I climbed the last few steps on my hands and knees and lay flat at the top to peer ahead. An unlit walkway led from the door to a brightly lit, open area beyond. The grunts and thumps were coming from there. I could also hear the cranes clanking away. A handful of men were slowly moving past the entrance, maneuvering a giant hoop.

The walkway itself was dug from a small storage area. On either side of me loomed giant shapes about the size of cows. They were probably old machines, but the light from the room beyond cast ungainly shadows behind them; not of cows, but of monsters from the primordial swamp that spawned Chicago. The fancy made me shiver.

I waited for the four pairs of legs in front of me to finish moving their hoop, then hoisted myself upright and skittered for a nearby shadow. The bulk in front of me was definitely metal, not flesh, and had a thick coating of dust on it. I held my nose firmly to pinch back another sneeze.

My eyes were accustomed enough to the dim that I could make out the major shapes, but not the small bits of debris that cluttered the floor. The area seemed to have been Diamond Head’s dumping ground for years. As I moved cautiously across the floor I kept running into pipes and bits of wire and other things I could only guess at. I finally got myself into a position where I could see a good chunk of the lighted area.

I was looking at the big shelf built above the loading dock. This led to a major storage area, which was out of my sightline. There seemed to be four men using hand-operated lifts to move giant spools over to the edge. That, too, was out of my range, but I presumed the gantry was taking them to the dock below, where they could be loaded onto the trucks.

From the size of the one spool they shoved past while I was watching, I couldn’t believe they could put more than one on a truck. In fact, it was the kind of load usually moved on a flatbed. I didn’t know how they proposed getting them into the trailers, nor yet how to strap them down. I also didn’t know what was on them. What was packed that way? Some kind of coiled metal.

I craned my neck, trying to see if anything was written on the side. “Paragon” was stamped in such large letters that I didn’t notice them at first. Paragon. The steel company whose controller didn’t want to discuss Diamond Head. Maybe because he knew the motor company was taking Paragon products and selling them on the black market?