Location: Volta SA Tower and its surroundings, Ivry-sur-Seine (Val-de-Marne).
Date: November 1994.
Viewpoint: Omniscient (Sliding focus on the urban ecosystem and Lazare Bonaparte).
The autumnal fog rising from the meanders of the Seine now struggled to envelop the city of Ivry. Once a working-class stronghold in the red suburbs, bristling with forlorn brick chimneys and declining factories, the urban landscape had undergone a transformation of unprecedented architectural violence.
The monolithic complex of Volta SA was no longer an isolated anomaly in an industrial wasteland; it had become the black sun of a new galaxy.
From the immense bay window of his director's office, located at the top of the glass and steel fortress, Lazare Bonaparte contemplated his work. Below, the city was no longer asleep.
The stunning legal and financial victory against Intel, which had brought the American giant to its knees a few weeks earlier, had sent shockwaves far beyond the trading floors. It had shattered a half-century-old psychological glass ceiling.
The whole world had suddenly understood that it wasn't written in the laws of physics that silicon had to speak English and be born in California.
Around Volta's ultra-secure compound, a veritable intellectual gold rush had begun. It was already being called the « Silicon Seine » in the columns of the Financial Times and L'Usine Nouvelle .
The old printing works, abandoned storage sheds, and dilapidated garages had been bought up at exorbitant prices, hastily renovated, and transformed into business incubators. The Californian dynamism, that of the thriving ecosystem, was now operating in the Paris region, but with a radically different, profoundly European flavor.
Lazare slipped his hands into the pockets of his suit trousers, observing the incessant ballet of hurried young men crossing the streets below, files under their arms and steaming cups of coffee in their hands.
This organic miracle owed a great deal to a major historical event that Lazare had been able to indirectly channel: the fall of the Berlin Wall.
Since the collapse of the Soviet bloc in 1989, a brain drain had been leaving the East. Thousands of Russian mathematicians, East German cryptographers, Polish physicists, and Hungarian engineers, once employed by the sprawling military-industrial complex of the Red Army, found themselves jobless, without laboratories, thrown into the chaos of ruined economies.
Bill Clinton's America had thought it could absorb them, but Lazare Bonaparte had offered them a much closer, and infinitely more exciting, home port.
Ivry-sur-Seine had become the new promised land of continental intelligence.
In the streets surrounding the factory, French was no longer the only language spoken. The terraces of the brasseries echoed with the guttural sounds of Russian, German, Polish, and English, tinged with every accent imaginable from across Europe.
These geniuses from the East had joined forces with the brilliant young graduates of Polytechnique, Centrale, and the universities of the Sorbonne and Orsay. Together, they were creating start-ups at an industrial pace.
« They are voracious, aren't they? »
Karim Belkacem's voice pulled Lazare from his silent contemplation. The technical director of Volta SA had just entered the office, a thick file under his arm. He joined his boss near the bay window, his eyes shining with a pride he made no attempt to hide.
« I was looking at the Chamber of Commerce registration records this morning, » Karim continued, pointing to a freshly renovated red-brick building three hundred meters from their tower. « The 'Espace' building.
Twelve new companies moved in this week. Twenty-five-year-olds who raised millions of francs on a simple business plan . »
Lazare nodded slowly, his dark eyes scanning the rooftops of Ivry like a general inspecting his front lines.
« They don't work for us, » remarked the Builder, in a monotone voice.
« No, but they're working all around us, » Karim corrected, his voice brimming with enthusiasm. « And it's infinitely more powerful.
Look at Nebulis , for example. This company was founded by two former Nokia employees and a Spetsnaz veteran. They develop network routing algorithms that are exclusively optimized for the VoltaOS X kernel .
Or look at Polygone 3D , the Franco-Polish team based in the old shoe factory. They're writing a graphics rendering engine that could revolutionize video games and industrial modeling, but they're writing it in native assembly language for our VESLA-III architecture .
They even refuse to compile it for Intel processors! »
Karim turned towards Lazare, arms crossed, a smile on his lips.
« Without meaning to, Lazarus, you've created a religion. And all those kids down there are your evangelists. Companies like Nebulis and Polygone 3D are massive.
They have the potential to become tomorrow's global leaders in telecommunications and digital entertainment. And they've all staked their existence on our silicon. Europe is uniting around our standards.
The ecosystem is thriving. »
The Ogre of Ivry remained silent for a few moments. Karim's analysis was correct. Success breeds success.
Lazare knew perfectly well that a single technology company, however powerful, would always end up suffocating if it didn't create global dependency. Apple and IBM had learned this the hard way with Microsoft.
