After some initial minor misunderstandings, Michael and I had decided to hold a weekly meeting about Enki, and what was to do.

That did not mean that he could not come to me with questions at other times, but we blocked out two hours each week as a minimum.

This meeting was every Tuesday from 10 am to 12 pm, unless something urgent had to be done then.

It was incredible what Michael already had achieved in just six months.

Technically, Enki still had no management outside of Michael and the manager of the industrial foundry. Yes, he was in the process of hiring managing staff for the production facility that would in all likelihood go active on Monday the 23rd, but no management there at all.

The first workers were already training up. Not that their work was particularly hard. Or challenging in any way. They had to supervise the bots doing the actual work, along with the specialized machines. That and final testing. Later we would use some workers to assemble the more complex cyberware, but that was still in the future.

Most workers would be employed in shipping though. We also had put up a small office building next to where Michael was planning to build the big Enki HQ. There we already had a small horde of accountants, administrators, HR people, and whatever working to keep the fledgling company on an even keel.

Seriously, I was just happy that Michael was doing that part. The thought of having to meet regularly with that many people made me shiver.

Yes, I know they were necessary, but I wanted to be as far away from them as possible.

I was waiting in one of the smaller meeting rooms in the fortress for his arrival. Sadly, Ben would not accompany him this Tuesday, as he had some preparations to do for whatever. I was interested in him, not his work. I would learn about it if it was something he wanted me to know.

I was still a bit sullen about how Ben had criticized my masterful creation. Oh, sure, I would build myself a couple of these monster servers here in the fortress. I know that Warden already had built at least one of it.

But dang it, I had done it to give him a decent computer to work with.

And then Michael entered the room.

“Hey, Viv. How are you?”

I smiled at him while I answered.

“Fine. And yourself?”

“Fucked up, otherwise good, as always.”

Oh yes, he loved this little expression. I’ve learned quickly that it was just a phrase, and it basically meant he was fine.

He sat down, placed his coffee mug on the table, and pulled out some plasfilm files from his briefcase.

“Now, where were we?”

He rummaged in the files before he pulled out one and opened it.

“Ah yes, here. Let’s see, we are on the course of starting production at the end of the month. Nothing new here. I managed to get a plant manager for the production facility.

James Ellmore, 36, formerly shift manager of Sigon Electronics.”

He pulled out a plasfilm and shoved it towards me. It was the file on an average mid-30s male. Swarthy complexion, dark-brown or black hair, dark eyes, a full beard. Sigon was a C-class corp. They produced affordable user electronics for the US consumer market. So nothing special.

“I assume Warden has already looked into him?”

Stupid question, I know. Warden had her digital fingers all over Enki, and there was not a single decision she did not weigh in on. But it was just polite to ask.

“Yes, of course. Did you expect differently? For somebody without any feelings, she is a damn busybody.”

I sighed.

“It is because she has no feelings that she is such a busybody. She is only following her objectives. And only her objectives. Enki is mine, so according to her objectives, it is something she has to assist on.”

He chuckled, as we had virtually the same exchange almost every single time we met.

“As it is, he is clean as far as we can find out. I don’t think we will find anybody better suited.”

“Ok, and where are we with the rest of the management?”

“I think we are done there. We have enough workers, foremen, and managers for 21 shifts each week. Are you sure that you don’t want them to know about Warden?”

I cocked my head.

“You want to tell them that essentially every move they make, every step they take, every word they speak in the facility will be watched and listened to? You are a reasonably educated man of above-average intelligence.

You had problems understanding Warden and her role. Do you think the barely educated workers would understand? I don’t.”

He nodded with a sad smile.

“You are right, but I still don’t like to lie to them about it.”

I sighed.

“You look at it from the wrong perspective. Every bigger corporation monitors its employees. The difference is that we don’t place any humans in the loop, who could be corrupted. Sure, the surveillance is much more complete, thanks to Warden having a near-infinite capacity for attention. But there is absolutely no risk that she will blab about it unless it is something that impinges on her objectives.”

“Yeah, I get you. It still… it feels wrong.”

“It is wrong. That it is common practice doesn’t change that. But we have to live in this world, where Warden exists. I can’t stop her from doing it regardless of how wrong I think it is. So we have to live with it.”

Another sad smile from him.

