In Real Life.

So I guess if you make complex 3D models, same goes.

Remy and I parked behind a place called Cells and Vipers on Green Street, just up toward the north end of town. My partner had called Wolf, and in fact he did bite. Then I swung by and grabbed her.

I’d grown up in Mason Falls, and I knew the northern side of town pretty well. But I’d driven by this particular mini mall a dozen times and never noticed. It had a nail salon in it, a pizza place called Mr. Sauce, and the game place.

From what Wolf had told Remy, Cells and Vipers was a business that sold games and hosted games, both analog and digital. They also sold electronic parts for robotics and had two meet-up areas, one in a room behind the retail area and the other in the basement.

Wolf texted us to meet him in the alley behind the place, and I pulled my truck close to a dumpster by a metal back door that was painted orange.

A minute later the door scraped open, and Wolf came out. Walked over to us.

“Y’all are comin’ on my turf now, so you’re gonna be cool, right?”

“Of course,” I said.

“And you brought something?” he said. “Something to offer?”

I pulled out five business cards. On the back of each I had written, This individual is a close friend of Detective P. T. Marsh. Please call P.T. immediately. My cell number was written below.

Wolf looked them over.

“These are not ‘get out of felony’ cards,” I said. “But they are ‘get out of misdemeanor’ cards.”

“Meaning what ’xactly?” Wolf asked, flipping them back over to the fronts.

“You get in a stupid fistfight with your buddy,” Remy said. “You’re going eighty and you’re about to spend a night in jail. You call P.T. He makes it better.”

“A’ight,” Wolf said. He asked us to wait in the alley a few minutes more. He took the five cards and went inside. Ten minutes later the back door opened again, and he waved us in.

We entered a room that had eight or nine worktables, atop them mostly plastic bins full of metal parts. Gears and motors. Young men in their twenties were huddled in groups of two or three around each table, building something. They wore hoodies and sported barely any facial hair.

“Over here,” Wolf said, pointing to a set of stairs that led to the basement.

We clanked down the metal steps and into a subterranean room.

The place was cramped and done in a greenish-blue color. Paint peeled off the ceiling. It felt like the inside of an old submarine. There were tables and old furniture spread throughout the space, but there was also machinery. A 3D printer sat at the far end of the room.

Twenty men and two women hushed up as we reached the third rung from the bottom, where Wolf stopped. This group was older than the one on the floor above. Thirties and forties. Everyone stared at me and Remy.