By making Volta technology triumphant, Lazare had convinced the European intelligentsia that the future would be written with his tools.
Every line of code typed in the Ivry warehouses, every piece of software designed to run on a Compaq AXIOM computer , every user interface drawn for VoltaOS , was another brick added to the wall of his fortress. The young entrepreneurs believed they were working for their own financial freedom, but in reality, they were cementing the sovereignty of the Volta Empire.
Yet, unlike his friend, Lazarus felt no humanist joy in the face of this upheaval. He felt only the coldness of calculation.
« The ecosystem is robust, » Lazare finally conceded, turning away from the window to return to the imposing black marble desk that stood in the center of the room. « It will feed on itself.
We've locked down office computing, European bank servers, military computers, and China is flooding the civilian market with our entry-level components. The infrastructure is under control. »
He sat down, his face suddenly darkening with the gravity of the next step. His fingers tapped on the keyboard embedded in the desk's surface. The room's light dimmed, and a huge flat screen, concealed behind an oak panel, slid silently across the opposite wall.
« But infrastructure is just the plumbing of the world, Karim. It carries information, it encrypts it, it stores it. It doesn't create it . »
A series of images appeared on the giant screen. They were neither stock market graphs, nor RISC architecture diagrams, nor submicron etching plans.
They were photographs from film sets.
Blinding spotlights, camera tracks, and at the center, colossal cameras, thick black metal monsters laden with reels of film. Names appeared superimposed: Universal Studios , Warner Bros. , 20th Century Fox , Paramount .
Hollywood. The top of the Californian hill.
Karim frowned, bewildered by this paradigm shift.
« The movies? » he asked, searching for the logical connection in his boss's ever-shifting mind. « You want Volta to produce films to compete with the Americans? »
« I don't care about scripts, Karim. Let the entertainers tell their stories. What interests me is the tool that freezes their reality. »
Lazarus stood up, his shadow silhouetted against the bright images of 90s American blockbusters: the dinosaurs of Jurassic Park , the cyborgs of Terminator 2 , the heroism of Forrest Gump .
« Look at them, » Lazare ordered, his voice thick with terrifying analytical contempt. « America doesn't dominate the planet simply because it owns aircraft carriers or because Intel sold microprocessors.
America dominates the world because it manufactures our imagination. It exports its soft power —its culture, its values, its worldview—through every image projected in every movie theater and every television set on the globe.
It is the most pernicious and absolute form of conquest there is: control of the gaze. »
He pressed a button on his remote control. The images of Hollywood stars disappeared, replaced by close-ups of technical equipment: yellow metal boxes bearing the red Kodak logo, and American Panavision mechanical cameras .
« But this dream industry is a technological dinosaur, » Lazare continued. « It's a mechanical heresy.
They shoot on film stock. A chemical, unstable medium that needs to be developed in baths of toxic chemicals. Their editors still spend their days cutting strips of plastic with scissors and tape in darkened rooms.
It's archaic. It's slow. And above all, it's a completely American and Japanese monopoly, controlled by Kodak and Fujifilm. »
Karim approached the screen, slowly understanding the extent of the new battlefield that Lazarus had just opened.
« You want to digitize them. You want to kill the film. »
« I want to destroy it, » Lazare confirmed with the coldness of an executor. « The software ecosystem growing down here, in the streets of Ivry, is our army.
We have the money to beat Intel. We have the computing power of the VESLA line . The time has come to attack the perfect eye. »
The office door opened again, admitting Édouard Renault-Tessier. The finance director wore impeccable British elegance, but his face betrayed the exhaustion of nights spent structuring colossal financial arrangements.
« Edward, » Lazarus greeted him. « Is the annihilation mattress available? »
The investment banker nodded, placing a thin leather folder on the table.
The two billion euros allocated to the satellite constellation were transferred this morning to Arianespace and our subcontractors for the Volta-Orbit project . The secure space links will be operational by the end of the decade.
But we still have a colossal war chest from the post-Intel market capitalization and massive cash inflows from AXIOM sales in Asia. We have the funds for the acquisition you requested.
« Okay. You two should sit down. »
Lazare returned to his armchair. The screen changed again. Gone was Hollywood and its glitz.
The image now displayed the elegant, but slightly outdated, logo of a very old European company. A crest that exuded the industrial heritage of the early 20th century.
Helios-Cinema.
« That's our target, » announced Lazare, his gaze fixed on the prey.
Édouard Renault-Tessier adjusted his glasses.
