“Next birthday when you turn eighteen, you and I will do some real celebrating, okay?” Ariel said. Then she laughed and waved to them all as she turned and walked through the door.
******
Siarnaq had stopped short of telling Ariel everything he had learned about Mikkel when he touched her, and now he realized how that had been a good thing. Ariel’s job mattered a lot to her, and her very essence was teeming with information about the people with whom she worked. Lying by her side, Siarnaq had seen near-futures for Ariel’s boss and co-workers and other clients. Much of it made no sense to him, as he didn’t know the people and had only sketchy information about much of their culture. However, one story of the many had stuck out for him.
An Icelandic man, tall, thin and very blond, was part of Ariel’s world also. This man worked with money—in fact he lived for money. Siarnaq had been unable to tell why. He had seen this man’s future, in which the man became increasingly annoyed by a fellow investor from Greenland and in which the man became determined to put a stop to this Greenlander’s activities.
Ariel was right when she pointed out how knowledge sometimes came with the visions. Siarnaq hadn’t really thought about it before, but he did more than see things. When he had a vision, he knew things as well. Not all the knowledge about what he saw, just some of the relevant details, much like those that were attached to a memory, just like Ariel described.
The result was that Siarnaq knew that the Greenlander went by Mikkel Nygaard. The Icelander was simply called Baldur. He did not know why either Mikkel or Baldur did what he did, or how either man did it. But he did know that soon, this Baldur was going to begin looking hard for ways to put a complete stop to his competitor Mikkel.
When he did, Siarnaq intended to find a way to be there, and to offer Baldur his services.
******
Toby waived to Ariel from across the hotel bar in Frankfurt. He was a handsome, well-tanned man in his mid-fifties.
“You look just like your pictures,” he said as he gestured for her to have a seat. “Can I buy you a drink?”
“Absolutely, and thanks for meeting me like this.”
“No problem. If you don’t mind my saying so, your family seems to have a bit of a penchant for getting into trouble.”
“And for getting out of it,” Ariel added. “At least so far.”
“Let’s hope that continues,” Toby said. “You’ve got a tiger by the tail here. How much do you know about y1? “
“It’s an online organization of people interested in both economics and philosophy. Zane loves that stuff. Worldwide wealth distribution, the human need and right to achieve and be rewarded versus the human need and obligation for fairness and to help others. What you talk about is idealistic, maybe even in some weird way spiritual. I wouldn’t think too many serious investors frequent your website.”
Toby looked thoughtful. “We’re not a bunch of radicals trying to overthrow the world economy, Ariel. In fact, some serious investors do spend quite a bit of time on my site. Making money from money has practical and philosophical implications for the well being of humanity, and a number of those who do it well are thoughtful people who want to engage in discussions on this topic. There are reasonable arguments either way as to whether this relatively new phenomenon is making the world a better or worse place for all of us.”
Ariel didn’t say anything, and Toby waited quietly as well.
“Is Baldur a member of your group?” Ariel finally asked.
“No, he is not. If he is aware of us, he considers us irrelevant.”
“Would you let him join if he wanted to?” Ariel asked. It looked like Toby had offered all the information that he was going to without coaxing from her.
“No, I don’t think so. We are a private group—we can pick and choose our members. Respectful participation is the number one requirement, but there are others.”
Ariel hesitated. How much did she want to push her brother’s friend for information? “What requirements would Baldur violate, assuming that he is capable of respectful discussion?”
Toby smiled slightly. “I suppose he is capable of that. We also require that members not join for the purpose of furthering their own self-serving agenda.” Then he added as an afterthought. “Some would argue of course that we humans are incapable of doing anything but trying to further our own self-serving agendas. I happen to disagree.”
“So do I,” Ariel said. She hadn’t thought about it much before, but now as she said it she realized that it was true. “Would you care to know who the last person was who expressed that particular philosophy of ‘humans are always selfish’ to me?”
“I would,” Toby nodded. “But I’m going to go out on limb here and guess it might have been Baldur. Was he trying to recruit you?”
“I’m not sure exactly what he was trying to do,” Ariel deflected the question. “Listen, I oversee his account with a firm that furnishes the hardware and writes the software that he uses for his high frequency trading. All we do is make proprietary modification to our programs for him. I’m not required to like him or his business practices, only to see that his work gets done on time and that any confidential issues remain confidential. Is there any kind of conflict to keep you from telling me why your group talks about him so much and yet wouldn’t let him join?”
“Probably not,” Toby acknowledged. “Okay, y1 members are all over the place about money and how much people should accumulate and so on. But I think we’d all agree that if one person or small group of people had some odd advantage, some unknown capability that would allow them over time to basically suck all the wealth of the world away from everyone else, that would be wrong. It would be immoral to some, and just a lousy world to live in as far as others would be concerned, but we’d all be fighting it. Luckily the gods of chance rule the universe. No one keeps winning at the craps table forever—no one—so we spend a lot of our time at y1 talking instead about how much of an advantage is too much of one.”
