Chapter 35
In the morning, Suo found me naked in the middle of the living room floor in the "lotus" position, meditating. Scattered around were sheets of paper written and drawn all over with various diagrams.
"Vic, have you decided to take up magic?" she asked with a mixture of surprise and hope in her voice, sitting down to breakfast on the remains of the pizza I had ordered, the boxes for which lay just beyond the papers.
"No," I interrupted my meditation. "Science!"
"Ahhh," she drawled disappointedly. "Was it worth jumping up in the middle of the night for such nonsense?"
"It's not nonsense! It is the INTERNET!!!" I declared with a breathy reverence on that sacred word.
"And what kind of entrance net is that?" she inquired sluggishly. "And how is it better than magic?"
"Oh! It is much, much, MUCH better than magic," enthusiasm was just bursting out of me in all directions. Wasting no time, before I forgot, I grabbed a blank sheet and started hurriedly sketching a block diagram of the "Pentium" architecture, for the exact reproduction of which in my memory I had been meditating. "It is a global information network. It is the unification into one space, accessible to everyone, of all the knowledge of humanity! It is Online games!!!"
"I see," she sighed. "Yesterday you threw me a farewell evening, and now you are lost to society."
"What didn't you like about yesterday evening?" I inquired, not stopping my sketching. "I thought everything was top-notch."
"Well, yes, especially the sex in the restroom during the second act," she replied.
"And I liked it," I shrugged and scratched the back of my head with the pencil. "A very convenient place for it: spacious, all in mirrors, pedestals, and red velvet curtains. Propped the door with a chair and no one will interfere. Or were you not satisfied with the sex itself? I thought I tried as hard as I could."
"Satisfied," Suo sighed. "Very much so. I'm telling you—the evening was wonderful. But I wasn't satisfied that you jumped up at three in the morning and, without saying a word, ran downstairs with a pack of paper and a box of pencils. Where did you get them, by the way? They weren't in the house yesterday."
"I 'jumped' to a stationery store in Japan. Threw a hundred bucks on the register, grabbed what I needed, and 'jumped' back."
"Naked?" she clarified. I looked at myself in bewilderment, only now realizing that I was indeed naked.
"No wonder their eyes were so wide. I thought I had mixed up Japan with France," I shrugged.
"Psycho."
"Not a psycho, an enthusiastic personality," I corrected her.
"And where is the food from?"
"Ordered by phone. They have 24-hour delivery."
"Who is 'they'? And what is it called? Tasty thing, by the way," she took another slice for herself.
"'They' is a pizzeria two blocks from here. And the dish is called pizza. It is considered one of the most harmful dishes for the figure and health. Consumed with a drink called 'Cola' or 'Coca-Cola', an even more harmful drink. It is made from the kola nut, contains a large amount of caffeine and some other tonic substances. It is a very weak drug, capable of causing addiction. Carbonated by adding carbonic acid to the composition, which actively decomposes into H2O and CO2 (water and carbon dioxide). The whole trick is that decomposition takes time, but it is drunk immediately after opening the cap. Accordingly, you drink a solution of acid and caffeine. A harsh mixture, actually. Washes calcium out of teeth and bones, doesn't act in the best way on the cardiovascular system. Dyes and preservatives affect the stomach, contribute to the development of gastritis and peptic ulcer disease..."
"Enough!" Suo interrupted me, setting the bottle aside and putting down the half-eaten slice. "Poison yourself with this muck. I'm going out on business, I'll be late. I expect a normal dinner with normal food, not as dangerous as this."
"Yeah, go," I waved my hand without turning around, checking and rechecking the just-drawn diagram.
Suo wanted to say something else, but only waved her hand in resignation and left into the wall through a ring of fire.
* * *
"Howard," I started the conversation from the threshold of his office. "Spare me some time."
"Come in, Victor," the head of Stark Industries hospitably stood up from behind his desk and walked towards me. "When the secretary said you were asking for an appointment with me, I couldn't believe my ears."
"Howard, yesterday I said I wouldn't meddle in your management of your company. And I really don't intend to do that. But I need your resources and your company's for a project. A veeeery big project."
"How big?" he grew alert.
"You'll evaluate it yourself now," I took out the thick folder I had brought with me, filled with sheets written and drawn all over during the night and day. I put it on the table, but was in no hurry to untie it.
"I can provide the financing, as promised. If my capabilities aren't enough, I'll ask my brother or Xavier for help. In the very extreme case, we'll get Fury involved... But the project must move forward. I don't know how commercially successful it will be or not, but you can consider it my whim."
"You know how to intrigue," Stark smirked. "Show me what you brought."
"What do you know about computers, Howard..." I untied the string and took out the first sheet.
The fact is, let me remind you: by my very first education, even if unfinished, I am a programmer. Open Source Software from the IT faculty. And I had very good teachers. Fanatics of their craft. They put an enormous amount of knowledge and information even into such an oak head as mine. And they also managed to get me interested. Which is much more important and difficult at the same time. So much so that I myself began shoveling the internet and searching for information, trying to comprehend and digest it.
