Andrei Stevens POV
August 15, 1973
My fifth birthday party was a study in controlled chaos. Streamers in the parlour, a cake shaped like a rocket ship, and the overwhelming scent of sugar and toddler energy.
Daphne, at three, was mesmerized by the candles. Damien, eight and already possessing the subtlety of a bulldozer, was debating the merits of football versus cricket with a bewildered cousin.
I smiled, made the appropriate wishes, and blew out the candles to a chorus of off-key singing. The performance was important. It kept their eyes off mine, which were darting to the translucent blue timer only I could see, ticking down in the corner of my vision: 00:04:32.
Five years. Five birthdays. Five hours of total access to the Library of 2024.
I'd learned the System's nuances. The "online" access was a torrent—a direct neural link to the database for my annual one-hour window. It was overwhelming, like trying to drink from a firehose. I couldn't read books in that state; I could only index them. Search. Catalogue. Save titles and keywords to my mental queue.
The real work happened "offline." When I physically touched and read a book from this time, the System would cross-reference and grant me a perfect, permanent copy in my mind's vault. It wasn't true photographic memory; it was systematic archiving. I understood the concepts, could quote passages, but I still had to learn and apply the knowledge. The System was a librarian, not a professor.
My first four annual hours had been strategically allocated:
Year 1 (Age 1): Finance & Accounting. Dry, essential. The language of business. I indexed textbooks, SEC filing guides, economic histories.
Year 2 (Age 2): Publishing, IP, Media Law. The rulebook for the playground I wanted to enter. Copyright statutes, contract law templates, landmark case summaries
.Year 3 (Age 3): Venture Capital & Business Structures. The engine of growth. How to fund ideas, build companies, and navigate Wall Street.
Year 4 (Age 4):U.S. & British Culture/History. The soil. You can't change a culture you don't understand. Political shifts, social movements, the unspoken rules.
Now, for my fifth hour, I queued up World Cultures.
Hollywood wasn't an island. It exported dreams globally. I needed to know the markets: Japan's burgeoning film scene, Europe's auteur traditions, the sleeping giant of Bollywood. The timer hit zero. The mental firehose blasted open.
*[Index: The Cambridge World History of Film...**]
*[Index: *Box Office Mojo: International Archives (1970-2020)...**]*
*[Index: Cultural Trends in Post-War European Cinema...**]
Information streamed in, not as words, but as concepts to be filed away for later, deeper study.
The hour ended. The mental noise ceased, leaving the quiet hum of the ever-present System Mind. A new notification glowed.
[ SYSTEM: ANNUAL ORGANISER PROTOCOL ]
[ Long-Term Goal Analysis Required. ]
[ Current Designated Goal: "Build a Lasting Legacy in Hollywood." ]
[ Pathway Re-Calibration in Progress... ]
[ New Sub-Objective Generated: **Formalize Foundational Knowledge.** ]
[ Action Items: ]
Complete physical reading of key indexed finance & law texts by age 7. Establish a "study habit" rationale for family. Identify first practical, low-risk application of knowledge before age 10.
[ Note: Tangible effort yields statistical proficiency gains. ]
A smile touched my lips. The Organiser wasn't giving me shortcuts; it was giving me a syllabus. It was time to move from theory to practice.
The party noise faded into background static as I watched my family. Damien was trying to show father how to hold a cricket bat. Daniel Stevens—my mountain of a father—looked comically delicate with the piece of willow in his hands, his eyes soft with amusement.
Eton for Damien, I thought. Sport, tradition, connections. The classic path for the first son of industry. For me? The choice was clear. Eton. Not just for the prestige, but for the network. The sons of politicians, bankers, and, yes, media moguls would be there. It was the perfect greenhouse for the seeds I was planting.
"Penny for your thoughts, little professor?" Mother's voice broke my reverie. She stood beside me, a plate of half-eaten cake in her hand, her economist's eyes missing nothing.
"Just thinking about school," I said, pitching my voice to its perfect, five-year-old earnestness. "Father's library has so many big books about numbers and laws. I think… I think I'd like to understand them. To help one day."
Margaret's gaze softened from analysis to affection. She placed a hand on my head. "You'll understand them all in time, Andrei. At your own pace." But I saw the flicker in her eyes—the recognition that my "pace" was already something she had no map for.
The first phase was complete. I had my archive. Now, I needed to start building my first real-world asset.
Not a movie script. Not yet. Something simpler. Something that builds capital, not just creatively, but financially.