As Jack approached the site of his new research institute, he admired the new building. His new building. It had fifty floors above ground and, officially, twenty floors below ground.

The parking lot was mostly occupied by construction equipment, but a small section in front of the main entrance had been cleared.

Officially, Genesis had hired Jack, Madison, Samantha, Katie, and Naoko as interns. This way, they could come and go from the building without drawing suspicion.

He parked his Land Cruiser and headed for the main entrance. The upper floors were still under construction, so there was a sturdy covered walkway that ran from the parking lot to the entrance.

Entering the lobby, he waved at the receptionist and headed towards a bank of elevators on the left.

Once in the elevator, he slid a keycard into a slot below the bank of buttons, then pressed B20.

As the elevator doors closed, he caught sight of the receptionist gazing at him hopefully.

He'd soul bonded every single person who would work inside the Genesis Institute building. And instead of hiring a dedicated receptionist, they decided to have the security staff sit at the reception desk on rotation.

Several of the women he'd soul bonded as part of the Genesis Institute staff had shown an interest in him, but became he'd soul bonded so many people in just a few days, he didn't take the time to consider any of them for his outer circle.

The receptionist was one of the women that had shown an interest in him. She was a fit and attractive woman, but he was just too busy to entertain any interest in her at that time.

When the elevator dinged and the doors opened, he exited the elevator, then headed down the hallway before stopping in front of a locked door. The door looked just like all the other doors on that hallway.

Each door had a palm reader, card reader, and scramble pad. He slid his keycard into the slot, pressed the palm of one against the reader, then entered a code into the scramble pad with his other hand.

The door lock buzzed, and he pulled the door open before entering the room and closing the door behind him. The room looked like it was intended as a small lab and had a door in the wall opposite the entrance that led to a storage room.

Jack walked across the room and opened the storage room door. Inside was a set of storage shelves along each wall, though they were empty.

He entered the storage room, closed the door, then turned and locked it. He then pressed his palm against a spot beside the door and waited.

A few moments later, a grid of numbers appeared on the wall beside his palm. He tapped eight numbers, then removed his hand from the wall and stepped back.

A few moments later, the floor of the storage room began to descend slowly, leaving the storage shelves behind.

The floor descended about 4 meters before stopping, and on the wall in front of him was another door.

He pressed his palm against the wall, waited, entered a code, then waited. The door clacked, and he pushed it open to reveal a small room with two elevators.

He entered one of the elevators and slid his keycard into the slot before pressing the button for SB80.

Having the main elevator extend down into the secret basement levels would have been easier, but they didn't want building inspectors asking uncomfortable questions, so they had to create the secret storage room lift that led to the secret sub-basement elevators.

When the elevator reached sub-basement floor SB80, he exited and walked down the hall to the first door on the right and entered.

Inside, he found Rina, Nora, and Madison waiting for him.

"Are we ready to make the magic happen?" he asked.

They were ready to make the first set of critical components for his first set of fabricators, and they needed somewhere in the physical world for that to happen. And since he had this convenient secret sub-basement at his research institute, they decided to do the assembly there.

"Yep," said Rina. "All set."

The three girls were standing around a table, and on the table was a glass box with stainless steel edges. Inside the box was what looked like a glass jar with a metal lid, surrounded by jars of powders.

"Because of the computational costs involved, this glass box represents the limit of what we can create using your guided simulations," said Rina. "It's enough to make the fabricator components, and the giga-cubes, but nothing larger."

He had learned that he could guide what happened inside a simulation by applying modified snapshots to the simulation. Rina had automated this process so that they could make anything they wanted, assuming they had the necessary materials.

"And... it's started," said Rina.

At first, Jack didn't notice any changes, but when he focused on the glass jar, he noticed that the ultra-smooth bottom of the jar was no longer shiny and seemed to have a layer of dust forming on it.

As he watched, the layer of dust slowly grew and transformed into a network of rods that formed a framework. The framework grew, and in the center, a thick square formed.

About an hour later, Rin said, "And.. it's done."

Inside the jar was a dark metallic square with holes and the shiny gold metal contacts of electronic connections arrayed around its perimeter.

He was looking at the very first physical world sample of their display crystal growth plate. Once installed in a fabricator, it would consume materials and grow a VR display crystal on its top surface.

It was effectively an atomic-level 3D printer, but limited to only growing the specialized display crystal needed for the VR headsets.

This first model could only grow one crystal at a time, but they had plans for larger models that could grow 64 crystals at a time.

In his soul space, he notified Astrid that they were ready to transfer the display crystal growth plate to the fabricator in her factory. She was ready, so he templatized and linked the display crystal growth plate and the fabricator.

Astrid installed the growth plate into the fabricator in his soul space, then he exported the changes.

In the physical world, he watched as the display crystal growth plate disappeared from inside the jar, and Astrid watched as the same growth plate appeared inside the fabricator in her factory.

"That's done," said Jack. "Next up are the critical components for the chip fabricator."

Watching the display crystal growth plate grow before his eyes had been mesmerizing, and he looked forward to watching the other critical components as they materialized before his eyes.

If everything went according to plan, they would be ready for the upcoming CES conference.

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