They went down the concrete steps to B0999’s entrance. Just a quick look, Dixie Mae had decided.
Beneath the trees and the overhang, all was cool and shady. They peered through the ground floor windows, into empty rooms. Victor pushed open the door. The layout looked about the same as in their own building, except that B0999 wasn’t really finished: There was the smell of Carpenter Nail in the air, and the lights and wireless nodes sat naked on the walls.
The place was occupied. She could hear people talking up on the main floor, what was cubicle-city back in B0994. She took a quick hop up the stairs, peeked in–no cubicles here. As a result, the place looked cavernous. Six or eight tables had been pushed together in the middle of the room. A
dozen people looked up at their entrance.
"Aha!" boomed one of them. "More warm bodies. Welcome, welcome!"
They walked toward the tables. Don and Ulysse had worried about violating corporate rules and project secrecy. They needn’t have bothered. These people looked almost like squatters. Three of them had their legs propped up on the tables. Junk food and soda cans littered the tables.
"Programmers?" Dixie Mae muttered to Victor.
"Heh. No, these look more like ... graduate students."
The loud one had red hair snatched back in a pony tail. He gave Dixie Mae a broad grin. "We’ve got a couple of extra display flats. Grab some seating." He jerked a thumb toward the wall and a stack of folding chairs. "With you two, we may actually be able to finish today!"
Dixie Mae looked uncertainly at the display and keyboard that he had just lit up. "But what–"
"Cognitive Science 301. The final exam. A hundred dollars a question, but we have 107 bluebooks to grade, and Gerry asked mainly essay questions."
Victor laughed. "You’re getting a hundred dollars for each bluebook?"
"For each question in each bluebook, man. But don’t tell. I think Gerry is funding this out of money that LotsaTech thinks he’s spending on research." He waved at the nearly empty room, in this nearly completed building.