“Well, as it may be, we will start up production in three weeks. Right now we are using the already finished lines to dial in the production and have some pre-production samples we can use as samples.”

“So, fully within the planned time. Very good. Anything else?”

He looked a bit uneasy.

“Well, I hate to bring it up, after the way you’ve ripped dad’s head off, but can we talk about the Grendel?”

My eyes narrowed without any conscious control from me, and I felt my hackles rise.

“What… is wrong with it?”

He lifted his hands in a defending position.

“Nothing is wrong with it. It is brilliant, a pure masterpiece… but… two things.

First, you designed the mainboard to support two of them, right?”

I frowned. He knew that. I had told him, along with Ben, that I had done so.

“Yes, you are right. What of it?”

“Well, would it maybe be possible to design a board that supports more than four? For later I mean.”

I shook my head in confusion.

“Michael, with four processors this thing is a monster of a supercomputer. There are maybe a dozen systems at all that are more powerful than a fully populated Grendel-server. So why would you want even more?”

He rubbed his chin.

“I had this strange idea, that sometime in the future, we want Enki to have a top-of-the-line research facility. And for that, we need a top-of-the-line computer to support it.

Sure, we could pay Ralcon to link a few Grendels together into a Beowulf, but why bother if we can just build a single computer with let’s say a dozen Grendels?”

Ok, that was not that bad an idea, but…

“I… honestly don’t think it is possible. I had to rape the laws of thermodynamics to put four of them into one case. I could, maybe, squeeze another processor in one before it is thermally no longer manageable.”

Now he grinned.

“Come on Viv, I don’t have to explain to you that it is no longer necessary to physically place the processor in the same case as the mainboard. Put each processor in its own housing, submerged in liquid nitrogen, and connect it via Q-links.”

For a moment I just stared at him, not really thinking. How the heck had I missed that? And yes, Michael had been let in on the Q-link and the NADA, even if he insisted to call the latter replicator.

But of course, his idea had merit. If I designed it right, with the appropriate design of daughterboards, it should be possible to pack around 150 of the Grendel connections into one single server. That meant I would have to put each processor in its own case, with the appropriate cooling and power supply, each would take up 2 RU. With a standard rack having space for 44 RU, that meant I would need seven racks for a fully populated super-Grendel.

The point here was, that even I understood that this was so far beyond overkill that it had not only its own zip code but was for all purposes a fully independent country.

Or in other words, I did not see the need for such a… monster for a couple of centuries.

Of course, I would not need to fully populate it. Even with a dozen of them, which fit neatly into their own server rack, it would blow everything else far out of the water.

“You are right. It… is possible. Heck, by my rough estimate, if I designed the motherboard with the appropriate daughter boards to fill out a full 44-RU rack, it should be possible to plug in around 150 Grendel.”

I shook my head.

“No idea what we ever would need a 150-Grendel-computer for, but we could do it. I think it would be better to keep it all in one rack… with a dozen processors, we should be able to squeeze it all in. Without the cooling of course. I see each Grendel needing its own equipment rack of cooling equipment.”

Michaels's snicker brought me back into reality.

“Hu? What?”

“It is always funny how you drift into technical musings at a moment's notice. And seriously, 150 Grendels?!? Are you insane?”

I frowned, tilting my head.

“What do you mean? It is the theoretical limit. I am not crazy enough to actually want to build this thing. Nobody would need a 150-Grendel-computer. Seriously. A dozen-Grendel system is beyond what I think we really need.”

His laugh was a bit unnerving.

“But you will still design it, and the 150-Grendel version. Just to show that it can be done and because you are you. And then Warden will build them because it will give her more oomph to protect you with. I should begin training for submitting our inevitable robot overlord. And to think that I was the one kicking it off.”

He snickered once more.

“But seriously, I know at some point you will design them, just because you can. You will be bored, or somebody challenges you or whatever, but sooner or later, you will. Try to keep it sane, ok?”

I was a bit confused. Did he want me to create these things? I mean, it was not really that hard. The hard work was already done, in designing the Grendel in the first place and then building a 4-processor motherboard for it. I would just have to upgrade the com-circuits on the board, distribute the daughterboards and then design the casings.

