^{Albany, Texas - May 12th 1984}

Jim White was a small time independent stock trader, he'd had his ups and downs over the years but mostly he'd managed to bumble along keeping things on an even keel, but recently he was having a problem.  He just could not deal with all the new computer trading systems that were taking over his world.  He was sure that his time as a trader was slowly but surely coming to an end and he was right.  There were so many hot shot kids coming up through the ranks and they all new how to work strings of trades far faster than he could every cope to deal with.  He was becoming a has been, he knew it and there wasn't a damned thing he could do about it.

But then the package arrived.  In it were instructions, very detailed instructions for a stock trade that someone wanted him to carry out.  The funds had already been transferred to his trading account.  When he realized the amount of money involved Jim got nervous.  He called the phone number included in the package to try and call the whole thing off, it was too big for him.  The voice on the phone reassured him nothing was untoward and that he was under no obligation to cover any losses.  The voice on the phone told him that the trade orders were based on some very serious new computer prediction results and that if he carried out the instruction to the letter he would make himself a very nice commission.

The predictions turned out to be startlingly accurate, a moment after the order to sell the stock was passed the price started tumbling.   Working the floors over the years you sometimes saw well timed trades but this one was different.  This one reeked of inside information.   The trade instructions had been delivered by mail over three weeks ago, which in itself was not particularly unusual. There were many people that traded by post in strong stocks which never varied much, but these were not secure commodities, these were extremely volatile ones.  The fact was that there was no way any computer prediction could have been this accurate from that long ago, it just wasn’t possible. 

The instructions the package contained were both lengthy and detailed.  The client had specified exact purchase and sale times down to the second with a string of caveats attached.  The conditions were all ordered on the probability of them having any relevant effect on the trade stock, and none of them had been above 8%.  As it turned out none of those listed ever came to pass.  The trade was as smooth as butter.

Jim looked over the figures and whistled,  whoever the client was they had just cleared over sixty eight million dollars profit on what was essentially a five minute trade.  Pretty tasty all things considered.  Jim clapped his hands together and rubbed them furiously, the commission on this one single trade would get him out of the business before he was forced out by all those hotshots on his heels. 

'Yes Sir, good day at the office', he laughed and decided to take the rest of the day off.