The corridor connecting the yard to the cell block split once before the residential section. Left led toward maintenance. Straight continued toward the cells. Simple architecture. The kind institutions favor because it implies transparency while creating exactly enough ambiguity to hide intent inside routine movement.
And at that junction, Proxy saw the warden.
Forty meters ahead.
He moved along the maintenance corridor with the pace of someone who had already calculated the correct speed for arriving somewhere and saw no reason to deviate from it. Not hurried. That would've implied urgency. Not slow enough to suggest inspection, either.
Just movement.
A man occupying a section of the facility that, at 4:45 PM, had no obvious reason to contain him.
Proxy kept walking and watched him cross the junction.
