CHAPTER FOUR: THE HIDDEN ROUTE
Iris led them into the maze through the emergency entrance.
The unfinished walls towered above them, trapping the smell of damp canvas.
Their footsteps sounded strangely loud against the temporary plywood floor.
At the central chamber, four painted doors stood around a circular platform.
Three matched the diagram Iris carried.
The fourth wore a new brass handle and a sign reading THE SECRET PATH.
Daniel tested the handle.
It turned without resistance.
Beyond lay a corridor lined with black curtains and small silver lights.
The floor sloped gently downward toward a second door.
Carol stopped at the threshold.
“That shouldn’t slope.”
Daniel crouched and pressed his palm against the boards.
“They’ve built it over the old drainage ramp.”
The ramp originally allowed maintenance carts to enter the stage basement from the rear.
It was too narrow for people moving in opposite directions.
Daniel walked slowly down the corridor while Iris measured the clearance with a folding tape.
The far door opened into a square room decorated with mirrored panels.
A sign instructed participants to find the hidden symbol before returning through the door they had used.
There was no outward exit.
“They’ve turned an evacuation route into a dead end,” Iris said.
Carol touched one of the mirrors.
“And they’ve hidden the old door behind the wall.”
Daniel traced the seams of the new construction.
The panels were bolted to movable frames that could be rolled aside, but the release handles faced the outside service alley.
A participant inside could not reach them.
“If a crowd enters during a power failure, they’ll think this is the way out,
” he said.
Iris photographed the corridor and called her supervisor.
He answered after three rings.
“The maze is closed for inspection,” she told him.
The supervisor reminded her that the mayor would cut the ribbon at three.
Iris replied that public schedules did not make a dead end safe.
After a long pause, she hung up.
“He says the sponsor has paid for the installation and the opening will proceed.”
Daniel turned back toward the central chamber.
“Who is the sponsor?”
“Halcyon Adventures,” Iris said.
The name appeared on posters across town.
Its founder, Adrian Voss, had recently announced a traveling line of immersive puzzle events.
Briarfield’s festival was his first public demonstration.
Carol had complained about the changes since Wednesday.
Voss had dismissed her as an elderly volunteer who could not remember the original layout.
“Why would he risk a public event over one corridor?” Daniel asked.
“Because the corridor is the attraction,” Carol said.
“He’s selling something nobody has been allowed to inspect.”
Outside the room, a motor started with a rough metallic growl.
The central platform rotated several inches.
Iris hurried back up the ramp.
A contractor stood beside the control box, holding a remote in his hand.
“What are you doing?” she demanded.
The man lifted the remote.
“Testing the timed rotation.”
“Nobody approved a timed rotation.”
“Mr. Voss did.”
The platform shifted again.
A painted door moved across the opening to the secret corridor.
Daniel imagined a child trying to leave the mirror room while the doorway slowly disappeared behind a wall.
He reached the contractor before the next rotation.
“Stop the motor.”
“I can’t interrupt calibration.”
Daniel pointed at Iris.
“She’s the safety coordinator, and she has just told you to stop.”
The contractor hesitated, then pressed a red button.
The platform came to rest with a grinding squeal.
Carol looked from the motor to the broken brass case in Daniel’s hand.
“Victor built a selector because the doors were never meant to turn without someone watching the exits.”
“And somebody removed it,” Daniel said.
The contractor looked suddenly interested in the ground.
