The garage was quiet, save for the soft hum of servers and the occasional click of a cooling fan spinning down.
James sat alone at his desk, a lone figure illuminated by the bluish glow of the Gateway 2000's monitor. His fingers drummed absently on the table, not out of anxiety, but anticipation.
Tonight was the night.
Tonight, he would stop dreaming, and start building.
He closed his eyes and took a deep breath, activating his Neural Nexus.
The familiar sensation washed over him — a rush of clarity, as if every neuron in his brain suddenly sharpened into razor focus.Before him, lines of code, diagrams, and entire system architectures unfolded like shimmering constellations.
He was ready.
In his past life, he had witnessed the rise of DoubleClick, a company that changed the entire landscape of online advertising.He remembered vividly how they had pioneered the idea of delivering targeted ads across websites, tracking user behavior, measuring click-through rates, and selling the data to advertisers hungry for better returns.
It was brilliant.It was ruthless.And James intended to beat them to it.
For a brief moment, doubt flickered through him.Was it right to steal someone else's future invention?
But then he thought about his last life — the failures, the regrets, the endless struggle to achieve something, anything.The world didn't reward kindness.It rewarded winners.
And now, for once, he had the power to win.
He steeled himself.If he had to step on someone else to reach the top, then so be it.
Opportunity didn't wait for permission.
Opening his eyes, James went to work.
First, the Core System: Ad Delivery Platform.
He mapped out the core functions mentally:
Advertisement Management: upload, categorize, and assign ads to specific websites.
Placement & Scheduling: define where and when ads appear.
Analytics Tracking: monitor impressions, clicks, and click-through rates (CTR).
Revenue Sharing: calculate the profit split between hosting websites and advertisers.
Security Module: basic encryption to protect transaction data.
Each function spun itself into detailed subroutines and modules in his mind, like pieces of a grand machine.
The structure was simple at first. He knew better than to over-engineer — the early internet was still clunky and fragile.He just needed to get a working version out before anyone else.
He began coding at a furious pace, his fingers barely touching the keyboard. Most of the time, he just stared at the screen, letting the Neural Nexus "type" for him.
Lines of C++ and early HTML stacked neatly, flowing from his thoughts directly onto the monitor.
Second, the Secret Weapons: Patents.
He grinned slightly as he mentally opened another "folder" in his memory.
Two key inventions would be buried subtly into the platform.
Interactive Network Technology:A simple idea — whenever a user clicked on a banner or ad, it counted as an "interaction" and generated metadata.Obvious? Yes. But if he patented the basic mechanism of "clicking a web object as an interactive action," he could choke the entire industry later.
One-Click Ordering:Even simpler — no complicated checkout forms. Just a button. Press it, and boom — transaction done.
In his previous life, Amazon's lawyers fought years over this concept, paying hundreds of millions in settlements and fees.
James was going to claim it before any of them even realized it mattered.
He embedded early prototype versions of both functions into his ad platform, making sure the technical language was clean, distinct, and — most importantly — patentable.
Later, he would file them properly through an attorney.
For now, the code had to be real, working, and timestamped.
Evidence that it was his.
Third, the Expansion: Micro-Features.
He wasn't stopping at the basics.
James sketched out a few more subtle but valuable features:
One-Click Payment System: linking user accounts to allow instant purchases.
User Tracking (Cookies): to serve targeted ads based on previous activity.
Real-Time Analytics Dashboard: allowing advertisers to see ad performance live.
Even if he didn't launch all of it right away, just having them half-built gave him enormous leverage.
He was building a platform — not just a service.
And in the future, platforms ruled everything.
Hours passed like minutes.
The garage grew colder as night deepened, but James hardly noticed.
His mind was ablaze.
At one point, his server beeped — the Sun Microsystems Ultra 1 — and James felt a small tingle in the back of his mind as he brushed its electrical current with his budding electro-sensitivity.
It was like being a conductor of a symphony — servers, code, energy, all flowing through him.
By 4:00 AM, the first working prototype of his ad delivery system was complete.
Rough. Bare-bones.
But it worked.
James leaned back, rubbing his temples, and laughed softly to himself.
In his past life, it had taken DoubleClick teams of engineers months to reach this stage.
He had done it in one night.
He saved the project under the name:
AdNova —"Nova" for new star — because that's what this would be. The dawn of a new era.
AdNova 1.0:
Functional ad delivery.
Basic click-tracking.
Interactive logging.
Prototype for one-click purchasing.
Tomorrow — no, today — he would start writing business plans, drafting patent applications, and finding a way to register everything legally.
It was a race against time now.
He wasn't just fighting DoubleClick anymore.
He was fighting history itself.
James powered down the machines carefully, savoring the moment.
He stood in the center of the garage, surrounded by the low hum of cooling fans and blinking indicator lights.
Neural Nexus pulsed quietly in the back of his mind, like a second heart.
He knew it wouldn't be easy.There would be setbacks, betrayals, maybe even disasters.But for the first time in two lives, James felt truly alive.
He whispered to the dark garage:
"This time, I won't lose."
The future had just changed.And the world didn't even know it yet.