Vows of Graphite and Guilt
Julian pulled her toward a seamless, floor-to-ceiling column of polished basalt near the dressing room.
"Julian, the main doors—"
"The main doors are dead-bolted under twenty tons of pneumatic pressure. They won't try the doors; they will blow the glass or cut through the drywall," he interrupted cleanly. He pressed his hand against a specific grain in the stone column. A low, pneumatic hiss sounded—a completely analog, counter-weighted mechanism that required no electricity. A narrow vertical slab of the basalt slid backward, revealing a dark, claustrophobic shaft containing a steel utility ladder.