Shell had managed to download a copy of the sphere's data right before it fell on the mecha. Her mind was exhausted but she wanted to make sure she had a copy in case Duncan failed to get everything.
Shell ran over to Jess, Atlas, and Renk. Duncan climbed down the ladders, making his way down from the catwalks.
The sphere began to explode, causing fire and smoke to hurl out into the room. Duncan was almost knocked off a ladder on his way down but managed to reach the floor without being injured.
"Duncan!" yelled Shell. "How much of the data did you get out of that overgrown pinball?"
"Everything," replied Duncan.
"Good," she replied. "We have redundancy. Let's try to get out of here alive so we can turn it over to Dr. Thameh."
An enormous explosion rang out from the center of the room as the giant metal ball continued to self destruct.
Shell yelled out to everyone. "We can't stay in here! In about five more minutes, this baby's gonna BLOW!"
In the confusion, General Mulhauser broke away from Elise. She shot him in the leg but he continued to run toward the exploding machine in the center of the room.
General Mulhauser began to laugh maniacally. "Ha ha ha! You'll all find out!"
The general walked up to the ball, which started to glow red and then a bright white as it fractured. He touched it with his hand and began to dissolve into a white light.
"I AM BECOME AN IMMORTAL GOD!" screamed Benton. "ALPHA AND OMEGA!!!"
The entire room began to heat up to an almost unbearable temperature, as if it were an oven.
Atlas ran to the elevator door at the end of the exit and motioned everyone to follow him. "We can't stick around for the show, folks," he yelled.
Shell quickly hacked the access code to the emergency elevator. Everyone piled into the elevator and it ascended at a high speed.
When the doors opened, the group found themselves in a passenger shuttle dock located on the opposite side of the asteroid from the weapons manufacturing facility. They hurried over to one of the shuttles as the asteroid shook violently. Shell connected to the shuttle's locking panel and was able to open the door in a matter of seconds.
As everyone took their seats, Shell attempted to reconnect to the wireless network. As soon as a connection was established, Shell called Dr. Thameh.
"Dr. Thameh! Can you pinpoint our position?"
It took a few seconds but Camay responded, "Shell Lockheed! You're ALIVE?!"
"Yes, but not for long if we can't get this shuttle moving," replied Shell.
Atlas and Renk were desperately trying to activate the controls in the cockpit. Finally, the engines came on.
"Hang on, it's going to be a rough launch," replied Camay. "I can't seem to control it from here very well. Something on the asteroid is interfering with the network."
The shuttle blasted out of the dock, hurtling across the asteroid's landscape before eventually gaining enough altitude to break away from the asteroid's weak gravity. As the shuttle got further away from the asteroid, the shuttle's course became more controlled.
"I can't believe you're all alive," said Camay. "How did you all manage to get out of there?"
Shell and Duncan noticed that the 'net had returned to normal. Shell immediately uploaded the data she had taken from the core to the L1 colony's servers.