“You think Baldur has some kind of advantage in investing?” Ariel asked, thinking of Jake back in the office and his certainty that Baldur had exactly that.
“Lots of people have some kind of advantage in investing. I think that Baldur has much more than that. Baldur has found a way to remove chance, at least statistically. When all else is even, he wins over time, and his percentages keep getting a little better. Several y1 members fear that Baldur could be capable of quietly amassing most of the wealth of the world, although at the rate he is going it will take him a few decades to do it. Luckily things could be very different in twenty years or so, and many people in y1 are now trying to figure out what needs to be changed to keep this man and his company from owning everything in our lifetimes.
Ariel grimaced. “You blame my company?”
“Of course not. Ullow has dozens of major clients, and they are all making money. However, they are making slightly less than they used to, in spite of your company’s best efforts and the efforts of their own staff. It’s incremental, but changes in fractions of a percent are the name of the game, even though it is hard to raise concern about something so gradual. He’s smart, this Baldur. We’re worried that by the time governing bodies become wise to what’s happening, d4 will be too powerful to stop.”
“So what do you expect me to do? Go back to work and pretend like I never heard this? I can’t spy on him for you.”
Toby said nothing.
“I mean I’ve signed agreements and stuff. I could go to jail.”
Toby continued to say nothing, and Ariel realized that he was trying to give her time to process what he had just told her.
“Take over the world? Seriously? How sure are you people?” she asked.
“If it would help you to make a decision, Ariel, I’ll open up all the discussions to you and let you read everything for yourself. Your company is doing nothing wrong. I mean there are some ethical issues with the inherent unfairness of high frequency trading,
but that’s nothing compared to what d4 is doing. I don’t think it’s a good idea for you to become a member of y1, or even for anyone to know that you met with me or read this stuff. So, here.” He shoved sheets of printouts into her hands, and as he did, she had a quick premonition of him assuring his cohorts that Ariel Zeitman was now on their side. There appeared to be a more than ninety-percent chance of that happening after she read this stuff.
“So this information is that compelling?” she said in surprise. Toby gave her an odd look.
“You read it and you tell me. No wait—don’t tell me anything. We will both be better off if we don’t communicate directly again. For your safety, I want to keep you removed from us. Your brother is our best source of contact from now on. Let him know what you think after you read this and he can contact me.”
“Okay,” Ariel said. “You might convince me to join your cause. Zane will be in touch.”
11. In the Heart of Spring
Baldur stared out of his office window, considering black swans. Not real black swans, of course, but the theory for which they stood. As a man well schooled in all types of economics, Baldur was acutely aware of the occasional occurrence of an event that was outside of the realm of normal expectations and yet appeared so obvious in hindsight. He knew these metaphorical black swans by definition went on to produce significant consequences, and they were thought by some theorists to in fact be what drove human history.
Baldur hoped not, because he had two potential black swans sitting clearly in front of him and the last thing that he wanted now was unexpected consequences.
The first potential black swan had red hair.
It had taken Baldur two years of searching to find ten other investors who had a skill similar to his own. In the turmoil of 2009 and 2010, they had left their telltale marks in their day-trading records. Because he was from Iceland, he naturally began his search in his home country, and was happy to find four worthy candidates right there in his homeland. His calculations, however, showed that he needed several more “board members,” and so d4 had gone international.
None of the ten he ended up with had fully understood their own capabilities when he found them. Each described himself or herself as uncommonly lucky. Certainly none of them had grasped the implications for what they could accomplish if they banded together. Baldur had explained to them what they were capable of and taught them to be better at what they did. He had unified them and led them, and that was how d4 had been formed. It was the first investment company ever that over time couldn’t lose.
Of course, they also handled the money of many others who lacked their skills, and these people made a decent enough profit, too. At least, d4 saw to it that they did well enough to keep them from going elsewhere, because Baldur and his party of ten needed the legitimacy of the other investors and needed some of their capital to play with as well. These others would lose in the end, but it would be a gradual loss that wouldn’t become apparent for years.
Baldur considered the existence of others like him to have been totally predictable. There is almost never such a thing in nature as a one and only. Yet through all the searching for and developing of the others, he had never really considered that a person might have the same skill set he did, but attuned to a much different frequency. Seeing the immediate future made sense to him. After all, the next few seconds were fairly well set in stone and this predictability was what gave him such a huge advantage.
This girl, however, his one black swan, had genuinely surprised him. She saw the much messier world of next week and next month. He had found the fragments of the future that she received to be hard to interpret, and he supposed that they would be even harder to act upon. Frankly, he didn’t know how she survived with all the possibilities coming at her like he himself had felt at her touch. He thought that such a gift would have driven a weaker individual insane long ago.
