CHAPTER FIVE: THE MAN WITH THE RED FOLDER
Adrian Voss arrived in a charcoal blazer carrying a red presentation folder.
He was younger than Daniel expected, with an easy smile that vanished when he saw the stopped platform.
“We’re losing time,” he told the contractor.
Iris stepped in front of him.
“Your new corridor has no emergency exit.”
Voss glanced at Carol.
“I see Mrs. Mercer is still campaigning against the project.”
“This isn’t about her,” Iris replied.
“It’s about an installation your contractor built without approval.”
Voss opened his folder and produced a diagram.
“My team submitted updated drawings.”
Iris studied them.
The drawing showed a wide passage from the mirror room to an exterior gate.
Daniel pointed toward the actual wall.
“That passage doesn’t exist.”
“It’s scheduled for completion before opening.
”
“With ninety minutes left?”
Voss turned to the contractor.
“How long?”
“Three hours at least,” the man admitted.
The sponsor’s expression tightened.
“Then we’ll manage entry numbers until it is done.”
Iris shook her head.
“No.”
“The town has sold tickets.”
“The town can refund tickets.”
Voss looked at Daniel.
“You aren’t responsible for safety decisions.”
“I’m responsible for the hardware I repaired,” Daniel said.
“You installed a rotating door onto a route I was told was an exit.”
“Your work was finished before our modifications.”
“That doesn’t make the modification safe.”
Carol took a step toward Voss.
“Where is Victor’s selector strip?”
He appeared not to recognize the question.
“I don’t know what you’re talking about.”
She held up the broken brass case.
“This belongs at the control station.
”
Voss examined it for less than a second.
“Old equipment is irrelevant to our design.”
“Then why did your crew remove the operator’s safeguard?”
Voss closed the folder.
“We’re done arguing.”
He ordered the contractor to resume testing.
Iris responded by removing the control box’s portable power connector and putting it in her vest pocket.
The contractor raised both hands.
Voss stared at her.
“You cannot interfere with my equipment.”
“It’s on a public site under my safety clearance,” Iris said.
“The platform stays still until we have a safe exit.”
Voss’s smile returned, thinner now.
“We’ll discuss this with the committee.”
He left through the service gate without looking back.
Daniel watched him go.
“He seems very confident the committee will side with him.”
“He paid for half the festival,” Iris said.
Carol held the broken case carefully.
“I don’t need the committee to like me.”
“What do you need?” Daniel asked.
“The strip Victor made,” she said.
“And proof of why someone wanted it gone.”
CHAPTER SIX: A BOX AT THE SORTING DEPOT
The municipal sorting depot stood behind the train station among stacks of cardboard and old appliances.
Daniel arrived with Carol while Iris remained at the maze to prevent the platform from restarting.
A supervisor named Keisha Moreno listened to their explanation without interrupting.
“You want a piece of metal from a box collected yesterday,” she said.
“From a wooden crate,” Daniel replied.
“The crate had green paint along one side.”
Keisha glanced at the conveyor.
“Half the town brought green crates after the recreation center clearance.”
Carol described the broken compass and the brass selector strip.
Keisha asked for a photograph.
Daniel showed her one on his phone, taken before he dismantled the case.
“The scrap metal bins haven’t been emptied yet,” Keisha said.
“You can look while I supervise.”
They followed her into a covered storage area where broken household objects sat in rolling cages.
Daniel found a shelf of discarded hinges and a steel box filled with damaged tools.
Carol searched a separate cage of small hardware.
A quarter of an hour passed without a result.
Then Keisha called them over.
She held a long, flat steel strip with a crescent cut into one end.
Its surface was scratched and flecked with blue paint.
“This look familiar?”
Carol’s breath caught.
“Victor made that.”
Daniel took the strip and fitted it into the brass compass case.
The crescent rested neatly over a raised peg.
When he turned the case, the blue paper disc moved beneath the engraved stars.
The mechanism was simple and ingenious.
A steel notch lined up the physical position of the rotating platform with the planned route on the paper disc.
Without it, an operator could turn the stage without knowing which door faced a real exit.
Carol looked close to tears.
“He made the safety part impossible to ignore.”
“Unless someone threw it away,” Daniel said.
Keisha tilted the steel strip toward the light.
There was something scratched along its back.
Four small numbers sat beside two hand-cut lines.
Daniel copied them into his notebook.
Carol recognized the numbers as a sequence of rotation positions from the original maze.
“There’s another problem,” she said.
“The new platform turns further than Victor’s did.”
“How much further?”
“Enough to put the north door against a solid wall.”
Daniel tried to imagine the modified mechanism.
The motorized platform could rotate independently of the selector, which had once limited its travel.
If Voss’s contractor installed the strip, the mechanism would reveal that the new route was impossible to operate safely.
“So they discarded the safeguard because it contradicted the design,” Daniel said.
Carol nodded.
“And they didn’t want anybody asking why.”
Keisha glanced at the clock.
“You have less than an hour before the festival opens.”
Daniel slipped the strip into its case.
“Then we should make sure nobody opens the wrong door.”