« Helios-Cinema , » the financier read. « A historic French manufacturer, based in the Lyon region, a pioneer in camera production since the time of the Lumière brothers. They equipped the greatest directors of the New Wave, and they have a worldwide reputation for the excellence of their precision mechanics and the purity of their optical lenses. »
« But they are dying, » Lazare added with absolute cynicism.
Édouard nodded as he opened his file.
« Exactly. Their financial results have been disastrous for the past three years. They missed the boat on electronic video for televisions, they're unable to compete with the Japanese companies Sony or Panasonic in the mass market, and the niche market of high-end cinema is being devoured by Panavision.
They're riddled with debt. French banks are preparing to place them under court protection next month. They're going to be dismantled and sold off piecemeal for the value of their optical patents. »
« We'll buy them before the vultures get close, » Lazare declared. « I want a friendly, lightning-fast, and total takeover.
Buy all their debts, buy out the majority shareholders' shares with an obscene premium of forty percent above the market price. I want the company absorbed by the Volta SA group by the end of the week. »
Karim, his mind still anchored in the purity of silicon, looked at the century-old logo with a hint of skepticism.
« Lazare, I understand your desire to digitize cinema. But why buy an aging mechanical factory? Their engineers know how to machine gears to advance 35mm film.
They know nothing about coding or CCD sensors. We could design our own digital camera from scratch, right here in Ivry, with our own designers. »
Lazarus's smile was brief, a flash of a predator aware of the subtlety of his own trap.
« Because the film industry is snobbish, Karim. And because we're going to pull off a cultural heist. »
The young CEO leaned on his desk, folding his long hands.
« The great cinematographers of Hollywood, the Spielbergs, the Scorsese, the Camerons, would never touch a camera that looks like a plastic computer designed by suburban Parisians. They are in love with the object itself.
They want solid metal, they want lenses hand-cut with a century of expertise, they want shooting ergonomics that reassure their artistic egos. If we show up with a Volta camera , they'll laugh in our faces, dismissing it as just another souped-up TV camcorder. »
The image of the latest Helios film camera , a magnificent object of black and chrome engineering, appeared on the screen.
« That's where the Trojan Horse comes in, » Lazarus revealed. « We'll buy Helios for its soul, its prestige, and its physical shell. We'll keep their name, their bodywork, and the untouchable excellence of their glass lenses.
But inside… »
Lazarus' eyes lit up with that demiurgic fever that both terrified and fascinated his lieutenants.
« Inside, we're going to strip away the film mechanism. We're going to replace the film drive with a monstrously large digital sensor, which we'll design right here. A sensor paired with a VESLA-III processor dedicated solely to image processing.
This camera won't record compressed video. It will record raw data. Zeros and ones, on encrypted removable hard drives.
We're going to create the world's first digital cinema camera, hidden inside the body of Europe's most prestigious mechanical camera. »
Silence fell again, charged with the implications of what had just been said. Édouard Renault-Tessier understood the financial and strategic maneuver: they were going to sell a very high-tech product under the reassuring veneer of European artisanal luxury. It was foolproof.
But Karim Belkacem saw the technical obstacle. The insurmountable wall.
« Lazare, » the technical director said slowly and cautiously. « If we design a sensor the size of a 35mm film that records every pixel as raw, uncompressed data at 24 frames per second… The data flow will be colossal.
It's an avalanche of bytes. No computer in the world today, not even the Silicon Graphics workstations or Apple Macs that studios use for their early special effects, is capable of ingesting, reading, let alone editing such a quantity of data in real time.
This camera will produce files so large that no one will be able to use them. It will be unusable. »
Lazarus's grin widened. The ecosystem's trap was finally about to close.
« That's precisely the point, Karim. That's the beauty of the closed system. »
He pressed his remote control. The Helios-Cinema logo disappeared, replaced by the organizational chart of the « Silicon Seine » start-ups in Ivry, the very ones they had been observing through the window a few minutes earlier.
« America won't be able to edit our footage with their old equipment, » Lazare declared, his voice trembling with an implacable logic of domination. « To use the magic camera that will offer them unprecedented image quality, the Los Angeles studios will absolutely have to use software capable of decoding our raw files.
Software that will only exist in our country. »
He pointed at Karim with the tip of his pen.
« You'll either commission the best of the European startups in our network, or we'll acquire the most promising non-linear editing company on the market. I want Volta SA to have its own post-production software within two years, custom-designed for the Helios camera .
Exclusive color grading and editing software. »
Lazarus stood up, dominating the space of his fortress, the matrix of his future total monopoly deployed before him.
