3. Cafeteria, automatic

4. Library, with main journals transmitted by Xerox or TV from main library Level 1.

5. Shelter, a high-security antimicrobial complex with safety in event of level contamination.

6. Laboratories:

a) biochemistry, with all necessary equipment for automatic amino-acid analysis, sequence determination, O/R potentials, lipid and carbohydrate determinations on human, animal, other subjects.

b) pathology, with EM, phase and LM, microtomes and curing rooms. Five full-time technicians each level. One autopsy room. One room for experimental animals.

c) microbiology, with all facilities for growth, nutrient, analytic, immunologic studies. Subsections bacterial, viral, parasitic, other.

d) pharmacology, with material for dose-relation and receptor site specificity studies of known compounds. Pharmacy to include drugs as noted in appendix.

e) main room, experimental animals. 75 genetically pure strains of mice; 27 of rat; 17 of cat; 12 of dog; 8 of primate.

f) nonspecific room for previously unplanned experiments.

7. Surgery: for care and treatment of staff, including operating room facilities for acute emergencies.

8. Communications: for contact with other levels by audiovisual and other means.

COUNT YOUR PAGES

REPORT ANY MISSING PAGES AT ONCE

COUNT YOUR PAGES

As Hall continued to read, he found that only on Level 1, the topmost floor, would there be a large computer complex for data analysis, but that this computer would serve all other levels on a time-sharing basis. This was considered feasible since, for biologic problems, real time was unimportant in relation to computer time, and multiple problems could be fed and handled at once.

He was leafing through the rest of the file, looking for the part that interested him— the Odd Man Hypothesis— when he came upon a page that was rather unusual.

THIS IS PAGE 255 OF 274 PAGES

BY THE AUTHORITY OF THE DEPARTMENT OF DEFENSE THIS PAGE FROM A HIGH-SECURITY FILE HAS BEEN DELETED

THE PAGE IS NUMBER: two hundred fifty-five/255

THE FILE IS CODED: Wildfire

THE SUBJECT MATTER DELETED IS: Odd Man Hypothesis

PLEASE NOTE THAT THIS CONSTITUTES A LEGAL DELETION FROM THE FILE WHICH NEED NOT BE REPORTED BY THE READER.

MACHINE SCORE REVIEW BELOW

Hall was frowning at the page, wondering what it meant, when the pilot said, “Dr. Hall?”

“Yes.”

“We have just passed the last checkpoint, Sir. We will touch down in four minutes.”

“All right.” Hall paused. “Do you know where, exactly, we are landing?”

“I believe,” said the pilot, “that it is Flatrock, Nevada.”

“I see,” Hall said.

A few minutes later, the flaps went down, and he heard a whine as the airplane slowed.

***

Nevada was the ideal site for Wildfire. The Silver State ranks seventh in size, but forty-ninth in population; it is the least-dense state in the Union after Alaska. Particularly when one considers that 85 per cent of the state’s 440,000 people live in Las Vegas, Reno, or Carson City, the population density of 1.2 persons per square mile seems well suited for projects such as Wildfire, and indeed many have been located there.

Along with the famous atomic site at Vinton Flats, there is the Ultra-Energy Test Station at Martindale, and the Air Force Medivator Unit near Los Gados. Most of these facilities are in the southern triangle of the state, having been located there in the days before Las Vegas swelled to receive twenty million visitors a year. More recently, government test stations have been located in the northwest corner of Nevada, which is still relatively isolated. Pentagon classified lists include five new installations in that area; the nature of each is unknown.