As I sit here, orbiting the
Earth at an unspecified
height, I feel nostalgic about the days when my current
abode was still under construction. Then, I was still in the rather
old-fashioned underground complex. The
ventilation was poor, there was a strange smell in the air, and the
East wing still had two inches of water on the
floor. Ah, those were the days. The days before e2 and high-speed internet connections.
In time, however, I tired of having to go up 3000m in the lift every time I wanted to go to the shops. Even worse was when the stairs weren't working. I realised that I needed a new place, one with a better transportation system. It would have to be the symbol of modern technology. Where could I have it? Underground was taken; the ocean was reserved for emergencies; a base in the sky was so Captain Scarlet; only space is left.
"Alright then," I thought to myself, "Space it is." And I started on the plans for my Orbital Control Platform. But construction went slowly. We were beset with problems. You don't want to know what we had to do with the toilets. The data transmission lines took ages to align properly. In short, this was my most difficult base to construct. After a short while, though, it was habitable. I wasn't to move in yet, until all of the tests had been completed.
When I finally moved in to my new home, it was a wondrous feeling. I activated the defensive system, and had fun getting rid of a few bits of space debris. It was finally done. This was my home.
The underground base is now in use again, as a staging post for Project Legion. It may be ugly and smelly, but it sure is big. My more comfortable base, in orbit, is where I can usually be found (or should that be not found, since the sensor baffling features are most sophisticated). So far, this new hideout has caused no problems, since I have tried every button except one.
Yes, like Willy Wonka's Great Glass Elevator, there is one button in here that has never been pressed or touched. It has never been exposed to the air, and (with any luck) never will be. Because all of my hideouts have such a button, labelled "self-destruct".
None of my self-destruct commands have ever been called. There was a close call in a short stay of the sub-Atlantic outpost, but apart from that, they are all untried. For pressing that small button, or activating the voice command, will start a chain reaction culminating in every body, every rock, every molecule, every atom in close proximity to the base being split into its constituent quarks. And, though I am eternal, I do not wish to see the consequences of that.