The trio raced downward through numerous flights of stairs before finally stopping near a door with a numerical keypad positioned above the knob."Damn it!" shouted TF. Brand_S collapsed on the last flight, catching his breath. Hunter simply walked over to it and smashed the keypad with his sword. S sat up and saw what Hunter had done. "Note to self," S thought, "Get Hunter a hooker on the next world." Hunter tried the knob and the door opened with ease. "Let's go... S, GET OFF YOUR ASS!" S did what he was told and followed his two friends down a long, brightly lit corridor. They stopped at an area where there were four separate hallways. "Shit!" Hunter yelled. "OK, does anyone have the slightest idea of where to go?" S asked. TF looked around. "I don't know. This doesn't look like some of the areas Chaser took us through when he led us to the labs." S sighed. "Any ideas..." TF thought for a moment and uttered.... "Eenie, Meenie, Minee, Moe...."
Meanwhile, EustiSlider looked at the security monitors, watching the mass panic going on inside the village as a shadow grew overhead."Soon..." Eusti said to himself. A look on contentment surrounded his face as he watched on. He then turned his eyes towards another monitor, one that showed three men running down a white hallway. "Damn you, Flux..." Eusti said coldly. "You won't outshine me again." With that said, he pushed a button and spoke. "All security personnel. There are intruders in Sub-Level 6, Sector 3. Prevent them from reaching the Labs by any means necessary." Eusti walked off to a door that was marked with "Danger" and "Caution" notices, smiling slightly. "This is my moment, Flux." Eusti thought aloud. "I will never become a sidekick, again. Never."
"...If he hollers, let him go..." TF uttered and he points to all the doorways."Aw hell." Hunter yelled. "Just pick a Goddamn door." Flux stared coldly at his comrade. "Just give me a minute..." Then, all three of them were startled when they heard heavy footsteps, coming from the fourth hall, getting closer to them. "Uh..." S said, "looks like we don't have a minute." Hunter turned his attention back at TF. "Now, Flux." "Uh... Uh... " TF quickly looked back and forth at the doorways. "This one!" he pointed and ran toward the second hall. His friends immediately followed suit, narrowly dodging gunfire. They ran as fast as they could, encountering the hall's sharp turns and curves, and finally stopped and found themselves in another hallway. "Why..." S gasped, "do I... feel... like... a mouse... right... now?" TF could barely stand, supporting himself with his hands on his knees. Without thinking, he looked up and saw some writing on a nearby wall. "Guys... GUYS!" TF shouted and laughed deliriously. "What?" asked Hunter, "What's so damn funny?" "We're close... just down the hall and another right. I remember this passageway." Brand_S straightened himself out, "Then let's hoof it. The sooner we stop this flying triangle, the better." With that said, he ran off. "PYRAMID, you dolt." TF corrected, making haste as well. Hunter just shook his head and followed suit. Suddenly, the nursery rhyme "Three Blind Mice" flashed in his mind. The trio followed the path that Chaser had led them in and eventually turned the corner to the entrance of the lab. Unfortunately, they did not notice three guards waiting for them there. "Shit!" All three of them yelled as they dashed back into the main hallway, narrowing escaped a barrage of gunfire. "Shit! Shit Shit Shit SHIT!" S said repeatedly. "My thoughts exactly." TF agreed. "I would take them on, but there is so little room to maneuver." Hunter said. S thought about the situation for a moment. There is three guards at the entrance in front of them and a whole army chasing behind them. But then something sparked in his head. "Hunter, give me your sword." He demanded. "Huh?" Hunter said, shocked. "What are you planning?" "Trust me." "Didn't you hear a word I said..." "Just give me the damn sword." And with that, Hunter reluctantly handed his weapon to S, who was flexing his wrists. "OK," S announced. "I am going to do something completely mundane." "I just hope that you know what you're doing." TF remarked. Then Brand_S rushed into the small hallway and lunged the sword as if it was a large boomerang, taking shape into a spinning saw-blade in the air. It successfully decapitates two of the three guards before either of them could react, enabling the third guard to become distracted by the death of his comrades. Brand_S took that opportunity