The midday exodus had emptied out much of the fourth-floor pod, leaving behind the comforting, low hum of the centralized air-conditioning and the faint aroma of someone's microwaved lunch drifting from the kitchenette. Needing a quiet moment to steady his breathing after staring at Marcus’s cryptic warning about the floor box, Ryan dropped back into his ergonomic chair and pulled his wire mesh inbox tray toward him, intending to file a routine stack of promotional flyers. Instead, resting right on top of the stack was a crisp white envelope bearing no corporate logo or return address, its flap neatly tucked but unsealed.
Frowning, Ryan slid the single heavy-stock paper from inside. It was a formal tax invoice from a local commercial electrical contractor—a business called Volt-Tech Engineering—billed directly to Corravale Beverages for intensive wiring diagnostics and heavy-load transformer installation completed just two nights prior. The service location listed at the top wasn't the Barangaroo office, nor any active distribution hub Ryan recognized; it pointed squarely to the derelict cold-storage complex tucked away behind the freight yards in Mascot. The total was staggering, stamped with an urgent electronic signature and a familiar, angular handwritten scribble right across the description of works: Mascot secondary grid hookup completed. Check the ballast.