Sitting down at my laptop to search for suitable and needed items, I spent the next few hours actively researching while consulting instructions from a forum for electronics enthusiasts and DIYers. I needed capacitors—not just any capacitors, but high-voltage ones, which are hard to find at a typical electronics store but can be salvaged from old CRT TVs or monitors, defibrillators, industrial lasers, or welding machines. There are options, but CRT TVs are the most obvious.
The search turned into a digital safari. I scrolled through dozens of pages on Craigslist, eBay, and some local forums/flea markets. Most of the listings were junk: single, half-dead TVs with cracked screens, selling for next to nothing. I needed standardization, identity, so that the parameters of each capacitor matched to within a fraction of a percent. I read forum debates where gray-bearded amateur engineers foamed at the mouth proving the superiority of some models over others, memorizing brands and serial numbers, building a whole database in my head. It turned out to be quite tedious, painstaking work, requiring patience and attention to detail.
The key problem was that the capacitors had to be absolutely identical! That meant buying TVs; they had to be the same model and ideally from the same batch. Such options were available, even in New York City. Some TVs weren't working, and others were too expensive. But after browsing hundreds of ads, I found what seemed like the perfect deal: twelve CRT TVs from Zuun Electronics, a brand I already knew from my laptop. All were working, all the same model, and hopefully from the same batch. They were used in the security room for streaming video from surveillance cameras. The price was more than reasonable: $30 each, or $300 for all twelve. Naturally, I couldn't pass up such a chance. The ad had appeared literally a couple of hours earlier, and judging by the number of views, New York City has quite a few electronics enthusiasts.
"Hello, I'm here about the ad!" I immediately dialed the number, and after a short conversation we agreed to meet in an hour. That would make it to Brooklyn, to the Sunset Park area, and I'd book a cargo taxi for the return trip.
The meeting place turned out to be a small warehouse in the industrial area of Sunset Park. I was met by a heavyset man of about fifty wearing a greasy cap, who eyed me skeptically.
"Are you behind the TVs?" he boomed, wiping his hands on his overalls. "Twelve grand?"
"Me," I nodded, trying to look confident.
"What do you need them for, kid?" He squinted. "Are you overcome with nostalgia? Or are you some kind of artist, doing an installation? I had one of those here; he used to buy old irons. He built a pyramid out of them."
My mind raced. Telling the truth about high-voltage capacitors would attract unnecessary attention.
"Something like that," I answered evasively. "Video art. I want to make a wall of screens, each displaying the same static noise. Conceptually. About alienation in the information society."
The legend of video art was born spontaneously, woven from scraps of articles about contemporary art I'd once read and the memory of John, who was actually an art college student. It was pretentious and strange enough to ring true to someone unfamiliar with the subject. The key was to speak confidently, with a bored air, as if it were a matter of course.
The man thought for a second, then burst out laughing.
"Young people, what a bunch! Three-hundred-dollar screen noise! In my day, we'd just rip out the antenna, and there you have it, free alienation. Okay, let's go, I'll show you your 'conceptual art.'"
He led me deep into the warehouse, where twelve identical cubes bearing the Zuun Electronics logo sat gathering dust on a pallet. They looked like dinosaurs from a bygone era.
— Workers, just like I wrote in the ad. You can check.
"I'll take your word for it," I said quickly, taking out the cash I'd withdrawn earlier. I didn't want him to see the predatory gleam in my eyes as I stared not at the screens but at their interiors.
After paying and calling a cargo taxi, I waited at the warehouse gate, feeling like a quasi-spy who had just pulled off a covert operation to acquire components for a superweapon under the guise of buying antiques for a bored artist, haha.
It's 2 PM, and I'm happy with the deal of the century, although the credit dollars are getting smaller and smaller with each expenditure; I don't want to sink to the point where I open another credit card... But as long as there's money, you can live without worrying and create, haha.
Back home, I set about finding the next essential components, which was a lot simpler. A shabby but good microwave for $20, a diode, resistors, a sheet of plexiglass, several wooden boxes, lead foil, foam rubber, a soldering iron, a multimeter, dielectric tongs, high-voltage wires, and a bunch of other small items. Honestly, by 6 PM I was already tired of running back and forth across the city, and that's despite the fact that everything had cost me another few hundred dollars. I estimated I had about $500 left on the card, and I already had ideas on how to make money. But to do that, I absolutely needed to create the Potion of Intelligence. Fortunately, the preparatory stage was partially completed, so I could get started!
Looking around the small studio, which my purchases had made even smaller, I realized the scene was surreal. Twelve bulky CRT televisions, like tombstones from a bygone era. A shiny, nearly new microwave oven, purchased only to be mercilessly gutted. Skeins of wire, bags of resistors and diodes, sheets of plexiglass and lead foil, a soldering iron still in its blister pack. It all resembled props for a low-budget mad scientist film.
I sat down on the floor and took it all in. Hundreds of dollars drained from my credit card lay before me in a pile of old and new junk. For a moment, doubt gripped me. What if it doesn't work? What if I burn out the capacitors? Or the transformer fails? What if this whole undertaking is just an expensive fool's errand, inspired by a strange glitch in my head that I call the System? But then I looked at my laptop, where the Marx Generator schematic was still open. And the doubts vanished. The fear of failure was there, but the thirst for creation, the desire to assemble this complex and dangerous machine with my own hands, was stronger. This was a challenge. Not only to the System, but to myself as well. A test of strength, intelligence, and precision. I stood up, cracking my knuckles. Enough reflecting. It was time to transform this chaos into a functioning device.
Before building the generator itself, I needed to figure out a power source. I needed a high-voltage DC source to charge the capacitors. Oddly enough, the best "garage" option for this is a modified microwave oven transformer (MOT), which is actually why I bought the microwave. After disassembling the metal box, I pulled out the transformer—the part that converts household 110/220 volts AC to about 2,000 volts. True, I needed DC, not AC, but this microwave had a high-voltage diode that I could simply connect to one of the transformer's outputs. It would only pass current in one direction, converting the AC to pulsating DC. This is enough to charge the generator.
Disassembling the microwave was an act of deliberate vandalism. I wasn't fixing it, I was breaking it, but with a clear purpose. With every screw I loosened, every panel I removed, I felt like a surgeon dissecting a body to access a vital organ. And there it was—the transformer. Heavy, massive, with its thick copper windings; it looked like the heart of this microwave, though in a way, it was. Looking at it, I saw not just a piece of iron and copper, but a key that would allow me to raise the voltage of the household line to lethal levels. This was my first real step from theory and procurement to practice.
Okay, I figured out the power supply; now I needed to desolder the capacitors from the TVs. I did just that, carefully checking each one with a multimeter for capacitance and the absence of breakdown. I was lucky here: the TVs were indeed from the same batch, and all the capacitors were fine. Next, I took a sheet of plexiglass and marked out a "ladder"—the locations for twelve capacitors, which would be arranged in two rows of six; this would be the generator chassis.
The next step was to mount the components; I attached the capacitors, high-voltage resistors, and homemade arresters (two round-head screws screwed into a piece of plexiglass 3–5 mm apart) to the base of the sheet.
Wiring is the most important step! Using high-voltage wires, I connected all the capacitors in parallel via resistors to my power source (a microwave transformer and a diode from the same source). The positive side of the power source, from the resistor, connects to the positive side of all the capacitors, and the negative side connects to all the negative sides. This ensures that all stages are slowly and simultaneously charged. Next, I connected the capacitors in series via spark gaps, meaning the positive side of the first capacitor connects to the negative side of the second through a spark gap, the positive side of the second connects to the negative side of the third through the next spark gap, and so on.