they were the same person, and Stone could see why Semyonov, the person, had seemed to appear from nowhere. It was a key to the person he was, and what had happened to him.
When Carslake finished talking again, and lay back in that stifling bedroom to gaze once more at the ceiling lightbulb, Stone rehearsed the story of Semyonov through in his mind.
It seemed that until the age of thirteen, the boy called Steven Starkfield was a normal, happy teenager. He also had a beautiful, clever sweetheart called Virginia Kocszelny. The two were inseparable, both clever and so different from anyone else at the small community school, in Coldbury, New Hampshire. However, at the age of fourteen, Steven became ill. For whatever reason — hormone changes maybe, or some mystery virus — he became afflicted by the most acute eczema and asthma. He later discovered they were caused by allergic reactions to normally harmless bacteria. Sores covered his body and his face. It must have felt like he was breathing through a straw. The doctors treated with heavy doses of steroids for the asthma, which explains why the school photo at age fourteen shows a boy forty pounds heavier than the year before, and covered in acne and sores.
At that time of life, any kid would be sensitive of his appearance. Steven found his body bloated by steroids and his face covered with zits and acne right down to his chest. Stone could guess how it panned out next. Kids can be cruel to one who looks different. But Steven never gave them chance. He hid himself away. Depression, isolation — a very common thing with teenagers who are long-term sick. He even stopped seeing his best friend Virginia, which is why she felt so eternally guilty about it all. Virginia was intelligent, blossoming, beautiful. She would soon escape to a top university, call herself Virginia Carlisle, and never look back.
Meanwhile, young Steven Starkfield turned in on himself. The computer and the Internet became his world. He applied himself for days on end to programming and hacking, and he was good at it. Virginia said he was inspired by Marc Andreessen, a college kid who wrote the software for the first web browser.
Carslake pointed out that Andreessen didn’t invent the Web, but it seemed like it at the time. His web browser was the first software you could use to access the Web easily. It was world-changing, but in fact it had been put together in a few weeks by a college kid.
Young Starkfield suddenly knew what he wanted in life. He wanted to write software that would change the world. According to Carslake, Starkfield would have seen through Andreessen in a few weeks. Because Andreessen’s genius was in the idea, not the programming. Steven would have realized very soon that he could do better than Andreessen, which must be a weird feeling if you’re fourteen.
Whatever the exact sequence was, Andreessen was key to Steven, because it was Andreessen’s next venture that really lit the touch paper for Semyonov’s life work. Andreessen’s next venture was
But back then, Steven Starkfield was into hacking and programming. This was where Carslake’s knowledge had been so useful, because he’d looked up the court case against Starkfield, and found out a ton of stuff. It was used in court evidence against the young Steven. Semyonov couldn’t go to school, so he programmed, twelve, fourteen hours a day. He must have hated everyone back then. Thought everyone was an idiot, even Andreessen. Even Virginia.
Steven Starkfield, sick and reclusive, was arrested for hacking Defense Department servers when he was eighteen. And the computers seized by the FBI showed a remarkable level of programming. He’d made his own operating system, like Bill Gates did at that age. It was simpler than Gates’, but more powerful. Also code- generators, programs to write programs. And the programming code showed that he was obsessed with concision. Making his programs as short, but as powerful as possible.
Prison was the key event in Semyonov’s life. He would have hated the fact that the FBI took all his work and analysed it, and he resolved that no one would be able to figure out his programs again. You didn’t have to be a genius to work out that prison would have been disastrous for his health too. The weight, the eczema, the sores — it all went out of control.
He was lucky to get away with a year in jail, according to Carslake. The US can be very hard on hackers, especially if they target the Defense Department. And Starkfield was banned from the Internet for two years when he got out. It was when he did his best work. Away from the Internet, entirely on his own.
As for the Chinese: Carslake knew for certain Semyonov shared a cell for a while with a Chinese guy. Maybe it gave him the idea. Maybe he learned a few Chinese characters. Who was to say?
However it happened, Virginia’s tech guy, a man called Ostrovich, had analyzed Semyonov’s video technology. He said he could begin to work out the programming, but it looked like whoever wrote it redesigned the whole system to use a few hundred Chinese characters as short cuts. The character for gold would be for the function “print”, for example. But it went much further. Semyonov used a single Chinese character as a short cut for a whole complex algorithm. It was ultra-concise. For Semyonov, who had it all memorized, it would be ultra-quick to write his programs. Which is why he’d achieved so much, working entirely alone.
Best of all, his own system, full of Chinese characters, was private to Semyonov. No one looking at it would have a clue how it was done. Including the FBI, if they ever seized his computer again. Semyonov was determined that if anyone ever saw his work again, it would be impossible to decipher. Which was something the guys at SearchIgnition had found to their cost.
The next part of the story was fairly well known. Steven Semyonov founded SearchIgnition with a lawyer and an accountant whom he’d never met, and with whom he shared as little as he could. Neither had an interest in technology. His search programs, his algorithms, his indexes were all held in the “black box” of his own programs. He started the SearchIgnition Corporation in a basement filled with a hundred-odd old machines, bought for scrap, loaded with his own software. He hooked them together and made them act as a single computer. Soon he had thousands of machines in a warehouse, again acting as a single computer. He’d built the world’s dominant search engine for virtually nothing. The rest was history.
Stone lay back too, like Carslake, looking at the ceiling in the bedroom, watching the moths flutter round and round the bulb.
‘I think I’ve figured it out,’ said Stone finally.
‘Figured what out?’ asked Carslake.
‘The Machine,’ said Stone. ‘What it is, what makes it so powerful, and why so few people know about it. I think I’ve figured it. If I’m right, the whole world will want a piece of it and Oyang was right. Twenty-five billion was a small price to pay.’
Chapter 62 — 5:06pm 13 April — Balong Polo Resort and Country Club, Zhejiang Province, China
Seventeen hours by Stone’s cracked digital watch in that one bedroom in the villa. They had been given neither food nor water. This was, of course, a good thing. It meant that whoever was holding them had meant to bring them out sooner. And still meant to bring them out. Carslake added that the lack of food or water meant that neither of them had to use the toilet, and that was a good thing for him.
In the end, something else good happened. The door swung open and two Chinese men came back in with AK 47s. Carslake looked at the weapons wistfully. As if he would have a clue what to do with one. Carslake and Stone were led out together. Out of the villa and into the daylight, into the warm, humid fresh air, and across the decking. Now they were in some kind of tent, which must have been constructed there while they'd been locked away. There were noises and voices and the hum of machinery, and it was air conditioned. They came to a plastic curtain of thick plastic — so thick that it was impossible to see through it clearly.
A figure appeared behind the plastic sheet, a tall figure in a white suit. Even the face was covered with white.
Virginia’s voice came through the plastic curtain. Her hair must be covered, and her face also with a mask of some sort.
‘I’m sorry we had to keep you in the dark,’ she said. ‘But you’ll need to wait a while yet.’
‘Yeah. Like, literally,’ said Carslake drily. ‘But don’t worry, the room was peaceful. What happened? So busy you forgot about us?’
‘Come on, Carslake,’ said Stone. ‘As if she could forget those legs. And that ass of yours.’
‘None of this is remotely funny,’ she said, developing that weary tone once more. It was light years from her
