1. Beginnings...

The world came to me in sporadic bursts of colors. Sounds were beyond my ability to register the reality of my surroundings. The long walk leading to the staff's living quarters became shorter due to the intermittent darkness brought by my erratic blinking. My depleted energy reserves barely allowed me to perform route correction. Still, I managed to imagine myself raising arms and mumbling "brrrraaaaiiiiiinss;" it put a grin on my face. I was a  picture perfect zombie after three days of troubleshooting my piece of the  elephant. Back then, we called it "the elephant." Each and every one of us was hired to design a pretty specific piece of equipment under the most stringent specifications. Each and every one of us was kept in the dark as to what other pieces of hardware were being built. Our confidentiality agreements clearly stated that any breach of secrecy were to be considered an immediate forfeit  of  the involved parties' remuneration. The certainty of being under surveillance 24-7 and the lack of interest in losing a seven figures paycheck kept our mouths shut off.