Free Leon Uris by A God in Ruins

of a battlefield. They also knew they had to remain free of outside control.
    It came down to a purpose of being. To what avail was the Bulldog? What road could they take with the Bulldog that others could not follow? What unique niche would this system fill?
    Simultaneously, they had come to a dark place. The darkness held the secret. Speed is the seed of greed, Darnell had said.
    As each new innovation reached the market, Thornton’s “purpose for being” opened wider. He followed inroads in his mind where Darnell could not follow.
    “We must keep the darkness dark,” Thornton said at last. “What’s happening, Darnell? Every computer is trying to outfox every other computer. Highwall technology is trying to turn back invaders. A mad hunt is on to keep security and integrity of a system. This eats up half a researcher’s time. But! What are they doing but reacting to something already taking place? In my own modest way, I can break into almost any line and decode any message.”
    “We can’t market that.”
    “We can build a system that’s impenetrable. We can have that system in place and grab our corner of the market while the others are playing catch-up. We’ll have it going in.”
    “What?”
    “Unbreakable encrypted messages and transactions.”
    “You sure?”
    “I am positive,” Thornton said, holding up a small black box called the Growler, an accomplished highline code and decoder. The Growler also came from a place deep inside Thornton Tomtree, his versions of math, his flirtation with quantum. His natural penchant for secrecy!
    “Wouldn’t we be better off just selling the Growler?”
    “No way.”
    “But it may cost millions to set up one network for one company.”
    “We place our small terminals at Harvard, MIT, Cal Tech, Georgia Tech, Stamford, and with the Army, Navy, and Air Force and let those people break their balls trying to decode us. You, my dear friend, will sell the results to, say, three hundred companies in the Fortune Five Hundred. Three hundred corporations installed and paying monthly fees for absolute protection starts to add up to billions…”
    Thornton was right, but even so, he was wrong, Darnell thought. What had he said: keep the darkness dark . As Darnell studied the meaning of the system, he assured himself that they would be clear of antitrust violations, unfair competition, and other government interference. After all, they were only going after a very small piece of the market.
    However, Thornton would not stop with three hundred Bulldog networks once it had become the Rolls-Royce of the computer world.
    Banks, insurance companies, car manufacturers, oil companies, police, airlines, mercantile chains, medical networks…all in secret.
    A great central mainframe to be built in Pawtucket could drive thousands of networks. The senders and receivers could not operate unless both were positively identified through fingerprints, photos, and a DNA scanner.
    Darnell did not go in fully convinced, but followed his own part of the work. He set up the university and military network, exciting and challenging the listeners. The military was particularly sought out, for any system installed for them would open the door to a hundred corporations. The bright people in his new thinking would exercise their minds achingly trying to break the Growler. To no avail.
    Thornton growled in content as his friendly adversaries threw in the towel. The Growler flipped to one of several million code algorithms so that the sender and receiver had to be “married.”
    But that was out there and this was down here. In the real world they were a long way from the financing to build mainframes.
    Darnell had lingering doubts. He always held out hope that a universal benefit could be found somewhere in the system. It was Darnell’s upbringing, a matter of the soul to answer dirty questions. As Thornton went in, seemingly without scruples, Darnell wondered if he would be able to