"I... think so? Assuming no unknown unknowns." 

"I might as well double check the risk around that? I don't expect there to be much issues there because of where the abstraction is? I think the biggest risks would just me being a bit inattentive if I'm doing finnicky with novel chemistry I don't understand very well, but doing something I have a - conceptual idea of should be fine and that's not the sort of thing that I should be doing without intentionality, anyways." 

"Yeah, in my professional opinion as a lab tech: don't do finnicky novel chemistry inattentively. That's going to end badly regardless of whether you're using magic hammer powers or not."

"Hmm ... I'm not seeing an obvious way to test that, but I also think that we've narrowed down the possible risks here enough to give the risk-management team a reasonable starting point to work from. Unless either of you have more things you want to check in a controlled environment, I think we should send these results over to them. And then I have a non-urgent request from the Public Safety Announcement Creation Committee to discuss whether and how you want to be identified in any publications that result from all this, Lustrous."

"I don't... mind in principle? I like making things and having pride in making things and showing off that? Not particularly worried about the public response, though a bit worried about - practical considerations about security? Not sure it's exactly the safest thing to be a public magic person without like, at least normal celebrity levels of precautions about stalkers or whatever, so might want to hold out on that 'til that's cleared up?" 

"Sensible, but I'm not sure what exactly the options there are, hence the request for a meeting with someone who handles that sort of thing."

People who haven't worked in Emergency Services are often surprised that the job's three most common activities are: coordinating things between people, moving things, and waiting.

A sharp little nod. 

"Things to test... Do I get anything about the information in computers I deconstruct? A lower bound for the volume I can absorb? Might be worth leaving the hammer with you to take a look at in detail, see if there's anything weird about it in particular. Not entirely sure how it works with liquids, too - not sure if I could tap up say, a puddle on the ground...?" 

"You were able to reclaim the acetic acid," Volhmelan points out. "But maybe only because it was in a mug. We can test liquids outside of containers ..."

It turns out that she can absorb liquids, in whatever shape seems appropriate. That gives Volhmelan the video evidence to point out that she's not absorbing things instantaneously, but rather from the outside in, which is why there's no thunderclap. She has no detectable minimum volume, and does not get any information from deconstructed computers — or deconstructed paper books, for that matter. And she can only reconstruct an object with writing on it exactly as it was if she looked at the writing beforehand. A sacrificial test phone produces a phone-shaped metal and glass object that fails to turn on, and which proves to be filled with decorative circuit-board like designs in place of actual circuits when Volhmelan pops the casing open.

"Well, it looks like you'll have to be careful not to absorb any electronics you want to keep working," they note. "Although since you can reproduce writing, I bet you could reproduce a circuit board too, if you memorized the wiring diagram."

"It would depend on the level of abstraction, I think? I doubt I'll be able to print out CPUs any time soon, though the basic physical form of the um. macroscopic traces of a circuit board is probably doable? I don't think precision is the issue. Could still have some use..."

- Actually, that's another thing worth testing. She'll try to absorb a space of air, and then either as quickly as possible after or 'simultaneously' make a tiny vacuum chamber with a silicon wafer on it, focusing as much as she can on making it perfectly smooth and singular, just one crystal laid out evenly. 

She'll try to make a simple circuit board from a reference just to check his guess.

"I think it wants me to be able to... picture 'why' it works and how it's made up? Not just that it does work. But I can reproduce a page of writing perfectly that I'm... pretty sure that I wouldn't be able to type out again from memory? There's a bit of leniency, there, I think? But I'm not sure how far it extends, and I bet that it'll go farther when I'm actually trying to build something..." 

Since she absorbs from the outside in, slowly enough to avoid causing a thunderclap, she can't actually leave a pocket of vacuum behind when absorbing air.

... but she can construct a vacuum chamber, if she tries, pushing the existing air out of the way, somehow.

And, like with the writing, if she knows what the circuit is and how it's laid out, she can reproduce it just fine.

Volhmelan rubs their nose thoughtfully.

"Do you want to try building some lab equipment that we can use to check helicity? In case actually intending to build something alters things somehow?"

And also it will get them cool magical lab equipment. Hopefully with non-leaky gaskets.

ummmmm. 

She's pretty sure it won't work, but she might as well make a college try? Making a shell isn't too hard. Making a circuit with an LED is doable with a bit of fiddling. With a bit of tinkering and a good bit of looking things up, she can... probably throw together something that might possibly kind of sort of crudely be in the general vicinity of a spectrometer? She can understand the basics of a prisms and lenses and bits of metal with holes in it designed to selectively block out certain bits of light? But unless something magically comes together it's not going to be actually suitable for purpose. 

Actually the equipment he had in mind is a really precise polarimeter, which is mostly mechanical. It's a bright light source, a finely linearly polarized filter, a large clear tube, and then a rotating polarizer with a stepper motor, a big gear-down ratio, and a photo-resistor.

She can certainly try! 

She'll try to make the pieces one by one, then try to do it all together - she's pretty sure that some of the exact scale details can slip when she's not picturing it all as one device, but she has enough of a mind's eye to - feel a bit of the geometry, the sense of how it all locks together, and hopefully that should help? Motors are pretty simple in their own way too - she's done enough with deconstructed ones in little projects that they don't feel - too too intimidating. 

Volhmelan produces a solution of dilute left-handed sugar water, to test it, and eventually pronounces the polarimeter perfectly serviceable.

"I'll need to calibrate it before use, but it looks good. Did building a thing with some basic circuitry in it feel different than trying to make a circuit in isolation?"

"Nooot much? Basic circuitry is fine - making an example circuit board felt about the same? It's just... an actual computer is really really complicated and busy with all sorts of details. I understand the logic of 1s and 0s, and I've played around with half-adders a little, but I don't actually know how a modern computer works, beyond the vaguest gloss of 'stuff like that, stacked up very cleverly', and I don't think that's enough? Something with a - simpler basis might be better - I think the power might help me sort of... cheat at scale, a little? Letting me hold bigger mental images in my head like I'm linking cad files together, or something like that...?" 

She shakes her head. 

"Not totally sure, though." 

"Well, I can get you a textbook that builds a modern CPU from the NAND-gate up, if you want, but that seems pretty far outside the realm of safety testing. Maybe something to practice on your own time, if you even want to?"

"Yeah... And it's certainly convenient if I can do that, but this should be plenty to start with, I think? I'll see how far I can get, but no promises." 

"Alright! Well, I'll run the tests on the samples you provided, and get back to you with results today or tomorrow. Until then, I recommend not eating anything you make. And I'll text you a link to the raw data from all of this in case you want to do your own analysis. I'll treat all of this as confidential until I hear from ES whether you're going public about having superpowers."

Volhmelan starts wiping down the lab space they've been using. Just because there's no reason to think that there are any contaminants left behind is no reason not to clean in between tasks. This is the exciting hazardous materials laboratory.