The Director, furious to find Simon in his office, makes a grab for him and attempts to throttle him. He suddenly begins repeating his speech and then halts as if frozen, allowing Simon to escape his grip. Dr. Bukov enters, without knocking, and the Director apparently recovers, ignoring Simon. He immediately launches into a criticism of Bukov's handling of that morning's power failure, claiming he had been careless and that the failure was due to human error.