He hauls two oversized laptop cases out of the tiny luggage compartment in the car’s nose, walks into the house without knocking (he has not been to this particular house before, but he has been to others run along similar principles), finds Randy and Eb waiting in one of its many rooms, and hauls about fifteen thousand dollars worth of portable computer gear out of the bags. He sets them up on a table. Avi hits the start button on two laptops and, as they crawl through the boot process, plugs them into the wall so that the batteries won’t drain. A power conduit, with grounded three-prong outlets spaced every eighteen inches, has been screwed down remorselessly along every inch of every wall, spanning drywall; holes in the drywall; primeval op-art contact paper; fake wood-grain paneling; faded Grateful Dead posters; and even the odd doorway.