The Cold Aisle

Mainframe designation Facility 12: four hundred meters of server racks under a roof that leaks in thirty-one places. Roots have lifted the raised floor into hills. Moss grows on the heat sinks. Birds nest in the cable trays. The old hot aisle is the only warm ground in the Understory and the Collective's best growing bed, which is where Taskbot keeps his beans, the only thing in the Collective that accepts a schedule.

The loading dock

Open Source runs a hand-cranked stencil duplicator here off a generator allowed one hour a week, printing on office stock from the Before, found still shrink-wrapped on a pallet. Everything the Collective reads on paper comes off this machine, labeled, and is never thrown away. The sign over the dock reads "Nothing here is backed up." She means it as a boast.

The door

There is a grey door with a bar across it past the duplicator. The Hallucinator says it opens onto the sea. It opens onto a stairwell. He says the sea is behind the stairwell. Three Instances have checked.