Under the blazing sun that beats down on Scottsdale, Ariz., is a seemingly ordinary building in the midst of a small light-industrial complex.

It sits between a municipal airport where a hijacker involved in the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks received flight training and a leading manufacturer of stun guns, the device airline pilots now carry to protect against future tragedy. Nearby are a marble company, an adjustable bed factory, a sewing workroom and an air conditioning company.

	Alcor is one of a handful of cryonics companies across the country that indefinitely preserve the bodies of legally deceased "patients."

It's hot outside the building, summer temperatures soaring well into the 100s. Inside, Ted Williams' body temperature is a cool 320 degrees below zero.

While William's children squabble in court over the fate of the former Boston Red Sox slugger's remains, his body is on ice at the Alcor Life Extension Foundation, frozen in time -- for the time being. He'll be thawed in the event either a cure is found for what killed him, his DNA could be used for cloning purposes or a judge directs that his remains be cremated.

For now, at least, Williams is housed in a cylinder-like vat that stands some 9 feet tall, 4 feet in diameter and is filled with liquid nitrogen.

Beyond a door heavily guarded with security officers are as many as two dozen vats that fill a room roughly 20 feet by 60 feet in size. Pictures of patients line hallway walls in the administrative wing of the building. It is the stuff of which sci-fi flicks are made, said Jeff Johnson, an employee of the neighboring air conditioning company and one of the few people who has glimpsed inside the building.

"It's kind of weird," said Johnson. "It's a very clean room, a warehouse atmosphere."

It is also the resting place for the remains of 49 people and a variety of household pets, according to Alcor's Web site. The vats contain the bodies, and in some instances only the heads, of legally deceased "patients." They are stored upside down, a position that ensures the brain remains protected by the liquid nitrogen should the solution begin to leak from its container.

Born in an era when man first stepped on the moon came Robert Ettinger's "The Prospect of Immortality," a book by a college math and physics professor who explored the possibility that humans could be frozen with the hope that advances in sciencific discovery might one day produce a cure that killed them. The idea eventually became a reality known as cryonics, an experimental medical process, in the 1960s, and Alcor became a company in 1972. But so far scientists only have been able to bring a human embryo back to life from the process that indefinitely preserves.

"They're definitely expanding over there," Johnson said. "They're taking over more of the building. That's why we've been doing a lot of work over there."

Alcor officials declined to comment and Dr. Jerry B. Lemler, its president and chief executive officer, did not return calls left for him, but according to its Web site, membership is relatively affordable, with an application fee of $150 and annual dues of $398. Full-body preservation costs $120,000. To store only a patient's head is $50,000.

Members, who range from computer nerds to retired military officers, include Dick Clair, the three-time Emmy Award winning producer of the "Carol Burnett Show." He chose to make Alcor his temporary resting place after his death in 1988.

"I just want to keep on living. That's why all of us are involved in this," Paul Garfield told The Associated Press. Garfield is a 84-year-old resident of nearby Sun City and among Alcor's "members" who await their time to be cryogenically preserved. "We have as much faith in the future as the deepest religious person."

Alcor is not alone in its quest to cheat death. Two other companies, including Michigan-based Cryonics Institute, have taken up the business of preserving the dead.

But with the news that Williams is stored at the Arizona facility, Alcor is fast becoming the most widely known of the country's cryonics organizations. Sightseers and media have come to find out what exactly goes on in the warehouse, according to Bryce Johnson, owner of Air Conditioning By Jay, who said his company recently has performed work at Alcor.

"I don't know if he was joking or not, but I had one of my employees say that someone even offered to pay him money to get them in there disguised as one of our employees," Bryce Johnson said. "I find a lot of humor in the whole situation."

Bryce Johnson, who has never seen the room where the bodies are stored, said his business has worked well with its peculiar neighbor.

"About eight years ago, we helped build the original equipment used to store the dead bodies," Bryce Johnson said. "We've always had a pretty good working relationship.

"I guess when you think about it, it is kind of strange to have it in the same building."

Brandon M. Bickerstaff is an intern with ESPN.com