The Gold Squares

A computer room on an upper floor in Manhattan on a rainy spring evening, wet brick facades and blurred street lights beyond a tall window, under cool fluorescent light on a raised floor an open black frame on casters one point six metres tall, in its middle seven rows of three clear-framed circuit modules densely set with small square gold-coloured chip carriers under tiny ribbed cooling caps, a black panel with tiny red lamps across the top, plain white slide-in units at the right, black flaps below, every surface plain and unmarked, a hand with a slim steel flashlight shining onto one gold module.