At the same time, I hadn't managed to work anywhere, I was only studying. And this means that before the "transmigration" I hadn't wasted my knowledge, hadn't turned it into moldy shelves of useless waste paper.
And the meditative practices, studied and developed over the years spent in Tibet, brilliantly help to extract from one's memory even what you seemingly didn't know at all, just saw in passing.
And into this folder I threw everything I managed to shake out in less than a day of express excavation.
"Computers? You mean Electronic Calculating Machines?" Howard wrinkled his forehead.
"Yes. Exactly about them."
"A promising field, actively developing. Finds application everywhere, in industry, in defense, in accounting, in research. Wherever large volumes of calculations are required."
"That's understandable anyway. But what are they like? How do you know them? Have you seen them?" I waved away these words.
"Big, bulky, expensive..."
"There!" I raised my index finger up. "I propose to make them small. Personal. And right here," I laid out the first two dozen sheets on the table. "The architecture of a small personal computer."
"Hmm... An interesting idea," Howard began looking through my diagrams and descriptions with interest. "But what is VLSI? Very-large-scale integration circuits, what is that?"
"It's the element base for computers. The main idea there is growing a single crystal of silicon or germanium with a ready-made logical structure. That is, several thousand separate elements, such as diodes, capacitors, triodes, and so on, in an already ready, pre-planned sequence are grown on a single crystal. For this, methods of photolithography and X-ray lithography are used; that is, a light source directed at the crystal blank is placed, and between it and the blank a transparent material with the necessary structural diagram applied to it is placed. Using a system of lenses, the beam is made to converge. This means that the transparent material with the diagram can be, for example, a meter by a meter, and the crystal blank ten by ten millimeters. As a result, where the light hits the crystal, a reaction of a certain kind occurs; where it doesn't hit—it doesn't occur. But this is all rough and approximate. Here are all the diagrams and chemical reactions that I know on this topic. Over here are the separate structural elements, over here are the logical diagrams of the separate elements..." I continued rustling the sheets.
"Stop!" Howard stopped me. "This all needs to be specifically analyzed and worked through with engineers. What you've shown is already years of research. But from them to the final product is like to China. I will take on your project, but I will probably start with PCs, personal computers, as you called them. I will try to create them on the existing element base. But VLSI... A damn promising direction and damn tempting, but it's not a matter of a single year."
"I don't argue," I shrugged. "I didn't really expect everything to happen with the wave of a magic wand anyway. But I showed where to dig."
"What else do you have there? Only the basics, the general idea, we'll look at the particulars later, already with specific specialists who will work on the subprojects."
"Next are the methods of transmitting information over a distance: wired and wireless communication. Here is the data on wired media for information transmission: coaxial cable, twisted pair, fiber-optic cable... Device, maximum data transmission distance, and speed. Then come local area network diagrams, routing, data transmission protocols, network addressing, IP addressing, MAC addresses of network devices... Here is the same thing but for the wireless method. But I'm floating in this issue. Just the basic principle."
"I take it this is not all?" from an excess of emotion, Howard took out a cigarette and lit it.
"The rest is not relevant yet," I sighed. "There are programming languages, low-level, high-level, object-oriented... Principles of building a mobile and satellite communication system... Operating systems for PCs, graphical interface, the principle of a video card and a sound card, peripheral devices: keyboard, inkjet, laser, dot-matrix printer, scanner, CRT monitor, RGB color coding..."
"You know how to puzzle someone," Howard thoughtfully blew a stream of smoke at the ceiling.
"Will you take it on?"
"I'd be the biggest fool if I refused," he sighed.
"But?"
"But the question begs itself: 'from where?'. These aren't your personal developments, after all. Forgive me, but this isn't your level. I worked with you on a project before, your level is an assistant. A go-to guy. In that, you are perfect. But this," he lifted a few sheets, then put them back in place. "These are concepts, schematic diagrams, with a complete lack of detailed elaboration—exactly what you are not strong in. And it all looks not like a project for future development, but like a textbook where long-existing and long-tested, even mass-produced machines are briefly described."
"Howard," I looked at him heavily. "You know that they kill for some secrets?"
"Heard of such a thing," he nervously adjusted a collar that had suddenly become too tight.
"This is one of those," I finished the sentence.
"I understand you," Howard stubbed out his cigarette butt in the ashtray.
"There's no need to attract Fury's attention either," I added. "Not terrible, but better without her curious little nose."
"Alright," he nodded. "Will you participate in the development yourself? Looking at it, the topic is close to you."
"Not just close," I smiled. "It's my hobby! My passion! Almost like martial arts. Naturally, I want to participate!"
"Financing?"
"Estimate, calculate, give me the budget. I'll figure out where to get the money. Deal?" I extended my hand to him.
"Deal!" as if jumping off a cliff, he grunted to the side, and shook it with a swing.
* * *
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