and tackled the remaining guard before he can raise his gun. Hunter ran in and quickly grabbed his blood-stained sword and raised it for the final kill. By the time S had gotten up, Hunter had driven his blade into the guard's heavily armored chest. S looked at the miniature bloodbath and smiled. "Problem solved." TF and Hunter looked at S strangely. "What? It worked, didn't it?" TF sighed and turned attention towards the door, now electronically locked with a numerical keypad above the knob. "Hunter?" "Way ahead of ya," Hunter said, right before dismantling the pad with his blade. All three sliders walked through the now open door. The laboratory was very darkly lit, its only light coming from the computer monitors mounted on the desks. All three of them looked around for any signs of the rogue scientist, but found none. Hunter, however, saw a partly open door with various warning stickers posted on it. He also heard strange mechanical sounds coming from it. Hunter motioned to his friends. "Looks like Eusti could be in there." "Yeah, could be. You go investigate while I'll try to stop the descent using one of these terminals." TF ordered. Hunter nodded and cautiously entered the door while TF ran towards the computer that he operated on earlier, but stopped when something on one of the lab computers caught his eye. "My God..." TF uttered as he saw the display. "S, take a look at this." S, watching the security monitors, ran towards TF to see what he had discovered. "What is it?" ask S, and he looked at a 3D graphic of the pyramid complex on the screen. "It seems to be some sort of simulator." TF said, and clicked on the "play" icon. The simulation came to life: the pyramid slowly started spinning, showing each side, and stopped after one complete turn. Then the side of the building disappeared along with the top five floors, showing the interior. "What the hell is this?" S said. "I don't... wait a second." TF said as he noticed a long pole going through the center the building. Upon further investigation, he changed the camera angle to the now topless pyramid and saw a medium-sized hole in the center. "What the hell?" TF said as he moved the mouse over to the hole and clicked on it. The "camera" revolved to its original spot, but this time the rooms disappeared, showing only a large, hollow pipe. S's eyed wandered on the model until he saw something at the bottom of the pipe. Hunter found himself inside a large round room and like the labs before it, it was very dimly lit by the auxiliary lamps mounted on the walls. "Where the hell am I?" Hunter said to himself. It was then he noticed something large and massive at the room's center. He decided to walk around it to investigate further. The sounds of his boots along the metal catwalk echoed, but he heard a gun cock back behind him. Hunter quickly turned around his grip on his sword. "Uh uh uh. I'd put away that blade if I were you." EustiSlider said, slowly walking from the shadows. His gun had its sight on Hunter's head, with Eusti's finger massaging the trigger. "Now... where's Flux?"
"Hey, click on that." S said as he pointed at the object. TF did as he was told and another display showing the object up close. It was a massive tower with large, bulky casing at the base; on the top was a metallic slab with two metallic cylinders on each side. On the bottom of the model read the words, "Main Interdimensional Tranlocation Node.""Holy Shit!!" TF said. "What?" S said, confused. TF saw another notice on the bottom right side of the screen. "Play I. Translocator simulation?" "Play" "Exit" He eagerly clicked the play button and watched the 3-D tower come to life. Parts of the shell begin to light up and the metallic slab began to spin. After a few seconds, a large bowl of light began to grow above the spinning slab and the simulation cut back to the hollow pyramid model, only this time with the top floors shown, with the top being covered with some sort of dark casing. Then a beam of light shot up the pipe and hit the top floors, which magnified it. The beam then shot up and hit the open sky, causing a crappy wormhole model to open above. "I can't believe it." TF said. "Eusti turned this place into a big fucking timer." S stood in awe. "So that's how he manages to get a wormhole that size... Man, I've got to give this dude his props." "Shhh..." TF motioned with his eyes back to the simulator. The pyramid model then ascended into the void using rocket and hover panels on the building's bottom. "Ingenious." TF said.
