Location: The "Bunker", Volta S.A. factory (Ivry-sur-Seine)
Date: January 2, 1990
Point of view: Omniscient (Focus on Lazare Bonaparte)
The whole world had just emerged from the intoxication of New Year's Eve. The decade of the eighties, with its excesses, its Cold War and its bipolar certainties, had just died out in a planetary fireworks display. In Paris, the streets were still littered with New Year's Eve confetti, and an icy mist enveloped the banks of the Seine. Humanity entered the 1990s with the naïve hope of eternal peace, convinced that the fall of the Berlin Wall had solved all the world's equations.
But thirty meters under the concrete of Ivry-sur-Seine, in the sterile and over-air-conditioned sanctuary of the "Bunker", no one had popped the champagne. No one had slept for forty-eight hours.
The air smelled of the ozone of overheated servers, the cold coffee and rancid sweat of fifty developers pushed beyond the limits of human exhaustion.
In the center of the room, facing a high-resolution monitor connected to the latest prototype of the Volta motherboard, Karim Belkacem looked like a spectrum. His bloodshot eyes were ringed with purplish bags. His curly hair was all over the place, and his crumpled shirt bore the scars of a week of sleepless nights on cots.
His fingers, trembling with fatigue and adrenaline, typed a last command line into the text-mode interface.
"Compilation of the final core..." Karim whispered, his voice gravelly, almost inaudible over the hum of the fans. "Édition des liens. Creating the disk image. »
He pressed the Enter key with the solemnity of a man pressing a detonator.
Lazare Bonaparte was standing, just behind his chief developer, with his arms crossed. His smooth, inscrutable face betrayed no fatigue, though he spent the same sleepless nights as his men, tracking down memory leaks and rewriting blocks of code in machine language with terrifying virtuosity.
The black screen displayed a cascade of lines of green text, then faded off for a split second.
When it turned back on, it was not to display an austere DOS command line, nor the fledgling and unstable windows that Microsoft was painstakingly trying to design across the Atlantic.
A pure graphical interface, with crisp icons and shaded windows, appeared on the screen. It was VoltaOS.
Karim grabs the mouse. He opened the file manager, then launched the V-Office suite word processor, the spreadsheet, and a three-dimensional calculation application, all at the same time. There was no hourglass. No screen freezing. The operating system's preemptive multitasking, coupled with the superscalar RISC architecture of the V-1000 processor, absorbed the load with the fluidity of a torrent rolling down a mountain. The machine reacted faster than the user's thoughts.
Karim let go of the mouse. He drew his chair back, took his head in his hands, and let out a long sigh that sounded like a sob of relief.
"It's done, Lazare," whispered the genius of the Parisian suburbs, with tears in his eyes. "Zero memory leaks. Zero access violations. The code is perfectly clean. This is the Golden Master. The system is ready to be burned to production discs. We succeeded. We created a monster. »
In the Bunker's open space , the dozens of developers, who had been holding their breath, burst into applause. Some hugged each other, others collapsed on their keyboards from exhaustion, overwhelmed by the descent of adrenaline. They had just redefined modern computing.
Lazarus placed a firm hand on Karim's shoulder. A rare gesture, measured, but charged with real gratitude.
"It's art, Karim," said the Builder. "Rest. Take your team and disappear for a week. Pay for the best hotels in Paris, it's on the company's account. You deserved it. »
As the software engineers began to gather their belongings in an atmosphere of staggering jubilation, the doors of the secure elevator opened with a faint pneumatic hiss.
Auguste Bonaparte entered the Bunker.
The former diplomat, impeccable in a three-piece suit in cold wool, was totally out of place in the middle of this technological battlefield. He was carrying a thick black leather satchel. He approached his son, scanning the screen with his eyes.
"I see that the artificial brain is awake at last," Auguste said with a knowing smile. "Should I assume that the software part is complete?"
"The master stallion is compiled, Dad," Lazarus replied, turning away from the screen to face material reality. "Hard drives can be flashed from this morning. Where are our arteries? »
Augustus opened his satchel and took out a bundle of customs slips, international bills of exchange and freight manifests, all stamped with Eastern European stamps.
