After lunch, Simon headed to Santa Monica to start his afternoon's work.
After seeing him off, Kathryn went upstairs with Janet to a sitting room on the second floor of the villa.
The young woman named Claire brought up some juice. Kathryn thanked her softly. Once she left, Kathryn asked Janet, who was sprawled against the sofa with a thick folder in her hands, "Why keep girls like that in the house?"
Janet hummed lazily and stretched out a hand. Kathryn , exasperated, passed her the juice. Only then did Janet bite down on the straw and ask back, "What's wrong with it?"
Kathryn knew Janet was playing dumb, but she still said it plainly. "Aren't you afraid Simon will fool around?"
"I'm actually hoping something like that happens," Janet said, her lowered eyes flicking toward the documents spread across her knees. For a moment she looked almost frustrated. "Allison and the others are young, pretty, obedient. What's not to like? Too bad, in his eyes they're just A, B, C, and D."
Catherine felt like she'd misheard. "What?"
Janet tucked her emotions away, lifted her head, and made a face at Kathryn, grinning as she shrugged. "Nothing."
"You two…" Kathryn paused, testing the waters. "Is something wrong?"
"Of course not," Janet shook her head. "You saw it too. He comes back to eat lunch with me, we spend more time together than before. That's exactly the kind of married life I want. Besides, I'm the second Westeros in the world now. Janet Westeros. Jealous?"
Kathryn didn't answer. She just kept looking at Janet.
During lunch, Kathryn could clearly feel the easy intimacy between Simon and Janet, the kind that had already settled naturally into married life.
She had never been married, but Kathryn understood this was a very healthy way of being together, far better than couples who clung to each other for a short while and then quickly cooled off, or even split apart.
Still, Kathryn sensed something strange.
That strangeness came from Simon, and it also came from Janet.
And the two kinds of strangeness seemed different. Yet Kathryn couldn't put her finger on what exactly was going on.
After a brief standoff, Janet's shoulders slumped. She set the juice and the folder aside and sat cross-legged on the sofa, frowning as she confessed, "Ugh, Kate. Do you think, um, that he likes older women… is that a problem?"
Kathryn froze for a beat. Thinking of herself, her face warmed slightly. "You're older than him too."
"I don't mean you," Janet waved one finger in the air, gesturing aimlessly. "I mean, I mean… how do you get Simon to like young, pretty girls?" [TL/N: Nigga? Whaaat!?]
Kathryn studied Janet for a moment, then leaned back against the sofa, lifted her juice, and took a sip. "I suddenly feel like you should solve those problems yourself. Don't ask me."
Janet puffed out her cheeks in displeasure. "You were the one who asked first."
As she spoke, Allison, who had left earlier, came in again and said softly to Janet, "Mrs. Westeros, the people from the Herland firm have arrived."
Janet nodded and pulled Kathryn up with her. "They're renovating the villa next door. Kate, come help me give some opinions."
Santa Monica, Daenerys Entertainment Headquarters.
Starting at two in the afternoon, Simon spent three hours personally hosting the final round of auditions for several important supporting roles in Batman: The Dark Knight.
Most of the main cast for the Batman series had already been decided. Before this, the key supporting roles for the second film had also been filled. Only a few minor parts remained, roles with relatively little screen time.
But because the first film had been such a success, even tiny roles with only two or three minutes on screen were being fought over fiercely.
Simon had no intention of doing what Warner had done in another world, turning the 1990s Batman sequels into a messy pile of stars. The later it went, the more it leaned on celebrity names, to the point of dragging in Schwarzenegger, along with all sorts of jarring characters that didn't fit the story at all.
The results spoke for themselves. Each sequel earned less than the one before it.
When it came to casting, Simon's core belief was simple. Choose the right person, and only the right person.
He didn't refuse to accommodate a little human favor here and there, but if anyone tried to push an unsuitable actor through, or even wanted to invent a role out of thin air for someone's sake, it would never pass Simon.
