CHAPTER THIRTEEN: THE WRONG EXIT
Inside the maze, the inspection party reached the central chamber just as the platform lights flickered on.
Voss assured the mayor that the motor would remain disconnected.
Daniel looked toward the control box.
Its portable connector was back in place.
“Who reconnected that?” he asked.
Iris had the same question.
A technician emerged from behind a painted panel.
“Mr. Voss authorized a demonstration.”
“Disconnect it,” Iris ordered.
The technician hesitated.
Before anybody moved, the platform rotated a quarter turn.
The northern doorway slid past the ramp opening, leaving a wall where the exit sign had been.
The mayor stepped backward.
Daniel ran to the control box and pressed its red stop button.
The motor stopped with a heavy knock.
Behind the wall, someone shouted.
“Hello?”
A second voice answered,
younger and frightened.
“We can’t get out!”
Carol’s two boys had entered through a maintenance gap and wandered into the mirror room before the platform moved.
Daniel heard their voices through the canvas wall.
Iris ordered the technician to open the service panels.
He ran for a toolbox while Voss insisted the platform could simply rotate back.
“Not with people inside the corridor,” Daniel said.
“The floor clearance is too narrow.”
He knelt beside the wall and found the removable panel’s fastening bolts.
One had been painted over.
The other sat behind a wooden brace.
Iris sent a volunteer for a portable driver.
Daniel called through the wall.
“My name is Daniel, and we’re opening the panel.”
A boy answered that his younger brother was crying.
“Tell him you’re both doing well,
” Daniel said.
“Stay away from the moving door.”
Carol reached the central chamber, breathing hard.
She recognized the voice of eleven-year-old Benji Orr, who had helped her paint lanterns the previous summer.
“Benji, it’s Carol,” she called.
“Put your brother’s hand on the wall so you can stay together.”
The crying quieted enough for Benji to answer.
“Okay.”
The technician returned with a driver.
Daniel removed the first bolt and tried to shift the panel.
It did not move.
Iris found a second brace behind the painted scenery.
Voss looked toward the waiting mayor.
“This was not supposed to happen.”
“Then tell us what else you changed,” she replied.
Voss said nothing.
Daniel removed the final brace.
The panel swung outward, revealing the brothers pressed together beneath a row of mirrored lights.
Benji stepped out first, followed by his younger brother, who clutched a paper lantern with a crushed handle.
Carol dropped to her knees and held their shoulders.
“You are both going home through the proper gate,” she told them.
Benji nodded vigorously.
Daniel looked at Voss.
“Now you understand why that strip was there.”
