Two men, one about 50 years old with dark hair, wearing glasses, a tweed jacket, and slacks, the other sandy haired, about 30 years old, wearing blue jeans and a denim shirt, stood by the door of a mobile home. Both were professors of physics and electrical engineering at the Tech. Institute.

"Are you sure this is Professor Ward's place?" asked Carl Turner, the younger man, pressing the doorbell again.

"I believe so," said Ewald Glasmon. His hand shook slightly as he glanced at the blurred writing on the slip of paper. "I didn't mean to spill the tea onto it."

"I know, but this had better be right! We don't want to break into the wrong place."

Taking a small rectangular instrument out of a plastic case, Carl pressed it firmly against the door of the mobile home and pulled down a tiny lever. Five suction cups held the instrument in place as he pulled out two thin, clear fibers from one end and slid them into the key hole.

"Carl, are you sure of this?" Ewald nervously looked about. The street was empty, still an hour before most people would be returning home from work.

"Yes, if we want to keep our jobs and stay out of jail," said Carl. As he rotated the instrument's power knob a quarter turn and flicked on a switch, two yellow lights came on.

"I hate working with young ambitious people," Ewald said almost to himself.

Carl looked inquisitively at the older man, as Ewald quickly added, "I meant Ward, not you." Ewald looked away, absentmindedly pushing his glasses back in place.

A moment later, with the two lights still yellow, Ewald asked, "What's wrong? Is it broken? The Sonic Lock Pick opened the locks in our tests in a matter of seconds."

"The professor must have a more advanced lock than those we used in our tests." Turning the small knob, he said, "That should do it. It's at full power."

Nearly two long minutes later, Carl said, "It must be broken. By now it should have opened any lock in the world." Reaching toward the instrument, Carl froze as the two lights abruptly turned green. As the door swung open, a metal panel slid away from the other side. "That's why it took so long. There was a second door." Removing the Sonic Lock Pick, he said, "Let's see if we can find the plans that Ward stole."

The inside of the long mobile home was not what they had expected. They stopped just inside the doorway, stunned by the strange interior. The front picture window with dark blue curtains seen from outside did not exist inside. There were no windows at all. Large banks of computers covered both the far wall and the near wall. A soft hum from the machines filled the room. Dim light shone from several white ceiling panels. In the center of the long room sat three short rows of tan padded chairs, all facing the right, where a closed door stood in the middle of the wall. Two closed doors stood in the left wall. Both walls, like the ceiling, were dark blue. A red carpet with an intricate design in black covered the floor. The three doors were silver and beside each was a small square, one square in the left wall was blue and the other, like the one by the single door, was gold.

Carl and Ewald slowly stepped farther into the room and heard a swoosh of air behind them. Turning, they saw that the metal panel had slid back in place. "Carl, we're trapped!" said Ewald as he rushed to the blank panel and began pushing, trying to force it back open.

"Relax, there has to be a way to open the door from this side." Looking about the panel for a second, Carl said, "This should be it," pressing a small light blue square to the right of the door. Nothing happened. "It seems to be locked."

"Use the SLP!"

"Where do we put it?" asked Carl. "There's no lock in sight. We haven't tried it before on a lock that we couldn't put the sonic fibers into."

"It worked to get us in."

"The panel is probably hooked up to the outer door's lock, so we were able to open it from the outside. Let's look around, we might find a window or a door we can open. And we still have to find our evidence."

Glancing about the room, Ewald said, "Let's find a way out fast. I don't believe that this is Ward's place."

"Don't be silly. Who else but him would have these computers in his own home?"

"Well, you might be right, if you exclude six others from the Institute," said Ewald. "But nevertheless, we must get out before someone comes."

"Right," said Carl, setting the SLP down on a small table in the corner nearest the front door. "I'll look in here and you look in the room to the right, if that door isn't locked."

Ewald cautiously pressed the small gold panel beside the door. As the door slid open, he said quietly, "I wonder why all of the chairs are facing this door."

A moment later, Ewald called, "Carl, would you please come here. I've found something very strange."

"What's wrong?" Carl asked, entering the narrow room. Ewald sat with his back to the door in one of two padded chairs. Like the room's walls and ceiling, the chairs were a bright white. Before Ewald was a wide panel covered with several arrays of buttons, dials, and gauges of different sizes. The red, setting sun shone through the window that curved outward in a semicircle above the panel.