‘In retrospect, I suppose it was inevitable that a man like him would exist. He was, after all, no more than a product of his times, born into a world where everything was a product, where saying something was priceless was the same as calling it worthless. It was a world where compact was synonymous with better, where time was the single most valuable commodity there was and time saved the most precious gift one could have. To be surrounded by devices was the ideal of human happiness; the number of connections with strangers far away the primary indicator of social standing. All over, societies, cultures, individuals, every single person, whether by creation or consumption was driven towards one thing—better, faster, more technology.

‘You must understand what it was like then. It was entropy in action, a system that fed itself. Everywhere, people bought software applications for their handheld and embedded devices and paid to watch live feeds as researchers and manufacturers worked day and night, hand in hand, to create more technology for those same devices, applications that were sold by the companies employing the researchers themselves, the funds ploughed back into the same projects that were being tracked. And with what was left over, which was usually a lot, new projects were started. In this environment, this technological arms race, there was an organization devoted to making both technology and profits—one of many like it—only this one made devices that were a little bit smaller than the ones the others did, and consequently it was a little bit bigger than they were. It was called the Icarus Corporation.’

Albert sat there, chafing inside, cursing the man’s long-windedness, wondering what this history lesson had to do with anything at all.

Across from him, Father was still speaking. ‘Now, like most other big companies, Icarus too was owned by one particular family. What really set it apart from the others, though, was that the Board of Directors of the Icarus Corporation was the family. And at its helm sat the Chairman of the Board, this extraordinary man who was in every sense the head—head of the organization, head of the family that owned it. So all-encompassing was his aura that the media, his co-workers, in fact everyone except his immediate family referred to him as Mr Chairman.’

Albert frowned. ‘Are you talking about Robert? But it can’t—’

Grandfather shook his head. ‘No, Albert, extraordinary as he too may have been, it is not Robert I speak of. Genius comes in many forms, and the ability to make is only one of them. The Chairman was not a creator, he was an accumulator.’

‘Accumulator? Of what?’

‘Of everything.’

‘What do you mean, everything?’