Cryptonomicon

Avi has detached the screen from his big laptop and laid it flat on the surface of the overhead projector, which shines light through the liquid-crystal display and projects a color image on the whiteboard. It is a typical desktop: a couple of terminal windows and some icons. Avi goes around and picks up the signed NDAs, scans them all, hands one copy back to each person, files the rest in the outer pocket of a laptop bag. He begins to type on the laptop's keyboard, and letters spill across one of the windows. "Just so you know," Avi mumbles, "Epiphyte Corp., which I'll call Epiphyte(1) for clarity, is a Delaware corporation, one and one half years old. The shareholders are myself, Randy, and Springboard Capital. We're in the telecoms business in the Philippines. I can give you details later if you want. Our work there has positioned us to be aware of some new opportunities in that part of the world. Epiphyte(2) is a California corporation, three weeks old. If things go the way we are hoping they will go, Epiphyte(1) will be folded into it according to some kind of stock transfer scheme the details of which are too boring to talk about now.

Avi hits the return key. A new window opens on the desktop. It is a color map scanned in from an atlas, tall and narrow. Most of it is oceanic blue. A rugged coastline juts in through the top border, with a few cities labeled: Nagasaki, Tokyo. Shanghai is in the upper left corner. The Philippine archipelago is dead center. Taiwan is directly north of it, and to the south is a chain of islands forming a porous barrier between Asia and a big land mass labeled with English words like Darwin and Great Sandy Desert.

"This probably looks weird to most of you," Avi says. "Usually these presentations begin with a diagram of a computer network, or a flowchart or something. We don't normally deal with maps. We're all so used to working in a purely abstract realm that it seems almost bizarre to go out into the real world and physically do something.

"But I like maps. I've got maps all over my house. I'm going to suggest to you that the skills and knowledge we have all been developing in our work--especially pertaining to the Internet--have applications out here." He taps the whiteboard. "In the real world. You know, the big round wet ball where billions of people live."

There is a bit of polite snickering as Avi skims his hand over his computer's trackball, whacks a button with his thumb. A new image appears: the same map, with bright color lines running across the ocean, looping from one city to the next, roughly following the coastlines.

"Existing undersea cables. The fatter the line, the bigger the pipe," Avi says. "Now, what is wrong with this picture?"

There are several fat lines running east from places like Tokyo, Hong Kong, and Australia, presumably connecting them with the United States. Across the South China Sea, which lies between the Philippines and Vietnam, another fat line angles roughly north-south, but it doesn't connect either of those two countries: it goes straight to Hong Kong, then continues up the China coast to Shanghai, Korea, and Tokyo.

"Since the Philippines are in the center of the map," John Cantrell says, "I predict that you are going to point out that hardly any fat lines go to the Philippines."

"Hardly any fat lines go to the Philippines!" Avi announces briskly. He points out the one exception, which runs from Taiwan south to northern Luzon, then skips down the coast to Corregidor. "Except for this one, which Epiphyte(l) is involved with. But it's not just that. There is a general paucity of fat lines in a north-south direction, connecting Australia with Asia. A lot of data packets going from Sydney to Tokyo have to be routed through California. There's a market opportunity."

Beryl breaks in. "Avi, before you get started on this," she says, sounding cautious and regretful, "I have to say that laying long-distance, deep sea cables is a difficult business to break into."

"Beryl is right!" Avi says. "The only people who have the wherewithal to lay those cables are AT&T, Cable & Wireless, and Kokusai Denshin Denwa. It's tricky. It's expensive. It requires massive NRE."

The abbreviation stands for "non-recoverable expenses," meaning engineering work to complete a feasibility study that would be money down the toilet if the idea didn't fly.

"So what are you thinking?" Beryl says.

Avi clicks up another map. This one is the same as the previous, except that new lines have been drawn in: a whole series of short island-to-island links. A bewilderingly numerous chain of short hops down the length of the Philippine archipelago.

"You want to wire the Philippines and patch them into the Net via your existing link to Taiwan," says Tom Howard, in a heroic bid to short-circuit what he senses will be a lengthy part of Avi's presentation.