The Founding of Henry 1 Capital
After the meeting concluded, Henry made his way to the Button R&D department. It had originally started under the grandiose name "Controller R&D," but with the joystick market proving so unprofitable, the team had effectively been reduced to refining button mechanisms alone. That was why the name had been changed to Button R&D.
Stepping into the office space, Henry saw a set of drawings sketched by Palisec spread across the desk, alongside a prototype button several times larger than life-size—big enough to fit in an adult's palm—built so they could examine its internal structure.
"Boss, just like you asked, I added a central pivot point to act as a support. It definitely reduced the simultaneous up-down-left-right input errors. But that 'feel' and 'tactile response' you keep emphasizing… I still don't quite get what you mean."
At Palisec's question, Henry slowly pressed the oversized prototype button, studying its structure. A dull plastic friction sound echoed through the room.
"Palisec, tactile response isn't some grand concept. It's the sum of every sensation that reaches your fingertips when you press the button. This one feels too stiff. 'Feel' is the reaction to that pressure—the crisp rebound after the right amount of resistance, and the clean click you hear."
Ah, in 2026 terms this would just be "buttery key feel." Explaining it to a 1970s engineer is giving me a headache.
With Palisec watching, Henry pressed the button deeply once more and continued.
"Right now it takes too much force. You might think it's because the prototype is oversized, but even at this scale it should operate smoothly with a single finger—like pressing the number buttons on a modern electronic calculator. The moment you press it, you need to feel absolute certainty that 'yes, it registered.'"
"Hmm. So you're saying we should use conductive rubber at the button contact points? Boss, that would drive manufacturing costs through the roof. It doesn't make financial sense."
"Palisec, we can't cheap out on a few cents per button and sacrifice user satisfaction and Enjoy's brand value. We're building a premium product. Premium products require premium components. Use the rubber's elasticity to create that smooth rebound. I'll handle the cost issues—you just focus on quality. And we'll need to revisit the internal design. The friction between plastic parts every time the directional pad is pressed is excessive. Optimize the layout to minimize interference."
Henry ran his hands over the prototype and pointed out the most critical design flaw.
"The most important thing is the pivot's position. Instead of the current setup where the pivot sits on top and the directional pad rests underneath, we need to reverse it. Anchor the pivot at the bottom so the directional pad rocks like a seesaw on top. That'll make inputs both precise and smooth. Also, the outer plastic surface should be contoured with a concave slope to match the shape of a thumb—so you can control it perfectly by feel alone, without even looking."
"Pivot at the bottom… and a curved surface tailored to the thumb. Understood, Boss. I'll redesign it from that perspective. That does sound more mechanically sound."
Palisec, once again impressed by Henry's insight, began quickly jotting the revisions onto the drawings. He continued nodding as he noted down Henry's further instructions.
Henry released the prototype and stared at the now-cold coffee on the table.
"Right now we're building straight from my rough sketches because we don't have a separate design team yet, but what we're making isn't just a machine—it's a portable game console. Portability isn't achieved simply by making something small. We have to consider the center of gravity, the texture of the casing, even the thickness when it's slipped into a pocket. It should feel like an extension of the body, not just another item you carry."
Henry turned to face Palisec directly and went on.
"But the most important thing in gaming is ultimately the enjoyment the user feels. And that enjoyment isn't determined solely by the logical structure on the screen. The pleasure transmitted through your fingertips when you press these buttons is also a massive pillar of fun. That's exactly why we have to obsess over button structure and design. The moment a user holds the device, the game has already begun."
Palisec's expression suggested he finally understood why Henry was so fixated on tactile response. However, Henry's philosophy—that hardware and software must work in organic harmony—simply registered with the 1979 engineer as "Our president really cares about the hardware team," a fiery source of motivation.
Well, whether it's a misunderstanding or not, as long as he works hard that's all that matters. Passion projects usually start with misunderstandings anyway.
With that, Enjoy's direction was perfectly established. All Henry had left to do was deliver the final verdict once the prototype was ready. Hovering over their shoulders and micromanaging would improve the quality, but it was only a matter of time before his limited knowledge ran out. Henry made a graceful exit before his bluff was called.
Henry headed straight upstairs to another personally owned company that had set up shop there: Henry 1 Capital. The name was rather plain, but it didn't matter. More respectable names like "Henry Capital" or "Henry Investment" had already been taken, and this company was, in a sense, little more than a paper company that would only need to exist for about a year at most.
. . .
Friday, June 22, 1979. The summer air in New York clung with humidity, and the office rang with the constant clamor of ringing telephones, resembling a battlefield. Charles K. Hinton had been gripped by a strange feeling lately.
The trauma of once ruling Wall Street only to pour his own money in and nearly go bankrupt had turned him into the perfect passive operator. If it wasn't his own money, there was no trembling, no responsibility, and even his hair-loss worries had vanished. The disclaimer "I'm merely your fingers" had become the armor he wore to survive the jungle of Wall Street.
