"Remi Jay Bellard, the terrorist known as 'Mr Explode', has been declared dead after his car fell off the cliff. After his attempt to trigger a bomb on the Jonas Camp Shopping Mall, he got involved in a car chase with the police and lost control of his car. The officers have inspected the accident and they concluded there was no way Remi could have ever survived".
Roger Morton threw the journal from 4 years ago to the side in anger.
"Are you fuming over that journal article all again?", said his wife, "He's dead, I told you to just drop it".
"I'm going to the bedroom", said the frustrated husband, climbing the stairs.
He opened his laptop and selected the videos he got from the shopping mall cameras. He flicked through the multiple videos until something caught his attention.
The video showed a suspicious hooded figure wearing gloves. It could only be Remi!, thought Roger. The figure moved to one restricted room and then the video stopped.
He wrote an entire email to the manager of the Jonas Camp Shopping with the video explaining about Bellard. The manager seemed skeptical, but asked further about it. Eventually the manager sent an email:
"The video is from three months ago and nothing has happened ever since. The hooded figure you're showing is probably just one of those teenagers that show up on the shopping every thursday".
The retired officer pressed further, but all he received was that he was too paranoid.
Frustrated, Morton closed the laptop and just laid on the bed. He should probably just forget it, the consensus says Remi has died in that car accident and countless evidences point that. Still, it felt wrong. He followed Mr Explode everywhere since he got famous from that central park incident. Multiple times the cops haven't noticed his traps, he slipped past their noses and costed almost a hundred lives. He wasn't dumb, he could have easily gotten away from that car accident. There was a great possibility the consensus was wrong.
Those thoughts bothered Roger as days and days passed and nothing ever was reported. He had to check it some day. The day came when he and his wife went to the shopping with their daughter. He told himself multiple times to not worry about it, but he couldn't comply.
"Wait here", he told his family as they passed through the same spot he found the hooded figure.
Roger sneaked in the same room he saw on the video and turned on the flashlight of his mobile. There was a metal ladder leading down to the underground.
The underground seemed like an abandoned car garage, now used to store whatever the shopping doesn't use. Among the mess it was, there was a huge blanket covering something. Roger removed it and to his "surprise" there was an inactive bomb under it. As soon the blanket was removed, the clock started ticking from 15:00 minutes.
"What are you doing?", Roger heard from the distance.
He shifted the flashlight onto a tanned man with crispy dark hair. In the tag he could read the word "manager".
"I told you! I told you!", said Roger frantically, "there's a bomb in here!".
The manager just smiled, pulled a pistol gun from his coat and said:
"Exactly!"
Roger immediately pulled a pistol gun from his own pocket and pointed at the manager, also known as Remi "Mr Explode" Bellard.
"I have an implant on myself that will autodetonate the bomb if it detects me dead", Bellard slowly said, "shoot me at your own risk".
Roger and Remi walked in circles pointing their guns at each other, waiting for someone's wrong step. The retired officer spotted some exposed cables with different colors. Roger remembered all attempts to defuse the bombs he planted. It took multiple failures, but he remembered the correct was always the blue one. Even four years ago when Remi tried to explode the shopping mall the bomb was defused cutting the blue cable.
Morton slowly lowered his gun to the range of the blue cable, but something made him stop his next action. What if I am wrong?, the thought echoed on his head.
"Why are you taking so long? Do it!", suggested Remi.
That only made Roger more paranoid, but he had to do something or else...
POW!
The gun flew away from his hand as blood started to drip from it.
"Oh, Roger! You're so careful yet that kind of hesitation kills you!", mocked the bomber, "the answer should have been pretty obvious. Blue is my favorite color and always will be. Glad I could count on your hesitation!"
The terrorist kept boasting about how he managed to escape from the car at the last moment and hide all the four years. Until four security guards showed up pointing their gun at him.
"Don't shoot him!", shouted Morton, "he has an implant!"
"Yeah, I do!", confirmed Remi pointing the gun at his own head.
Roger, with his good hand, called his wife and daughter and told them to just go away from the shopping. He discreetly pointed the blue cable to one of the security guards. The guard complied and shot the cable and the clock began to tick faster, as if it has turned into seconds.
"Aww! You were wrong!", exclamed the terrorist, "what now?".
The security guards hesitated, so Bellard started shooting one by one, each time exclaming "pow!".
"What now? What now, Roger Morton?", mocked him.
The clock was ticking faster and faster. Roger had to do something. He aimed at the laughing terrorist and shot him in the head multiple times just as the clock reached zero.
Roger waited the explosion, but nothing came, instead he just heard the bipping coming from the now red sensor. He approached it and one remaining security guard showed up on his side.
"Did it stop the bomb?", asked him.
Roger stared the bipping clock then looked directly into the security guard's eyes in despair and answered:
"No".
