It was one thirty AM. I was underground, somewhere in the midwest. After being picked up at the airport after dark, I’d been driven for an hour and half, had my camera padlocked inside a faded blue container by a guard, and walked through a concrete tunnel - with motion sensors clicking behind me - to get to this house sized room. Controlled by a touch screen on the wall, over a half a million watts of lighting could descend from the ceiling to illuminate the tests performed here. But the touch screen was broken, the lights weren’t moving, and I was there fixing it.

Now it’s working again, and I’m camped out in a hotel room waiting for a ride back to the airport.