Yet this employer—the young head of a reclusive landowner family, Henry—seemed to see straight through that armor. He had inherited the authority and vast fortune of a family that signed the Declaration of Independence, yet he had abandoned the family business to borrow enormous sums in his own name and go around building game consoles. On paper he sounded like a typical spoiled heir, but the man Charles had actually met possessed an entirely different texture.
His eyes are far too seasoned to belong to some handsome young master. Like a gambler who already knows everyone's cards.
To Charles, Henry was the most alien and peculiar figure among all the wealthy men he had ever encountered. The moment they shook hands at their first meeting, Henry had cut straight to the point.
"I hear you're an excellent technician. I'll be moving $39 million, and I'll be moving it legitimately. We'll sign a fund management agency contract. As an S-Corp specializing in silver investment, we'll split the corporate operating accounts. I'll also file a proactive report with the CFTC. If you assign a few people, we can split the purchases further to avoid drawing attention to the market."
Charles was taken aback but answered on instinct.
"With fifteen quick-handed people including myself, we can do ghost accumulation—each person trading through three brokers with time offsets."
"Then on your first day, we'll file the report with the CFTC. 'Our company highly values silver and will make diversified investments through fifteen managers.'"
The interview had taken less than a minute.
And on Monday, June 18—before the awkwardness of his first official day had even faded—Henry walked in, checked whether the report had been sent, then calmly dropped a bombshell in the middle of the sixteen-person office.
"COMEX in New York, CBOT in Chicago, LME in London. Scrape up every ounce of silver you can from those three exchanges. Leverage is fixed at exactly three times. As the price rises, use the profits as collateral to chase with more buys. Not even a 1% margin of error is allowed. Let's begin. Ah, and don't forget to keep the trade logs and reports."
Everyone stared in stunned silence, but Henry left only those words behind before slipping into his own office. The moment the door closed, Henry collapsed into his chair, biting his lip as conflict washed over him.
Right, I need to get in before the Hunt brothers set the stage. Though three times leverage might be pushing it a bit. Tch, what can I do without seed money? Even if I know it'll cause problems later, I have to scrape together every last bit I can. Still… would a little more greed really hurt?
Even Charles, who knew none of this, felt doubts about Henry's orders. The silver market was already stirring with rumors of Middle Eastern capital flowing in. In this insane game, Henry wanted them to file every proper report and still throw in $39 million—with leverage on top of it. But Charles didn't ask. That was the duty of a finger.
Still, a corner of his chest felt heavy.
Before long, the employees—who hadn't even properly introduced themselves—threw themselves into their work under Charles's direction. The office quickly filled with the sounds of telephone rings and flipping transaction slips. Fifty contracts one day, a hundred the next. Under Charles's command, the fifteen operators silently absorbed silver volume through thousands of split orders routed across a web of corporate accounts.
On Friday the 22nd, right after accumulation was complete, the report came up. Only then did Henry emerge from his room, skim the report he had written, and speak in a relaxed, languid tone.
"Hmm. 2,690 contracts at an average of $8.70. The results are better than I expected, Charles. From now on, as I mentioned, we'll move into pyramiding while maintaining the three-times leverage. But for the time being we need profits to accumulate as collateral, so until then just focus on market research. And take turns with some of the staff—three days of vacation each."
With that single remark, Henry slipped back into his room.
An employer who only came to the office to hole up in his room without a single conversation. As a machine he shouldn't be curious, but Charles was still human. Unable to contain his curiosity about what grand strategy was being plotted inside that room, he casually asked the errand boy who had been bringing coffee.
"What's he doing in there?"
"Oh, nothing special. He was drawing cartoon-like pictures. Lately he's been sketching strange cars. They looked pretty good to me."
Is he insane? That was Charles's first thought. But as he continued thinking, a chill ran down his spine.
Ordinary employers would be clutching the phone and screaming if the index so much as moved 1%. Their checking intervals would shrink from hourly to every ten minutes, then to every minute. Yet had Henry ever once asked him for the price? Not even once. He was calmer and more composed than Charles, who was managing someone else's money as his job.
This young family head had thrown $39 million into the fire and was now sitting there drawing pictures as if watching a distant blaze. Was such composure even humanly possible?
Unless he's come from the future…
Henry had never once asked about the market price. Outside the office was a battlefield of brokers' screams and ringing phones from the surging silver prices, but beyond that door there was only the sound of pen scratching and paper turning. He treated $39 million as casually as a dime in his own pocket.
Charles tightened his grip on the sweat-slicked receiver. He had tried to ignore it, but a single question kept slithering through his mind like a viper.
Did that man already know what was going to happen in the silver market? Or was $39 million truly pocket change to him?
And then he realized the true nature of that strange feeling he had never once encountered despite meeting countless gamblers on Wall Street over the years. The expression Henry had shown at their first meeting—the one Charles could never interpret—wasn't hope or bravado. It was the firm certainty of someone who already knew the answer to a math problem. The certainty of a foregone conclusion.