The design for the building confounded me. I twisted the paper this way and that as I studied it. Was it a warehouse, like I had initially assumed? Or was it two different buildings?

Oh, I see, I thought.

It was an enormous building inside of a smaller building—the hallmark of Opsilax architecture. The equipment strung along one wall of the storage area reminded me of an automobile assembly line I’d seen one time on display in a museum in Detroit. I couldn’t tell what this assembly line was designed to produce, but I didn’t think it was American cars.

The piece of equipment at the end of the row, added after the fact, had been drawn in neat lines by a practiced, steady hand—Zavis’, most likely. A note had been scrawled above the ink drawing, a series of symbols in the alien language much like the symbols on Lula’s helmet and charm bracelet. I thought they might be in the same language, but couldn’t be sure. The line of symbols was emphatically underlined, twice.

Other than that, the blueprint of the building was remarkably functional. Which was odd, because every model house Zavis had constructed in his workshop was absurdly complex and densely detailed. And those were miniatures. Not to mention the home in which we stood.

“What is it?” Anna asked as she came to join me.

Lula, hugging her arms across her body, watched us from near the room’s entrance. Next to her, Gina’s holographic face held a smile that was obnoxiously cheery and vacant at the same time.

“Creepy,” I muttered. “I’d never let one of those things live in my house.” I turned my body away. No clue if that thing was recording me, but I felt better when it couldn’t see my lips.

“Remember what Dyna’s last message said?” I whispered to Anna. “The Tetrad’s base of operations has to be big enough to house their recruits, but small enough to be well-hidden from human authorities. What’s hidden better than a building that looks smaller on the outside than it is on the inside?”

Anna took the blueprint from me. I showed her where the two different-sized footprints were laid out. “Well, it certainly meets the criteria Dyna gave us. Do you think that means Zavis is involved with the Tetrad? And what do you think this hand-drawn thing is here?”

“That looks like an assembly line. I don’t know what they’re building, but Dyna did say their first order of business, along with establishing a base, was to manufacture weapons. Maybe these machines are going to churn out guns, or bombs, or something like that.”

“Should we give Dyna a heads up?” Anna asked.