Time passed in a hazy conflation of talks with officials and small business owners, slickers and losers, who can't do things quickly or to deadlines. We had about twenty-five grand each, which comprised all our savings plus some money from under the mattress we'd each kept for a rainy day.

Matt quit MegaPrimes, and we set up Prime Numbers, Inc. I found an abandoned warehouse in the heart of a suburban housing estate, though the rent was pretty high. Matt got spooked when he saw our neighbors snooping around one day, but I knew how to deal with that.

I found a local handyman, who installed a bugged ventilation system, though I knew not to ask where he got it. I also hired a few musclemen, who earned their bread maintaining our equipment. I was more than generous, if you know what I mean.

I called on all the Jewish and Chinese resellers in the neighborhood and managed to buy PlayStations, some of them brand new, for less than $45 each. Every visit I left my card and promised them a guaranteed purchase with no questions asked, in case they had more stock that was just "hanging around."

Back at the warehouse I was getting stressed because of the cash now owed to our maintenance guys – but the more I paid them, the more I was sure they'd stay quiet.

We quickly outstripped our forecast and already had a network of machines to do 2,000 billion operations per second. I just hoped I'd have enough cash one day to need a calculator that powerful.