I looked around at the activity. Except for the garish costumes of the Masters, this could be any lab or tech floor in business. White-coated people gathered around terminals discussing one thing or another. Others were gathered around a few pieces of equipment that looked like antennas to me. They were busy taking them apart and hooking up some meters to the pieces with metal clips, and peering intently at the displays. Still other groups were inside a glassed off section of the floor, and working with surgeon masks and gloves on their hands, and with a belt around their waist that had a long copper wire attached to it that dragged its end along the metal floor, electrically grounding the person. The smell of oil and ozone was in the air, and the air itself was an antiseptic dry that you might find in such a place. “We are proceeding with many avenues of approach to this situation, and as you can see, we have not trivialized our response to the threat. You may be our enemy, but this is the enemy of us all.” Elitist finished speaking and turned his attention to Vi, who was licking her shoulder and glancing about nervously at all the activity. She caught Elitist's eyes looking at her. The two locked gazes and I watched Vi's ears flatten and her pupil's widen as Elitist looked back unflinching. Java put his hand on his wife's shoulder and leveled his gaze at Elitist, who smiled sardonically at the two, then turned to Smashing Pumpkin. “Show them their room and make certain they know about the security measures. They are our allies and it would be poor form to not to be open and honest.” Smashing Pumpkin led us out of the lab into a long, metal corridor that took us a full minute to walk to the end. There were no doors, only recessed fluorescent lights with a heavy plastic covering them. “Kill zone”, Java said to no one in particular. The door at the end looked like a pressure door in a submarine, with large arms radiating out from a center spoke. To the right of the door was a keypad, which Smashing Pumpkin shielded with an exaggerated stare and grin. He didn't look at the keypad but punched in a series of numbers, and the center spoke spun slowly, retracting the posts enough to pull the door open.