The Keeper’s Corridor
The detention complex crouched in the hills above the slate-gray river, its concrete towers veined with rust-colored streaks and tendrils of stubborn ivy. The new city had long since rebuilt itself—sleek glass facades reflecting clouds, manicured green corridors where children played, clean slogans of renewal etched into polished stone—but the old facility still stood like a decaying tooth, its gates sealed with heavy chains, its watchtowers blind with shattered windows. Now it was to be demolished. Erich Weiss arrived just before dusk, when shadows stretched like accusing fingers across the gravel. A black government sedan had deposited him at the rusted perimeter fence and departed with a spray of stones. He was nearly seventy, still broad in the shoulders but softened by age, his woolen coat buttoned to the throat against the biting autumn chill. Once, he had commanded every man who walked these halls, his word as final as the cell doors slamming shut. Now he came back as a witness—...