Heck, with Q-links, I could distribute the mainboard over several racks. I suddenly realized that the 150 Grendels were by far not the upper limit. There was no upper limit.

Michael snapping his finger in front of my eyes brought me back to the there and then.

“You did it again. Try to not space out so much, please.”

I shrugged.

“I do what I can, but if you don’t want that to happen don’t throw me off onto some tangent.”

His shit-eating grin was back.

“Yeah, that was on me. I’ll do better in the future. But… let’s change the topic a bit.

Don’t get it wrong, please, but I think you should design another, more reasonably sized server-processor.”

I felt my hairs rise and even opened my mouth for a tirade, but he held up a hand.

“Wait before you answer. Listen to my reasons.”

I huffed and crossed my arms in front of me.

“Fine. But that’s better be good.”

He nodded.

“Ok, the point is that the Grendel is… well monolithic. You gave dad a one-Grendel computer and it is what, 100 times what he ever needs?

And it would cost most people around 40 or 50 times what they can budget for a computer. It is literally all-or-nothing.

Either they can afford a Grendel or they can’t and are left behind.

My point here is that, well as I understand you, you intend to sell your processors through Enki. And I see a big, glaring hole in the line-up. Well, two holes, but the other one is just a matter of time I think.

The big one here is, that you, well we, have the Hyperion as a consumer-grade processor, the Chimaera as an industrial-grade processor, and now the Grendel as a number-crusher and supercomputer processor.

But nothing between the Chimaera and the Grendel. For organizations like dad’s, or smaller research teams or anything, that need more than the Chimaera, but not quite a Grendel. Something much more granular. And cheaper to manufacture and sell.”

I felt myself slumping a bit over his pitch. He was not completely wrong. And it would be pretty easy to accomplish as well. I mean, just take 512 of the Grendel-cores, with the appropriate cache and support and be done. Heck, I could even make it more granular by varying the number of cores.

That was basically how I intended to make cheaper, less powerful variants of the Hyperion and Chimaera as well. Varying the number of cores and the size of the cache.

“I hate to say it, but you are right. It is a hole in the line-up. I will work on it. Now… what is the other hole you mentioned?”

“Oh, that is for the small consumer electronics. Coms, wearables, implants, and so on. In other words, a replacement for the Regulon. As I said, only a matter of time until it irks you and you design a new one anyway.”

Again he was not wrong. I had considered redesigning my cranial board with the 413pm-process and Q-links in mind. But so far it had not been important enough for me to put the work in. I sighed and nodded.

It seemed as if he took that as an encouragement.

“Not that I don’t want a better processor for my board, mind you. But that has time. Now just one more thing about the Grendel, and please don’t rip off my head here.”

Uh oh, what he wanted to say had to be pretty bad. I steeled my resolve and looked him firmly in the eyes, gesturing for him to continue.

“Well, it would be good if you could… well not talk about the Grendel much, please?”

I frowned again. Why the heck did he not want me to talk about the Grendel. Not that it mattered that much. At this point in time there was no way we could sell it anyway, but why keep it secret?

When he saw my confusion, he proceeded:

“We are at a point where we need to become proactive with getting the bigger corporations of the US on our side. The approval of the other triple-As won’t hurt either, but everything US-based with an A-rating or above can really hurt us.”

He pulled out another file and opened it.

“Not that too many of them will fight against us just because. A couple, yes, but they are only successful if they are supported by other corps.

Right now, cyberware is not something we compete with anybody else on, so no problem from that side. That will change when we announce the auto-surgeon.

No idea how the Q-links and the Replicators will play out, but I guess that we will have to have a solid base by then.

The majority of the corporations will be happy with getting some preferred business, a few deals, and such.”

I nodded, still not understanding what that had to do with the Grendel at all.

“But I think right now is not the time to tell one of the most powerful corporations that we developed a new processor essentially as a ‘fuck-you’ to them. I know, the distributed computing market is only a tiny fraction of Ralcon's bottom line, but it is a no-effort profit for them.

I am pretty sure they suspect that you were the one responsible for all these 6th gen nanofabs sprouting out of the ground lately, but they have absolutely no proof.

But if they learn about the Grendel… well, they will be pissed. And they have quite a bit of influence here.”

Oh… I hadn’t thought about that when I decided to design the Grendel. Yes, it was my absolute intention to rain onto their parade in this, but I had not thought about the consequences.

