Julian Vance stood motionless on the cold flagstones of Landing 3A.
His Seiko 5 watch read 02:45 AM and twelve seconds.
Fourteen minutes and forty-eight seconds remained before the 03:00 AM master time-clock reset.
The air on the landing was freezing cold, thick with the stench of ancient linseed oil, chalk dust, and wet printer’s ink. Behind them, thirty feet down the lower flight, the heavy wrought-iron gate was deadbolted against the brick archway, cutting off any retreat to the third-floor corridor.
The landing itself was narrow and claustrophobic. It measured barely six feet deep by eight feet wide, wedged between the soaring red brick exterior wall and the open stairwell shaft.
Ahead of them -- rising into the ceiling gloom toward the fourth floor -- the second flight of slate stairs was alive with mechanical motion.
Clack... clack... clack...
Every two seconds, the sharp, hollow strike of articulated wooden joints echoed off the damp brick walls.