"Soviet corruption is the most efficient machine I have ever seen," Augustus said, placing the documents on a metal table. "Yuri Volkov has kept his word. While the West watches the Berlin Wall being cut into pieces and sold to tourists, Siberia is emptying for us. »
The ENARCH tapped the documents with his index finger.
"Three heavy freight trains, loaded with purified tantalum and palladium extracted from the mines of Norilsk, crossed the Polish border last night, under the cover of false agricultural export certificates. They are on their way to the merchant ports of Rotterdam and Le Havre. From there, the raw material will be shipped directly by container ship to our subcontractors in Asia and Texas. »
"And the price?" asked Lazarus.
"Ridiculous," Auguste smiled. "The Soviet economy has been in free fall since December. The rouble is no longer worth anything. We buy these strategic metals at less than fifteen percent of their value on the London market. The bribes paid into Volkov's Swiss accounts have already been largely amortized. The blood of the machines flows freely, Lazarus. We have secured the production of ten million computers without even scratching our cash flow. »
The equation became formidable. With flawless software and raw materials bought at a ridiculously low price, Volta S.A. would be able to sell its machines at a price so low that it would break all competition, while making colossal margins.
At that precise moment, the high-pitched crackle of a communication device interrupted their exchange.
In a secure corner of the Bunker, the encrypted fax machine, directly connected to a transcontinental line, had just been turned on. The roll of thermal paper was printed line by line in a mechanical squeal.
Lazarus approached it with a rapid step, followed closely by his father.
He tore off the sheet as soon as the printing was finished. The document was on the letterhead of the Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Company (TSMC). It was a direct message from Morris Chang.
Lazarus' black eyes ran through the lines of alphanumeric characters. His face, usually so impassive, seemed to freeze for a second, struck by the immensity of the moment.
"Dad," Lazare whispered, his voice echoing eerily in the relative silence of the emptying Bunker. "The first wafers came out of the clean rooms in Hsinchu this morning."
"The silicon wafers?" asked Auguste, holding his breath. "How are the lithography yields? Did the finesse of our architecture pose a problem for their lasers? »
"The engraving masks have worked beyond all our expectations," Lazare read, translating Chang's technical jargon. "Ninety-two percent viable chips per silicon wafer. This is an unprecedented industrial rate of return for a first series of such complexity. TSMC launches mass production. Assembly chips will flood Taiwanese factories next week. »
Lazare dropped the fax on the desk.
He looked up and looked at the huge underground room. He thought back to waking up in that child's body in the orphanage of Đà Nẵng, to the blood spilled in the alleys, to the hunger, and to the decade spent rebuilding, piece by piece, the ultimate weapon of his temporal vengeance.
Today, January 2, 1990, the weapon was no longer a concept. She was no longer a plan scribbled on a blackboard.
"The software is infallible. The silicon is melted. The raw materials are under our complete control," Lazare said, each sentence snapping like the bolt of an assault rifle.
The industrial trinity was accomplished. The Builder now possessed technological firepower that exceeded the gross domestic product of many nations.
"It's time," Lazarus added, turning to the elevator. "Tell ground floor security to open the main gates of the factory."
Auguste frowned, surprised. "At seven o'clock in the morning? Why? »
"Because the private flight from Texas landed at Le Bourget two hours ago," Lazare replied, mechanically adjusting the collar of his sweater. "The CEO of Advanced Micro Devices is on his way. Jerry Sanders comes to see with his own eyes what he has bought. And we're going to show him how to destroy Silicon Valley from the inside. »
This is very fair, this correction is important for the coherence of the story. Jerry Sanders is an old wolf of Silicon Valley; if he mortgaged his business for Lazarus, he already knew the deadly nature of the Trojan Horse (the blocking of Microsoft) since they met in Chicago. The machine just had to prove to him that this suicidal bet was worth it.
Here is Part 2 corrected, incorporating the fact that Sanders knows the rules of the game perfectly, but that he suddenly takes the dizzying measure of what it implies now that he has the final product in front of him.
Location: Management office, Usine Volta S.A. (Ivry-sur-Seine)
Date: January 2, 1990
Point of view: Omniscient (Focus on Lazare Bonaparte)
The black sedan with tinted windows climbs through the heavy gates of the Volta plant under a leaden sky. The morning fog that clung to the red brick chimneys of Ivry-sur-Seine gave the industrial zone the air of an impregnable fortress.