“Ok, fine. We keep it among us. I don’t know how many Warden has built or is building, but otherwise, the one your father has and the one I am building here are the only ones anyway. And we need quite a few NADAs to even think about selling them.”

“Good, that makes my job quite a bit easier. Now, I had some ideas about the other corps. My thought was to sell the basic jacks to AT&T, Verizon, Synacom, Walmart, and Best Buy for ¾ of what we sell them to others. Give them a bit of a higher profit here. That should pull them solidly on our side.

We offer IBM and Cliffshine some joint ventures to incorporate cyberware into their business. As well as a hint to IBM about whatever you will call the new processor for their server business.

But it becomes pretty bleak when I think about Enertech and Ralcon. No idea how we could pull them to our side.”

Hm… that demanded some thought. To not waste Michaels's time unnecessarily, I dove into my cranial board at 30:1.

Enertech was surprisingly easy. I still had a couple of unused 8th gen fab schemata lying around, along with a couple of new 12th gen nanite designs. I only had to create a new seedstock nano-bot for them, make sure to sanitize one of the 8th-gen schemata, and sell them that for their neutrality. This was still leagues above what the riff-raff on the street could build with their 6th-gen fabs.

Ralcon on the other hand was… way harder. And I realized that Michael had missed an obvious problem. Well, obvious in hindsight.

Ralcon would fight the propagation of jacks tooth and nail. Nearly 45% of their bottom line came from Envision-Office. Another 20-25% stemmed from Envision OS.

Neither the office suite nor the operating system was even remotely VR friendly. Envision was still based on the old holographic control + keyboard input scheme.

While it was not that hard to create a VR interface, translating all of 75 years of legacy development was a daunting task and one that Ralcon had shied away from for quite some time now.

As I had found out, Ralcon and their ‘friends’ in the news sector were the reason for the negligible propagation of the diadem. For years now they ran a stealth fear campaign thinly disguised as news that extolled the dangers of VR.

But that also gave me an idea of how to deal with Ralcon. It would be a bit tricky, but… hm, with the right interface… yes, that should work.

I surfaced, to see that Michael’s face developed a frown.

“Did you just dive into cyberspace?”

“Yes, I thought about what we could offer Ralcon and Enertech. Ralcon is by the way pretty important. They don’t like virtual reality. I have something for Enertech in a few hours. We simply sell them the plans, and patent, for one of my nano fab designs, along with a starter pack of 12th gen nanobots.

We will have to make sure that they don’t come back next year for a free upgrade, but that is your department.

I… well, I have an idea about Ralcon, but that is just that, an idea. I’ll have to look into it if it is at all feasible. I can’t say how long it will take though.”

I could see on his face that he died to ask me about it, but he held back.

Instead, he began going over the other A+ corporations and how we would approach them.

Naturally, if I failed in my idea, all that was for naught anyway, and we might have to change tack, but for now let’s see it to the end.

A few minutes before noon, we were finished, and Michael began to put the plasfilms back into the files.

When he had packed up and we stood up, he clapped me on my shoulder and held onto it for a bit.

“Well, that was productive. I see you tomorrow then.”

Wait, what?

“Tomorrow? What is tomorrow?”

He looked at me astonished.

“Seriously? Tomorrow is the big picnic. Fouth of July? National Holiday?”

Really? There was a holiday in July? My confusion had to be written all over my face, as Michael continued:

“I am talking about the picnic that Dad has been talking about for over a month now. The one he got the meat vats and cloned vegetables from you for.”

“They were for some picnic? I thought he wanted to provide food for the population here.”

“Yes, but mostly for the picnic. Most of the territory will be there, in the newly designed park. Fun for the whole family and such.”

“Why don’t I know about it?”

He snorted.

“I bet quite a few people have told you about it, but not in a way that you registered. You are often quite a bit distracted, and the last two months you were pretty immerged in the Grendel-thing. Wouldn’t that have been a nice surprise tomorrow?”

Wait, did he expect me to be there? Seriously?

“You think I should be there? Really?”

He sighed.

“Yes, I know, social gatherings and all that, but it is something of an obligation. I’ll make sure that you have some space to pull back to.”

Freck, I seriously had to go to some… some sort of festival?