Maybe that was why he had never met another like her, he thought. Maybe the others who could see what she did were all bonkers and locked away. At any rate, her very existence was a threat to him. Last time they had met, she had surely picked up on his skill set as adeptly as he had discovered hers. Apparently, touch could do that.
Baldur had always known that his own gift was related to skin contact, but touch through electronic means like his keyboard worked quite well for him, perhaps even better than touching other humans or their things. That didn’t surprise him; he knew that the very phenomenon of touch was nothing more than electromagnetic signals being sent throughout the body. Thank god it did work that way, because he hardly could walk around a stock exchange running his hands over everyone.
Given the nature of their encounter, Baldur was pretty sure that Ariel’s gift worked by touch as well.
He knew that he had been foolish to let her know that he had seen her gift. After their first meeting, he should have just pretended like nothing had happened. Then he could have avoided putting any useful items within her reach, including his own body, and he could have pushed Ullow to transfer her back to London as soon as possible. Not expecting to find someone like him, eventually she would have surmised that she had imagined the whole thing. That would have been the safest and most logical solution.
Instead he had done the opposite, showing up during her meeting with Ulfur with full intention of learning more, maybe much more, by using all the skin contact he could arrange. Why? Because only investors who took risks made the big money? No, he scolded himself. He had done it because for once acting safely and logically had not sounded like nearly as much fun. Even with the first graze of her hand, he had guessed that he would find a way to use what she could offer.
Unfortunately, the second encounter hadn’t happened quite the way he had hoped. Her very touch had set off receptors that he didn’t even realize he possessed. He had been drawn to her and her body and what she could do and know. He felt the power of what he could become if he was linked with her, if their bodies became as one, and he had found himself craving that power with a frightening intensity. Worse yet, he was certain that she had seen that yearning in his eyes and heard it in his voice.
He should have pretended like it was merely sexual. That would have been such an easy way to recover, and she probably would have believed it. Women all liked to think that they were insanely desirable. But no, drunk with lust for what she could give him the ability to do, he had gone on to make dumb boasts that confirmed the situation.
Now, she was wary, and maybe even scared. She had to be looking for information to confirm her suspicions about him. Sooner or later she’d find a way to see him and his group in her future, and she might realize what d4 was really about. Then she would probably feel compelled to stop him somehow or to warn others. The black swan would have changed history.
Of course, the Cassandras of the world who predicted doom and gloom had a poor record of being believed, but Baldur knew that he could not take that chance. Once scrutiny on a surprisingly successful small investment company from the insignificant nation of Iceland began, others could do simple statistical analysis and verify that this particular Cassandra was on to something. Rules would be passed to slow him down or stop him. Fines could be levied to take away what he already had. He might even be prohibited from trading at all.
Was there any way that this black swan could be used to his advantage?
Baldur considered. It might be possible to combine his short- and her long-term knowledge. Such a combination would certainly accelerate his plans. High frequency trading done under the radar only made him money in tiny increments. Lots and lots of tiny increments, but it was still going to be a slow process to get to where he wanted to go.
Ariel saw a different future, and her visions would be perfect for short-term investing, for trading in futures and options and other derivatives that paid much bigger money. She could be the best asset in the world for him, he realized with a growing hunger. If it went well, in a matter of months he could accomplish what he
had expected to spend years achieving. Could she be persuaded to work with him? Why not? He could promise her the moon.
That brought him to his second problem, his other black swan. Was it even possible to have two of them at once?
He was certain that no unknown investor out there of any significance possessed his skills. Yet another man, this Mikkel Nygaard fellow, had developed an uncanny ability to piggy back on Baldur’s successes and was managing to cut ever so slightly into Baldur’s gradual increase in profits. While the rest of the world was just beginning to quietly fret about a tiny drop in the rate at which their overall earnings were increasing, Mikkel was managing to avoid the problem and even grow his percentage of the take. How was that possible?
Eoin had already explained to Baldur all about how the man was hell-bent on keeping up with d4 and always wanted whatever tools Baldur had. Baldur had originally found the hero worship to be kind of flattering, and had accepted Eoin’s advice to humor the man sometimes and let him get an occasional leg up on the rest of the world by copying what Baldur did. So he had a puppy who wanted to imitate him. What was the harm?
Recent analysis, however, had shown that Mikkel was a surprisingly effective puppy. He and his one-man company had amassed much more money than Baldur had realized. This comparable success of anyone outside of d4 had not been predictable. His first black swan could perhaps be turned to his advantage, but this effective imitator could not. Enough was enough. It didn’t matter how the man was managing to copy so successfully, or why he was so obsessed with d4. Baldur made a call to Eoin to set up a meeting. It was time to put a stop to it.
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