At the bottom, another panel opened into a narrow tunnel. He followed it until it ended at a door. The supercomputer chamber would be on the other side. Crane switched off his light and crouched in the blackness, listening. When he heard nothing after thirty seconds, he slid the panel open and stepped through.

“Whoa,” Georges said in his ear.

The chamber appeared to be carved out of sandstone, hung with panels of deep burgundy fabric. The stone facade was layered into tiers of false columns and arches that held recessed lights. With the coolness, the dim light, the quiet, the place suggested a medieval basilica.

Suspended in the center of the chamber was a huge metal and plexiglass cube. Inside, server racks stood in orderly rows. They were strung with color coded bundles of cable and glittered with LEDs. In their setting, the racks made Crane think of gravestones.

Crane was at the bottom of the chamber, a sub-floor strung with thick bundles of power cables and hoses for cooling water. Directly above him, a metal mesh deck ran around the outer edge of the chamber, and a narrow bridge crossed to the cube of the supercomputer itself.

Crane heard a door opening, then footsteps echoed on the metal deck. He edged back into the shadows. A few moments later, a guard walked past above him. His black battle dress uniform and MP-5 submachine gun effectively shattered the ecclesiastical feel of the place.

This is actually MareNostrum, a supercomputer installed in an old chapel at the Barcelona Supercomputing Center. But I shamelessly relocated it to Iceland so Crane could break into it. Because of course I did! Look at it! How could you not set a spy adventure there?

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