the metal man with eyes as black and cold as crude oil. "He's trapped here, providing power for the good ol' U-S-of-A."

The Voice surged, fury unlike any she'd ever known mingling with the sadness.

RELEASE MY PEOPLE.

"Not a chance," Simmons said, far too cheerfully. "Your 'people' are ours now, ours to study and learn from." He grinned, icy cold. "More are arriving every year. You know how many plants are running now, with your 'people' as the Core? The whole damn continent and then some, running on nice, clean energon." His grin turned downright demonic. "And you should've seen what some of those nice, big cannons you lot brought us did to our enemies overseas."

The Voice was incoherent with rage, roaring within her mind even as the great metal man remained perfectly still. Simmons smiled up at him then turned to look at her. "And you," he said softly, no warmth, no mercy in his eyes or his voice. "Maybe the Formatters will let you keep a bit of your sanity."

Hands grabbed her, huge black-clad Sector agents with stony faces behind their sunglasses. She cringed, not from their touch, but from the force of the Voice raging behind her eyes.

LET HER GO.

And what amazed her was that the Voice was tinged with regret, not because his escape was foiled but because she was going to suffer because of him, completely selfless in his concern for her. She looked up, up, into the great glowing lights of his eyes. "I'm sorry," she whispered.

Do not be. The fault is mine.

Then one of the agents touched her neck, where the metal plates of her cybernetic enhancements were exposed, and she knew no more.

o o o

What if, instead of the Autobots or Decepticons winning, Simmons had won?

In the movie supplementary guide book, Optimus' spark is described as being 'able to be used as a power source if necessary'. That, combined with actually getting to work in a power plant, plus reading Lovecraft, led to this.