John’s Hot Take - Part 6

John burst into the command center, out of breath.

There Jade stood. She was proudly behind Mango, who was tied to a chair with a gun pressed to her temple.

“Freeze!” Jade shouted the moment John entered.

John raised his weapon and aimed it at his sister. “Don’t do it. Drop your weapon. It’s over!”

The entire base trembled violently. Tiles fell from the ceiling like hail. Wires above them exploded.

“No,” said Jade, her voice trembling maniacally. “You’re not smarter than me. You never were. I’m the genius! Don’t you take that away from me. I won’t let you!”

She pointed at the countdown clock on a nearby screen.

“You see that?” she asked. “In two minutes, the laser fires and D.C.’s precious little monument of superiority gets wiped off the map. America’s beloved symbol of control, gone in an instant!”

“America doesn’t rule the world,” said John.

“Oh, but it does! You’re just too stupid to see it. Everyone is! Though I suppose saying ‘America’ isn’t quite accurate. Let’s just say... power rules the world.”

“I’m tired of the games,” John said, stepping forward. The ground shook, and he stumbled before regaining his footing.

“Careful, don’t hurt yourself!” Jade mocked. “That’s for me to do. Not a small volcanic eruption, courtesy of your interference.”

“Why? Why destroy so many lives? Many of the people in that building are just doing their jobs. They have families to go home to.”

“It’s not about destruction! It’s about winning. Peter’s gone, and over my dead body will you take my place. You abandoned this family! You abandoned me!”

“All you Neros do is whine,” said Mango.

“Shut up!” Jade snapped, slapping Mango hard across the face with the butt of her gun. Jade glared at John. His face made her feel ill.

“As usual, the spoils go to the baby brother,” said Jade. “Everyone wants Peter and Jonathan to win, what about me?! I’m here too! I’m the girl. I’m the middle child. Always overlooked and undervalued.”

Jade suddenly burst into tears. “That’s why I have to be the smartest and most qualified. What else do I have? Who else can I be? After you left… Mom would cry for you. Dad would tell Peter how he has to step up and do the job of two people. They’re my parents too… Why was I left alone? Why was I forgotten?!”

“Forgotten? Who did I hide behind to protect me from Peter’s rants? The amount of boys I beat up for just looking at you wrong. With Peter at the helm, I thought we were gonna be the best duo this world had ever seen.”

John shook his head. “Everyone else was a narc. They’d say: Look, there goes the younger Neros. Now you’re the oldest. You got what you wanted.”

“So, what’s it going to be?” Jade said, turning to John. “Try to shoot me and save Mango? Or stop the countdown? You can’t do both. You have only one bullet left.”

“No, I don’t.”

“Oh, contrary,” Jade said with a smirk. “I’ve been watching you on my cameras since I escaped. I can count, you know. Learned when I was two.”

John quickly checked his rifle. The mag was empty. He pulled back the bolt.

One bullet.

“Dammit," he said. “You just know everything, huh?”

“It’s not your fault,” Jade said mockingly. “I was just born smarter. This is my destiny.”

The countdown hit one minute.

John was sweating. He looked from Mango to Jade to the console. He was trapped again. This wasn’t like with Peter, where there was something to punch. He had to think of a way out of this. Slowly, he lowered his rifle and slid it across the floor.

“You win,” he said, hands raised. “Okay? Just... stop the countdown.”

“Stop?” Jade laughed. “Are you insane? I’m this close to success, and you think I’ll back down?”

John’s mind raced. Then, a voice.

<<<>>>

[I can count too, John.]

<<<>>>

It was the Focus AI speaking inside his head.

<<<>>>

[You’re not out of moves just yet.]

<<<>>>

What else can I do? thought John. How do you out-think a genius who knows everything?

<<<>>>

[Maybe that was it.]

[She knows everything.]

[She’s a stickler for details.]

<<<>>>

She'd never forget any details. She never forgets anything. She's always right. Wait… that’s it!

A smirk crept across John’s face.

“Why are you smiling?” Jade asked suspiciously.

“This,” John replied.

She raised her gun as he slowly reached into his jacket. “What could you possibly have? You threw away your gun.”

“Well,” John said, pulling out his pen, “you know what they say. The pen is mightier than the gun.”

Jade tilted her head in confusion. “What?”

“Yeah. The pen is mightier than the gun! See? Look at it.”

Jade rolled her eyes. “A joke? At a time like this?” She lowered her gun. “That’s not how the saying goes.”

"Yes it is."

"No it isn't."

"You're a genius and you don't know common phrases? Guess you must've missed that."

Jade lowered her weapon. "What is happening right now? I know all 25,135 idoms in the American English language."

"You know it's ok to be wrong, right? Sometimes you focus on the bigger picture so much, you forget certain details."

"Details?! what are you talking about-"

Thwip!

A knockout dart launched from the pen and struck her square in the forehead.

She looked up at it and sighed. “Oh… the darts from earlier... Clever…”

Then, she collapsed. John sprinted to the control console.

Mango stumbled beside him. "How did you know she would lower her guard?"

"Her obsessiveness with being correct has always been her biggest weakness!"

Ten seconds on the screen.

“How do we shut it down?!” asked Mango.

“I don’t know! I’m not a genius,” John replied.

“Eight seconds,” she said, panicked. “There’s just a bunch of buttons!”

“Focus,” John said. “Analyze!”

<<<>>>

[Analyzing console…]

<<<>>>

Seven seconds.

<<<>>>

[Shutdown possible via biometric handprint.]

<<<>>>

John grabbed Jade’s unconscious body and slammed her hand against the scanner.

Six seconds.

The console lit up. A lever lifted out of its panel. It asked for a password to access.

“Password?!” John screamed. “You gotta be kidding me!”

