Chapter 9

As a High School student Carlton had been withdrawn and quiet, unsocial and uninvolved. One of his teachers had been convinced that he was using drugs because he was so pale and tired. In reality, he had been up late into the night, designing, building and refining his electrically independent computer. He drew his own blood for it, leading to symptoms of anemia. His prototype was, in retrospect, an archaic fossil as soon as it was operational, but he won a National competition with it.