The Failsafe

The air was getting thin. Luca felt the edges of his vision blurring.

Camilla was gasping, clutching her chest.

"I can't... breathe," she wheezed.

Luca looked at the control panel embedded in the wall near the door. It was locked behind a plexiglass shield.

He remembered the blueprints. He remembered the paranoia that had driven him to build this place. *What if I get stuck?*

There was a failsafe. A hardware override.

If the high-voltage circuit behind the panel was shorted manually, it would trigger a system reset. The mag-locks would disengage for exactly ten seconds to allow for emergency maintenance.

But to short the circuit, you had to touch the live wires.

440 volts.

It would stop a human heart instantly.

Luca looked at the panel. Then he looked at Camilla.

She had betrayed him. She wanted him dead. And yet, looking at her, he knew he would burn the world down just to give her one more breath.

"Cami," Luca said. "Listen to me."

She looked at him, eyes wide and panicked.

"There is a way out. But you have to be fast. When the door opens, you run. You don't look back. You run."

"What?"

"I'm going to open the door."

Luca stood up. He gathered the slack in his chain. He wrapped the steel links around his fist like a gauntlet.

He walked to the wall panel.

"Luca, what are you doing?" Camilla asked, sensing the finality in his posture.

"Karma," Luca whispered. "It’s time to pay the bill."

He smashed his fist into the plexiglass. It cracked. He hit it again. And again. His knuckles split, blood smearing on the plastic, but the shield shattered.

The exposed wiring hummed with lethal energy.

"Luca, stop!" Camilla scrambled up. "It will kill you!"

"I love you, Cami," Luca said. He didn't look back. "I forgive you."

He plunged his hands into the machinery.