Chapter 13: The Prodigy's Gambit and the First Circuit
Location: Miller's Radio & TV / The Cooper Kitchen
Date: November 18th, 1980
Status: Asset Acquisition
I've decided to take The Prodigy Path. Leaving a voice message is efficient, but it lacks the tactile "proof" a man like Arthur Miller needs to see. To a 1980s engineer, seeing a circuit board with traces thinner than a human hair is more convincing than any ghost in the machine.
But first, I needed a reason for Mary to take me there.
09:15 AM — The Strategic Sabotage
Mary was busy folding laundry when I initiated the plan. I crawled toward the old 1970s Zenith television in the den. Using [Hardware Hacking], I didn't break the TV—I simply de-tuned the horizontal hold and induced a specific, rhythmic static pattern that simulated a failing capacitor.
"Oh, land's sake!" Mary cried, slapping the top of the wood-paneled set. "Not now, I wanted to see the weather!"
I crawled over to her, holding up Sheldon's broken "Speak & Spell." I had already opened the casing, exposing the primitive guts of the machine. I looked at her with my [Saintly Aura] at full blast, pointing first at the TV, then at my toy, and finally toward the car keys on the counter.
"Ma-ma. Fix," I cooed, giving her a look of profound, soulful urgency.
"You want to fix your toy, baby? And the TV?" She melted, as expected. "Well, I suppose we could head down to see Mr. Miller. He's a bit grumpy, but he's the only one who knows these things."
[QUEST PROGRESS: THE SILICON SEED — 25%]
11:30 AM — The Sanctuary of Solder
Miller's shop was a chaotic graveyard of cathode-ray tubes and tangled copper wire. Arthur Miller sat behind the counter, a soldering iron in one hand and a magnifying glass in the other. His aura was a Frustrated, Electric Blue—the color of a genius hitting a literal wall.
"It's the logic, Mary," Miller grumbled without looking up. "I'm trying to get this relay to trigger based on the packet header, but the delay is killing the signal."
Mary set me down on the counter while she explained the TV issue. This was my window. I reached into my diaper—where I had concealed a [Micro-Integrated Circuit] I'd printed in the attic. It was a high-speed switching bridge, etched in gold.
I "clumsily" knocked over a jar of resistors. As Miller grumbled and leaned down to pick them up, I slid the chip onto his schematic for the packet switcher. Beside it, I used a stray pencil to draw a single, perfect Logic Gate Diagram that resolved his timing issue.
[SKILL ACTIVATED: NARRATIVE MANIPULATION]
[GOAL: SPARK A SCIENTIFIC REVOLUTION]
12:05 PM — The Realization
Miller stood up, rubbing his neck. He looked at his schematic to find my "additions." He froze. He picked up the gold-etched chip with a pair of tweezers, his hands beginning to shake.
"Mary..." he whispered, his voice cracking. "Where did this come from?"
"Where did what come from, Arthur?" Mary asked, busy wrestling Missy away from a pile of vacuum tubes.
Miller looked at me. I was sitting there, chewing on a plastic ring, looking like the epitome of infant ignorance. But he wasn't a fool. He looked at the logic gate I'd drawn—a design that used Asynchronous Timing, a concept that wouldn't be standardized for decades.
"This... this is impossible," Miller breathed. "This chip... the traces are... God, it's beautiful."
[QUEST COMPLETED: THE SILICON SEED]
[REWARD: ARTHUR MILLER IS NOW YOUR 'SECRET APPRENTICE']
[REWARD: UNLOCKED 'THE MEDFORD SILICON VALLEY' WORLD EVENT]
[BONUS: +5000 ESSENCE; +5 TO KINETIC ENGINEERING]
The Night Shift: The New Partnership
That evening, Miller didn't go home. He used the "tip" I left him to finish his prototype. By midnight, my [Attic Command Center] pinged. A new node had appeared on my local network: Miller-Node-01.
I had my first physical bridge to the outside world.
[NOTIFICATION: INVESTOR RANK INCREASED]
[CURRENT WEALTH: $48,000.00]
[PROJECTED 1981 INCOME: $250,000.00]
In the nursery, Sheldon was staring at me. He had noticed I didn't have his broken "Speak & Spell" anymore. He had also noticed that Arthur Miller had called the house three times asking for "the boy."
"M-M-Miller," Sheldon whispered, his eyes narrowing with a mix of jealousy and respect. "C-C-Circuitry."
"He's our first employee, Sheldon," I whispered back, activating my [Ambidextrous] brain to dual-track a stock trade and a conversation. "He'll be the 'face' of Gump-Cooper Industries. Now, help me map the 1981 tax codes. I need to find a way to hide a quarter-million dollars from the IRS before we turn one."
[ETHAN COOPER - STATUS REPORT]
Intelligence: 23
Kinetic Engineering: 20
Charisma: 26
World Influence: 0.001% (Growing)