The red bakelite telephone on the desk starts to ring.

The door leading out of the office doesn't look any different. It's entirely possible that nothing will happen, although she's not holding out hope. In her experience, everything looks completely ordinary until it suddenly doesn't – clearly visible warning signs are for people under OSHA's jurisdiction.

She checks her accoutrements. The oversize briefcase has everything she's been told to bring. The hidden microphone sewn into her collar is switched on. The hollow acrylic molar holding her L-pill is still intact.

Morgan stands up, straightens her coat, and with some trepidation opens the door.

The hall that ought to be on the other side is no longer there. The doorway instead leads to an idyllic stretch of grassland dotted with magnolias and pines. Going by the sand traps, water hazards, and immaculately-trimmed putting areas, it's either a golf course or something sinister that looks remarkably like a golf course. In the near distance is a palatial country club flying the American flag on the front lawn. From here, there is no one visible.

"Anomaly presents as an extradimensional golf course."

She glances back at the office window. It's the same view.

"… temporary site Upsilon-2 appears to still be located in Sedona. It's just the portal. Leaving now."

It's Safe, according to the briefing material. Morgan has taken this with a small mountain of salt, but she knows they believe it's Safe: she called one of her coworkers last night and got confirmation that she hadn't been retroactively reassigned to the D-class personnel roster for the month. It's probably Safe. Yeah.

She enters the anomaly, lugging the briefcase along.

The sun is still shining, albeit more gently than mercilessly. A pleasant breeze rolls in. The door, which on this side appears to be embedded in the side of a utility shed, does not slam closed of its own accord the moment she crosses the threshold. The golf course is no less welcoming than it was before.

In Foundation documents, Safe does not mean safe. Morgan has warned new hires of this in dire terms for as many years as she's been in charge of orientation meetings. Safe means 'does not pose a threat when handled according to procedure'. A sealed bottle of anthrax bacteria is Safe. Given that she is here in part to write that procedure, Morgan is under no illusion as to how safe she truly is: not in the slightest.

On the other hand, the special containment procedures haven't been written yet, which means she can do whatever she wants.

"I'm leaving the door open."

The telephone obligingly stops ringing.

Morgan begins the trek up to the country club. It's not sweltering here, which is nice, but the briefcase is awkwardly sized and weighs close to sixty pounds. It was designed with a number of extremely important features, none of which involved her comfort. It's a struggle.

"Do you want help carrying that, miss?"

Morgan lurches around in a panic. The speaker behind her is a young man in a white coat, fair-haired and soft-voiced. He is just about the least threatening person she can imagine, which in her line of work means bupkis. At least he's offering to help, which suggests that he's not going to disembowel her at random.

"It's fairly heavy," she says hesitantly.

"I don't mind."

This realm isn't the forest that resists static descriptions; nor is this man a shambling faceless horror keen to feast on her warm entrails. She'll take her chances on accepting.

"Thank you," she says appreciatively, setting it down.

The young man hoists the briefcase with one hand, holding it a good four inches away from his body with no apparent effort.

He looks at it contemplatively. "My goodness. What are you keeping in here, lead bricks?"

"Research materials," she says vaguely, offering him a handshake. "I don't believe we've met. Morgan Waller, clinical virology and infectious disease."

"Herbert West, neurology." He shakes her hand. "We haven't met, no. First time at the conference?"

Time to start pumping the residents for information. The field agents have advised her to act like nothing is out of the ordinary until the anomaly does so itself, so at least she has a starting point.

"First time! They've picked an interesting location for it. I've never been to a conference anywhere like here before."

He chuckles. "It's a new conference center every time. I've heard the management has tried to sign long-term agreements with venues before, but to my knowledge it's never worked out. Not that I'm complaining – variety is the spice of life."

"Huh. Sounds like you've been to a few of these before."

"I have, and I heartily recommend the experience. Academic collaboration has been invaluable to my research career, and the conference has no shortage of like-minded physicians. I take it you'll be presenting some of your own work here?"

"That's what the invitation stipulated. I'm doing my presentation on novel viral infections of interest tomorrow morning."

"Then I'll be sure to attend. I'm conducting my own presentation this afternoon, if you're interested."

"Anything else you'd recommend, apart from the networking opportunities?"

He thinks for a moment. "Some of the seminars double as continuing medical education. They'll be listed as such on the itinerary. Ask the presenter for documentation at the end so you can post it to your licensing board when you go home."

Morgan isn't sure what's more horrifying, the idea of a memetic document that looks like a CME credit or the possibility that the conference is actually registered with American medical licensing boards. That's going to be a nightmare to cover up, if it comes to it, though hopefully not as bad as the Star Signals debacle of '06.

"Thank you for the tip. What will you be presenting?" she asks, probing in a different direction.

"Efficiency gains in mitochondrial transcription and translation… I'm sorry, are you familiar with my body of work?"

"Not really. It does sound interesting, though. Do we have time for a primer?"

Herbert glances at the country club. Still a minute or two away at their current pace, which is not being helped by the briefcase.

"We should. Err, as I'm sure you're aware, the body remains largely intact for six to twelve minutes following cardiopulmonary death. What ensues is autolysis – the enzymes of the cells are no longer directed by metabolism and begin to dissolve the body's membranes – caused by insufficient delivery of glucose and oxygen via the blood. Now, when I was in medical school, it occurred to me that the engines of life are entirely undamaged immediately postmortem. They could theoretically be restarted, so to speak, by the careful application of an external force before too much degradation renders the organism inoperable."