Location: Management room, Volta S.A. factory (Ivry-sur-Seine)
Date: August 1988
Point of view: Omniscient (Focus on Alexandre de Vigan and Karim Belkacem)
August 1988 froze Paris in a summer torpor, but on the third floor of the Ivry-sur-Seine factory, the air conditioning stirred up an atmosphere of pure euphoria.
Alexandre de Vigan stood in front of the large whiteboard in the executive room. The sales manager, usually so in control of his emotions, radiated ferocious energy. He had just drawn an upward financial projection curve whose slope defied the laws of economic gravity.
"Gentlemen," de Vigan announced, turning to Lazare and Karim, a bright smile on his lips. "The first royalty payments from Japan have just been validated by our holding companies in Luxembourg."
He put down his marker and leaned on the edge of the mahogany table.
"Sony and Kyoto have released the funds for the hardware licenses. Arcade giants Sega and Namco in the lead have ordered thirty thousand VESLA/SONG universal motherboards for next quarter. In the space of six months, we have taken the entire global interactive entertainment market hostage. The cash flow of Volta S.A. is no longer healthy, it is indecent. We are sitting on a golden volcano. »
Karim Belkacem, slumped in his leather armchair, let out a nervous laugh. The technical director had dark circles under his eyes, the stigma of nights spent coding the graphics API, but he was proud to be there.
"The SONG chip is a masterpiece," Karim confirmed. "The performance of Revision A has stabilised. European developers eat out of our hand. The software ecosystem is locked. We are six years ahead of everyone else, and they will not recover. »
De Vigan nodded sharply and turned to Lazarus.
The Chairman and CEO of Volta was sitting at the head of the table, silent. He wore a perfectly cut charcoal gray suit, his hands crossed under his chin. He listened to his two lieutenants celebrate their conquest with the patience of a sphinx.
"Lazarus," resumed de Vigan, in the vibrant tone of a new ambition. "The time for phase two has come. Japanese money secures our backs. We have the financial firepower to attack the real market. »
"The real deal?" Lazare repeated softly, without moving.
"The American professional market!" exclaimed the salesman. "Office computing! IBM, Compaq, Hewlett-Packard... They rule the professional world with their sad PCs and monochrome screens. Bill Gates and his famous DOS dominate the software with archaic command lines. »
Karim sat up in his chair, his eyes shining, catching the ball in his bounds.
"Technically, it's child's play, Lazarus," the engineer assured. "We are porting VoltaOS to the IBM PC architecture. We are designing a SONG graphics card in ISA format to plug into their American machines. In a month, I can have a working prototype. Imagine the faces of Wall Street white-collar workers when they see our GUI with hardware-accelerated windowing! »
De Vigan clapped his hands, galvanized.
"Exactly! We're going to open a Volta subsidiary in Silicon Valley. We're going to titillate them on their own ground! We set up offices in Palo Alto or San Jose. We summon the American press, we plug a VoltaOS machine into our silicon, and we publicly humiliate Microsoft and Apple. They are shown that Europe has just made them obsolete. PC manufacturers will beg for our technology. It's the final blow! »
The two lieutenants were waiting for their leader's validation. They expected to see the Builder smile, he who had never shied away from taking risks, he who had blackmailed the French state and brought Japan to its knees.
But Lazarus does not smile.
His face seemed to harden, as if carved out of ice. The engineer of the future slowly lowered his hands and placed them flat on the leather of the desk pad.
"No."
The word fell in the executive room with the heaviness of an anvil. There was no hesitation. No space for debate. Just a brutal refusal, sharp as the edge of a guillotine.
Alexandre de Vigan's smile froze. He looked at Karim, then turned his attention back to Lazarus, convinced that he had not understood.
