Date: March 12, 1985
The campus was loud in ways that grated against Julian's quiet mind. Radios hissed with Springsteen; typewriters rattled like cheap artillery in dorm rooms; the street outside Morningside Heights pulsed with cab horns and the occasional street preacher declaring the end of the world.
Inside his dorm, however, the world was silent except for pencil on vellum.
Julian Vanderford sat cross-legged on the floor, sketches of buildings scattered around him like fallen petals. A lotus-shaped atrium. A glass tower with roots like a banyan tree. A square that was half plaza, half stage.
To anyone passing by, it was the eccentric pastime of an ambitious college freshman. To Julian, it was scripture.
Because he was not eighteen.
Not really.
He remembered another life — decades of boardrooms, trading floors, and the bitter taste of hostile takeovers. He remembered walking the streets of Mumbai and Delhi as industries shifted eastward, watching China rise while India was sidelined. He remembered corruption, power games, and the unshakable sense that India's greatness had been delayed by accidents of history.
And then — death. The details were a blur, like a newspaper clipping folded too many times. But he remembered opening his eyes here, in 1967, growing up American, the heir of a family with money but little vision. Now it was 1985. He was eighteen again, with his entire archive intact.
Not memory — no. Something sharper.
Julian closed his eyes and searched.
---
🔹 The Mind Internet: Frozen Section
His thoughts opened like a terminal. A query typed itself silently.
query: architecture + corporate headquarters + cultural diplomacy
Results unfurled in neat order. Frozen search hits from his old life's internet:
Case Study: IBM Headquarters (confidence 89%) → iconic, cold, efficient, but lacked soul.
Article: Architecture as Soft Power, UN HQ New York (confidence 92%).
Photo archive: Lotus Temple, New Delhi — 1986 global coverage spike.
All of it available because it had been on the internet before his death.
Julian scanned, selected, closed the window.
---
🔹 The Mind Internet: Current Section
He pulled the other shelf open.
query: New York Times + 1985 + architecture competitions
A handful of live feeds blinked back:
"City Announces Budget Freeze for New Civic Projects"
"Student Competitions Gain Donor Interest"
"Debate: Modernism vs Tradition in U.S. Campus Architecture"
New data, scraped from the living media of this new timeline.
He smiled faintly. Two shelves. The Frozen Archive — everything he'd once known until death. The Current Feed — the world's news, updating in real time. Together, they were his compass.
---
A knock came. Marcus Patel leaned in, lean, late-twenties, his tie always too tight. "Still awake? Jesus, Julian. Your floor looks like Frank Lloyd Wright vomited on it."
Julian gestured at the vellum. "Not vomit. Vision."
Marcus stepped over the sketches and crouched down. "A lotus atrium? What is this?"
"A building," Julian said softly. "Not just a building. A headquarters. A statement."
Marcus smirked. "Statement to who?"
"To everyone." Julian's eyes gleamed. "Banks will see ambition. Hollywood will see glamour. Indians will see dignity."
Marcus studied him a long time. He'd grown used to Julian saying things no freshman should say. "Alright. And how do you plan to fund a headquarters? Last I checked, you don't own an empire yet."
Julian lifted the memo he'd been drafting. "That's what this is for. A philanthropic competition. Architecture students, cultural angle, technical stipend in India. A small seed."
Marcus frowned. "Philanthropy? That doesn't sound like you."
Julian's smile was thin. "Philanthropy is the costume. Control is the skeleton."
Marcus rubbed his temples. "One day someone's going to call you mad."
"One day someone's going to call me necessary."
---
That night, after Marcus left, Julian lay back and stared at the ceiling.
He searched again.
query: telecommunications + mobile industry + 1980s + future growth
From the Frozen Archive:
Early Motorola patents.
GSM standards in Europe, set to take off in 1990s.
Predictions about cellular data and hand-held computing.
From the Current Feed:
"AT&T launches new long-distance packages"
"FCC debates radio spectrum allocations"
Julian closed his eyes, pulse steady. Architecture was his passion. Finance was his weapon. But communication — that was the bloodstream of empires. He would need more than steel and glass. He would need code.
Not yet. But soon.