The First Abyssal Inverse Dwelling Designer (First AIDD) had another innovation to add to the hidden private research station informally known as the Arch; not the first time this had been the case since it was active and inhabited. This generally reassured residents, as though the place couldn’t be falling apart if First AIDD Arjun Woollibee had time and resources to be coming up with something new.

He’d gone through various corridors hanging a type of minimal conduit, sticking it up like a holiday decoration. Arjun traded interestingly awkward smiles upon eye contact, being sure to alert the people in charge of each area that this was his intentional element in process. He was mostly able to proceed without additional questioning – he didn’t prefer to explain things before he’d gotten them working, and many understood this about him.

Back at his control base, he broadcasted a drill signal before he threw his lever. Along the conduits, the wavelength spectrum of genuine, not simulated, sunlight filled the halls. Benevolent ghosts of lost Anzi! After doing a personal victory jig right then and there, Arjun emerged for an applause stroll.

He was not disappointed, as everyone was delighted. In a larger chamber where the sunstrips glowed, someone in the congratulatory group asked how he’d gotten sunstrips to work through the profound abyssal layers of Foshan’s deepest oceans. “It’s a transmission. A particular pulse parts the water in an atomic scale stream, allowing in photons of natural daylight above. The pulse remains continuously connected with a current that keeps the conduit steady around the photon packeting, traveling between synchronized waveform coding inherent to the vibrative and receptive surfaces. We’ll receive the same daylight that shines above, with the same spectra, levels of natural intensity and times of rising and setting, as sunstrips normally work. And while we have the sunlight, we also have communications open to priority.” A moment of quiet while that sank in, then the room erupted in cheers.

Arjun walked back into his office eyes closed, both relishing the moment and feeling a drop in achievement adrenaline that heralded a sweet rest to follow. As he heard the door seal, he opened his eyes, and was as surprised by the sight in his office as people were about the sunlight in the halls.