The doubledoors opened with a resonating slam, swinging out onto a form of reception. A grim looking man stood up from the leather sofa, the yellow foam spilling from untended tears.

' Took your goddam time Mercury.' Exclaimed the man in a gruff tone. It was Fortress, and he eyed Mercury with steel blue irises, searching for some sort of reaction. 'Well?'

Mercury stood there for a second and tossed his bag on to the glass coffee table next to the sofa, knocking of a collection of next weeks papers. He sighed. 'I'm here arn't I? Lets just cut to the chase, my day has been fun already.'

The older man stretched and rubbed his neck, showing the extent of the tears in his woolen top, the t-shirt underneath showing through. He reached into his khakis and pulled out a pack of twenty and lit up a cigarette and inhaled deeply, infusing his body with the plethora of fumes. 'Right. Well we've got work for you.'

Mercury was lead to the other side of the reception toward a large rusting steel door, a door more at home in a submarine than in a block of offices, or at least a demense of that design. The cigarettte was stomped out and pounded into the concrete floor and the grey flecked man wrenched the seal open, the round door handle straining against the rust and grime. Nearby on a lone laminate desk, peeling at the edges, a plump cream coloured PC humming away on top. Mercury followed in through the bulk head door.

 Mercury's boots clunked satisfyingly on the gantry on the otherside of the bulk head. With a dull clunk the Fortress closed the door and turned the wheel, locking inch thick metal pins into place. He turned about and strode forward past Mercury, the heat of the coolant systems generated a low breeze that floated up from the depths. Mercruy followed and leaned against the railings and stared forward.

Before the pair spearing up from the deep black was the MADAM, one of the most powerful computers on Earth. The central core housed block upon block of servers and dual core processors. But as the levels descended so did the technology. Blade servers made way for RM desktop PCs. PCs were wired and fixedin place next to Macs. In amongst these even more motherboards protruded like leaves on a silicon tree. Further down more PCs, their cases yellowed with time, and next to those AMIGAs and further down ATARIs and BBCs. The further you went the more backwards the devices plugged in, the simplest way to upgrade the machine being to build straight on top. Further down again more early computers, CRAYs and soon enough some of the first devices designed by Alan Turing.

All about the tower of silicon and capacitors ran a criss cross of chains and cords, pulleya nd gurney allowing users to interface at different heights, to analyse the variety of data pouring out of the arcane machine. The stench of polymer hung in the upper belfry as CDs were copied, while lower the insect buzz of dot matirx printers spewed reams of data.

In amongst the network of cables and chains skittered the Web Spiders, the children of the MADAM. The MADAM, being a device that was possesed of a spirit, had been able to reproduce, and here offspring were the Web Spiders. Their hand sized bodies a collection of cutting edge devices and brass, clock work, mechanisms. Each had a studded head of optic lenses, each of a variety sizes and fashions, twinkling a faint green as they worked at the damaged chips and burnout wires, tending to their mother the MADAM.

Mercury turn about and locked eyes with Fortress. 'So whats the problem that has the MADAM pumping out next weeks lottery results?'

Fortress didn't shake his gaze on the tower of difference engines. 'It's a spike in the qubits. Someones waking up soon and nearby. Your on recon.'