At five o'clock, the auditions ended. Simon held a short meeting with his team, then returned to his office.
A little past five was nowhere near quitting time for Simon.
Jennifer entered carrying a thick stack of materials. Simon was bent over, flipping through the next-stage development plan sent from Ygritte's team in San Francisco.
Right now, Ygritte had already completed every necessary preparation to build the World Wide Web. A graphical interface browser tested repeatedly, a refined Hypertext Transfer Protocol (HTTP) and Hypertext Markup Language (HTML) solution, HTTP server software, site and page design tools, and so on.
On the hardware side, with joint efforts from SUN, Cisco, and America Online, everything from server workstations on the server side to dedicated modems and routers on the client side had already been developed.
At the same time, recently, ARPANET, the internet's predecessor that had run for more than twenty years and was made up of networks from major research institutes and universities, had officially separated from the Internet. A new root server and domain registration system had also been set up, and the U.S. government had completely opened the Internet for commercial use.
In other words, every prerequisite for large-scale global internet expansion was now in place.
All that was missing was the push.
Based on the materials he'd gathered and what he remembered, Simon recalled that in the original timeline, from 1990 to 1993, commercial Internet service providers gradually grew, with America Online standing out as one of the best.
During that same period, there were also several paid networks operating, similar in concept to the Web. Because they were paid services and lacked content, they significantly limited the Internet's further expansion.
It wasn't until 1993, when the Web's technologies became fully mature and were announced free to the public, that the Internet truly took off.
This also required clarifying the concepts of the Internet and the World Wide Web.
The concept of the Internet had already emerged in the 1960s and 1970s, a general term for all kinds of networks connected using TCP/IP and related protocols.
The World Wide Web leaned more toward a technical application, a network connection model built using WWW, HTTP, HTML, and other technologies.
So the Web was only part of the Internet. Beyond the Web, the Internet world also included instant messaging, email, internet telephony, online gaming, file sharing, and many other modes of application. Later, most of those applications integrated into the Internet on the basis of Web technologies, which made it easy for people to confuse the two concepts.
In fact, many other technologies appeared earlier than the Web.
For example, instant messaging. The Bloomberg Terminal, already becoming fashionable on Wall Street, appeared back in 1981 and used instant messaging technology. That was many years before the Web.
Another example was online gaming.
America Online's predecessor had been an "online gaming" operator. As early as 1983, the partners behind AOL's predecessor worked with Time Warner to port some Atari games onto network servers, then used customized routers to connect customer terminals and run the service as a paid operation.
However, that online gaming company, CVC, lasted less than a year before being dragged into bankruptcy by the chain reaction of Atari's great crash.
In private conversations with Steve Case, now America Online's CEO, Simon even learned something unexpected. The original idea CVC's partners had come up with was not online gaming, but an even more forward-looking concept: online music sharing.
Their idea at the time was to cooperate with Warner Records, convert Warner's music into a specific format and place it on the network, then let users pay to download music from the network as needed.
Unfortunately, that business concept was so ahead of its time that Time Warner rejected it outright, and only then did the group "settle for second best."
Until the Westeros group invested in America Online, AOL's earlier form, Quantum-Link, still primarily operated very rough online games, though it also covered basic network access services.
Because online content resources were extremely scarce in the early stages of the Internet, AOL had little choice.
Otherwise, users would connect to the network and have no idea what to do. In that case, America Online could never have survived.
Simon hoped that in the next few years, America Online could focus on core ISP business, while Ygritte played the role of Internet content provider, and SUN, Cisco, and other Westeros-system companies provided the Internet's foundational equipment.
However, for the reasons above, that clean division of labor was difficult to achieve.
In the early development stage, service providers had to provide enough content to keep users around.
As he considered all this, Simon decided to organize teams from several companies soon to discuss the next steps again. The Westeros system already held a major head start in the Internet field, and Simon didn't want that advantage to be eroded away by vague business strategy.
