Three weeks of construction had transformed one corner of the BEEGL lab into something that looked like a collaboration between a physics experiment and a musical instrument.
The acoustic array formed a geodesic sphere two meters in diameter, its surface studded with ultrasonic emitters Amara had sourced from seven different suppliers across three continents. The femtosecond laser assembly occupied a climate-controlled housing beside it, pulse generators firing ten trillion times per second with timing accuracy that pushed current technology's limits. And at the center, suspended in a magnetic containment field, the Rhynie artifact waited—the template for whatever they attempted to create.
"Final calibration complete," ARCHIE announced. "All subsystems nominal. Ready for initial test."
The team had gathered to witness. Susan and Margaret at monitoring stations. David watching quantum readouts. Jennifer and Starseed maintaining anchor configuration. And Amara at the control interface, hands steady despite the magnitude of what they were about to attempt.
"Target: simple geometric lattice," she said. "Carbon atoms arranged in diamond cubic configuration. Approximately ten thousand atoms."
"Why diamond?" Susan asked.
"Simplest form I could specify with confidence. Pure carbon, single element, highly regular geometry. If we can impose diamond lattice, we can impose anything—it's just scaling." Amara took a breath. "ARCHIE, initiate the information t…
