[The characters, places, organizations, incidents, and other elements appearing in this work have no connection whatsoever to reality and are fictional products of the author’s imagination.]
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After the meeting ended, Henry made his way to the Button R&D department.
It had originally begun under the grandiose name Controller R&D, but with the current joystick market being so unprofitable, it had effectively become a place that devoted itself solely to improving button structures. That was why its name had become Button R&D. When he entered the office space, he found on the desk Palisek’s blueprints, along with a prototype made several times larger than the real thing—about the size of an adult’s palm—so the internal structure could be checked.
“Boss, just as you said, once we put a pivot in the center to serve as a support point, the errors from simultaneous up, down, left, and right inputs were definitely reduced. But honestly, I still can’t quite grasp the concept you keep emphasizing—that ‘feel in the hand’ or ‘operating feel.’”
At Palisek’s question, Henry slowly pressed the enormous prototype button and examined its structure. A dull plastic scraping sound echoed through the conference room.
“Palisek, operating feel isn’t anything grand. It’s the sum total of every sensation transmitted to the user’s fingertip when they press a button. This one is far too stiff. That ‘feel in the hand’ is the reaction to that pressure. The crisp rebound that comes after the right amount of resistance, and the clean sound you hear with your ears—things like that.”
“Ah, if I were saying this in 2026 terms, it’d be that chewy key feel. Trying to explain it to a 1970s engineering guy is wearing my mouth out.”
In front of Palisek, Henry pressed the button deeply once more and continued.
“Right now, it takes too much force. You might think that’s because the prototype is large, but even at this size, it should operate smoothly with one finger. Like pressing the number keys on a modern electronic calculator. The moment it registers, the user should feel certain: ‘Ah, it’s been pressed.’”
“Hmm, then are you saying we should use conductive rubber—a rubber dome—at the button contact point? Boss, that will send manufacturing costs straight up. It won’t be profitable.”
“Palisek, we can’t shave away user satisfaction and the brand value of [Enjoy] just to save a few cents per button. We are making something first-rate. A first-rate product needs components worthy of it. Use the elasticity of rubber to create a smooth rebound. I’ll handle the cost issue, so you focus only on quality. And we need to review the internal design again. The friction from the plastic scraping against itself whenever the directional pad is pressed is too severe. Optimize the design so that interference is minimized.”
Henry handled the prototype with both hands, then pointed out the most important design flaw.
“The most important thing is the position of this pivot. It shouldn’t be structured so that the pivot is on top and the directional pad lies underneath, as it is now. It has to be the opposite. Fix the pivot to the bottom and make the directional pad move like a seesaw over it. That’s the only way the input will become precise and smooth. And the outer plastic shape needs to be given a concave slope that fits the shape of the thumb. So the user can control it perfectly by feel alone, without looking.”
“The pivot underneath... and a curved design fitted to the thumb. Understood, Boss. I’ll redesign it from that perspective. That certainly is more engineering-minded.”
Once again impressed by Henry’s insight, Palisek began swiftly writing the revisions onto the blueprint. Even afterward, Palisek kept nodding as he took notes on Henry’s instructions. Henry took his hand off the prototype and stared blankly at the coffee on the table that had gone cold.
“Right now, we don’t have a separate design team because we’re making it according to the rough draft I drew, but what we’re making isn’t a simple machine. It’s a portable game console. Being portable isn’t something achieved just by making it small. You have to consider the center of gravity, the feel of the exterior, even its thickness when it’s put into a pocket. It must feel not like a possession, but like a part of the body.”
Henry looked straight at Palisek again and continued.
“But in games, the most important thing in the end is the enjoyment the user feels. And that enjoyment isn’t determined solely by the logical structure inside the screen. The pleasure transmitted to the fingertip when pressing this button is also a massive pillar of fun. That is exactly why we must obsessively research the structure and design of the buttons. Because the moment the user takes the device into their hand, the game has already begun.”
Only then did Palisek seem to understand why Henry was so obsessed with operating feel. However, Henry’s philosophy that hardware and software had to be organically combined was transmitted to a 1979 engineer merely as fervent motivation: “Our boss really cherishes the hardware department.”
“Well, whether it’s a misunderstanding or whatever, as long as he works hard and makes it, that’s all that matters. Passion pay always begins with misunderstandings, after all.”
With that, the direction of [Enjoy] was perfectly established. Now all Henry had to do was deliver the final verdict once the prototype came out. If he stuck around and nitpicked this and that, the level of completion would rise, but it would only be a matter of time before his lack of substance was exposed. Before his bullshitting knowledge ran dry, Henry gracefully took his leave.
Henry headed straight for another company in his personal name on the floor above: [Henry1 Capital].
The company name was remarkably shabby, but it didn’t matter. Respectable names like “Henry Capital” or “Henry Investment” had already been taken by someone else, and in any case, this company was, in a certain sense, nothing more than a genuine paper company that would be maintained for at most about a year.
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Friday, June 22, 1979.
The summer air in New York was humid and sticky, and inside the office, the constant ringing of telephones made it resemble a battlefield.
Charles K. Hinton had been wrapped in a strange emotion of late. The trauma of once ruling Wall Street, only to pour in even his own money and be driven to the brink of bankruptcy, had transformed him into a perfect passive helmsman. If it wasn’t his money, he didn’t tremble; if he bore no responsibility, he no longer had to worry about losing his hair. The disclaimer “I am merely your finger” was the suit of iron armor he had donned in order to survive in the jungle that was Wall Street.
But his current employer, Henry, the young head of a reclusive family of great landowners, seemed to see through that iron armor. An eccentric who had inherited the authority of a family that had signed the Declaration of Independence and an enormous fortune, yet tossed aside the family business and went around borrowing a huge sum in his own name to make game consoles. If one only listened to the rumors, he was the very image of a reckless wastrel, but the man Charles met in person had an entirely different texture.
