As he attached the cables, Buzz Kuttner noticed that the standpipe wasn't a standpipe. From the outside, yes, but inside it was a double sheath. Looked like copper and some other conductive metal. Maybe a nickel compound. It was the perfect shielding to soak up radio emissions. They used shielding like this on CIA and NSA computer lines so no one could intercept the radio signals computers naturally emitted and reproduce them on a remote screen. The government had a word for it. Tempest. Yeah, these cables were Tempest shielded.

What the hell kind of hospital is this? Kuttner wondered. Then he wondered if it was really a hospital at all. He remembered that Jones had given him travel instructions to Woodlawn, but in fact there were no signs. Not even at the gate. He had only Jones's word that this place was in fact Woodlawn Asylum. And how much good was the word of a guy who stayed in the shadows and called himself Jones?

Kuttner put these thoughts out of his mind. Whatever this weird place was, he had a job to do and a deadline, and best of all a big chunk of change waiting at the end of one heavy night's work. Who cared what this place actually was?

He kept talking. "Once you dedicate these jukeboxes to their tasks and roll the data off the mainframes, you can junk all but one of these old monsters, you know."

"I know."

"You need a guy to off-load your data, I got the interface. Of course, I'll have to come back with a minicomputer. I can do a direct channel link. Take maybe two or three weeks, depending on how much data you got in these mainframes."

"Thank you, no," said Jones, his voice no longer a growl but very dry. There was the suggestion of an accent. New England, or maybe the South. They had a lot in common if you really listened.

"Anyway," Kuttner resumed, "you won't need but one mainframe. Each jukebox contains one hundred optical platters, and each platter can store one hundred megabytes. You got an even dozen jukeboxes, so you're talking terabytes, if not googolbytes, of data storage and retrieval. Hell, if these XL's hold out-and that's their reputation-you won't need to upgrade until your grandchildren are great-grandparents."