The Copper Probe

A long white-painted corridor of a research laboratory in Maryland late in the evening, half the ceiling lights switched off, blue dusk in a window at the far end beside a staircase railing, square pillars along the wall, against the wall a waist-high cylinder of coarse grey perforated sheet metal on hidden wheels, on top a platform with aluminium housings, a row of small yellow capped lamps, one red and one green lamp glowing, round meters with pale blank faces, a brass cylinder and an angle-iron frame, on a sideways boom an angular copper-brown probe head with plug pins pressed into a black wall socket, polished linoleum reflecting the lamps.