« Hollywood studios will buy our cameras to film. But to review and edit their films, they will be forced to buy our software. And since our software will be so large that it will require insane computing power... they will be forced to buy entire farms of Compaq AXIOM PCs equipped with our most expensive VESLA processors, with hundreds of terabytes of our CELLA memory for storage. »
Édouard Renault-Tessier felt a shiver run down his spine. The vertical integration was absolute, frighteningly perfect. It was no longer the sale of a product; it was the sale of a prison-like universe, of which Volta held the sole set of keys.
« We won't sell them a camera, » concluded Lazare Bonaparte, his gaze lost on the Atlantic Ocean, where California still believed it reigned supreme. « We'll sell them the oxygen they need to keep going.
By controlling the gaze, the processing, and the software, we'll put the American dream machine on European life support. Prepare the takeover bids, Édouard. The image war starts tonight. »
The acquisition of Helios-Cinema and the digitization of its legendary lenses were, in Lazare Bonaparte's mind, nothing more than the creation of a weapon. But a weapon deprived of its projection mechanism remains nothing more than an inert piece of metal in an arsenal.
For the silicon of Ivry to dictate its law to the world's imagination, it was necessary to build the tracks along which this new reality would spread.
In the Level 3 planning room, the atmosphere was thick with the smell of glossy Arcom reports and maps of the deployment of French cable networks. Édouard Renault- Tessier and Nadia Chérif watched their chairman, who was pacing back and forth behind a huge table on which the radio frequencies of Western Europe were projected.
« A camera is just an eye, Lazare, » Nadia Chérif explained, crossing her arms. « If we want to bypass Hollywood, it's not enough for directors to shoot with our digital sensors.
The public needs to see the result without going through the distribution channels controlled by the American studios. We need screens. »
« Screens and antennas, » Lazare corrected, his low voice cutting through the hum of the fans.
The engineer turned his attention to the broadcasting cards. At the end of 1994, the French and European audiovisual landscape was undergoing a major transformation. The privatization era of the late 1980s had left scars, but more importantly, it had created openings.
Satellite and cable were beginning to erode the monopoly of the established channels.
« We're not just going to buy a production studio to produce content, » announced Lazarus. « We're going to buy the infrastructure. I want to create a media hub of an unprecedented nature: Volta Broadcasting . »
Édouard Renault-Tessier immediately opened his notepad, pen suspended. « What kind of network, Lazare? Buying an existing channel is politically complex.
The Balladur government is watching media concentration like a hawk, especially with the 1995 presidential elections approaching. »
« So we're going to create two thematic channels from scratch, using the satellite channels that our two billion investment has just secured, and by buying up the abandoned local frequencies, » Lazare replied with icy confidence.
« Two separate vectors. Two jaws for the same trap. »
He pointed at the screen, bringing up the first project.
« The first channel will be called Helios-Screen . It will be entirely dedicated to amateur cinema, young independent filmmakers and short film creators from across the continent. »
Nadia Chérif frowned, surprised by this unusual artistic direction from a man who swore by algorithmic efficiency. « Amateur filmmaking? Lazare, that's a guaranteed financial disaster.
The ratings will be negligible, and advertisers will shun a program schedule filled with art students or hobbyists without a budget. It'll lose money from day one. »
« Leave the advertisers out of it, Nadia. This channel isn't meant to generate immediate profits. Its function is purely doctrinal. It's the laboratory of our Soft Power . »
Lazare approached the table, his eyes shining with an ancient strategic glint.
« We're going to offer everything free of charge. Volta will finance, through cultural foundations, the equipment of hundreds of young filmmakers across Europe. We'll lend them our Helios-Volta digital cameras , give them free access to our vSTUDIO editing suites installed in universities, and broadcast their work on our channel.
By doing this, we'll bypass the system of state subsidies and traditional distribution. »
He placed his hand flat on the map of France.
America floods Europe with its blockbusters because it has the money and the technology. We will turn European youth against it by giving them the means to create their own aesthetic, their own counterculture, entirely based on our silicon.
Even if Helios-Screen loses tens of millions of francs a year, the symbolic gain will be incalculable. We will be the patrons of the continent's new cultural intelligentsia. We will nationalize the avant-garde.
And every image they produce will be a living advertisement for the superiority of our VESLA processors .
Édouard Renault-Tessier nodded slowly, grasping the political subtlety of the maneuver. This was no longer about finance; it was grammatical culture warfare. Lending the means of production to the masses to ensure their technological loyalty.
« And the second vector? » asked the financier.
Lazarus's face reverted to a black marble mask. The screen changed, displaying global teletype feeds, images of conflicts in Eastern Europe, and the logos of major news agencies.
