“How’s the stability of the temporary alteration to the torrential slip field?” Arjun directed this to Bux, who had designed the hydromolecular mechanics of tensile grip and torrential slip.

“It’s more or less as unstable as it should be. What we’ve designed is a sustained semi-stable instability factor – a disturbance within the turbulence. It has selective permeability to specific force oppositions that will maintain field integrity while creating shifting hydrointeractive microhole surfaces that extend our effective wavelengths by transforming them for the medium.” Bux descended from his rapture state of envisioning ideal function. He ran a hand down the front of his tab-collar laboratory robe. “We’ll only activate this altered fieldstate for the Symphony.”

“I don’t think it will sound very much like your usual symphony,” meditated Arjun quietly.

“This could have taken someone a year, but with our dream team and dream budget under high stress – well, we just zipped it right up. I would not have demanded this of others under normal circumstances, but the challenge was met. We’re ready if you are, my brother.” Buckminster then addressed Onk, who’d walked ahead of their pace to the next installation cluster. “Leryn, is your crew ready to manage the divided/controlled surge to the amplifiers and field?”

“We’ll still be able to draw from the hydroelectric generation of the torrential slip field. If we decide to use maximum application, we’re prepared to darken most of the building. We can only do this once in a day, and make it to the next day, or to the surface. We’re as ready as we can be.” A round of suppressed excited nervous chuckles overtook them all briefly.

From where they were inside the Service Hallway, they couldn’t see the curve in the far distance, through the medium-dim light friendly to the technologies exposed here. Buckminster Woollibee and Arjun Woollibee – along with their lever-pulling electrical engineer Leryn Onk – were reviewing the modification setup that was now installed along the entire hairpin length of the Arch. They’d been figuring this out and setting it up for a little while now, since the discovery that a central key to their experiments lay within the sonic spectrum; fine tuning the largest possible and highest-energy-allowance sound system that could project and respond at various levels, and ideally interface positively with the surrounding aqueous molecular matrix.

“Do you remember when we first hearkened to Arctyri, when the Councillor and General were here in their official capacities? A lot has happened since, I know, and now both of them are actually back without their titles, arrived separately. But you remember the cold current we set up, unbroken from room to room, using every unusual air regulation device?” Arjun tapped a pen against his forehead while he asked this.

“Yes,” replied his twin Bux, “it was very convoluted. We were caught up in the moment.”

“Maybe we could have done it in here.” Indicated with an upraised hand, the continuity of this connecting space was unquestionable.

“Possibly. Though it may not have been as interesting. Being interesting could be a factor when attempting to call up a Dragon.”

“You may be onto something there,” acknowledged Arjun, using words they’d been tossing to each other since they could first work on a puzzle together. Meanwhile, Onk was stepping aside to gently fondle every newly-wired bank of sensors and emitters, for yet another once-over.