"I won't need a watch?"

He shook his head. "We'll get you a watch."

"What about a belt?"

"We'll get you a belt."

"And my laptop?" I said.

"It goes in the safe," he said. "Unless you want to scrub your hard drive with the magnetic field." I put the laptop in with the rest of my stuff, and locked the door. I felt strangely stripped, like a man entering prison. "You don't want my shoelaces, too?" I said, making a joke. "Nah. You keep those. So you can strangle yourself, if it turns out you need to."

"Why would I need to?"

"I really couldn't say." Vince shrugged. "But these guys working here? Let me tell you, they're all fucking crazy. They're making these teeny-weeny little things you can't see, pushing around molecules and shit, sticking 'em together. It's real tense and detailed work, and it makes them crazy. Every fucking one of 'em. Nutty as loons. Come this way." We passed through another set of glass doors. But this time, there was no spray. …

We entered the power plant. Beneath blue halogen lamps, I saw huge metal tubs ten feet high, and fat ceramic insulators thick as a man's leg. Everything hummed. I felt a distinct vibration in the floor. There were signs all around with jagged red lightning bolts saying warning: lethal electrical currents!

"You use a lot of power here," I said.

"Enough for a small town," Vince said. He pointed to one of the signs. "Take those warnings seriously. We had problems with fires, a while back."

"Oh?"

"Yeah. Got a nest of rats in the building. Buggers kept getting fried. Literally. I hate the smell of burning rat fur, don't you?"

"Never had that experience," I said.

"Smells like what you'd think."

"Uh-huh," I said. "How did the rats get in?"

"Up through the toilet bowl." I must have looked surprised, because Vince said, "Oh, you don't know that? Rats do that all the time, it's just a short swim for them to get in. 'Course, if it happened while you were sitting, it'd be a nasty surprise." He gave a short laugh. "Problem was the contractor for the building didn't bury the leach field deep enough. Anyhow, rats got in. We've had a few accidents like that since I've been here."

"Is that right? What kind of accidents?"

He shrugged. "They tried to make these buildings perfect," he said. "Because they're working with such small-size things. But it's not a perfect world, Jack. Never has been. Never will be." I said again, "What kind of accidents?"

By then we had come to the far door, with a keypad, and Vince punched in numbers quickly. The door clicked open. "All the doors are keyed the same. Oh six, oh four, oh two." Vince pushed the door wide, and we stepped into a covered passageway connecting the power plant to the other buildings. It was stifling hot here, despite the roar of the air conditioner. "Contractor," Vince explained. "Never balanced the air handlers right. We had 'em back five times to fix it, but this passage is always hot."

At the end of the corridor was another door, and Vince had me punch in the code myself. The door clicked open.

I faced another airlock: a wall of thick glass, with another wall a few feet beyond. And behind that second wall, I saw Ricky Morse in jeans and a T-shirt, grinning and waving cheerfully to me.

His T-shirt said, "Obey Me, I Am Root."

It was an inside joke. In the UNIX operating system, it meant the boss.

Over an intercom speaker, Ricky said, "I'll take it from here, Vince."

Vince waved. "No problem."

"You fix that positive pressure setting?"

"Did it an hour ago. Why?"

"It may not be holding in the main lab."

"I'll check it again," Vince said. "Maybe we got another leak somewhere." He slapped me on the back, jerked his thumb toward the interior of the building. "Lots of luck in there." Then he turned and walked back the way he came.

"It's great to see you," Ricky said. "You know the code to get in?" I said I did. He pointed to a keypad. I punched the numbers in. The glass wall slid sideways. I stepped into another narrow space about four feet wide, with metal grills on all four sides. The wall closed behind me.

A fierce blast of air shot up from the floor, puffing up my trouser legs, ruffling my clothing. Almost immediately it was followed by blasts of air coming from both sides, then from top, blowing down hard on my hair and shoulders. Then a whoosh of vacuum. The glass in front of me slid laterally. I smoothed down my hair and stepped out.

"Sorry about that." Ricky shook my hand vigorously. "But at least we don't have to wear bunny suits," he said. I noticed that he looked strong, healthy. The muscles in his forearms were defined.

I said, "You look good, Ricky. Working out?"

"Oh, you know. Not really."

"You're pretty cut," I said. I punched him on the shoulder.

He grinned. "Just tension on the job. Did Vince frighten you?"

"Not exactly…"

"He's a little strange," Ricky said. "Vince grew up alone out in the desert with his mother. She died when he was five. Body was pretty decomposed when they finally found her. Poor kid, he just didn't know what to do. I guess I'd be strange, too." Ricky gave a shrug. "But I'm glad you're here, Jack. I was afraid you wouldn't come." Despite Ricky's apparent good health, I was noticing now that he seemed nervous, edgy. He led me briskly down a short hallway. "So. How's Julia?"

"Broke her arm, and hit her head pretty badly. She's in the hospital for observation. But she's going to be all right."

"Good. That's good." He nodded quickly, continuing down a corridor. "Who's taking care of the kids?"

I told him that my sister was in town.

"Then you can stay awhile? A few days?"

I said, "I guess. If you need me that long." Ordinarily, software consultants don't spend a lot of time on-site. One day, maybe two. Not more than that.

Ricky glanced over his shoulder at me. "Did Julia, ah, explain to you about this place?"

"Not really, no."

"But you knew she was spending a lot of time here."

I said, "Oh sure. Yes."

"The last few weeks, she came out almost every day on the helicopter. Stayed over a couple of nights, too."

I said, "I didn't know she took such an interest in manufacturing."

Ricky seemed to hesitate a moment. Then he said, "Well, Jack, this is a whole new thing…" He frowned. "She really didn't tell you anything?"

"No. Not really. Why?"

He didn't answer.

He opened the far door and waved me through. "This is our residential module, where everybody sleeps and eats."

The air was cool after the passageway. The walls were the same smooth Formica material. I heard a low, continuous whoosh of air handlers. A series of doors opened off the hallway. One of them had my name on it, written in marker on a piece of tape. Ricky opened the door. "Home sweet home, Jack."

The room was monastic-a small bed, a tiny desk just large enough to hold a workstation monitor and keyboard. Above the bed, a shelf for books and clothes. All the furniture had been coated with smooth-flowing white plastic laminate. There were no nooks or crannies to hold stray particles of dirt. There was no window in the room either, but a liquid-crystal screen showed a view of the desert outside.

There was a plastic watch and a belt with a plastic buckle on the bed. I put them on.

Ricky said, "Dump your gear, and I'll give you the tour."

Still keeping his brisk pace, he led me into a medium-size lounge with a couch and chairs around a coffee table, and a bulletin board on the wall. All the furniture here was the same flowing plastic laminate. "To the right is the kitchen and the rec room with TV, video games, so forth." We entered the small kitchen. There were two people there, a man and a woman, eating sandwiches standing up. "I think you know these guys," Ricky said, grinning. And I did. They had been on my team at MediaTronics.