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The air inside smelled of dry wood and the faint rubbery odor of stored molds. I switched on the lights, then turned up the heat. Fluorescent tubes came on above the central tables, revealing the canvas covers I’d left over the larger pieces and a pale layer of dust along the tops of the storage cabinets.

Goldie set her bag on the bench beneath the hooks, then took off her tan coat and floral scarf and hung them above it. She pushed up the sleeves of her sage-green sweater while I closed the door.

I hung my jacket beside hers, then moved a pair of clamps off the nearest table. She took a folder and her phone from the bag and came across the concrete floor to join me.

I pulled a stool around for her while she unfolded the layout. The tabletop was scarred with shallow cuts and old paint. I moved the kitchen drawer I’d been repairing to a shelf and brought the adjustable lamp over, lowering its shade until the light fell across her pencil marks.

“The Factory manufactures people,” Goldie said. “That’s what everything has to serve now. They see the parts, they see the testing, then they come here.”

She laid her palm beside Human Assembly. Arrows brought the guest path in from a narrow corridor and took it past the production line before it continued toward Packaging and Shipping.

“This needs to be the room they remember. I can get a lot from the performers and the things we already have, but the assembly line has to look as though it does something.”

I drew the plan toward me. She’d marked openings, the edges of the scenery, and places where a performer could move without blocking guests. The room was narrower than I remembered. Someone had added another partition since I’d last been there, reducing the space available behind the set.

“You won’t get a full-length moving belt in there by tomorrow,” I said. “Not one I’d let you run with people beside it. A short section could work, with the rest hidden.”

“That’s why I’ve brought the guests across the front.” Goldie traced the route with her finger, then moved a loose sheet so I could see the sightline she’d drawn. “They don’t need to see where the parts come from or where they go afterward. They need to believe they’re being put together.”

She leaned across the table to reach her phone, close enough that the soft sleeve of her sweater brushed my wrist. I stayed beside her as she brought up the first video. The screen lit her face from below, and I watched the concentration in her expression before I looked down at the moving head.

The grinding came through the phone’s small speaker. I recognized the turn before the camera reached the face. I’d set that delay by standing in an empty room and walking past the head until it followed at the right moment.

Goldie let the clip finish, then played the angle from the other side without asking whether I needed it.

The outer skin still held its shape. Around the neck, somebody had added a stiff collar that dragged each time the head turned.

“That dressing needs to come off before I test it,” I said, stopping the picture. “There’s something catching here. The noise might be a worn bearing too, but I’ll have to open the base to know. Don’t have them run it again tonight.”

“I had it disconnected before I left.” She pulled the stool closer and sat, keeping the plan between us. “I left room for it in the testing department, but nothing depends on it yet. The lift is the one I’m worried about.”

The next video showed a covered shape rising unevenly from an examination table. I braced a hand on the bench and watched it twice. The platform twisted far enough that fixing one joint wouldn’t make me comfortable with the rest of the build.

“I wouldn’t spend tonight trying to rescue that lift,” I said. “For tomorrow, treat it as a fixed table. The frame’s twisting, and I can’t tell you from a video how much of it needs rebuilding.”

Goldie opened her folder to a page of photographs. “I can make that work. There’s a performer on the far side who can uncover the patient while the guests are watching the other entrance. I’ll move the cue.”

She uncapped a pen and changed the note beside the room. I stayed bent over the table with her, following the route she drew for the next group.

Her pen returned to the assembly room. Along the front of the line, she’d drawn several trays of heads and limbs.

“What’s actually built here?” I asked.

“The frame and the rollers. The crew can push a tray along it, but at the moment it looks like someone moving a tray of props.” She set down the pen and stood beside me. “I don’t need every part moving. I need one moment when the guests realize something on that line is alive.”

I looked across the room toward the long table under the windows. A canvas cover draped over it, with the end of a metal rail showing beneath the hem.

“Let me see whether I’ve still got something.”

I carried the lamp over and plugged it into the outlet beneath the windows. Goldie brought the plan with her and stopped clear while I folded back the cover. Dust lifted from the fabric, and the light caught the grooves in a short test track bolted to a thick plywood base. I’d used it to work out moving effects before committing them to a full-sized set. Its carriage still held the pivoting mount for a head, with a hand crank at one end.

I turned it slowly. The carriage traveled down the rail and stopped short of the end. I could feel resistance through the handle before I found the strip of dried rubber caught beneath it. Once I’d removed that, it moved freely.

Goldie bent to see under the mount. “Could we use this instead of adding another motor?”

“For a short movement, yes. Your operator would stay behind the scenery. I’d need to fit guards and proper stops, and check it against the frame you’ve got. But the basic movement’s here.”

I held the crank still while she measured the base with the tape I handed her. She wrote the dimensions on the back of her plan, then stepped aside so I could reach the shelving behind her.