"Excuse me?" stammered the financial shark. "'No' what? Not Palo Alto? You can move to Seattle, if you prefer to be closer to Gates... »
"No to everything, Alexander," Lazarus said, his voice echoing with a cadaverous coldness. "We will not open a subsidiary in California. We will not port VoltaOS to IBM machines. And we will not "titillate" the American market. »
A thick, suffocating silence replaced the joy of the previous minute.
Karim Belkacem frowned, the confusion quickly giving way to the engineer's outraged incomprehension.
"But... Why, damn it? Karim protested, leaning forward. "Lazarus, we have the best technology on the planet! The SONG chip makes a mockery of the EGA and IBM's fledgling VGA standard. Apple is releasing overpriced machines with interfaces that lag. We have a nuclear missile in our hands! Why would we keep him in the hangar? Are we afraid of them? »
"It's not fear, Karim. "It's strategy," replied Lazarus, inscrutable.
"It's commercial suicide!" exclaimed de Vigan, losing his countenance. He slammed the whiteboard with the palm of his hand. "If we don't impose our standard among American professionals now, Bill Gates will end up releasing a decent graphical interface for PCs, and he will win the world prize! You yourself told me that he was preparing a project called "Windows"! We have to nip it in the bud! »
Lazarus let the wrath of his lieutenants express itself. He understood their frustration. With the eyes of men in 1988, their reasoning was implacably logical. When you have the absolute advantage, you attack the enemy in its heart.
But Lazare Bonaparte was not a man of 1988. He had lived through the end of the twentieth century and the beginning of the next. He knew the fierce, ruthless, asymmetrical arrogance of the American Empire. He knew how the United States dealt with foreign anomalies that threatened its technological sovereignty.
"You think in terms of code quality and silicon architecture, gentlemen," Lazare said at last, breaking the silence in a low, dangerous voice. "You naively believe that the best product always wins."
He got up from his chair and walked toward them, his dark figure dominating the room.
"If we enter the American business PC market tomorrow, with a French chip and a French OS superior to theirs, we will not be perceived as brilliant competitors. We will be seen as a vital threat to the economic security of the United States. »
De Vigan shook his head incredulously. "You are exaggerating, Lazarus. It's free trade... »
"Free trade is a fable that America tells to those it dominates!" snapped Lazare, revealing a tiny fraction of his memorial anger. "We attacked Japan because Japan is isolated, it's an island of entertainment creators. But the desktop computer is America. »
He pointed to the door to the room, pointing metaphorically toward the Atlantic.
"The American professional market is not taken with a simple prototype. If we go now, they're going to crush us. Not with a better chip, but with lawyers, embargoes, and the power of Washington. »
The engineer and the salesman fell silent, chilled by the violence of the tirade. They had never seen Lazarus retreat from an adversary. This refusal to attack almost resembled capitulation.
De Vigan looked down, swallowing his frustration. "So what? Are we content to sell toys to the Japanese and secure French banks on our side of the ocean? Are we watching them win the personal computer war? »
Lazarus stopped in front of the whiteboard. He fixed the extravagant financial curve that de Vigan had traced there.
"No, Alexander. We're not going to watch them win. We are going to accumulate their capital in the shadows. »
He erased the mention "PC IBM" that de Vigan had written.
"Follow me to the roof," the Builder suddenly ordered, turning away from them. "You need to understand what we're really fighting against. And why the Blind Spot is our only chance of survival. »
Location: Roof of the Volta S.A. factory (Ivry-sur-Seine)
Date: August 1988
Point of view: Omniscient (Focus on Lazare Bonaparte)
The heavy fire door opened with a metallic creak.
Lazare Bonaparte was the first to tread on the tarmac gravel of the vast flat roof of the Ivry-sur-Seine factory. Alexandre de Vigan and Karim Belkacem followed suit. The warm air of that late August afternoon enveloped them. Below, the red suburbs were buzzing with its dying industrial activity. In the distance, to the west, the zinc roofs of Paris and the silhouette of the Eiffel Tower stood out against a sky the color of rust and gold.