Five.

“Don’t you know it?” asked Mango.

Four.

“How the hell would I know?”

Three seconds.

“She’s your sister!”

Two seconds.

John’s mind raced as fast as it could. Jade was a super genius! It could be anything! What could she possibly use as a password! It would have to be something no one would think of…

He quickly typed in a word: Buffoon.

One second.

John yanked it down and held his breath…

Zero.

The screen went black.

A cursor blinked on the screen.

Once.

Twice.

Then it read: Shut Down Successful.

The laser powered down; its humming stopped. Silence. John and Mango collapsed to the floor, breathing heavily. John quickly got back up and typed something onto the panel.

The screen blinked and then typed again: Self-Destruct Initiated.

“Thank God,” John sighed. “I thought we were goners.”

But the floor still shook, and then lava exploded across the base, shattering screens and melting supports.

“We will be if we stay here,” Mango warned.

John lifted his unconscious sister, and they bolted for the hangar.

<<<>>>

[Data processing…]

[Level Increase! Analyze (1) → (2)]

<<<>>>

You couldn’t have given me that a second ago when I was guessing how to save the world on the console? Thought John.

<<<>>>

[There was not enough data. You had not completed one of the objectives.]

<<<>>>

You mother fu-

<<<>>>

[Suggestion: Please focus on escaping.]

**********************************************************************

They saw planes lifting off in the distance as they reached the air hangar.

“There!” Mango yelled, pointing at the last plane.

A guard sprinted toward it. John raised his rifle and fired. The guard dove behind cover and returned fire. One of the bullets struck John in the leg, sending him crashing down with Jade on his shoulder.

Mango ran ahead, climbed the stairs, and rushed into the cockpit. “Come on!”

John limped up the stairs. The other guards started firing, but John slammed the door shut as he entered, and all their bullets bounced off. Mango started the engines. The plane inched forward. Guards swarmed onto the runway behind them.

“Do you know how to fly this thing?” John asked.

“Not in the slightest,” Mango shouted, gripping the controls. “But if we’re moving forward and not inside that volcano, we’re better off!”

The hangar doors began to close.

“Oh, come on!” Mango shouted. “Seriously?”

“Go faster!” John yelled.

“I am going as fast as I can!”

The hangar door slid half-closed, with only a sliver of space left.

“It’s going to close!” John shouted.

BOOM!

The plane squeezed just far enough out of the hangar for the main cabin to clear, but the wings weren’t so lucky. One wing ripped off against the hangar door; the other was torn away by the jagged wall of the volcano.

The plane rocketed out, plunging down the volcano’s edge, skimming toward the ocean below. The ride was rough, with violent bumps and sudden jolts.

“What the hell are we gonna do?!” Mango cried out, gripping her seat.

“Get the life raft!” John shouted. They bolted toward the back of the cabin.

SPLASH!

The plane smashed into the ocean with a violent splash, jarring them to the floor. Water surged into the cabin immediately.

John tried the exit door, but it was jammed. “Fuck! It’s not opening! It must’ve got damaged during the hangar ram!”

Mango spotted a fire extinguisher in a wall case. She smashed the glass with her hand, yanked it out, and rushed to John’s side.

“Get out of the way!” she yelled.

John stepped aside. Mango used all her weight and slammed the extinguisher into the doorframe. It cracked open, and a wave of seawater surged in, quickly flooding the cabin to their knees.

John handed Jade’s unconscious body to Mango. “Take her and get out!”

“What are you talking about?” Mango barked. “We’re not doing this again!”

“We have to if you don’t go! I need to get the raft. We can't stay here, treading water!”

The water now reached their chests. Mango looked at John, hesitated, but then obeyed, kicking hard to the surface, dragging Jade with her.

John took one final breath and dove deeper into the sinking cabin. The overhead light flickered above the last pocket of air, now vanishing.

He scanned below the seats and saw the life raft lodged under wreckage, the release pin stuck from the impact.

He pulled, yanked, twisted, but it wouldn't budge. His lungs were burning. He was going to drown. Again.

That’s when he saw one of Mango’s knives floating near him.

He grabbed it and cut the release free, then pulled the raft through the wreckage and toward the open door. He quickly swam through it. As the plane sank deeper into the black abyss, he fired the cord.

WHOOSH!

The raft inflated instantly, rocketing John to the surface. He broke through the water beside Mango, gasping for air. He then immediately turned and puked seawater over the side of the raft.

“John!” Mango shouted, holding onto Jade. She flopped Jade inside and climbed in.

John choked, coughed, and then wiped his mouth. “Don’t swim that way,” he wheezed, pointing toward the still-sinking wreckage.

Mango helped him onto the raft.

Behind them, the volcano erupted, lava spilling down into the ocean, steam and smoke rising like a hellish food boil. The base collapsed, swallowed by the molten lava of the mountain.

John lay back on the raft, completely spent. He’d done it. Saved the world. Saved the woman he loved. And, amazingly, at least one of his siblings.

It wasn’t a perfect ending, but it was something. Then they heard a familiar rumbling in the sky.

John opened his eyes and saw Noreen’s plane above them. Mango stood up on the raft, waving her arms like a madwoman.

John chuckled. “You know,” he said, smiling, “if anyone was gonna try to kill me… I’m glad it was you.”

Mango turned to him, smiling wide. “You’re lucky I didn’t succeed,” she said.

She leaned in and kissed him… but immediately pulled away, face twisted in disgust.

“Did you just throw up?” she asked.

“…Yeah,” John said awkwardly.

“What the hell, John?” she gagged, wiping her mouth.

“You didn’t ask,” he said with a shrug.

Mango pouted and turned away, her nose up in the air.

“Really?” John groaned. “You’re mad at me again? What’d I do this time?”