November 1980 Lycée Claude Monet, Paris 13th
Time did not pass. It was stagnating.
Lazarus sat in the fourth row, near the cast-iron radiator that gurgled loudly without producing any real heat. In front of him, Mr. Perrot, a mathematics teacher in a grey coat stained with chalk, was explaining the concept of the barycenter to a dissipated class of Première S.
For Lazarus, it was Chinese torture.
He knew the barycenter. He was also familiar with tensor calculus, Navier-Stokes equations and the architecture of convolutional neural networks. Listening to Perrot laboriously explain that "G is the point of balance" for forty-five minutes made him want to murder, or to sleep immediately.
But he couldn't sleep. Nor could he raise his hand and correct the sign-making error the teacher had made on the board five minutes ago that no one had noticed. If he did, he became the "little genius." He attracted attention. Attention led to questions. The questions led to social services or psychologists.
Remains grey. Remains average. Remains invisible.
He looked down at his large-squared notebook. At the top of the page, he had copied the title of the course: Barycenter of n weighted points. It was his cover. Underneath, the blue Bic pen did not write maths. He wrote hexadecimal.
3E 80 D3 FE 06 00 10 FE...
He was coding with his head. Without a computer, without a compiler, without a debugger. He visualized the registers of the Z80 processor, he moved the values, he anticipated the clock cycles. It was a mental exercise to keep his brain from atrophying into high school boredom. A lightning-fast video display routine for the TRS-80. He chased away useless cycles as he had chased the sentinels in the Guyanese forest: silently and mercilessly.
"Bonaparte?" The voice cracked. Lazarus raised his head slowly, hiding his notebook with his forearm. "Yes, sir?" "You seem fascinated by your paper. Can you come and solve exercise 3 on the board?
Lazarus got up. He felt the thirty pairs of eyes turn towards him. Thomas, his neighbor at the table, sneered softly. He walked to the platform. He took the chalk. It was powdery, unpleasant to the touch. He looked at the equation. It was trivial. The temptation was strong. He could solve it in two lines, using a vector method that these students would only learn in their final year of high school. He could humiliate the teacher.
He breathed in. The mask.
He wrote the solution, slowly. He deliberately added a hesitation to line 2. He erased, rewrote. He arrived at the right result, but by taking the laborious path of school, the one that Perrot had been waiting for. "It is... correct, admitted the professor, almost disappointed not to be able to crack down. Return to your seat.
Lazarus put the chalk down. He wiped his hands on his jeans. He had succeeded. He had 12/20 in the previous interro by purposely not finishing. The average. Anonymity. Survival.
Wednesday afternoon Club Micro-Amat, Rue de la Roquette
The smell of the club had become his oxygen. A mixture of brown tobacco, burnt coffee and ozone emanating from the cathode ray monitors that were heating.
Lazarus was no longer an intruder. In three weeks, he had become "the kid". The one who didn't speak, who didn't play, but who made these asthmatic machines do things they weren't supposed to do.
He was sitting in front of the TRS-80 at the back, the one with the Space key jamming. Next to him, Michel, the red-bearded telecom engineer, was smoking his pipe while looking over the teenager's shoulder at the screen.
"You can't do that," Michel said. The Z80 does not have a multiplication instruction. If you want to do 3D, you're going to have to do successive additions, and it's going to be slow. One image every three seconds, max.
Lazarus did not look up from the keyboard. "I don't multiply, Michel." I'm cheating. "Are you cheating?" "I pre-calculate.
Lazarus typed a series of commands. On the screen, a table of values was displayed. "Look." There are only 256 possible angles for the player's view. I calculate the sines and cosines once at startup, and I store them in memory. When the game is running, the processor doesn't calculate anything. It will just look for the value in the array. It's a memory reading, it takes 7 cycles. A software multiplication would take 200.
Michel leaned over, squinting behind his thick glasses. He took a puff from his pipe. "Fuck... It's a "Look-up Table". We do this in the telephone exchanges for routing. Where does a sixteen-year-old kid learn the architecture of the central players?
Lazarus froze for a split second. He had been too fast again. "I read that in an American magazine," he lied fluidly. Byte Magazine. At the Beaubourg library.
