One reporter, a bearded man about 25 years old with a misshapen, protruding forehead moved along the side of the bus, trying to get a closer look at one of the passengers. Decker looked out at his fellow members of the press. As far as he knew, it was just dumb luck that he had gotten on the Shroud team. Still, he found it hard not to be a little smug. His eyes were drawn to the stare of the bearded man outside the bus, and as their eyes met, Decker recognized his friend, Tom Donafin from the Waltham Courier. Tom's lower jaw dropped in a brief gaping stare which changed quickly to a friendly and congratulatory smile. He shook his head in what was only slightly exaggerated disbelief. Decker smiled back like the proverbial cat that had just swallowed the canary.

Entering the warehouse at D'Muhala's plant where the team would work, Decker was impressed and a bit surprised at just how much time, planning, labor, and expense had gone into this effort. Around the room sat scores of wooden crates carefully packed with several million dollars' worth of cutting-edge scientific equipment on loan from research institutes from around the country. In the center of the room, the pseudo Shroud was spread out on a steel examination table which had been specially designed and constructed by D'Muhala's engineers to hold the Shroud firmly in place without damaging it. The surface of the table was constructed of more than a dozen removable panels to allow inspection of both sides of the Shroud at the same time. Each of the panels was covered with one-millimeter thick gold Mylar to prevent even the tiniest of particles from being transferred from the table to the Shroud.

For a moment no one spoke. All eyes scanned the equipment and the pseudo Shroud. Finally, Don Devan, a computer and image-enhancement scientist from Oceanographic Services, Inc., broke the silence, "Not bad!" he said. "This looks like real science!"⁵

The individual members of the team spread out to the crates and sought out equipment that each would be using in their experiments.