The briefing room smelled like coffee and tension.
Susan had covered the whiteboard with cladistic diagrams tracing evolutionary relationships backward through deep time. Phyla branching from phyla, body plans emerging from simpler forms, the tree of life inverting until it became roots—complex above, simple below, everything converging toward origins.
"Target depth: 400 to 500 million years ago," she said. "The Cambrian and late Precambrian. We can reach the Devonian through the Rhynie bridge—the chert deposits are 410 million years old. The question is whether we can push past into the Cambrian itself."
"Seventy-three percent confidence," ARCHIE added. "Based on grammar extrapolation. If delivery events preceded the Cambrian explosion, the archive would contain records of that emergence in real time."
Jennifer sat at the back, her hands around a mug of tea gone cold. The anchor training over three weeks had changed her—not visibly, but she could feel it. A density in her attention. A capacity to hold presence that went deeper than anything Pilates had taught her.
"The Rhynie bridge is stable," Starseed said beside her. "I've navigated Devonian deposits three times. Going deeper is the same process, just further."
"Is it?" Susan asked. "Or does the grammar change fundamentally at Cambrian depth?"
"Translation protocols established for target range," ARCHIE said. "Confidence declines to 61% for late Precambrian. Each era has its own history…