« Information, » Lazarus declared. « It's the lifeblood of war. Infrastructure manages logistics, but information shapes our perception of reality.
If we let CNN or the BBC dictate the narrative of international crises, we remain at the mercy of their geopolitical biases. I want a 24/7 news channel. Volta Info . »
« The market is already saturated with the recent launch of LCI in France and Euronews on a continental scale, » Nadia Chérif cautioned. « To stand out, we need a strong identity.
A nose for the truth. A newsroom capable of tracking down the truth where others shy away, otherwise we'll just be another lukewarm voice in the radio noise. We need an exceptional editor-in-chief, a fierce, incorruptible mind, obsessed with investigative journalism. »
A strange, almost painful grimace stretched Lazare Bonaparte's lips.
« I know exactly who will be running this channel, » she murmured, her gaze lost in the dark windows overlooking the Seine. « I have the perfect person right here. »
Nadia and Édouard exchanged a worried look. They knew their president's loneliness, his complete lack of a circle of friends or social connections outside the family.
« Who? » asked Edward.
« My sister. Camille. »
The silence that fell in the room was suffocatingly dense. Nadia Chérif sat up, astonishment evident on her face.
« Camille? Your sister? Lazare, this is madness!
She runs L'Équation , an investigative magazine whose sole obsession for months has been to uncover the secrets of Volta SA! She's paying private detectives to investigate your financial flows in Luxembourg, she's looking for loopholes in the maintenance of our factories in Alsace...
She hates you, Lazare. She sees you as a corporate monster. Giving her the keys to a national 24-hour television channel is like giving her a megaphone to destroy you! »
Lazare did not flinch under the barrage of objections from his communications director. He leaned back against the command console, folding his long hands with the placidity of a chess player who has anticipated checkmate ten moves in advance.
« Camille doesn't hate me, Nadia. She's obsessed with the truth. That's a fundamental difference. »
The young demiurge lowered his eyes to his sister's file which appeared on his control screen.
She has our father's nose, that animal intuition that allows her to sniff out corruption, lies, and state-sponsored schemes through thousands of pages of redacted documents. Her animosity toward Volta is simply proof of her integrity.
She refuses to be bought off with my billions; she refuses to turn a blind eye because we share the same blood. It is precisely this journalistic savagery that makes her the ultimate weapon.
« But she will use this weapon against you! » insisted Edward, a line of anxiety furrowing across his brow.
« No, » replied Lazare, his voice soft and sharp as a scalpel. « She will use it against our enemies. By offering her the general management of Volta Info , I am giving her total, absolute editorial freedom, guaranteed by contract.
She will have the largest budgets in Europe, offices in Washington, Moscow, and Beijing, and access to our encrypted satellite transmission networks to protect her sources. »
He stood up, approached Nadia, fixing her polar gaze on his.
Do you really think Camille will spend her days on air talking about her brother's Luxembourg holding companies when she has the means to expose the French government's corruption scandals, the CIA's dirty tricks in Africa, or the financial manipulations of the City of London? Her idealism will drive her to take on the true Leviathans of the century.
And in doing so, she will destroy, one by one, the power structures of those who are trying to block Volta's expansion.
The revelation of Lazarus's Machiavellian scheme hit his lieutenants like a ton of bricks. It wasn't an act of brotherly generosity. It was a gilded cage, a method of aligning forces with diabolical subtlety.
By giving his sister the most powerful intelligence tool on the continent, he was transforming his most dangerous opponent into the unwitting executor of his own strategy for global domination.
« You're going to overwhelm her, » Nadia understood with a whisper. « You're giving her the world to dissect so she'll take her eyes off Ivry. »
« I'm giving her the pedestal she deserves, » Lazare corrected with clinical coldness. « Information is a weapon of war.
The Americans have CNN to justify their invasions and impose their vision of the world order. Europe will have Volta Info , run by a Bonaparte whom no one can accuse of being in my pay, since all of Paris knows she's investigating me.
Her credibility will be our best shield. »
Lazarus turned back towards the bay window. Beyond the glass, the lights of the « Silicon Seine » glittered in the night, this teeming mass of start-ups and young brains who believed they were building their own future when they were only engraving the circuits of his supremacy.
« Prepare the legal statutes for Volta Broadcasting , Édouard, » sealed Lazarus. « Nadia, start recruiting the broadcast technicians. I'll personally take care of my sister.
The days of print media and confidential journals on Rue Oberkampf are over. Camille has a nose for war; «I'll give her her army. »