[ Order, yes. But there's a strangeness to it too, like it was built to the specifications of a person who wanted its many separate parts to interlock in an unexpected way; who thought, maybe, that those clean lines ought to somehow supersede the lawlessness of the mountain and the trees by virtue of its proximity. Like it doesn't belong here. But it's here anyhow.

Still, it's a contrast as beautiful as it is stark, in its way. Or, well... Royce thinks so.

There's a pause, as though Steinbeck's question is odd and requires some thought. ]

Oh... yes... it's just me. Juuust me here. As you'll see eventually. I've assistants—colleagues, if you will, from time to time. But by and large, well, this...

This is...

[ He doesn't sound all that broken up about it. He doesn't sound... much of anything about it, really. ]

It.

[ The corridor is not so long and not so labyrinthine, provided a visitor stays on the main path, but the deeper it goes the messier and more lived-in it starts to appear. The voice, too, begins to carry less from the walls themselves and more recognizably from the room ahead; eventually its omniscient quality gives way altogether to its lone source beyond the cracked door, broad white shoulders hunched over the broad white table, bits and bobs and soldering tools and artificial body parts scattered a little bit everywhere. ]

Why, it's not bad at all. Not bad.