Owen paced back and forth in front of the bank of monitors, not quite sure what he was watching when the woman cuffed Getter to the desk and walked out. The fat bastard was right there just as she said, and the look on his face was absolutely classic. It seemed like the former manager could feel Owen looking because he kept gasping up at the camera and pleading.
"It certainly is a Merry SLA-mas!" he laughed, dusting the sugar off his hands. Being one of only nine living souls left within the station, it was natural that he should take advantage of the abandoned hoard of SLA-mas cookies and pastries. He felt like the king of the realm with a private feast.
"OOOOMMFFF!" he exclaimed as another former antagonist bought the farm. This time it was Billy Jackson, a maintenance tech that had been flirting with a girl he had been admiring. It wasn't important that Owen could no longer remember her name - the spectacle more than made up for the loss. His only regret was that the cameras only showed the guy's demise in black and white, but a little imagination gave him the full 3D color experience. He snapped the heavy goggles down again and played back the footage, being only mildly disappointed that he missed getting in on the live feed.
"HOW'S THAT FOR ROASTING THOSE OVER A FIRE!" he laughed as he raised the goggles and scrawled another mark on the wall above the monitor. "Hee hee, boy, that was a keeper! And that leaves us with. eight more drones to go!"
The arrival of the woman and the stormer had been a surprise, but not enough of one to throw off his plans -besides, the Xeno was so fricking stupid that it had already blown itself up. As a rule, anything made by SLA was defective and clumsy. That included Stormers, guns, and even operatives.
Owen leaned back as he thought about the fun and the great timing - after all, it had been Getter himself who had set the timetable. The bastard had started dropping hints months ago about how he had a surprise for the people that didn't respect the "big bad dog" or some garbage like that. It didn't take a genius (like himself, Owen thought) to figure out that it was going to happen on the holiday break. Well, this year everyone including the rat-bastard would get the "spirit of the season" right between the eyes. Brad liked to think of it as payback for all of the harassment and abuse. As he ground the head of another elf cookie into paste, he thought about how Getter's had insisted upon calling him Bradley. No one EVER called him that, at least not and got away with it. A sudden beep indicating proximity caught his attention and he slapped the goggles down to go manual.
"Oh yeah baby, come to papa!" he laughed and then remembered to turn on the mike. He had managed to get within ten feet or so from that stuck-up slut Carla from the janitorial pool. With a happy yell, he flipped on the unit's lights.
"MERRY SLA-MAS, BITCH! THIS'LL TEACH YOU TO FRICK OVER ME!"
The woman fell and scrambled away, looking small, pathetic, and not nearly as arrogant now that Payback was on her. The goggles' field of vision gave him the full view of the carnage and he happily reached out remotely and dragged her through a grate to the ventilation duct. The sweet reverb of the screams and her flailing was like music and he took his time, starting with the face because it would hurt more and tossing the spare parts away as he went. Owen briefly wondered if this was better than sex, but the rising anger brought him back on task. He didn't have the experience to know, but that.that.thatbastardGetterdidthatbastarddidcausehediditwitheverywomantheret heywouldn'thavehimtheywereallslutshe' dkillallofthemallofthemeveryoneofthem...
Taking a deep breath, Owen reined himself in and drained another cola. The company would know that this was all Getter's fault and would probably give him a raise for taking care of that bum. He smiled as he thought about how good this would on his resume even without a reference from the previous manager.
Slapping the goggles down again, he switched the unit's lights off and swung down another corridor. Following a blur of sudden movement along the periphery, he found another one of his fellow employees and gave chase. The man's face belonged to Paul Marks, a shift supervisor that had gone out of his way to make Brad's life hell. The man was fast enough to outdistance Payback and ran into the cafeteria where others slammed the fire door shut. He found himself giggling out loud and spat cookies all over the keyboard. All the backstabbers were cowering in the only room on this floor that had a single way out. He keyed the control to turn on the torch and started forward, yelling into the mike as he went.
"This is goingtobeSOOoooosweet!" he giggled, absently biting the head off of an elf cookie and letting the rest fall to the floor. He was shaking with anticipation and half stood out of his chair as he moved in for the kill.
"Yeah, aint' it?" a soft voice said from behind him and he froze. Dropping the goggles and headset, Owen turned to see the female operative holding a pistol. A thin red trail of light swung up through the smoke from his chest and into his eyes. Unsure how she got past the locked down reactor room doors, he looked around and saw the open grill from the air vent and cursed. It was probably a little too late to fix that.
He flipped one final switch and his world vanished into the cold red light of Meg's laser painter.
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