“His eyes are far too seasoned for him to be merely a handsome young master. Like a gambler who already knows the other side’s hand.”
To Charles, Henry was more alien and peculiar than any asset holder he had ever met in his life. At their first meeting, the moment they shook hands, Henry threw the main point at him.
“I understand you’re an excellent technician. We’ll be moving thirty-nine million dollars, and we’ll move it legitimately. We’ll sign an asset management agency agreement, and as an S corporation specializing in silver investment, we intend to split the corporate operating accounts for use. We’ll also file a proactive report with the Commodity Futures Trading Commission. If I assign several people to you, how finely can you split the accumulation so it doesn’t show in the market?”
[S corporation = A U.S. tax-saving corporate structure that avoids double taxation by treating company profits as shareholders’ personal income without corporate income tax.]
Charles was flustered, but answered instinctively.
“If I have fifteen quick-handed fellows including myself, ghost accumulation is possible, with each person trading through three brokers at staggered intervals.”
“Then on the first day of work, let’s submit the report to the CFTC first. Say, ‘Our company highly values silver and intends to make distributed investments through fifteen managers.’”
The interview took less than a minute. Then came Monday, June 18, the first normal day of work, before the awkwardness had even worn off. As soon as Henry arrived at work, he checked whether the report had been sent, then calmly dropped a bomb in the middle of the office where sixteen people had gathered.
“New York Commodity Exchange, COMEX. Chicago Board of Trade, CBOT. London Metal Exchange, LME. Sweep up silver from those three places. The leverage is fixed at exactly three times. As the price rises, use the profits as collateral and conduct pyramiding purchases. Not even a one percent margin of error is allowed. Now, begin. Ah, and don’t forget to write the trading logs and reports.”
Everyone looked dumbfounded, but after leaving only those words behind, Henry slipped into his office. The moment he closed the door, Henry sank down at his desk, bit his lip, and was engulfed in conflict.
“All right, I need to get in first before the Bunt brothers set the board. But I wonder if three-times leverage is already too greedy. Tsk, what can I do when I don’t have seed money? Even if I know it’ll cause trouble later, I have to scrape together everything down to my soul and eat like this for now. But wouldn’t it be okay to get just a little greedier!?”
But even Charles, who could not have dreamed of that fact, had doubts about Henry’s orders. The current silver market was already surging on rumors that Middle Eastern capital was flowing in. In this insane situation, he wanted them to report everything properly and throw in thirty-nine million dollars, even using leverage? But Charles did not ask. That was the duty of a finger. Still, he could not help the heaviness in one corner of his chest.
Before long, the employees, who had not even properly introduced themselves to one another, were absorbed in their respective tasks under Charles’s instructions, and the office was quickly filled with the sound of ringing telephones and flipping slips. Fifty contracts in one day, a hundred contracts the next. Under Charles’s command, the fifteen operators silently sucked in quantities of silver through thousands of split orders via a web of corporate accounts.
On Friday the 22nd, immediately after the accumulation was completed, the report came up. Only then did Henry come out of his room, skim over the written report, and open his mouth in a relaxed, languid manner.
“Hmm, 2,690 contracts at an average unit price of 8.7 dollars. The result is better than I expected, Charles. From now on, as I said, we’ll enter pyramiding while maintaining three-times leverage. But for the moment, the profits we can use as collateral need to accumulate, so until then, please focus on market research. And take turns with some of the staff and go on vacation for three days at a time.”
[Pyramiding = Continuously making additional purchases with the profits earned from an existing position. It is called pyramiding because, like an inverted pyramid, a larger volume is built up the further it goes.]
After leaving just that one remark, Henry slipped back into his room. An employer who shut himself in his office whenever he came to work and didn’t exchange a word of conversation. As a machine, Charles was not supposed to be curious, but in the end he too was human. Unable to suppress his curiosity about what grand operation was being plotted inside that room, he discreetly asked the errand boy who had been carrying coffee.
“What exactly is he doing in there?”
“Ah, nothing that impressive. He was drawing pictures like cartoons. These days he’s been drawing all sorts of strange cars, and they look pretty good to me.”
“Is he insane?”
That was the first thought that flashed through Charles’s mind. But as he continued thinking, goosebumps soon rose on his skin. Ordinary employers screamed into the telephone if an index moved even one percent. Their check-in cycle inevitably shortened from one hour to ten minutes, then again to one-minute intervals. But had Henry ever asked him about the price? Not even once.
He was more relaxed and calm than Charles himself, who managed other people’s money as his job. This young family head had thrown the huge sum of thirty-nine million dollars into a pit of fire, and was drawing pictures as though watching a blaze from across the river. Was such a thing possible with human nerve?
“Unless he’s seen the future...”
Henry had not asked about the market price even once. Outside the office, the soaring price of silver had turned the place into a battlefield where brokers’ screams and telephone rings were tangled together, but beyond that door, only the scratching sound of a pen and the turning of paper could be heard. He was treating the enormous sum of thirty-nine million dollars like a ten-cent coin in his own wallet.
Charles tightened his grip on the sweat-soaked receiver. Though he had tried hard to ignore it, a single question kept slithering through his mind like a viper. Did that man already know what would happen in the silver market, and where it would end? Or was thirty-nine million dollars truly pocket change to him?
And then he suddenly realized it. The identity of that strange emotion he had never once encountered, though he had met countless gamblers during his long years on Wall Street. The expression Henry had shown at their first meeting, the one Charles had been utterly unable to interpret, had not been hope or bravado.
It was the firm conviction in a predetermined conclusion—the kind possessed by someone who had already solved a math problem and knew the answer.