Even without Samir on board, the team decided to proceed on construction of the machine. They would find a physicist later, and if any issues came up, Henry and Aaron would try to work it out between them.

Aaron and Mandy agreed that Henry should coordinate the project, not only because it was his idea to begin with, but as a mathematician, Henry was uniquely able to work on all aspects of the machine’s construction. He could help with the engineering of the machine, as well as chip in on programming some of the subroutines in the machine’s code.

At least that was the reasoning that Aaron had sold both Henry and Mandy on. In reality, he saw this as the perfect opportunity to get his two friends together. Henry was an academic wizard, Aaron knew, but romantically the guy needed all the help he could get. Aaron decided he would sieze any opportunity to have Henry and Mandy working very closely.

Their first construction problem came very quickly. The machine required a processor that just didn’t exist.