Chapter 18 Z359

Chapter 18 Z359
Miles once again stormed into Spencer's office, his nostrils flaring as he stared at the man in anger.

Spencer glanced up at him then back at his work, twirling a pen in his hand with a contemplative expression.

Miles remained standing, his gaze fixed on the other man, eyes slightly squinted with a crease on his brow.

"Given the subject of your meeting today, I'm assuming you found out our little secret," Spencer finally spoke, looking up at Miles.

"Why would you refuse to let me see Z359?" Miles asked, his tone oddly even.

Spencer kept his eyes on him, expression flat and revealing nothing.

"Can I at least see the lab files?" Miles asked again but once more Spencer would not reply.

Miles remained standing, and the two men stood in a standoff. Lowering his head, Miles sighed and turned to walk out.

"Miles" Oswald called just as Miles reached to open the door.

"You did a good job with Adam." He started.
"But many members of the Board still worry about your obsession with Zina Freeman. They wanted to be sure you could bite where it hurts"

"Make sure?" Miles muttered.

"I gave up everything for you!" he roared and turned around, eyes wide and breathing heavy.

"I gave up my friendship with her for this company. I took away everything from her"

Spencer rose from behind his desk and walked up slowly towards Miles.

"No, you were fighting a competition. And it took his death to win!" he said, tone tense as he wagged a finger at Miles.

Miles, visibly taken aback, eased up.

"You think my battle was against Adam?" he asked, his tone softer this time.
"You placed the man so high on a pedestal you failed to see everything around him

Spencer squinted slightly at him, not understanding anything he was talking about.

"Miles" he called with an even tone.

"From now on, you lead this fight," he said solemnly.

Miles raised his head sharply, his eyes wide.

"Yes," Spencer reaffirmed.
"Our partner trusts you and has handed you the sword. Whatever you want to do, we'll back you"

"Then we start with Auralis Innovations"

Spencer frowned, "What's Gabriel Auralis got to do with anything?" he asked. He did not want anything to do with a man who could impact an entire government so silently and effectively.

"It's not about him. It's about the second name in the title of that company. Miles' expression hardened, and he became solemn as if he were marching into war.



Gabriel followed Zina into a small lab where a few people in lab coats worked.

"This is the Research and Development department and that's our Chief Engineer, Mr Gold."

"Gold?" Gabriel asked in surprise.

"You know him?" Zina asked back, turning to him with a suspicious look.

"No. I've heard of him," Gabriel replied, looking away from her to the man wearing a short white coat and looking into a magnifying lens as he welded something.

A younger man beside him tapped gently on his shoulders and nodded in their direction when he looked up.

Mr Gold stared for a minute before his eyes widened in recognition. He walked up to Zina and Gabriel with a polite smile.

"Mrs Freeman, what brings you here?" he asked glancing subtly at Gabriel.

"Mr Gold, this is Gabriel Auralis. He'll be working with us on Z359" Zina introduced.

"Hello, Mr Auralis," Gold greeted with a handshake, which Gabriel promptly reciprocated.

"May I ask which field?" he asked tentatively.

"All of them" Gabriel replied bluntly.

Mr Gold frowned and glanced at Zina for a reaction but there was none. She knew nothing about chips, the only reason she created this company was to keep Adam's work alive, and she saw nothing wrong with Gabriel's response.

"I am a Semiconductor Engineer. Mostly chemical and electrical. I hope we can work well together," he smiled politely, nonetheless. Inwardly, he assumed Gabriel to be one of those wealthy men who assumed the genius of their workers and proclaimed themselves intelligent.

"We will" Gabriel replied confidently.

"Let's talk about the setup for the new lab" Gabriel suggested.

"What's wrong with mine?" Zina asked in surprise.

"Z359 had almost no limitations. The applications are broader than your imagination. We will need a more secure and private lab as well as trustworthy Engineers to develop it." Gabriel started to explain.

"Mr Gold, what area would you recommend we direct the first application?" he asked testily.

Seemingly oblivious to Gabriel's test, Mr Gold thought for a second and replied sincerely.

"I'm still studying the complexities of Z359. Mr Adam seemed to have great ambition with it. I've always seen it as a single-board computer, but I've never figured out how or why it has such powerful Neural Processing capabilities."

"It's a System on Chip," Gabriel replied. Turning to Zina, he explained.

"That basically means it can rapidly process large data volumes and run a full operating system. The selling point is both in its size and capabilities. Theoretically, it could be used to design a mobile phone, the size of a fingernail as it wouldn't require a large motherboard like smartphones usually do"

Zina nodded in understanding. She wasn't completely clueless, she had done a bit of study, but this was only so that she could understand her Engineers when they spoke to her; still, many things flew over her head.

Gabriel and Mr Gold continued to talk about the application of Z359 and every time something complex was mentioned, before she could frown in confusion, Gabriel would stop and explain it to her. And he explained so respectfully that it never felt like she was being belittled. This was a rare trait among Engineers, and also something Adam had never done.

As she thought about Adam, her gaze on Gabriel changed. Zina wasn't delusional. Adam was never nice to her, he did everything he did because he had to. He was never rude either. But Gabriel carried her along so carefully in this little conversation that for the first time, she felt like she truly broke into the tech world from cosmetics.

They didn't just stand around and talk. The Z359 prototype was brought to them by a Senior Engineer and Gabriel began to explain certain things about it that Zina's engineers were baffled about.

The entire R&D department paused briefly as they all stood around Gabriel like students learning from a Professor. Among them, even Zina had her eyes wide as she absorbed knowledge but more than knowledge, her heart fluttered.

"Given everything this chip can do, it certainly stands out from others. We cannot classify it among any known. This takes technology many years into the future" Gabriel seemed to be concluding a lecture.

"So we'll need to unlearn everything we know about Integrated circuits," a female engineer commented, and the others around nodded in agreement.

"Mr Auralis, starting with the basics what exactly is the semiconductor material made of?" Mr Gold asked.

"I cannot answer that, nor is it necessarily relevant. What we need to know is its capabilities and its limitations, as well as why it was used in place of the most common silicon or other semiconductor materials. We'll start with understanding the chip's limitations, then its capabilities, and then design its first application." It was only the first meeting, but Gabriel already seemed to have their development plans all mapped out.