The young CEO walked up to the parapet. He put his hands on the warm concrete wall and looked at the horizon. His two lieutenants, still stung by his brutal refusal in the meeting room, stood back, waiting for an explanation.
"What do you see, Alexander?" asked Lazarus, without turning round.
De Vigan approached, frowning. "Paris. Our market. The center of France. »
"You see a sovereign nation," corrected Lazarus. "But in the world of high technology, Europe is not sovereign. She is a vassal. »
Lazarus turned round, leaning against the parapet, the warm wind sweeping his brown hair. His face, illuminated by the setting sun, bore an immemorial gravity. The sixty-year-old engineer was going to give them the cruelest lesson in geopolitics in modern history, the one he had experienced in his own timeline.
"Karim, Alexandre... You are brilliant men. But you suffer from the optimism of recent winners. You believe that the market is a meritocratic playground where the best code wins. This is false. Office computing, the business world, is the preserve of the American Empire. This is their strategic spinal cord. »
Lazarus folded his arms.
"If we arrive in Silicon Valley tomorrow to announce that our French OS and our French chip are replacing the IBM and Microsoft standards, what do you think will happen? Bill Gates is not going to admit defeat. He will call Washington. IBM is going to use its networks in the Pentagon. In the space of three months, Volta will be hit by anti-monopoly investigations by the American justice system. Their federal agencies will ban the importation of our chips under the pretext of national security. Their patent firms will flood us with tens of thousands of artificial lawsuits to bleed us financially. This is the Monroe Doctrine applied to silicon: America does not accept any foreign power on its own technological territory. »
Karim Belkacem swallowed. The picture painted by Lazarus was terrifyingly realistic. The engineer suddenly remembered the heavy punitive taxes that the Reagan administration had just imposed on the Japanese semiconductor industry the previous year, as soon as it had proved too threatening.
"They crush the ones they can't buy," Karim whispered, finally understanding.
"Exactly," Lazarus confirmed. "Volta made the French state and Bull bend because we were playing at home. We subdued Japan because it is an isolated archipelago that was looking for an escape route. But attacking America head-on today, at our current size, is like sending light cavalry against heavy artillery. We would be annihilated before winter. »
De Vigan took off his sunglasses, staring at his boss with new sharpness. The financial shark had just understood the nature of the beast.
"But then, Lazarus... The sales manager began, his voice suddenly hesitant. "If America destroys everything that threatens it... Why haven't they already targeted us? We have just signed major contracts with Sony and Sega. We have cornered the global arcade market. The SONG chip is a supercomputer. Why is Washington letting us cash in on these billions of yen without reacting? »
The Builder finally smiled. An absolute predator's smile, cold and victorious, which revealed the keystone of his entire strategy for the past two years.
"Because we are in the Blind Spot, Alexandre."
Lazarus pointed to the empty air above the factory, as if he were drawing the contours of the world chessboard.
"How do gray-haired IBM executives, Microsoft engineers, and Pentagon bureaucrats perceive Sega, Nintendo, and Sony?"
Karim's eyes widened, thunderstruck by the realization. "Like... like toy dealers. »
"Toy dealers," Lazare repeated, savoring the words. "For the American establishment of 1988, video games are just a children's fad. It's childish entertainment, unworthy of being called "real" computing. They believe that the future lies in huge spreadsheets, austere databases, and networks of gray terminals. They look at an arcade machine or a console plugged into a television, and they see it as a gimmick. They don't realize that a teenager playing a 3D racing game at home is handling more geometric computing power than a NORAD command center. »
Lazare approached his two lieutenants, his voice charged with an electric tension.
