The courier walked like a man who had been paid to be seen. The corridor breathed around you, a slow mechanical exhale that made the overhead lights shiver. You counted the seconds between flickers the way you had been taught: four, then three, then one. Whatever kept the timing was getting impatient.
You pressed your palm flat against the wall and felt the hum travel up through your wrist. Somewhere below, a door closed with the particular softness of someone who did not want to be heard closing a door.
There was a note in your pocket you had not written. Six words, block capitals, the ink still faintly tacky: DO NOT TRUST THE SECOND VOICE. You read it twice, then folded it smaller, as if the paper could be argued with.
The radio at your hip coughed. A woman's voice, calm in the way of people reading from a script: "You have ninety seconds of light left. After that, we begin." You checked the corridor in both directions. Both looked identical, which was the problem.
You had come here for one thing, and you were now certain it had come here for you. That symmetry would have been funny on any other night. Tonight it simply narrowed the options down to the ones you could survive.
Ninety seconds is longer than people think. It is enough to reconsider every decision that led you into a place like this - and still not enough to unmake any of them.