The Warehouse
“You can tell a lot about a project by where people choose to hide it.” — Megan Toole
- Status
- Active, under construction
- Location
- Edge of an industrial spur outside Benton, Nebraska
- Found By
- Megan Toole, via outdated zoning listings
- Built By
- Megan Toole • Marco Vellin
Overview
The warehouse sits just far enough outside of town to feel forgotten—not abandoned, not derelict, just overlooked. A low concrete structure at the edge of an industrial spur that stopped pretending it was useful, backed up against a line of cottonwoods and a gravel lot slowly being reclaimed by weeds.
Megan found it through a string of half-abandoned listings and outdated zoning maps. The roof didn't leak. The doors still locked. The power lines hadn't been cut. That was enough. Marco's read on it, walking the perimeter for the first time: “This place used to store something. Heavy. You can tell by the stress marks.”
Inside, the space was cavernous and bare—concrete walls stained with old oil marks, faded numbers stenciled near the loading bays, dust over everything. It smelled like rust and cold stone, the kind of place sound lingers a second too long after you make it.
What's Inside
- A control rack and portable breaker panel, wired by Marco with deliberate precision
- Power routes mapped directly onto the concrete floor in grease pencil
- Cable bundles run along the walls, taped down and labeled
- Folding tables, extension cords, and temporary lighting rigged in harsh pools
- A circular platform under construction—the beginnings of a gate, curved supports rising “like ribs forming around something not yet alive”
- Two cots, for the nights the work doesn't stop
Role in the Series
Unlike the Frankenlair, built inside a university with at least the illusion of oversight, the Warehouse exists because it can't be found. It's a temporary solution that only works as long as it stays unseen—which makes it the right kind of place to build something that draws power like nothing a student project should, and the wrong kind of place to be caught doing it.
It's here that Megan and Marco begin building what eventually becomes the gate—the physical infrastructure that later grows into Chronotours. Beth and Hana join the project here too, bringing logistics and funding to what started as two people, a breaker panel, and a building nobody else wanted.