As they stood there, largely frozen in shock, all the other members of their now-sizeable group managed to tease out of Kimmie was that the base was about to explode - oh, and that her mother had told her how to open the pyramid.
"What about everyone else? Like your mom, Kimmie? And all the workers here?", Tina asked, clearly distressed at the thought.
"Don't worry, my mom got herself out, and her robots are probably getting everyone else out too! We only have 5 minutes - probably less time now!", Kimmie responded, remembering the particular phrasing of what Barrage had said. As if to emphasize Kimmie's point, they heard what seemed to be Lynch being decrystallized. "Just go!", she repeated. They barely dodged as a single robot had appeared from the same area Kimmie had just left and fired a crystallizer at them.
They began running to the sub. They knew that it might be taken over remotely, of course, but if Coral Grove was indeed to be no more in just a few minutes then that didn't matter, they supposed. The same submarine they had arrived in was waiting for them. Then, Lee was the one who realized they had forgotten something this time: "Wait... how are we supposed to operate it!?"
"Perhaps I can be of assistance." Everyone in the group was speechless as Finnwich had just appeared behind them, seemingly out of nowhere. He carried a remote of the same type Lynch had previously used with him. "What are you waiting for? Go!"
Most of the group hesitated no longer as everyone in it climbed into the exact same hatch a few of them had climbed out of only a while ago. Lee was the last to get in, and he hesitated on the way: "What about you?" His question was quickly answered, however, as more robots appeared behind Finnwich.
"Take this and go! I'll hold them off!", Finnwich said, tossing Lee the remote. Lee was stunned at this but quickly recovered and finished climbing in, closing the hatch behind him. As he did so, he noticed Finnwich's erstwhile staff materialize out of thin air and the old man preparing to fight the robots with it.
They shuffled into the spacious interior of the submarine, carefully avoiding the downed blue robot - or fancy bot, as they liked to call that particular type - inside it. Lee and several of his friends had disabled it, but right now they weren't about to take any chances that one of them might re-enable it accidentally. "Why aren't we moving yet?", Kimmie inquired anxiously.
Lee couldn't help himself. He grinned, showing them the remote. "It's fine, we're home free!", he said, pushing the button to launch the sub. Out of the windows they thought they saw Finnwich disappear, but it was too late to confirm that as the craft submerged.
"We made it!", Tina exclaimed.
"Oh, yiminy crackercakes!", Holger said.
"Careful, guys," Lee said, but he was still smiling slightly. "Remember what happened last time you said that?" He was referring, of course, to their previous attempted escape with this same vehicle, which had been quickly aborted by Lynch.
"So Kimmie," Lee continued, turning to the girl in question, "what were you saying about the pyramid? Your mom told you how to open it?"
"Well," she began, "it's a long story - and I'm not sure this is the right time to talk about it..."
"That's okay!", Holger exclaimed. "We are ready to listen to any story! Especially long ones!", he continued, in his usual somewhat-ungrammatical phrasing.
"Fine, here goes: basically, it turns out that my mom and I had tried to open the pyramid a long time ago."
Everyone gasped at this. Lee asked, "But how? How is that possible?"
"Well, I was a baby back then! I obviously don't remember!", Kimmie said, going on the defensive.
"Ugh, why do you always have to be so difficult? That's obviously not what he was asking about!", Biffy said, irritated.
"Okay, okay, chill," Lee quickly interjected, seeing the on-and-off romantic pair glaring at each other and trying to defuse the tension. "So what happened, Kimmie?"
"Okay, so basically... my mom took me as a baby and used our marks to try to open it. We obviously failed, though - and lost our marks for it."
"You lost your marks!?", Lee exclaimed. Then, he realized he wasn't the only one confused - and that the others were even more confused than he was.
"Uh... what marks? Lee, what is she talking about?", Biffy asked. Before Lee could respond, however, they heard an explosion of truly immense proportions behind them, and peered out the sub to try to see what had occurred.
They then looked at each other without saying a single word. None of them had seen any other submarines leaving.