Jerry Sanders climbed out of the car, the collar of his cashmere coat pulled up against the biting cold. The flamboyant CEO of Advanced Micro Devices looked up at the huge gray concrete façade. It was light years away from the sunny, palm-fringed, manicured campuses of Silicon Valley. Here, there were no frills. No volleyball courts or vegetarian cafeterias. It was a war factory. A bunker.
Sanders was escorted by two silent security guards through the maze of production lines. The hum of the assembly machines, already in full effervescence at this early hour, resonated like the beating heart of a metal monster.
When he finally entered the vast glass-enclosed executive office on the first floor, Sanders stopped short.
Lazare Bonaparte was waiting for him, standing behind his desk. The young Frenchman wore a simple dark sweater, his hands placed flat on the metal of the table. The power dynamic that had been established six months earlier in the alcohol fumes of the Drake Hotel in Chicago had just been reversed with silent brutality. Sanders, the industry veteran, the king of American marketing, had just made a fourteen-hour flight to bow to a twenty-three-year-old man.
"Jerry," Lazare greeted, his voice sluggish, pointing to a black leather chair. "Welcome to the Old World. Sit down. »
"Lazarus." Sanders stepped forward, an unusual nervousness betraying his gestures. The American's features were marked by exhaustion and by the usurious pressure of junk bonds that threatened to devour his enterprise. "I understood on the phone that you don't like to waste your time. My factories in Austin are on high alert. My engineers are waiting for the engraving masks. But before I reconfigure my lines to the tune of tens of millions of dollars... I must see the beast. To know if what I have gone into debt to the Wall Street underworld is actually working for. »
Lazarus does not smile. He just swiveled slightly to the side.
On an adjoining table, free of all documents, sat an object that had nothing to do with the beige, bulky and unsightly boxes that populated offices around the world.
It was an absolute matte black computer tower, with tapered lines, cut with a pruning hook, reminiscent of the armor of a stealth plane. It was accompanied by a high-resolution CRT monitor, encased in an equally dark shell, connected to a quiet keyboard and ergonomic mouse.
"Approach," ordered Lazarus.
Sanders complied, breathless, as if attracted by a magnet. He sat down in front of the screen turned off.
"Light it. The button is on the front. »
The American pressed the switch. He was expecting the usual ritual: the heavy roar of the hard drive, the long seconds of displaying BIOS routines, the tedious counting of RAM, and finally, the appearance of the austere black and white MS-DOS command prompt, requiring you to type lines of code to initiate the slightest action. It was the absolute standard in the industry.
There was none of this.
A fraction of a second after pressing the button, the screen lit up instantly. A bone of contention thrown in Microsoft's face. Without the slightest delay, the VoltaOS graphical interface was displayed in stunning resolution. A sleek virtual desktop, perfectly smoothed icons, windows with drop shadows calculated in real time.
Sanders jumped. His brain refused to assimilate the speed of execution.
"Impossible... The AMD CEO whispered, his hand trembling slightly as he grasped the mouse. "Where is the boot sequence? Where is the DOS? »
"There's no DOS, Jerry. It is a relic of the past," Lazarus replied, standing behind him like an omniscient spirit. "The operating system is directly written in ROM and run natively by our RISC processor. There are no unnecessary layers of translation. Take the mouse. Open the software. Don't be shy. »
Sanders double-clicked on the word processing icon. The blank page appeared instantly. He opened the V-Office spreadsheet. Immediate. He launched the 3D modeling software, an application that usually brought Intel's processors to their knees, forcing them to calculate for long minutes.
A complex three-dimensional rendering appeared, and Sanders was able to rotate the object on the fly, with absolute fluidity. All three windows worked simultaneously, without the slightest slowdown.
The king of Silicon Valley let go of the mouse. He sank into the back of his chair, his face pale, his pupils dilated by the technological shock.
