Chapter 39: Hiro’s Busy Saturday (III)
The resources of Sciatis Holdings might be limited in terms of connections and assets, but he had overlooked his 5% shares in Nebulae Electronics and the weight of these shares.
As his CEO, Arabella decided to liaison with the parent company and through an opportune business dinner gathering, she easily obtained the cooperation of hardware and software companies in the gaming industry.
When those bosses realized that although new, the Sciatis Holdings had shares in Nebula Electronics, they jumped on the wagon to display their goodwill.
Although they didn\'t know how many shares in Nebula Electronics the backer behind Sciatis Holdings had, they still assumed that this budding company was a shell company with great prospects.
Arabella didn\'t deny these assumptions of theirs nor did she confirm them. Thus, she got her hands on valuable information, trade channels, and she even bought a high-tech laboratory with an independent R&D department.
They could easily branch out into the gaming hardware and software industry, but while the hardware was easy to produce, the software required years and years of coding and programming if they wanted an original source code for their cyber technology.
"Are you certain that we\'re only lacking in terms of cyber technology?" Hiro asked anxiously.
If that was the case, he could easily use the system and his quantum watche to generate a unique source code that\'s compatible with the S-gear technology and the games his company developed in the future.
Just like Playstation and Xbox from his previous world, he could make S-gear exclusive games that will only work with this technology.
That way, the amazing games extracted from the system would only function if people bought his S-gear VR technology, especially if he assigned the quantum watch\'s artificial intelligence as the highest level of authority in the game.
It was considered a three-factor authentication method; third of the universal source code would be in the game, another third would be in the S-gear\'s operating system, and the last third would be in the main server controlled by the artificial intelligence.
However, they still needed to expand both their high-tech research institutes and their production factories.
They can\'t keep spending money without earning anything as it would easily break the capital chain and before long, Hiro would have to declare bankruptcy.
"Don\'t worry, Sir," Arabella saw through Hiro\'s anxiety and comforted him. "Although we lost five valuable contracts, I sign a letter of intent with over 82 hardware production companies to sell our S-gear products, but each of them would keep 90% of the profits to themselves."
"10% is good… As long as it can keep the company\'s operations afloat while we acquire more facilities." Hiro complimented Arabella\'s quick wits.
Unlike the earlier contracts, all of the profits from this transaction would enter the company\'s account, as Hiro couldn\'t give up %6 of the handling fees to the COC this time.
What good would a 4% net profit do? Hiro couldn\'t accept it, nor could his company.
Anyway, he only needed to wait for the quarterly dividend to inject a large amount of capital into his company\'s account—enough to expand aggressively and start the research on VR capsules while concurrently producing domestic S-gear for the market.
Arabella\'s goal with signing a losing contract and outsourcing their production was to maintain a sense of brand awareness in the market.
It would be too ugly if the lifespan of S-gear in the market was less than two months, as it would damage their reputation.
Thus, even if the production rate was crippled, they had to keep producing and selling at any cost.
Even if they could only sell in small regions of the Nexus Country due to the lack of far reaching trade channels, supply, and demand.
This small region was enough. It was more than enough to satisfy Hiro\'s current needs.
Soon, Hiro and Arabella put up a preliminary plan on how to direct the company and navigate through the digital industry.
After that, Hiro asked her for the location of their new high-tech research institute and facilities, as he planned to install a backdoor for his quantum watch in the system.
This at the very least would prevent any hackers or cyber pirates from stealing their data. In fact, Hiro intended to block all methods of extracting information.
…
Hiro and Sebastian left for the high-tech research institute that was yet to be renamed after the acquisition.
It was a vast underground laboratory almost five times as large as the Inter-High school, which was a massive scale in and of itself.
At the moment, Hiro was inside the Head Professor\'s office, connecting his watch to the computer and waiting for the artificial intelligence to install the backdoor into the system.
It was a wireless connection, so it went unnoticed by the others in the room, even as Hiro pretended to be operating on the keyboard.
"What are you doing exactly?" Asked one of the deputy directors of the institution.
Hiro raised his head and gave the man a look.
The man was annoyed, especially because Hiro was just a high school student. If it wasn\'t for the orders from above, they wouldn\'t even let him enter the laboratory, let alone get access to the admin computer.
Everyone knew how much data was saved in this computer through the hive network that connects almost every computer in the research institute.
"I\'m improving the cyber security," Hiro decided to give them a simple explanation since they deserved to know this much at the very least.
The directors, deputy directors, and even the Head Professor were stunned.
Improving cyber security? Why? Our technology is nothing special, nor is our research data… What\'s the point?
While they were thinking, Hiro\'s quantum watch successfully created a cloud network stored inside the watch, transferring all the data from the computers onto the cloud.
Now, it was impossible to even copy the files onto an external source, let alone move them.
Furthermore, nothing could be saved on the hard drives inside the computers—all allocated results and data would be transmitted to the cloud directly without an intermediary.
"From this day onwards, I want all experiments and results to be digitized. I won\'t allow for any data to be stored on hardware, printed on paper, emailed, or photographed on camera.
"Yes, you\'re not allowed to bring your phones into the sensitive research regions anymore, but the company will provide you with a phone that is capable of dialing and receiving calls for work purposes.
"We are researching a very critical piece of VR hardware technology, and we won\'t tolerate any sloppiness. You can come over and browse the briefing and framework of the future direction of development, and then you can decide whether you want to stay or leave."
Many of the upper management positions on the board wanted to protest, but since Hiro was showing them such sensitive information instead of keeping them guessing in the dark, they kept quiet.
They could measure his sincerity based on the value of the so-called VR technology.
These people weren\'t idiots, and they knew that their supposed boss was just a branch from the Nebula Electronics behemoth.
Was this some secret technology developed by that entity? They suddenly felt anxious, restless, and expectant.
After signing a standard non-disclosure confidentiality agreement, they quickly moved to the computer screen, entered the cloud data, and found a highlighted file.
S-Gear VR Technology and the Virtual Reality Capsule.
Just a few words had already shocked them.
However, when they opened the file, they were even more shocked.
They found futuristic theoretical framework and study on the synchronization between neural network, the receptors, and the electrical impulses generated from the standard VR helmet.
The files contained data on how to expand the range of activity from monitoring the output and input of neural signals from the brain, to monitoring the neural activity throughout the human body.
Moreover, the study delved deeper into the fields such as the behavioral patterns of organic matter, health care, neural conductivity, time dilation, and more.
However, although the framework existed, there was no solid evidence or concrete data.
Everything was just conceptual at this point.
It was to be expected—this project was in the development phase, and they needed to burn money, time, and resources to get anything substantial.
Hiro smiled.
He could give them the full technology at any point in time, especially since he had already analyzed all of it inside his brain.
However, where\'s the fun in that? How could they get a sense of accomplishment from this?
If all these researchers felt involved and got that sense of accomplishment, then it would have been a better outcome than having the cold technology and nothing else.
Seeing that they were too enthusiastic to care about his presence anymore, Hiro and Sebastian silently left the office and the research institute as a whole.
After assigning some people to reinforce the new security protocols, Hiro rested in the car with his eyes closed.
"Let\'s go back home," Hiro spoke in a deliberately exhausted tone. "I\'ve settled all my matters. If anyone asks about me later, tell them to reschedule it."
"I understand, Sir," Sebastian replied before driving the car away under the apricot light of the waning sun.