Let the Music Play - Prologue. Prologue

A few months hence...

The dust bedeviled them... The dust always bedeviled them, or at least since the assembly process had begun. There was little choice in their location; striving in secrecy to convert the optical lens-grinding factory to something requiring far greater precision.

The man in the white cleanroom suit breathed the harsh air of the room, struggling under the glaring halogen lights, selecting his tools with practiced care; he steeled himself for the task at hand. Easing open the lid of their container with intense concern, he removed the first of the Kryton switches.

The switch, gleaming in the harsh light, resembled nothing so much as a large glass insect with spindly legs that had trod through gold. The man admired its fine precision before nesting it in the center of the divider assembly. These switches, he mused, had been the hardest components to procure and smuggle, the final item on their long list of exotic items to be obtained.

Installing the switch was not difficult; just secure it in a holder and connect the wires, making sure their gold-plated contacts were seated and sealed. Soon, the Kryton switch joined its brethren, further branching the thick wires, working in sequence to split the single wire into thirty-nine.

With the switches in place, the man attached the thirty-nine wires, each leading to one of the hexagon or pentagon-shaped explosive lenses, which had been assembled days before into a perfect sphere the size of a beach ball.

His task for the evening done, the clean-shaven, aging man closed the lid of the washing-machine sized bomb case, leaving the remaining assembly work for another, more rested technician. Checking his Geiger counter, the man breathed a faint sigh of relief as he stepped back from the assembly area, wondering with a faint vestige of curiosity what use would be made of this device, and the two others just like it.