Miguel smiled darkly after loading himself with high end ammunition. He quickly rushed to the holographic monitors and activated a self-destruct sequence. Then, he stared at his base one last time before leaping upwards through an open manhole and crawling his way out, through the vents as the self-destruct countdown started.
The moment he entered the vent, six to seven men burst into his secret base, with scrawny looks on their faces.
"He was right here a few minutes ago, where did he go?"
They started to rummage through the base, even going as far as, using their ramrods to break valuables that was when they noticed the activated sequence.
"Shit!"
One of the men cursed out loud drawing attention to himself and the next minute, their faces paled drastically because the countdown had like 20 seconds for the entire building to explode.
Inside the vent, Miguel knew that he was out of time and that the moment the base self-destructs, he would be caught up with the explosion. Miguel tried to calm his erratically beating heart as he focused on escaping.
Besides, he has safety protocols set up in case he was at a disadvantage, for example, his electronic gable shields and the marble-sized cubicle. They were his only trump cards to escaping from the jaws of death so he crawled faster.
His Wrist-Mounted Interface and Tactical System blinked at an incoming call and he picked it up seeing the holographic image of his workers displayed in mid air.
"Boss, the base is about to be blasted. Are you still there?"
Miguel chuckled.
"I'm crawling through the vents. I should be out in about a few minutes."
"Boss, these hoodlums really know how to up their games. How on earth were they able to hack into the communication system and activate the self-destruct sequence?"
Miguel smiled brightly despite feeling a chill run down his spine and said. "Oh that? I actually activated the sequence. It is better safe than sorry. If these men get a hand on our information then, we would be done for."
"Bosssss! That's dangerous! How will you be able to escape in 6 seconds?"
Miguel's smug expression immediately turned stern and he commanded. Lower the spacecraft at the highest point of the D-Lian Technologie and wait for my signal to ascend."
"Ok boss, good luck."
The communication was immediately cancelled as Miguel focused on escaping this vent.
He knew that once the base explodes, it would start slowly, but spread definitely until the smothering flames dissolve everything into its pristine white halo.
Keenly watching the countdown, his hair stood on end as he saw the opening that led out of the vent to the rooftop.
He smiled in glee but that was when the entire building trembled as he noticed the countdown reaching zero.
< 3 >
< 2 >
< 1 >
< 0 >
The moment it hit zero, a terrifying flame gushed out of the main system circuit as a notification panel whispered a continuous message amidst the destruction.
{Alert! Alert! The system has been overridden and destroyed} !
{Alert! Alert! The system has been overridden and destroyed} !!
{Alert! Alert! The system has been overridden and destroyed} !!!
{Alert! Alert! The system has been overridden and destroyed} !!!!
{Alert! Alert! The system has been overridden and destroyed} !!!!!
The seven men had barely managed to escape because the moment the countdown neared 15 seconds, the main door was slammed shut preventing anyone from escaping.
They only discovered the vent when the countdown was around 7 to 6 seconds prompting them to squeeze themselves in due to the fear of dying from explosion which means after the countdown, only a few of them were frantically trying to break open the door only to be blasted to pieces.
Just like Miguel had guessed, the destruction started from his base, went down, destroying everything beneath before making its way up towards the vent, towards the rooftop.
Still inside the vent, Miguel was sweating bullets because of the obvious spike in temperature. He crawled much faster realising that the metallic vent was becoming difficult to touch due to the heat and beneath him, he could see smothering white and red flames and then, the blood gurgling scream of whoever was trailing him down through the vents as the flames continued moving upwards without reservations.
Gritting his teeth and enduring the burning effect of touching the metallic framework of the vent, he continued and finally reached the opening.
He crawled out, his heart beating wildly.
Then he used his WMITS to issue a command and in the next few seconds, a spacecraft lowered, bringing with it a vicious blue beam that pulled Miguel upwards. The moment that happened, the building instantly trembled one last time and exploded, causing the earth to shake, tremors running throughout the world like dooms day.