Michel stared at him. He wasn't an idiot. He knew that Lazarus was lying, or at least that he was omitting the essentials. This kid had a technical maturity that could not be learned from books. It was instinct. "yes. In any case, it works. Your pixel mush vaguely looks like a hallway now. What do you plan to do with it?
Lazarus stopped typing. He rubbed his eyes. The headache at the end of the day was rearing its head. — Sell it. I need money, Michel. Not for candy. For equipment. "You want to sell that?" To whom? To the shops? "No. Too slow. To magazines. Soft & Micro pays for game listings. They need content to fill their pages between ads.
Michel nodded respectfully. "That's clever. But they are stingy. They're going to offer you two hundred balls. "They will give me what I ask for," said Lazarus, restarting the compilation. Because no one else in Paris can give them a real-time 3D maze on a machine that has less memory than your watch.
December 1980 Offices of "Soft & Micro", Paris 10th
The building smelled of dust and printing ink. Lazare walked up the three flights of stairs, his precious audio cassette in the inside pocket of his denim jacket. He was cold. His shoes were wet, and his socks were wet. Priority: Waterproof shoes, he noted for the hundredth time.
He entered the editorial office. It was a large apartment transformed into organized chaos. Stacks of magazines threatened to collapse onto desks cluttered with dirty cups. Three guys in checked shirts were arguing over a paper model.
"What is it for?" barked a bald man, sitting behind a desk that was drowning in 5-inch floppy disks. "I should like to see Monsieur Darlan." The editor-in-chief. "It is I." And who are you? The sandwich delivery man? — I am Napoleon G.
The nickname had its effect. Darlan stopped sorting his papers. He raised an eyebrow. — "Napoleon G."? The guy who sent the loop optimization letter in BASIC last month? — It was assembler, not BASIC. And yes.
Darlan sighed, leaned against the back of his chair. He looked at the soaking wet teenager who stood in front of him with the stiffness of a picket line. "Okay. You have five minutes. What are you selling? — A game. 3D maze. On TRS-80.
Lazarus took out the cassette. Darlan burst out laughing. A dry, joyless laugh. — 3D on TRS-80? As a kid, I have engineers who tell me it's impossible. The machine does not have a graphics mode. It's big, ugly pixels. "Show me a machine."
Darlan, amused by the audacity, pointed to a TRS-80 Model I on a workbench, connected to a cassette recorder. "Go ahead." Make me dream.
Lazarus inserted the casket. He pressed PLAY. He typed CLOAD. The shrill sound of data loading fills the room. Krrriiiii-beep-beep-krrrr. Three interminable minutes. Darlan tapped his finger on his desk, impatient. "If it crashes, you go out."
READY.
Lazarus typed RUN. The black screen lit up. No text. Walls. Walls in false perspective, drawn with blocks of semi-graphic characters, but which gave a striking illusion of depth. Lazarus pressed the arrows. The image moved. Fluid. Twelve frames per second. We were walking down the corridor. We turned left. A monster (a simple flashing "X") appeared in the distance and grew as we approached.
Darlan had risen. He approached the screen, incredulous. He pushed Lazarus to take the keyboard. He played ten seconds. He turned, advanced, and retreated. "It is... How is it coded? Is it compiled? — Pure assembler. Zero system calls. I write directly into the video RAM.
Darlan straightened up. He looked at Lazarus differently. He couldn't see a soaking wet kid anymore. He saw a draw. "Okay. That's not bad. I'll take it from you. We will publish the list next month. Two hundred francs.
Lazarus did not move. He took the cassette from the player, rewound with a pencil that he took out of his pocket. — Thank you for your time, Mr Darlan. I'm going to go to L'Ordinateur Individuel. They're on rue de Monceau, right?
Darlan froze. "Wait." You're not going to go to their house. They won't understand anything about your code. "Perhaps." But they will pay five cents. "Is it blackmail?" "It's business." You sell your magazine for fifteen francs. There's four thousand lines of code in there. If you hire an engineer to do it, it costs you five thousand bucks and three weeks.
Darlan winced. He knew the kid was right. This thing was a technical feat. It was going to be talked about in playgrounds and clubs. "Four hundred." — Eight hundred. And I provide you with the explanatory article with it. "How to do 3D on your TRS-80". Readers love to understand.
