The Black Panels

The basement computer room of a savings bank in Chicago late at night, cool fluorescent tubes in a low ceiling, pale vinyl floor tiles, a long two-part processor cabinet on casters, dark grey almost black steel panels in bright aluminium frames, at its upper left a control panel with small lamps and square keys in red, green and yellow, every surface plain and unmarked, at its left end a card reader with a stack of blank buff cards, at its right a tall tape unit with one yellow and one red reel beside a pale blue vacuum column, a clerk's hands in rolled white shirt sleeves lifting a steel tray of cards.