I go there every day," is how Shepard puts it, his tone hovering lightly. "It's kind of interesting – it's a thinktank situation, 95% of it is scientists. Me and Cormac [McCarthy] are the only two writers. Everybody else is a nuclear physicist. Which is cool, you know. But it leads to a lot of conversational dead-ends." He laughs wheezily – many of his sentences end this way, in a warm, chest-deep rasp.