The Silver Cassettes

A computer hall at an aeronautical research centre in California in late afternoon, golden sunlight through a high window, the curved silver-grey roof of a hangar beyond, on a raised floor an open frame of black-brown steel over two metres tall with red brackets at its sides, seven tiers of plug-in cards, alternating black and silvery cassettes with small yellow, white and blue dots, beside it a dark grey-blue console with a dark screen and rows of white, red, green and yellow keys, every key blank and every surface plain and unmarked, a technician in a white shirt seen from directly behind, face turned fully away, drawing out one silvery cassette.