"How should I know," Hunter lied. "He just ran off to stop this thing from landing.""No!" Eusti yelled in a rage. "This is MY moment. This is the time where my genius will be recognized." "What genius? The only reason you are here is because of TF. Hell, you're using HIS invention to..." "Shut up! He may have concocted the theories, but after his death I worked my ass off to make the methods of sliding a reality. Once this building lands it will..." "Kill thousands of people." "OH, FUCK THEM! This is about a place in history. I originally wanted to sell this technology to the highest bidder, making a moderately huge profit in the process. But now, I am having my doubts. What good is wealth where you can become a part of history, a chance for your name and your achievements to be immortalized. Hell, those stupid bastards down there probably think this is the Second Coming." "You cold bastard." "As one Sliders philosopher once said, 'It's a parallel world, who cares.'"
"Hey, he couldn't possibly have come up with these ideas on his own. Remember he had to kill to get some of the groundwork." S reminded him."Yeah..." TF said, showing a cold look. "That bastard." "Any ideas how stop this thing?" "<sigh> I would try the usual self-destruct route but it's a little late for that. And still we would probably harm a lot of innocent people along with us if we don't get out in time." "How about sending it back into the wormhole?" "No can do. Once you open a vortex, it's like a one-way trip. You can't travel back and forth between two worlds using the same tunnel. Unless..." "What?" S asked. "What's going on in that head of yours?" "Hold on..." TF motioned. "Maybe there's a way to reverse the vortex. Make it into a two way street."
Hunter stood tall and came one step closer. "Well, you already committed two murders, stole the groundwork from your former colleague and built on it for personal gain. Hell, you keep and fuel your anger at TF for outshining you, yet you use HIS theories to get the resources you need.""Shut up..." Eusti said, shaking his weapon. "TF came up with the blueprints. Sure, you made it bigger to slide a building. Big FUCKING deal." "God-dammit!" Eusti said, getting even more agitated. Hunter daringly took another step closer. "Now that I think of it, wherever TF is right now, he's probably laughing his ass off at you. And you know why? Because even now, TF is still the star of the show... you're just his little sideshow monkey." "SHUT THE FUCK UP YOU GOTH FAGG..." And while Eusti is distracted by his rage, Hunter swiftly grabbed his arm and pointed it with the gun in the air. In the confusion the gun fired as Hunter wrestled the scientist and twisted his arm, making him release the firearm as it bounced off the catwalk. "You sunova..." Eusti said, freeing his other arm and landing a hard blow to Hunter's face.
"Cool. Let's do it." Brand_S said eagerly."But it's not that easy." TF continued. "Sure, reversing the pyramid isn't a problem at all, but the problem is reversing the vortex itself without changing the overall destination or making it totally destructive. That's means tooling the wormhole without doing ANYTHING to the coordinates. I can access the Translocator settings from here, but anything after that...well, just keep your fingers crossed." Then, all of a sudden, the two sliders heard a gunshot, which echoed throughout the room. "Oh shit!" The two of them said in unision. "It looks like it came from that room Hunter went in earlier." TF said. "S, go in there and see what's going on." "OH HELL NO!!!" S protested. "Come on, Hunter probably needs some assistance." "Did you hear that sound a few seconds ago? That was a gunshot. A gunshot means that there is a GUN present. And it's highly illogical to investigate a room, where the sound came from and also contains the GUN where the sound originated. Let's also include the MANIAC that's holding the gun...." TF's eyes turned dark red, his voice getting demonically deeper with each word he spoke. "Go... in... there... now..." S shook his head rapidly. "OK... but you owe me on...." TF let a demonic roar before S could finish his sentence. In fear, he raced for the warning-stickered door. "Is it me or is TF is starting to grow fangs?" he thought. TF calmed down and went back to work on the terminal. "I should stop doing that. Maybe I'll see a shrink on the next world... Nah!" S took a peek out the door and saw EustiSlider choking Hunter on the floor. After ascertaining that there wasn't a gun present, S ran and grabbed Eusti, slamming him against the cold, metal floor. Then all hell broke lose as Eusti and S got into a huge fistfight, both giving each other devastating blows. Hunter kneeled with his head lowered, trying to catch his breath from Eusti's earlier attack. After a few deep gasps, the warrior rose and pulled out his sword as he saw S pinning the scientist while both traded punches. Eusti caught a glimpse of Hunter sneaking up on the pair and pushed S aside, then kicked the swordsman square in the balls. Hunter dropped his blade as he bellowed in intense pain. Eusti saw the opportunity and recovered the sword and was punched in the face by S before he could get a swipe at the fallen slider. Once again, the sword fell on the grated surface of the catwalk as S and Eusti fought on.