Once he made up his mind, Simon lifted his head. Across from his desk, his assistant set several folders down nearby and quietly began straightening his desktop.
A faint, delicate fragrance drifted over. Simon couldn't help smiling as he patted his hand toward her. "Come here."
Jennifer rolled her eyes at him. "No."
"Serious business. Come here, we need to talk."
His assistant eyed him suspiciously. After hesitating for a moment, she still walked around the desk, only to be pulled into his arms by the waist.
Pressed straight against him, her voice softened with a hint of sweet complaint. "You're lying."
Simon pressed his face against her, breathing in her scent. Only when the woman in his arms gradually melted and carefully sat on his lap did he ask, "How have things been lately?"
"How have what been?"
"I mean, while Janet and I were gone."
Jennifer braced herself with one hand on his chest, acting as if nothing was the matter. "Great. My uncle was even planning to introduce me to a boyfriend."
Simon said viciously, "Looks like I need to consider switching personal lawyers."
"You're so domineering."
Simon immediately relented. "Fine. Then I won't switch."
Jennifer's lips curved. She lifted her hand and lightly stroked his cheek. Her lashes trembled as she leaned in and kissed him once, then pushed herself up. "I still have work to do."
Simon let her go and watched her return to the other side of the desk. "I'm planning to go to San Francisco soon, to sit down with Ygritte and the other companies and really talk through the Web plans. Arrange it."
"Mm."
"And one more thing." Simon looked her over. "When we go, you're coming with me. We can have a few days alone together."
This time, she didn't answer right away.
She passed the newly delivered folders to Simon, then lifted her eyes and said softly, "You know… I really miss how it felt back then, in that little cabin in Park City."
"Park City?"
"Yes. The first year we met, and the second year too, we went to Park City for Sundance. You, me, and Janet. The three of us curled up on the sofa by the fireplace. Outside the window it was a sky full of snow and wind. It felt like the whole world was only the three of us."
Simon remembered. That should have been their second trip to Park City.
The first year, they had only just met. His assistant had even brought her best friend, Lisa Collins.
Thinking back, Simon considered it and said, "Finland is still very cold right now. After getting Nokia, I bought land near Espoo and built an estate. It should be finished by now. Maybe we can find time to go there, just the two of us?"
"No," she shook her head, lowering her eyes. "You… you and Janet only just…"
"Then we'll wait a few months. Maybe July or August. When it's summer in the Northern Hemisphere, it's deep winter in the Southern Hemisphere. We'll go to Tasmania. You know, I'm a major landowner there now. Tasmania gets heavy snow in winter too."
This time, she didn't object. She nodded, but the pale skin of her neck, revealed as she lowered her head, had already turned faintly pink.
After hesitating for a moment, she added, "We can… we can bring Janet too."
Simon said, "Not bringing her. Just us. There are cabins over there too. We'll pick a day when it's snowing and go."
Hearing him say that, Jennifer gave a barely audible "mm." Her hand moved unconsciously, rearranging a few things on Simon's desktop again. Then she seemed to realize something and said, "I… you should get back to work. I'll be outside. Um, these are last week's box office numbers and some resumes for The Flash backup candidates."
"If there's nothing urgent, you can head off first. I'll be going back soon too."
"Okay."
She responded softly and turned to leave the office.
Simon knew Jennifer definitely wouldn't leave early. He didn't say anything else. He watched her walk out, then opened the materials in front of him.
The Easter season would begin this Friday.
In March, Daenerys Entertainment released only one film, Peter Jackson's Braindead Variety Show. However, it only received a limited theatrical run in New Zealand and Australia. The content was far too extreme, and during North American ratings it was slapped with an NC-17.
Considering the possible impact on Jackson, Simon required the New World Pictures distribution team to abandon a theatrical release and go straight to home video.
Aside from that film, several Daenerys Entertainment titles from late last year and the Valentine's season, such as Pretty Woman, were still the focus of theaters lately.