O'Malley fiddled with another switch on his computer and made the scene of the break-in expand over all the screens. He focused in on one area of the room- a top corner where nobody would look. It was the perfect hiding place for-
"A sniper!" I gasped.
"Precisely. You will get them to stop breaking in, or I will do it for you."
O'Malley laughed, transported to me, grabbed my bindings and dragged me over to his computers. A large microphone lay before me.
"Remember—one wrong move, and your friends will all die."
I gulped as he pressed a button next to the microphone.
"Hey… guys?" I said uncertainly. I watched as the entire party stopped still and looked up in different directions.
"Twelve! Is that you?" asked Caboose, facing the wall opposite the speaker.
"Eleven, you moron," said Church.
"Yeah, it's me. Listen, I—I'm fine. I'm just stuck in here, but I think there's another way out. You guys need to get out of here; I'll meet you out on the beach."
"No way!" said Tucker and Simmons together.
Sarge stood there stubbornly. "We're not gonna just leave, Missy."
"Seriously! Can't you trust me?" I almost began panicking—O'Malley had moved the direction of the sniper rifle to Donut's head. "Listen, you guys, I'll meet you at the beach. I'll be there soon."
"Are you sure?" asked Grif suspiciously.
"Dead sure. Come on, you know I wouldn't lie. It's me, Ells."
I waited with bated breath, praying that my speech had worked. Tucker looked around at the others. "Come on, you guys, she's fine," he said loudly. "Let's go."
"You really think so?" asked Donut.
"Yeah, definitely. After all, she's Ells; she can do anything."
They walked away back down the hallway with a purpose toward the main exit… but for some reason, the group seemed less blue than it had been during the attempted break-in…
"Well done. You're quite the actress," O'Malley sneered, noticing nothing. He had turned away from the screens to watch me. "Thanks to you, only one will die today."
I saw the Blues in another screen, wandering about aimlessly. They disappeared from one camera view, appeared in another, and then walked away again. I wondered where they had gone where there hadn't been any cameras, because I couldn't see them at all anymore.
"Yeah," I said wildly, realizing something. I heard a rumbling sound coming from somewhere above me. "And it's going to be you!"
At that moment, Tucker, Church, and Caboose all fell from the tall ceiling, plopping on the floor in a giant heap. After disentangling themselves, they all jumped up and pointed their guns at O'Malley.
"Sneeze!" commanded Caboose, and I groaned.
Church gripped his sniper and looked ready to shoot O'Malley and save us all, but… didn't. His hand hesitated, and my heart sank.
O'Malley chuckled, grabbed me, and used me as a shield to protect himself with.
"Don't do anything stupid!" I blurted. "He has all the AI powers!"
"What?" gasped Church. "How the hell—"
"Oh, shut up, all of you." He pointed my handgun at the side of my head. "As you very well know, I have powers that you can only dream of—there is no point in trying to kill me. However—" he clicked the gun menacingly "—you are quite mortal."
"Do it," I threatened more bravely than I felt.
"Oh, I will," he replied casually. "But don't you think your friends have the right to know why you're not going home with them?"
"Tell us," asked Tucker, and his voice cracked. "There's gotta be another way."
"You see, your Agent simply knows too much. She came in here, I told her everything, and now I'm going to have to dispose of her. If you don't back down, I'll take care of you as well."
The gun pressed into the side of my head, and my heart thumped wildly. There needed to be another way out of this. There needed to be.
A bang echoed throughout the room. I expected the blinding pain to overtake me, and for everything to go dark. However, my gun hadn't made the noise. It had come from behind us, and I turned just in time to see electricity spewing everywhere as the computer system exploded—and from the ruins out popped the Warthog.
The sparks flying everywhere clashed with anything metal in the room, including my chains. The painful streaks of electricity flowed through my body once more, but as it did, the chains became undone and fell limply on the ground.
"Eleven!" Simmons yelled from the Warthog as it maneuvered through the dying computer pieces. "Come on!"
The rest of the crew had already entered, and I leaped in just as Sarge drove off the way they came, checking the status of my armor. I sighed with relief as I saw a small red light still on. I pressed it, so the light and its tiny letters turned off. No sense in wasting power.
A piercing scream of agony came from behind us, and I turned around just in time to see O'Malley crouching on the ground, twitching.
"Noooooo!"
The rest of the dead technology crashed on top of him, and I turned away, flinching.
"Step on it!" yelled Church. "We've gotta get out of here!"
The Warthog, just big enough for the winding tunnels of the lair, maneuvered through the mess, the sound of O'Malley's crackling computers becoming louder behind us. I could see dancing flames and coiling smoke following us closely, and we could hear small explosions coming from down the hall. The Warthog was making an odd noise, however—the tires kept screeching and vibrating below us.
"They—they're being melted!" cried out Grif frantically. "The fire is killing our tires!"
Sarge only drove faster, ignoring the strange hum emanating from below us.
"Hurry!" Simmons called urgently. We were feet from the entrance of the lair. "Dammit! The wheels are—"
An eardrum-popping bang echoed out from below us, and the entire Warthog jolted to a stop. I peered out the side of the vehicle, and gasped.
The tires were completely blown out, the engine smoking dangerously.
I felt the heat gaining on us from behind, and turned to see a stream of gas that had leaked from the Warthog leading straight into the mess behind us—which had just caught fire.
"The whole place is gonna blow!" cried Grif. "Run for it!"
We all ran at light speed for the entrance, but my heart sank when we reached it. The fire would reach the Warthog in mere seconds, and there was no way we could make it to the portal in time. We were all done for.
Suddenly, an enormous purple vehicle appeared in front of us, and for one heart-stopping moment, I thought it was O'Malley. However, a small head popped out of the top. A navy blue head.
"Hey guys!" It was Indiana. "What are you still doing here? This place is gonna get blown sky high!"
"Come on!" said Michigan, appearing next to Indiana. "We're just about to hitch a ride on that portal!"
We all clambered on O'Malley's vehicle and sped off almost at the same time the lair exploded. Right before we reached the portal, I glimpsed an enormous fireball where the lair used to be and a wave of heat enveloped me… but then it was gone.
The portal closed up just in time—Caboose's butt caught fire for a second, but then it was all over.
"We're… alive," I gasped. It was unbelievable. Here we all were, safe, unhurt, living. Blood Gulch was exactly the same as I remembered it—grassy and peaceful.
"I can't believe it," Sarge said, sitting up and stretching out his joints. "All that trouble, and we didn't even get rid of Grif!"