CHAPTER FIFTEEN: THE SPONSOR’S DEMONSTRATION ROOM
After the rescue, Iris took Daniel through the portable office where Voss had planned to host his investors.
The walls were covered with illustrations of rotating corridors and dramatic lighting effects.
A scale model of the maze sat on a conference table beside half-empty cups of coffee.
Daniel recognized the central platform immediately.
Four miniature doors surrounded a wheel that turned when a button was pressed.
He watched Iris demonstrate the model’s motion.
At one position, the miniature north corridor led to an outside gate.
At the next, the same doorway pointed into a dead end.
“They knew the doors could misalign,” Daniel said.
Iris nodded toward the model’s control panel.
A label beneath the dial read SURPRISE CONFIGURATION.
Another button triggered a prerecorded burst of applause from a speaker.
“This is what they planned to sell,” she said.
“A maze that changes while guests are inside.”
Daniel inspected the model’s floor.
Its miniature emergency exits were fixed, but the moving platform could block two of them during a rotation.
He took no photographs until Iris asked him to document the demonstration setup for the town’s technical review.
They recorded the positions and the corresponding exit paths in a notebook.
The physical model mattered more than anything Voss had promised in his speeches.
It showed that the dangerous configuration was part of the advertised feature.
A young woman appeared at the office entrance carrying a laptop.
She introduced herself as Nia Park, an engineer contracted to program the model’s lighting effects.
“I heard somebody was hurt,” she said.
“Nobody was physically injured,
” Iris replied.
“Two children were trapped in an unapproved route.”
Nia set down the laptop.
“I warned them about the door timing.”
Daniel asked who had received her warning.
“The production manager,” Nia said.
“He told me the wall movements were just theatrical effects.”
She had assumed the actual installation contained ordinary emergency exits separate from the moving corridors.
The demonstration model had been built from design sketches, not verified field measurements.
“I don’t work on building inspections,” she added.
“But I could see that one button put a wall across the illustrated escape route.”
Iris asked whether Nia had been permitted to walk through the finished structure.
“No,” she said.
“I arrived this morning, and they sent me straight to the office.”
Daniel showed her Victor’s selector.
Nia studied the grooves and asked how it worked.
When he explained, she smiled despite the circumstances.
“That’s an elegant mechanical interlock.”
“It prevents you from choosing an unsafe orientation,” Daniel said.
“Exactly,” Nia replied.
“Which makes me wonder why they spent money programming the same thing badly.”
She offered to explain the model’s behavior to the independent engineer when the town appointed one.
Iris thanked her and made a note of her contact details.
Outside, the festival music continued.
A trumpet player missed a high note, then tried again.
Daniel looked toward the bright field beyond the office window.
The contrast made the situation feel even stranger.
A cheerful local event had almost become an accident because too many people had assumed somebody else was checking the details.
He turned off the model’s power switch.
The miniature doors stopped halfway between two painted exits.
