The Midnight Visitor
Episode 4: Fresh Coordinates
The following evening, after the municipal planning offices had closed for the day, Caleb used his staff security badge to access the lower administrative levels of the building. The corridors were silent and deserted, illuminated only by the pale green glow of emergency exit signs reflecting off the polished linoleum floors. He navigated down the service stairwell to the sub-level storage corridor, stopping before a heavy steel fire door labeled ‘Restricted Access — Structural Hazard.’ Using a set of lock picks he had purchased for architectural model-making, he worked the internal pins of the heavy cylinder lock until it yielded with a soft click. He pushed the door open, stepping into a dusty, windowless room filled with broken furniture, obsolete drafting tables, and cardboard storage boxes. In the far corner of the room, behind a towering stack of discarded filing cabinets, he found a freshly cut opening in the lath-and-plaster wall that exposed the ancient brickwork behind it. Someone had meticulously removed the bricks one by one, creating a crawlspace leading directly through the partition wall into the forbidden 1894 vault beyond.
Midnight Sounds
Caleb strapped his tactical flashlight to his forehead and crawled through the jagged opening in the brick partition, easing himself down into the dark, silent space beyond. His boots touched down on a thick layer of fine dust that hadn’t been disturbed in over a century. The air was ice-cold and heavy with the scent of old paper, sealing wax, and dry plaster. Sweeping his headlamp beam across the room, he realized he was standing inside a magnificent circular vault lined with floor-to-ceiling iron shelving units filled with leather-bound ledgers and copper-bound strongboxes. In the center of the room sat a mahogany reading table illuminated by a battery-powered work lamp, surrounded by open ledgers and surveying equipment. The midnight visitor was here—or had been here very recently—judging by the warm cup of coffee sitting beside an open ledger on the table. Suddenly, a soft scraping sound echoed from the far side of the vault, followed by the metallic click of a heavy iron safety deposit box being slid open from its wall recess. Caleb froze, his breath catching in his throat as a tall figure stepped out from the shadows between the iron shelving units, turning a harsh flashlight beam directly toward his face.