Reborn to Love Mr. Right – Episode 39
The silver case displayed sixty seconds despite having been replaced with an inert duplicate. Derek’s voice proved someone had switched it again after the police inspection. Every person inside the gym became a suspect and a target. The premature decorations turned grotesque beneath the pulsing red numbers.
Arianna ordered the evacuation signal. Officers moved toward the exits while Hayden ran from the security room to the court. The doors locked before anyone reached them, and metal shutters covered the windows.
Jeff shouted that the device was not a bomb. Victor had forced him to study the original design years earlier; the surge would travel through the building’s electrical system and ignite the server batteries below. The gym floor would become the center of a chemical fire. Anyone escaping the blast might still inhale toxic smoke from beneath the court.
Hayden cut power at the main panel, but the countdown continued on an internal cell. Ivy opened the signal-blocking case and removed the master key. If the surge could not authenticate it, the archive might refuse to broadcast.
The device requested the key anyway, using the copy taken at the lakeside station. Victor’s system had everything it needed. Removing the physical key could no longer stop the release.
Donald contacted firefighters through an analog emergency radio. The shutters blocked their immediate entry, leaving less than forty seconds before the first server bank overloaded. Arianna remembered the access hatch beneath the service line.
She and Hayden pulled up the loosened floorboards while Ivy entered the future account password on the podium console. A cancellation field appeared, but it demanded authorization from Witness-I.R. The present Ivy’s credentials were rejected.
Arianna descended into the archive room with Hayden as the server fans accelerated. Heat rolled from the black cabinet, and blue lights flashed along every drive. The system was preparing to expose years of stolen lives before destroying itself. Above them, footsteps thundered across the floor as officers searched for another exit.
Hayden found the coolant controls locked behind Victor’s replacement key. Arianna used the original key, but the panel offered two choices: preserve the archive and allow the broadcast, or erase every future file to stop the surge.
Destroying the archive would eliminate evidence, warnings, and the only connection to future Ivy. Preserving it would release private records and ignite the school. The system had reduced morality to a pair of buttons designed by a man who valued ownership over people. Arianna refused to let the value of stolen knowledge outweigh the people from whom it had been taken.
Arianna selected deletion. The archive had helped them, but no future justified sacrificing everyone recorded inside it. Hayden placed his hand over hers as she confirmed the choice.
The countdown stopped at eight seconds. Server lights went dark one row at a time, and the heat began falling. Above them, the shutters unlocked as firefighters entered the gym. Hayden remained beside Arianna until the final battery indicator faded.
One cabinet remained active. Its screen displayed Witness-I.R. and a progress bar labeled Final Packet. The original key had protected a single message from deletion without Arianna’s consent.
Ivy joined them underground, her face streaked with dust. She said Jeff had identified the person who replaced the silver case: Derek’s attorney entered disguised as a fire inspector, then escaped before the rehearsal began.
Police intercepted the attorney at the airport. He carried payment records linking Derek to the corrupted detention guard and Victor to the courthouse escape. Their last operational network had finally produced evidence that belonged entirely to the present.
Jeff submitted to arrest and gave a full statement. He admitted choosing Derek over every employer, victim, and warning because he believed protecting his son meant preventing consequences. “I taught him love was permission,” he said. “Then I blamed everyone else when he used it.”
Arianna felt no need to forgive him. Accountability did not require affection, and remorse did not return what his choices destroyed. Still, his testimony could prevent Derek from buying another escape with uncertainty.
The Final Packet completed after midnight. It contained a video longer than any previous message and a digital signature authenticated by the original key. Future Ivy had recorded it years after Arianna’s death.
Older Ivy appeared beside Hayden, whose hair held the first traces of gray. He looked directly into the camera and spoke to the version of Arianna he believed might someday receive the file. “I couldn’t save you then,” he said. “So we built a way for you to save yourself.”
The image shook as someone entered the future room. A gunshot sounded, Ivy fell from her chair, and Hayden reached toward the camera. Before the video cut to black, Victor’s older voice said, “No timeline belongs to the dead.”