Darlan stared at him. He was looking for the flaw. He saw only a wall of grey ice in the teenager's eyes. "Six hundred." And you're writing to me for tomorrow morning. — Eight hundred. And I'll write it down now, on your typewriter, if you buy me a coffee.
Darlan breathed loudly, defeated. "You're a shark, you. Okay. Eight hundred. But I pay you freelance, I need a civil status card. Do you have parents to sign? "No. I am a ward of the State. Make the cheque payable to the Association Saint-Vincent-de-Paul, account "Pécule Lazare Bonaparte".
Darlan wrote down the name. He stopped, pen in the air. "Bonaparte?" Seriously? "That is my name." "With such a name and the character of a dog, you will go far." Or in prison.
Lazarus does not smile. "Coffee, please." Sugar-free.
January 1981 Saint-Vincent-de-Paul Orphanage Office of the Mother Superior
The cheque was placed on the green leather desk pad, between a dark wooden crucifix and a pile of EDF bills. Eight hundred francs. For Sister Marie-Agnès, it was the price of two months' heating for the north wing. For an orphan of sixteen, this was a suspicious fortune.
She folded her hands over her desk, staring at Lazarus over his glasses. "You know what I'm going to ask you, Lazarus. "Where does the money come from, Mother?" "Exactly. Eight hundred francs do not fall from the sky. And they are not found by doing a service at the Aligre market. I don't want drugs here. I don't want any concealment. If you've done something illegal, say it now. We can... fix it before the police get involved.
Lazarus did not blink. He had anticipated this conversation. He reached into the inside pocket of his jacket. He took out a magazine with a glossy cover, folded in half. Soft & Micro, January issue.
He put it on the desk and opened it to page 42. "It is legal, Mother." Look.
She took the magazine with suspicion. She read the title of the article: "3D impossible on your TRS-80: the tour de force of Napoleon G." She went through the columns of incomprehensible figures, the technical diagrams. Then she saw the footnote: "Code and explanations provided by our exclusive contributor."
She looked up. — "Napoleon G."? Is that you? — Lazare Bonaparte. It was a wink. The cheque is signed by the publishing company Presses de l'Informatique. You can check the address on the envelope.
Sister Marie-Agnès reread the article. She didn't understand anything about "rotation vectors" or "video buffers," but she did understand the value of work. She saw the rigor of the lines of code being printed. "Did you write that?" "Yes." "And they pay you for that?" For more information, the S... games? "They pay for what others don't know how to do, Mother." This is the principle of scarcity.
She put the magazine down. A silence stretched out in the room, disturbed only by the ticking of the Comte clock. She looked at the boy she had seen grow up, this wild and closed child who, for the last three months, had been transformed into a sort of studious soldier monk. She sighed, an imperceptible smile on her lips.
"You are surprising, Bonaparte. Very well. I'm going to countersign the check so that we can deposit it in your nest egg book. "I don't want to put him down, Mother." "Excuse me?" "I need cash. I need to place an order. An international postal order to England.
She stiffened. Money always burned the kids' fingers. "To buy what?" — A working tool. A computer kit. The Sinclair ZX81. It will be released in March. If I order it now, I'll have it among the first. It is... an investment. For the next articles.
She sounded him out again. She was looking for the flaw, the lie. She only saw a cold, absolute determination. She took her fountain pen. She signed the back of the check. "It's your money, Lazarus." But don't come crying if your English machine doesn't work. "It will work, Mother." I will ride it myself.
March 1981 Orphanage Refectory A rainy Sunday afternoon
The package arrived on Friday, wrapped in brown kraft paper, covered with stamps bearing the image of Queen Elizabeth II. Lazarus had waited two days. He needed calm. He needed silence.
The refectory was deserted. The other residents were out to the cinema or in front of the television in the common room. Lazarus sat down on one of the long yellow Formica tables. He displayed his booty as a surgeon prepares his instruments.
The 30 watt soldering iron (borrowed from Michel from the club, against the promise of a course on Z80 interruptions). A coil of fine tin. A small pair of wire cutters. And the kit.
He opened the Styrofoam box. The smell of new plastic and epoxy rose to his nose. For him, it was more intoxicating than a woman's perfume. It was the smell of the future.
He took out the dark green printed circuit board (PCB). He was tiny. Barely the size of a paperback. He took out the components. Resistors to colored rings. Ceramic capacitors. The shielded video modulator in its metal cage. And in the center, the heart: the Zilog Z80A processor. A black, rectangular flea with forty silver legs. And next to it, the RAM memory chip: 1 KB. One thousand and twenty-four bytes.
