Meg limped over to Owen's body and two more rounds into his face just to make sure that he was gone. The man was wearing some sort of heavy goggles with the words "XP-5 REM-OP" stenciled on the side and had been playing with a set of controls. Looking at the images on the monitors, she understood how he had managed to kill those people.
"You sick frick," she said aloud. "You outfitted one of those remote mining robots with weapons. Sick bastard."
Pushing the hair out of her eyes, she looked at each monitor and saw that Owen had a commanding view of nearly every part of the complex. She saw the cafeteria where a group of workers were holed up and saw the office where she had staked Getter down as bait. Sudden movement on two of the monitors caught her attention. One showed a battered Xeno dropping out of an airvent above the office and she breathed a sigh of relief - somehow, Jester had managed to get clear of that blast. Her excitement bled out when she realized that the other was live feed from camera in motion. Tiles and cubicles rushed past and various tools like a blowtorch and blades flexed in the periphery. Meg felt a wave of cold rush over her. Owen hadn't just refitted a mining robot- he had reprogrammed it.
"You crazy frick!" she gasped as she began looking for the release for the room's door. "You built a fricking manchine!"
Meg searched for a mike, finding it still attached to Owen's chest, and ripped it off. It looked like a standard hands-off unit and she yelled into it.
"JESTER! THERE IS A MANCHINE ENROUTE! GET OUT OF THERE!"
She looked at the bank of controls that he had built, hoping to find a way to disable the unit but came up empty. None of the controls responded and she desperately began to punch buttons. Suddenly a password request came up on the screen and she gasped. Quickly, she began typing without having any idea of what she needed.
BOWEN
<enter>>Invalid password.
>Try again.>GETTERMUSTDIE
<enter>>Invalid password
>Try again.>SLASUCKS
<enter>The display changed and Meg almost relaxed before the text changed.
>SORRY, THAT'S SO FAR OFF THAT THERE'S NO WAY THAT YOU'RE ME SO.
>TICKETY TOCKETY, TIME TO DIE
>GIVE MY REGARDS TO OBLIVION
At that, a red display on the shelf below the keyboard lit up and began counting down. Next to it was a row of some sort of explosive labeled "Seismic Core charges." The counter started at 15 and dropped immediately to 10.
"OH SH*T!" Meg yelled. With a bum ankle, getting back into the air vent was out of the question. She scrambled to find the controls to open the room's door.
9
Meg forgot about her ankle and fell trying to reach another bank of controls. The counter dropped another point.
8
Pulling herself up by the edge of a panel, she cursed when she saw that all of the labels had been stripped off or marked over. This place was forty years old and it showed.
There was no way to tell what she needed to do.
6
The timer skipped its count again and Meg whined.
Her Father's voice told her that only little girls cry and she stifled a whimper.4
She told her self that Cloak Division agents don't cry as she threw every switch within reach.
The door groaned and started to rise.
Thanking the powers that be, she hobbled towards it.
Behind her, the timer beeped several times. It sounded just like a toy she had as a child.
?
The air was cool and crisp.
Heat, dust, and fire.
Blackness.
Silence.
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