"Andy Grove just released the 486 processor," Sanders whispered, his voice breaking, almost speaking for himself. "Intel has invested hundreds of millions. They boast of being close to twenty megahertz... Bill Gates will soon launch Windows 3.0... »
"And compared to the machine in front of you, they're dinosaurs wading through a swamp," Lazarus said coldly. "Our V-1000 chip runs at ninety megahertz. Superscalar architecture processes three instructions per clock cycle. Pure computing power crushes Intel's 486 by a factor of one to ten. As for Gates' interface, it will crumble under its own weight when users get a taste of VoltaOS's preemptive multitasking. »
Sanders raised his head to Lazarus. Debt anxiety, the threat of bankruptcy, the fear of bankers... everything had just evaporated. The Builder had not lied. There was no rabbit in the hat. There was an atomic bomb.
And Lazare had just entrusted him with the launch codes for the American market.
"The lithograph masks are ready, Jerry," the Frenchman announced, returning to his seat behind his executive desk. "A secure diplomatic bag is leaving for Texas this afternoon. Inside, you will find everything you need to configure your production lines. You're going to print this bullet. »
"I'm going to flood America with this... Sanders whispered, a fierce smile finally stretching his features. The wolf had just found its fangs. "I'm going to engrave them with the AMD logo. The American state apparatus, DARPA, Wall Street... They will not be able to block the import of a chip that is melted down on American soil, by American workers! The Trojan Horse is perfect. »
"All that remains is to formalize the commercial dressing," said Lazare, his gaze fixed on his ally. "In the U.S. market, the chip will carry the AMD-Volta V-1 nomenclature. I'll let you be the first to know about the brand image to reassure the consumer and the Pentagon, but the world will know that the architecture is French. »
"Accepted," Sanders nodded without hesitation. He stepped forward, leaning on the meeting table. "My lawyers have finalised the contracts for the second clause. The one we talked about in Chicago. Tied selling. »
Lazarus nodded slowly. It was the keystone of their alliance, the very heart of the hotel room pact.
"The hard lock," the former secret agent confirmed. "The chip you're going to melt is physically encrypted. It will reject any attempt to run MS-DOS or Windows. Every AMD-Volta V-1 sold will be Microsoft's coffin. »
"I knew what I was getting into when I shook hands with you in Illinois, Lazarus," Sanders replied, his voice suddenly deep, finally measuring the seismic violence of that decision in front of the lit screen. "But to see this machine working live... This is an absolute industrial death warrant for Bill Gates. And for Intel. When consumers see this speed, they won't care if they have to ditch their old software. They will buy our ecosystem with their eyes closed. »
Sanders ran a hand through his hair, the adrenaline erasing the jet lag.
"However, Lazarus, prepare for the backlash. The U.S. Department of Justice is going to come down on us with unprecedented violence. The anti-trust law will scream about the distortion of competition. Microsoft and Intel are going to use their lobbyists to try to get us banned. »
"Let them howl," the Builder replied with utter cynicism. "They will fight in the courts while we fight on the shelves of the stores. By the time they put together a solid legal case to separate our hardware from our software, in four or five years, the market will be ours. Developers around the world will code for VoltaOS because it will be the only platform that offers this power. Windows will die of asphyxiation even before the end of the trial. »
The AMD CEO let silence settle. He was the willing accomplice in the greatest economic massacre in the history of modern technology.
"When do we strike?" Sanders asked simply, sealing his allegiance for good.
"The Chicago COMDEX is held in early spring," Lazare recalled. "It's the high mass of global computing. Andy Grove plans to give a keynote speech there to establish his 486 as the new gold standard. And Bill Gates will present Windows 3.0. »
"They'll get the stage," Sanders smiles, his eyes shining mischievously. "They will have the journalists. They will have the arrogance of the victors. »
"Precisely." Lazare stood up, approaching the bay window that dominated the factory where the components from the USSR were already being transported. "We will hold a surprise press conference, an hour before their keynote speech, in the very heart of their event. You'll go on stage, Jerry. You'll introduce the AMD-Volta chip, and you'll demonstrate our machine in front of the world's press. We are not going to compete with them. We are going to make them look old-fashioned live. »
Jerry Sanders stood up slowly. He gazed one last time at the silent, black machine, the ultimate weapon that would raze the landscape of Silicon Valley. He held out his hand to Lazarus.
"In the spring, Lazarus. Silicon Valley will burn. »
Lazare Bonaparte shook hands with the American, his grip as a former DGSE agent conveying an unshakeable firmness.
"Get your factories ready, Jerry. Spring will be red. »