The Collaboratory’s aging dorms offered sadly grim hospitality. Dorm space was in high demand, because the federal lab hosted endless numbers of scholastic gypsies, contractors on the make, and various exotic species of para-scientific bureaucrats. The dorms were flimsy two-story structures, with common baths and common kitchens. The rooms had basic-brown federal pasteboard furniture, some scrappy little sheets and towels. The dorm’s card-swipe doorlocks ran off Collaboratory ID cards. Presumably, these smart cards and smart doorlocks compiled automatic dossiers of everyone’s daily ins and outs, for the benefit of the local security creeps.