Chapter Two
The man’s office was a windowless off-white box filled with grey metal, and that was how he liked it. His desk and the dozen steel filing cabinets lining two walls were covered with orderly clusters and piles of project descriptions, schematics and multitudinous manuals randomly weighted by odd configurations of gleaming stainless steel and plastic.
A thin tap barely penetrated the heavy steel door. “Come in.”
The woman, one of the facility’s few female engineers, was more than ten years his senior but her lowered head and hunched shoulders were obviously obsequious. With a dry but pleasant smile, he nodded her to one of the two armless straight-backed chairs facing his. Keeping his visage severely neutral he smiled inwardly, enjoying her expression – half supplication, half