"Entertainment is our perfect shield, gentlemen. America lets us suck up capital from all over the world because it believes that we are making amusements for the plebs. She doesn't see that the mathematical tools that Karim has coded to run sprites are actually the foundations of the operating systems of the future. The domestic consumer market will become the engine of IT innovation, and we are the only ones to have understood this. »
Alexandre de Vigan ran a hand through his impeccably combed hair, short of breath. The scale of Lazarus' infiltration plan made him dizzy. It was not cowardice, nor prudence. It was pure strategic cover-up. The Builder had disguised a chariot as a wooden horse, and America had let him in without batting an eyelid.
"It's brilliant... Vigan whispered, respect transpiring through every pore of his skin. "We cash in the billions from the toy. We gorge ourselves under their noses, with impunity. But... until when, Lazarus? We're not going to make consoles all our lives. You told me yourself that home computing was the real issue. At what point do you get out of the Blind Spot to face them? »
Lazarus turned away from the parapet and looked at the heavy ventilation structures of the Volta S.A. factory.
"When we are invulnerable," he answered.
He walked to the center of the roof, where the gravelled surface was the widest, and pointed to the ground with the tip of his polished shoe.
"What happens if the United States decides tomorrow to block the export of Intel or Motorola processors to Europe? Our partner computers, such as those of Bull or Olivetti, are dying. Europe is dying out. The Achilles heel of sovereignty is the central material. Volta's OS is useless if it has to run on an American brain that can be taken away from us by a simple decision of a Californian court. »
Lazarus raised his head, his black eyes staring at Karim and Alexander in succession.
"This is where the Japanese gold will come in. We are not going to pay American lawyers to try to enter their market. We will use these billions to build a total sovereign infrastructure. »
He turned to his technical director.
"Karim, you read my architecture for the companion processor, the VESLA. Until now, it existed only on paper, as a theoretical draft in the SONG documentation. It's over. We are going to recruit the hundred best silicon engineers on the continent. We are going to melt our own 32-bit CPU, sovereign, independent of Intel's patents. »
He turned to his sales manager.
"Alexander. We are going to buy assembly plants in Europe. We are no longer going to be satisfied with selling an operating system and a graphics card to be integrated into other people's machines. We will manufacture the whole computer. »
The statement hit the two men hard. Lazarus no longer spoke of infiltrating. He was talking about building a mountain of one piece. The European equivalent, untouchable and locked-in, of a vertical empire.
"The Volta computer... Karim whispered, his mouth dry. "Any hardware, any software, designed in-house. As... like Apple's Macintosh, but with our super-powerful architecture? »
"Exactly. But designed for raw power, 3D, networking, and the professional world of the twenty-first century," Lazare confirmed. "We're going to build our own workstations. Our own servers. We are going to build a hardware and software ecosystem of such perfection that, when we come out of the shadows, European and Asian companies will massively abandon the American architecture for ours. »
Lazarus took a step forward, closing the distance to his lieutenants, sealing the blood pact of phase three.
"When we attack, we won't need anything from America. We will have our own silicon, our own international patents, and an inexhaustible war chest funded by every teenager who buys a Sony or Sega game console. If Washington tries to block us at that time, they will find that the whole world has already adopted our standard. They will have become the anomaly. »
The warm August wind swept the roof, carrying away the sounds of the Parisian suburbs.
Alexandre de Vigan's frustration had completely disappeared. The narrow-minded ambition of the frontal attack suddenly seemed childish to him in the face of his boss's imperial vision. It wasn't a battle for market share. It was a war of technological civilization. And the plan was murderously elegant.
Karim, on the other hand, stared into space, his engineer's brain already feverishly calculating the design constraints of a sovereign central CPU. The challenge of a lifetime had just been thrown in his face.
"How long, Lazarus?" the commercial shark asked softly. "How long to forge such armor before you get out of the Blind Spot?"
Lazare Bonaparte cast a last glance towards the horizon where the sun had just disappeared, plunging Paris into the twilight.
"Three years, Alexander. Let the video game industry digest our chip and make us rich. In three years, the Volta machine will be born. And on that day, the American Empire will understand that it has let a predator grow up in its nursery. »