TF began typing furiously as he found the main IT settings. Which each preference he changed, he thought about any trial-and-error applications along with it. It was like his knowledge, his deductions, and his theories were tested as he tried to reverse the direction of the huge vortex. Then a notice appeared on the screen."Would like to start making preparations?" "Yes" "No" TF, without thinking, clicked "Yes". "Oh well." He said to himself and went back to typing.
Hunter began to rise but his aching balls began to throb intensely, rendering him paralyzed into a fetal position. Meanwhile, S and Eusti fought on, both men refusing to back down. Suddenly the catwalk began to rise and the lights surrounding the room came on. It turned out that the room itself was the hollow pipe presented in the simulation."Why are you helping that fool?" Eusti yelled, wiping the blood off his mouth. Brand_S took a minute to regain his composure as his left eye began to blacken and swell. "What the hell are you talking about?" "Even if you'll stop this pyramid from landing, Flux will take the credit. He ALWAYS take the credit. You are nothing but glorified extras to him." "What? Are you out of your gourd?" S yelled back, not noticed the catwalk's sudden stop.
TF slowly smiled as he put in the final commands into the terminal. "YES!" TF shouted as he stopped typing. "That should do it."Then another notice pops up on the screen. "Begin Translocation?" "Yes" "Cancel" "Duh," TF thought as he clicked on "Yes". Then the slider sat back with both fingers crossed.
Slowly the machine at the bottom whirred to life, sections of the base began lighting up and the metal slab began to turn. Eusti, slowly losing sanity, smiled half way and chuckled nervously. "Don't you see, he'll screw you. He'll screw you all. Just like he screwed me...""Oh, shut the fuck up!" S said as he kicked Eusti in the gut. The blow was so hard that it shoved the scientist over the handlebars and screamed as he plummeted towards the bottom. The last thing Eusti saw was a growing bowl of light as he was slowing separated into a mesh of particles. Hunter rose from the floor as the groin pains subsided. He started to grab his sword off the floor when he saw S staring down the pit. "Hey S," Hunter said, hobbling over to his friend, "where's Eu..." S's eyes got wider and turned to his friend. "GET DOWN!" Hunter became confused. "What?" Then S suddenly tackled Hunter as a huge beam of light lined with particles shot upward. All the two sliders heard was a high-pitched screech that seemed ongoing. Outside at the interstate, people got out of their gridlocked cars to see the pyramid one last time. But, what was strange was that the building had stopped descending and the peak was shielding itself. Meanwhile, dellyone was busy putting together the piece of her plane when she noticed the top of the pyramid beginning to glow. "What the hell?" delly uttered as she watched on. Suddenly, a huge beam shot up from the structure, striking the vortex overhead. The wormhole wobbled a bit but then the waves of the outer ring began to flow in the opposite direction. "Well, I'll be damned..."
"YES!!!" TF shouted as he saw the event using the surveillance monitors. "S! Hunter! Come see this!"No one responded. TF decided to walk over to the warning-labeled door. "GuAAAAHHHH!!!" TF yelled as he almost fell into the pit, hanging onto the door for dear life. "Temp?!?" He heard a voice faintly above him. "H... Hello?!?!" "Temp!" Hunter yelled back. "Looks like you did it man!" "Yeah. Where's Eusti?" "Long story! Will discuss over beer!" S yelled. "Where the hell are you two?" TF asked. "Uh..." Hunter shouted. "5th floor! And there's a door here!" "Cool! Meet me on the 1st floor so we can get the hell out of here." "Solid!" S sat back to let his wounds a chance to heal. "Hey Hunter?" S said. "Yeah..." Hunter replied, as he grabbed his crotch. "How in the hell are going to get out of here?" "How should I know?" And with that said, both sliders reluctantly stood up and started walking to their rendezvous.
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