Jessica and Vau left the main convention grounds.
“Where are we going?” Jessica asked.
“They’re setting up for the finale,” Vau said. “I want to make sure we get there early.”
“The finale?” Jessica said. “But it’s still light out.” She expected some grand display with fireworks.
“If you wait until dark, you won’t be able to see,” Vau said. “Each year, the best builders and architects come together to put on a show to celebrate early innovations. They recreate old structures in the old way. I love it.” Vau turned and looked at Jessica. His smile reminded her of a kid walking into a theme park. He continued, “It reminds me of the good old days.” Vau led Jessica to the outermost ring of the city, toward a transport trolly. Just as they were getting close, Jordan and Tony ran up to them.
“You guys finished already?” Vau asked.
“We figured you were going to the finale early,” Tony said before Jordan interrupted.
“We couldn’t let you be the only one to see the expression on her face.”
“What is so special about this show?” Jessica asked.
“Just wait for it,” Tony said as they boarded the glass vessel and gently sailed down to the ground.
The group got out and walked through the thick rainforest on a well-worn path.
“So, what’d you think of Match Day?” Tony asked.
Jessica opened her mouth to respond but was interrupted by a loud boom. The ground trembled beneath her feet, and she stopped and looked around. It reminded Jessica of her family’s time near a base that often tested artillery in the mountains.
Tony continued talking as if nothing happened, “Did you get a chance to check out the section with the latest for black hole travel?”
“Uh—no,” Jessica said, very distracted. “Did you feel that?”
“Yes, I did. It’s nothing.” Tony continued, “What about the aquatic section?”
“I did see something there,” Jessica said as several consecutive booms, followed by mini earthquakes, took her attention.
“It’s hard to concentrate when they’re warming up,” Vau said.
Jordan chimed in, “From the sounds of it, they may be training some new builders.”
The path expanded to the size of a one-lane road, and the dirt converted into a hard floor. “Is that marble?”
“Granite,” Tony said.
The walkway was easily wide enough to fit two large trucks on it. Jessica knelt to see that each granite brick was cut precisely, with sharp corners and not a crack or chip to be seen.
Jessica walked quickly to catch up with the rest of her group. As she got closer to them, she heard an array of instruments getting tuned, followed by another loud boom.
“The band is still warming up,” Jordan said. “The show will not be anything like this.”
“Are they using explosives or something?” Jessica asked.
“Explosives?” Jordan said, “Oh no, they use—”
Vau interrupted, “Patience, Jessica.”
Tony looked at Jordan. “Don’t ruin the surprise.” He then turned to Jessica. “Just wait, we’re almost there. You’ll get a kick out of it.”
The walkway ended at the entrance of an outdoor amphitheater, surrounded by dense green on all sides. There was a full orchestra with strings, horns, and a percussion section facing the stage. Instead of a traditional stage, the orchestra faced what Jessica could only describe as a climbing wall. It was several stories high and resembled something that could have been inside a sporting goods store. The only thing it was missing was the colorful hand and foot grips.
The group walked by the orchestra on their way to claiming seats in the front row. Up close, the instruments appeared different. The string instruments looked like they had speakers embedded in them. The brass instruments had some sort of cone on the bells of the horn.
“What are those?” Jessica asked, still staring at the instruments.
Vau gently grabbed her arm and guided her so she wouldn’t trip as she got to her seat. “Those help the instruments hit a larger range of octaves.”
On cue, the horn section played a loud note, and Jessica saw a stone the size of a truck elevate in the air. The louder the group played, the higher the stone raised until they gently lowered it back to the ground.
“That’s it!” Jessica heard the conductor shout. “Just like that.”
“That is impossible,” Jessica said to herself, not even thinking about the probability of the things she’d seen since she had arrived at the Point.
Vau and Jordan were laughing when Tony trotted down to speak with some of the crew working with the orchestra. “There’s nothing impossible about it,” Vau said. “Music moves the entire universe.”
“Don’t you know that everything, and I mean everything, moves to music?” Jordan asked. “Just like the right music makes you want to dance, the right sound can make anything in the universe move.”
Tony sat down in the row behind her, holding a small cloth sack. “Even black holes enjoy music. The one by the Perseus cluster sings at a B-flat. Take out those earpieces I gave you earlier.” Jessica did as instructed while Tony turned to the conductor and signaled one more time. The horn section then lifted their instruments and played. She heard the same note. This time, however, it also sounded like her eardrums were flooded with water. Her hearing was muffled. Tony took the earpieces from her hand and placed them back into her ears. The muffled sound went away. “That B-flat note is fifty-seven octaves below anything a human being can hear. The trick is to find a way to play music at both an octave that resonates with the natural world and a level that’s audible. And this,” Tony held up the sack in front of Jessica’s eyes, “this is the other part of the secret. Let me see your hand.”
Tony cupped Jessica’s hand and poured some of the contents of the bag into it, which could have been black and silver grains of sand. “Sand?” Jessica asked.
“It looks like it, but there are tiny computers that can convert the music we hear to the appropriate octaves that resonate with the granite. These tiny computers bond incredibly well with the atomic structure of the granite,” Tony said, as he pointed at the stone wall. Jessica observed the crew members, who were each carrying similar cloth sacks and applying the nanotechnology to the granite slab with what looked like a paintbrush. When they were done, there were ten rectangular outlines, each as big as a truck.
“You’d be surprised at how close you are to creating these,” Vau said. “There’s already a computer that’s one millimeter by one millimeter.”
“You’re closer than you think,” Tony confirmed.