Lazarus smiled. In his previous life, a simple connected toothbrush had a thousand times more memory than that. But it didn't matter. It wasn't the size that mattered, it was the architecture.
He plugged in the iron. He waited for the tip to heat up, testing the temperature by approaching the tin wire which instantly melted into a small silver ball. Let's go.
He began with resistance. R1, R2, R3... He folded the legs, inserted them into the holes, turned the card over. The gesture was precise, fluid. He did not tremble. His sixteen-year-old body lacked the strength to lift crates at the market, but for fine dexterity, he was perfect. His eyes didn't need magnifying glasses. He laid the purlin, brought in the tin. Pshhh. A small curl of white smoke with the smell of resin. A conical, shiny, perfect weld. Trim off the excess. Next.
He went into a trance. Time disappeared. The chronic migraine faded away, chased away by absolute concentration. He didn't think about China, or taxes, or war. He thought of the flow of electrons that would soon run down these copper tracks.
He soldered the processor bracket. Then the decoupling capacitor. He was no longer a broke orphan. He was an architect laying the foundation stone of his cathedral.
"Are you repairing an X-ray?"
The voice startled him inwardly, but his hand didn't move a millimeter. He finished his welding, put the iron down, and turned. Sister Marie-Agnès was there. She had been watching for a while, her arms crossed in her wide sleeves. "No, Mother." I build it. "Is that your English computer?" It looks very small. — This is the beginning of miniaturization. In twenty years, it will be a hundred times smaller.
She approached, looking at the jumble of components with polite curiosity. "And you know where each piece goes?" Without a plan? "The plan is there," he said, patting his temple. And there. He pointed to the paper diagram that came with the kit, which he hadn't opened.
She nodded. "You missed the snack." I have set aside an apple and some bread for you in the kitchen. Don't forget to turn off when you leave. And... do not set fire, Lazarus. "Promised, Mother."
She walked away, leaving him alone with his work. She didn't understand what he was doing, but she respected the craftsman's silence. That was enough.
10:00 pm Boys' Dormitory
Night had fallen on Paris. The dormitory was plunged into darkness, punctuated by heavy breathing and light snoring. Lazarus was under his sheets, but he was not sleeping. He had pulled an extension cord from the hallway socket, wedged under the door. On his bedside table, the small, inexpensive black plastic box stood, connected to the back of an old Radiola portable TV that he had repaired the previous month.
The moment of truth. The "Smoke Test". If a weld was bad, it wouldn't work. If a tin bridge shorted the power supply, the chip would burn out. Four hundred francs would go up in smoke.
He plugged in the 9-volt transformer. He held his breath. He flipped the switch on the power strip.
A small static crackle emanated from the television. The snowy gray screen twitched. Lazarus set the frequency dial blindly. He was looking for the UHF channel 36 signal. The snow subsided. Horizontal black lines appeared. Then, suddenly, stability.
A white screen. And at the bottom left, a small black square with a white "K" inside. The cursor.
It worked. He lived.
Lazarus put his hands on the membrane keyboard. It was flat, with no tactile feedback, horrible to type. But it was his. There was no operating system. No hard drive. Just him and the processor, naked in front of each other. The "K" meant that it was in command mode (Keyword).
He touched the "P" key. The word PRINT was instantly displayed. He pressed Shift + P. The quotation mark "appeared.
He hesitated. What to write? Hello World ? Too cliché. Lazare was here ? Too childish.
He thought about what he was going to build. In Volta. To the billions, to the factories, to the satellites, to the armies that he was going to equip. He thought of the loneliness of this room and the power of what was to follow. He typed:
PRINT "I AM THE ARCHITECT"
He pressed NEW LINE. The screen read: I AM THE ARCHITECT 0/0
The zero return code. Success. The bluish light of the screen illuminated her tired face, deepening her dark circles, but lighting up a fierce glow in her gray eyes. He had a tool. He had a plan. He had an iron will.
The rest of the world didn't stand a chance.
He turned off the screen, pulled the plug, and for the first time since his return in 1980, he fell asleep without a migraine, with the smile of a man who has just loaded his gun before the battle.