Señor Martinez stopped and looked at me. I nodded towards the photo on the wall. There were more frames with similar photos farther down the corridor.

“Oh, that?” the chief said. “Well, basically nothing… Just some curious pictures. UFO landings… aliens… you know. Sci-fi stuff…” he added hastily and then fell silent. “I’m a big fan of it. It gives me ideas about the robots.”

Señor Martinez was looking at me, obviously waiting for my reaction.

I gazed at the black-and-white flat picture. The exact same spaceship was in it that I remembered. Fyodor was also amazed.

“What’s up? Have you already seen it?” Señor Martinez enquired. He did not seem to be in a hurry anymore. And he also became very serious.

“That photo?” Fyodor asked.

“Yes, or the spaceship,” the chief confirmed.

I slowly shook my head.

“Never!” I said.

The corners of Señor Martinez’ proboscis visibly dropped down for a moment. He inhaled the air and laughed out loud.

“Of course not, you fuckin’ little toad!” he shouted out. “It’s an extremely rare photo! The pride of my collection! But let’s say nothing more about it” he dragged me after him by the hand. “I don’t pay you to keep me company! Trabajar! Trabajar! As Adolf says.”

We reached the end of the corridor and stopped in front of one more stupid door.

“Bueno, Federico,” the chief said. “The name of your roommate is Pepinho. He’s an extremely smart boy with broad experience in robot engineering. Don’t be scared by the room, though. It’s a bit dark over there. All its fucking windows face the interior patio. And we don’t have anything else to offer you at the moment. The oficina is packed like sardines… But keep your pecker up! You’ll get used to your cuarto oscuro by the third day. Yeah, we call this room cuarto oscuro, or dark room, by the way.”

He looked at me. Fyodor shrugged. I frowned. I did not like the connotation of the word “dark”. It reminded me of the Dark Pole on Kintoop, the scariest zone of the planet, where thousands of Kintoopians disappeared every year.

“Don’t worry, smart boy, you might even like it!” the chief said, slapping my shoulder. “Pepinho begged us to let him move over there.”

I wondered from what sewer he had crawled out of.

The chief touched a protuberance on the door, pulled it down and tried to push the door. It did not open.

“What the hell!” Señor Martinez yelled. “What smart arse has locked the door?”

He started to hammer on the door and began shouting like ten fuzzons.

“Oye, alguien! Anyone! Platon, Josefino! Immediatamente traedme las llaves! The key!”

People and some robots leaned out of the offices.

“¡Pepinho! ¿Qué demonios haces ahí dentro? ¡Pepinho! ¡Deja de hacer el memo!” the chief bawled.