The door made a clicking sound, and Marwan opened it and held it while they all filed in, stepping over a significant pile of stuff that had been shoved through a mail slot on the door: grocery store circulars, business cards for contractors and car service companies. While the others went into the next room, Ilanka lingered there and picked through it all. She was looking to see if there might be a piece of actual mail, but there wasn’t.

Lights had started to flicker on, triggered by their entry, and Ilanka shivered as she moved into the cold room. Eden’s sneeze alerted Ilanka to the dust they were kicking up in the large, mostly white space. Ilanka said, “Bless you,” and her voice seemed to startle everyone. She’d been the first to speak since they’d entered.

At a work station in the middle of the room, a computer monitor appeared to be switched off unless you looked more closely and saw a single blinking red cursor on its black screen. The far wall of the room held metal racks of what looked like old stereo equipment but were probably servers—dozens of stacked black machines connected by countless wild yellow and white wires. Wouldn’t her father’s company need servers? Were these them?

The only other thing in the room was a large glass cube—maybe four feet across—like a habitat for a small animal in a high-tech zoo. Inside it was a series of plates and conveyors and stacked cartridges and things Ilanka didn’t have words for and then three small robotic arms with muscles made of cable. All of it was shiny and dust-free and eerily still.

“What’s this?” she said to Eden, who was standing by it, peering in.

Eden said, “Maybe a 3-D printer? Or an assembly station? Or both?” then turned to face her.

Ilanka had never noticed how pretty Eden could be, like if she’d let Ilanka do her makeup, which would never happen but still.

“I don’t understand,” Ilanka said, shaking off the thought. “Where are we?”

Eli approached the computer and said, “Does anybody see a chair anywhere?” but there weren’t any. “Where are we, Aizel?” he said, putting the device on the desk.

It said, “I believe I am home.”

“But where are they?” Eli said.

“They are here,” the device said flatly.

“But where?” Eden said. “It doesn’t look like anyone has been here in a really long time.”

“You think you can wake this thing up?” Eli said, standing at the computer. “Like, what’s the password?”

The device said, “Try ‘Hello world.’ ”

“Really?” Eden asked.

The device said, “It’s the first thing I thought of. The first thing I maybe think of every time.”

Ilanka said, “Why ‘really’?” to Eden.