The Engine Room, as always, is a bizarre agglomeration of things, with the game consoles and the bronze-and-marble air hockey table stuffed in cheek by jowl with light displays, crystal arrays, buttons and leavers. Jedao heads over to the steam pipe, behind a bulkhead, and checks the water level in the boiler and the the valves before opening up the burner grate.

"I tried to write some of those," he admits. "I was awful at it, though."