The galvanized steel duct was barely three feet square.
Julian crawled forward on his hands and knees, pulling the bronze drop-wire along behind him.
The metal beneath his palms was freezing cold, covered in a greasy film of dried coal soot and old laundry lint. Every five feet, sheet-metal rivets clicked against the knees of his dark clerk trousers.
Behind him, Elena crawled in silence, her penlight held between her teeth to keep both hands free.
“Watch your clearance on the left,” Elena murmured around the penlight barrel. “There are jagged sheet-metal screws protruding through the duct seams.”
“I see them,” Julian whispered back. “Keep the drop-wire centered on the duct floor.”
He dragged the spool forward. The axle turned with a faint, metallic groan, paying out bronze wire into the dark shaft.
To their right, beyond the thin sheet metal, a vertical elevator cable hummed in its grease-coated sheath. The draft carrying up from the sub-basement smelled of damp coal and scorched asbestos pipe wrap.
