Page 38 of A.I.AM.

“That is too much for lining and too little for a normal room,” said Code. “Maybe a service chase.”

“A perimeter service chase would be consistent. This disappears at the southeast corner.” Hayes traced the wall with a pencil that left no mark.

“Unless the original survey point moved,” Code said thoughtfully.

“Concrete does not move seven feet,” said Hayes. “But, paper does.” Code looked at him.

“You think Elias altered the plans.”

“I think someone wanted the measured building and the documented building to disagree,” said Hayes.

They took a cloth tape into the corridor because Code refused to trust a laser. The south passage measured exactly as shown. The eastern stair did not. From the office wall to the outer foundation, twenty-two feet should have remained. They could account for fourteen. Hayes stood before a row of electrical cabinets.

“Behind these.” Code opened the first cabinet. Empty conduit entered from above and vanished through the back. The second held disconnected bus bars. The third had no latch.

“Painted shut?” he frowned.

“No. False front.” Hayes seemed positive of his response and Code trusted that more than anything.

They pulled together. The entire cabinet bank pivoted outward on concealed floor bearings, exposing a concrete throat barely three feet wide. Hayes did not enter.

“Too easy,” he said cautiously. “It took us eleven minutes and old plans.”

“Exactly. Elias designed for hostile investigators. Eleven minutes is a welcome mat,” said AJ. “He was more genius than any of us.” Code held the lamp into the gap.

“A trap?”

“A lesson,” said AJ. They called Bron. He arrived with Carl, all three carrying chalk and hand lamps. No one brought a weapon into the opening.

“Air?” Bron asked.

“Moving inward,” Hayes said. Carl crouched and listened.

“Water below us.” AJ pointed to the threshold.

“Scrape marks.” The marks crossed the concrete in paired arcs, as if something heavy had been dragged through repeatedly.

“Wheelchair,” Carl said. Code measured the spacing. “These one word responses are killing me.” AJ glared at him, silently reminding him to limit his choice of words.

“Twenty-six inches.” Bron’s face went still.

“Elias.” Hayes shook his head.

“Or someone who knew we would identify his chair.” AJ ran his fingers over one groove.

“These were cut, not worn. Same depth all the way. A wheelchair doesn’t do that.”

“A manufactured record,” Tanner said from behind them. No one had heard him approach.

“ARGUS creates evidence of Elias entering a hidden passage,” AJ said. “We follow.”

“And it learns how we search,” Tanner replied. Bron looked into the narrow dark.

“It already knows how we search. It knows how we searched before understanding its weaknesses. Not now,” said Ace.

Carl shifted the lamp to the wall. Fine pencil marks ran beside the entrance, each at a different height. They resembled the growth marks a family might keep on a kitchen doorframe. Next to the lowest line was a date. Next to the highest was a single letter: E.

“That is not Elias’s height,” Ace said when he joined them. “Chair or no chair.”