The L'Engle Building
The track for both remaining heats: the interior of an ordinary seven-floor human apartment building, with the racers shrunk to fit it because more than three hundred heats still have to run on the same course. The route is nonlinear with multiple paths and no direct line to the finish; the sixth heat runs from the top floor to the bottom and the seventh runs back up, under different rules. Nominal distance is given as twenty-five kilometers relative to the racers' size, the limit is two hours, and nobody may leave the building except through the front door. Black Lung Smog fills it and individual apartments carry hazards of their own, which Carl assumes will also include fleas, badly trained terriers and the worst neighbours a human building can hold.
Book 8 appearances
- Chapter 67 — Named in the limited details Dr. Metcalf posts for the two-part race: one track for both heats, an interior with multiple paths rather than a route, a pit stop and two-hour rest at the sixth heat's finish line with no safe-room access during it, and no way out of the building but the front door.
- Chapter 73 — Dr. Metcalf briefs the course as the seventh floor of the L'Engle Building, apartment 712, with the lobby as the finish line, no designated tracks, an elevator shaft stuck between the fifth and sixth floors, and paths through the stairwell, the sewer pipes and the walls; the teams work out for themselves that they have been shrunk to roughly the width of a toy brick while keeping their mass.
- Chapter 74 — The teams drop from the ducts into apartment 712 and work downward through 614 and beyond, cutting holes in floors, driving under doors and running up wallpaper, while the giant tenants wake and swing at them and the drifting fog fills each room behind them.
Related entries
- Seven Heats (Notification)
- Heat Five Results (Notification)
- Dr. Metcalf (Character)
- Carl (Character)
- Princess Donut (Character)
- A Parade of Horribles (Floor 11) (Place)
- Human Shell (Creature)
- The Seven Rings (Notification)
- Quest: Ad Infinitum (Notification)
- Disintegration Trap (Item)
Browse
- All Places & Floors
- Everything debuting in Book 8, Chapter 67
- All of A Parade of Horribles