Chapter 4
-November 1993-
-NemoConTech R&D Labs, Santa Marina, California-
Seven years had passed since Braig and Ansem had last seen each other at their high school graduation. Four years had passed since Braig had earned his computer science degree from SF State. A week earlier, he had joined NemoConTech, now a moderate-sized computer and electronics maker. It was Braig's idea of a revolutionary pocket-sized music player, one that would make the relatively recent invention of the CD obsolete, that landed him the job over hundreds of other, seemingly better-qualified applicants, including a few Cal Berkeley graduates.
Unfortunately, circumstances conspired to prevent Braig's prototype iPod-y device from being nearly as revolutionary - or as unprecedented - as it could have been.
On the day he got the job, the man who would be Braig's new boss told him that he would start the job within a week, at which time he would report to the R&D lab in order to demonstrate his device. He took advantage of this time gap to work on a few bugs in his creation - for example, the fact that it took more than 10 minutes just to upload a single song from a CD to the device, and that was just your average three-minute radio-edit single. Braig, luckily, was able to retool his code in order to compress the digital files of music into a small, easily transferrable format - but not too small. Quality couldn't be sacrificed, not at NemoConTech, which had some of the best quality control in the business.
Finally, the big day arrived, and Braig entered the R&D lab armed with his device, and a CD to demonstrate with. He introduced himself as NemoConTech's newest employee, and introduced his device.
"This," he said, slowly but clearly, "is going to put the CD in the ground. I call it the Digital Music Box. Unlike a typical music box, though, this can be programmed to play as many songs as it can contain within its four-gigabyte memory." He paused to let the researchers - and his boss - murmur amongst themselves in wonder; at this point in time, four gigabytes was truly an unprecedented amount of memory, and they were in awe of the new guy who, after only seven years of education and work in the field, had already been able to push the envelope further than anyone had ever attempted before. "And, it can play the songs in any order. No need to play them in the order in which they were placed on the original CD. If you will allow me to demonstrate..."
Braig turned to the computer screen, removed his CD, and placed it into the optical drive, while also plugging the DMB into a small port - made for what seemed to be a sort of primitive FireWire - and opening up a little square window on the computer. The computer's original media player. Within seconds, a small icon appeared on the screen, marked DIG_MU_BOX_V1.0. Braig clicked and dragged the first song on the CD's tracklist and dragged it over to the little icon, after which a progress bar appeared to show how much of the song had been transferred. It was a very long song - close to seven minutes - and yet, it only took one to complete the transfer, thanks to Braig's altered code. After this, he ejected the DMB, pressed the play button on the front, and immediately, the song he had uploaded began to play to the entire room (unlike most MP3 players from today, Braig had included small speakers, having taken his inspiration more from transistor radios than from the ubiquitous Walkmans of the time.) It was a very recent release - in fact, Braig had just bought the CD yesterday, having heard its first track in a commercial and been struck by the lyrics, which to him sounded like they were telling the story of an apocalypse begun by a very petty and unimportant tiff that turned into a massive, world-igniting conflagration. Add in the fact that it was a flash-new album, and Braig had a great combination attack, using the new song of the present to pave the way for the music player of the future. It was the latest Phil Collins song, "Both Sides of the Story."
Braig turned back to his captive audience. "Ladies and gentlemen, I hope your minds have been blown."
They most certainly were. But they weren't the only things being blown at that moment. At the other end of the small lab, a blond man in a white coat was trying to turn on a computer at the other end of the room, to no avail. He dropped under the desk to try and manipulate the plugs connected into the device, and apparently did something a little too well, as the voltage unexpectedly overloaded so much it blew out the monitor screen, sending shards of electrified glass flying at Braig and his audience. Several of them ended up with shards in the back of their heads, and Braig took the flying glass in the face and neck, severely lacerating him.
Nobody was killed, mercifully enough. The bleeding was not arterial, but the pain was intense enough to make Braig drift in and out of consciousness. The last thing he remembered before passing out completely was seeing a familiar face peering down at his with concern, as the paramedics wheeled him out the front door. Was that...Ansem? Braig wondered. No...it couldn't have been. I thought...he...was an albino. So...how come...he's so...tan...?
But right then, all senses faded, all thoughts faded, and Braig's consciousness slipped out of his grasp entirely.