The biometric lock panel on the wall was completely dead, scorched and blackened from the massive thermal surge Kaen had pushed through the sub-level grid. With the primary systems fried, the cell’s mechanical fail-safes had triggered, engaging the heavy magnetic deadbolts to lock the durasteel door firmly into the bulkhead. It was a fail-secure loop designed to keep a Class-Four thermal hazard inside at all costs, regardless of total grid failure.
But the locks weren't designed to keep someone from breakingin.
I dropped to my knees on the cold grating. I reached beneath the dead biometric scanner, feeling along the heavy, reinforced metal seam of the primary maintenance panel. It was secured with four industrial pressure-latches.
I gripped the bottom edge of the panel with both hands, my bare toes digging into the floor for leverage. The metal wasalready hot to the touch, the ambient temperature from Kaen's melting cell beginning to bleed through the heavy shielding.
I yanked upward with every ounce of strength I had left in my exhausted muscles.
The first two latches gave way with a sharpcrack, but the top two held firm. The sharp edge of the metal bit deeply into my palms, scraping the skin raw. The pain flared sharply, but I didn't let go. I welcomed it. The pain meant I was moving. It meant I wasn't numb anymore.
I adjusted my grip, planted my knee against the wall, and pulled again, throwing my entire body weight backward.
The heavy panel violently popped off the wall, clattering loudly against the corridor floor.
A chaotic tangle of thick, heavily insulated high-voltage power conduits spilled out. The heat radiating from the exposed wiring was intense, carrying the sharp, metallic scent of melting copper. I didn't have tools. I didn't have insulated gloves.
I reached into the cavity, my bare fingers brushing against the scorching insulation. The heat blistered my fingertips instantly, a searing, bright flash of pain that shot straight up my arm. I hissed through my teeth, my jaw locking tight.
I gripped the thick, primary red magnetic-lock relay and the heavy black grounding wire.
I took a sharp breath, bracing myself against the wall, and violently crossed the two conduits, grinding the exposed, frayed ends together.
A shower of bright blue sparks erupted from the panel, singeing the sleeve of my flimsy hospital gown. The sharp, acrid stench of fried wiring and melting plastic filled the narrow corridor.
Deep inside the bulkhead, the heavy magnetic seals let out a deep, structural groan. The locking mechanism violentlyshort-circuited, the massive deadbolts retracting with a harsh, grinding screech of protesting metal.
The blast door hissed, vibrating violently before it slowly began to slide open.
A physical wall of blistering, suffocating heat slammed into me the moment the seal was broken. It was like opening the door to an active blast furnace. The sheer force of the thermal wave knocked the breath from my lungs and forced me to take a staggering step backward.
I threw my arm up, shielding my face from the blinding light.
The interior of the containment cell was a terrifying, apocalyptic nightmare. The synthetic plastics framing the ceiling and the medical bays were completely liquefied, dripping onto the floor in thick, hissing puddles of black sludge. The air was visibly distorted, shivering heavily with heat haze, carrying the overwhelmingly thick, primal scent of raw sulfur.
Kaen was collapsed in the center of the room.
He looked like a dying god. His massive, charcoal-gray scales were cracked and weeping thin, brilliant lines of incandescent plasma. The glowing veins running across his chest and arms were no longer a comforting orange. They had turned a blinding, volatile white, pulsing with an erratic, terrifying rhythm. The heat radiating off his body was so intense it was actively scorching the durasteel floor plates beneath him.
His head snapped up as the door opened.
When his glowing, feral eyes locked onto me standing in the doorway, a look of absolute, unadulterated terror crossed his face.
"Get out!" he roared.
The sound wasn't a word; it was a physical force. The sheer volume and agony in his voice vibrated the bones in my chest. He pushed himself up onto one knee, his broken wing dragging heavily against the melting floor. He threw his right hand outtoward me, sending a visible, suffocating wave of ambient heat rolling across the room, desperately trying to physically force me back into the corridor.
I lowered my arm. I didn't flinch. I didn't take a single step backward.
"The lie is over, Kaen," I said.
My voice was calm, clear, and perfectly steady, cutting through the heavy, roaring sound of the inferno. I stepped fully over the threshold, entering the blistering cell. The soles of my bare feet burned against the superheated floor, but the pain was distant, eclipsed entirely by the violent, euphoric tug of the tether in my chest.
"You will die!" he bellowed, his voice cracking with desperation. He scrambled backward, trying to put distance between us, but his massive shoulders hit the far wall. The metal hissed loudly against his back. "The cycle is critical! If you touch me, you will burn!"
"You think you're a bomb," I stated, continuing my slow, deliberate walk across the melting room. The intense heat was pulling the moisture from my skin, making the thin fabric of the hospital gown cling to my body. "You think you're protecting me by pushing me into an evacuation shuttle."
"Tove, please," he begged. The terrifying, towering Warden was completely gone, replaced by a devastatingly vulnerable man watching his worst nightmare unfold. The plasma wept from his face like glowing tears. "I cannot control it. I will destroy you."
