In the tense atmosphere, Dion slowly walked up to Jabari his gun still pointed at Jabari's head.
"Show me all the information you have on other revolutionist bases"
Jabari trembled slightly before eking out an answer.
"A-All of the information is in this holo-terminal, here, let me open it for you"
Jabari picked the small round object off the table and waved his hand across the holographic map that was currently being displayed. The map was replaced by a holographic screen which immediately prompted Jabari for a password. After Jabari tapped some seemingly random section of the screen, it lit up with a green "Access Granted" Message. Upon seeing this Dion impatiently reached for the holo-terminal.
"Alright, I'll take over from here."
After grabbing the terminal out of Jabari's hand Dion began to analyze the terminal, now pointing the rifle at Jabari with just one hand. Since Dion had not yet killed everyone in this base he wasn't going to go through the files in detail at the moment, he was simply giving a cursory check to verify their authenticity. The terminal was currently displaying a list of files. There were files on many base affairs like "Base Supply Count" or "Emergency Procedures". There were also some rather strange applications like "Self Destruct! DO NOT PRESS!!!" and "Launch Nuclear Warheads!!". As Dion was looking through the files he realized that the screen had a scroll bar on the side indicating that there were some files further down not being displayed. Nodding his head at this discovery Dion, who was an old man at heart and still refused to upgrade from his smartphone to a holo-terminal did what any smartphone user would, he swiped up on the screen with his thumb to scroll down.
"Wait don't pre-"
Unfortunately for Dion smartphones and holo-terminal had very different controls. Due to holo-terminals having a holographic screen, your fingers would go right through it making it difficult for the machine to differentiate between a scroll command and a select command. To prevent this from becoming an issue all holo-terminals had a scroll bar wherever necessary. Thus the only way to scroll up and down on a holo-terminal was to swipe up and down on the scroll bar, touching other parts of the screen would always be considered as a select command. Unfortunately, Jabari's holo-terminal was not an exception to this rule. Even more unfortunate was the fact that when Dion went to scroll down on the holo-terminal his finger was coincidentally above the file that read "Self Destruct! DO NOT PRESS!!!". After a red loading screen with a quickly filling green bar showed up, Dion belatedly realized that he had accidentally started up the self destruct application.
"What the f*ck" cursed Jabari "Cancel it!! Press the cancel button!"
Realizing that he probably shouldn't blow up the base while he was still in it, Dion looked at the loading screen. He found that there were six buttons with symbols that he didn't recognize in a neat 3 by 2 rectangle just underneath the loading bar. These symbols were actually created several decades ago since the expansion of mathematics had caused mathematicians to run out of usable symbols. Almost everyone alive in the current year, 2279 would immediately recognize these symbols. Unfortunately, Dion was not included in that group, he had no idea what those symbols were called nor their meaning. The reason there were multiple buttons on the self destruct loading screen was very simple, the self destruct procedure would only really be used in a situation where the base was about to be compromised. In that kind of situation, it would be difficult for the people in the base to guarantee that they could protect the terminal until the application completed the self destruct procedure. Thus there were many buttons and only the people at the base who regularly used the terminal knew which button was used to cancel the self destruct procedure in case they accidentally started it
"Which one is the cancel button?!" yelled Dion.
At this point, even he was starting to get flustered, partly because of the impending explosion but mainly because he was embarrassed for being so out of touch with technology.
'I really have gotten old and out of touch. I couldn't even browse through some simple files without causing an incident.' lamented Dion.
Hearing Dion's yell Jabari was reminded of the security features of the self-destruct button. He cursed in his head.
'Does this 200-year-old dinosaur even know what those symbols mean?'
Jabari's intuition was correct, Dion had no idea what the symbols were called, so it was impossible for Jabari to tell him which button would cancel the procedure. Realizing this, Dion did what any sensible old man who couldn't use modern technology would do, he decided to pass the terminal to Jabari.
"Here just... fix it!" said Dion furtively.
'Fix what?! The problem's with you, not the f*cking terminal.' Jabari thought inwardly.
Although Jabari was very indignant about the situation brought about by Dion he smartly kept his thoughts to himself, both because time was of the essence and because he was still being held at gunpoint. After receiving the terminal Jabari quickly looked through the different symbols, trying to find the one that would cancel the procedure. The button which was supposed to cancel the procedure was had a symbol that looked like a spiral overlaid with an 8 pointed star. The symbol was called amgil and Jabari quickly discovered it, his hand already reaching for the corresponding button.
"Thank God!! I fou-"
Alas, Jabari was too late. Jabari and Dion had taken too long. Just before Jabari's, index finger touched the button the loading screen was replaced with a different screen that had a red background with the words "SELF DESTRUCT INITIATED!!!" in big black letters at the center of the page. Jabari fell to his knees his eyes looking soulless. The fall from hope to despair had crushed his spirits.
BANG!!
Before Dion could formulate a plan of action the east wall which contained the only door was ripped apart and pulled towards what looked like a miniature black hole floating to the left of where the hallway used to be. At this point, the hallway, which happened to be the only exit, was completely gone and giant cavern the size of a mansion had replaced it. Debris was being pulled from the walls and ceiling of the cavern into the slowly growing singularity in the center. As the attraction force of the miniature black hole got more and more powerful Dion dropped his assault rifle and pulled out an object from one of the pouches on his belt. The object was a panda keyring with a red nose. Dion grasped the panda keyring in his left hand, brought both arms to his sides and placed his legs as close together as possible looking like a soldier standing at attention. After getting into the proper position he pressed his thumb onto the red nose of the panda. there was a flash on the nose of the panda as the object scanned his fingerprints. After the scan, a blue film covered Dion's entire body including his backpack and belt before the artificial black hole pulled him from the floor and sent him flying straight for the center of the singularity.