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  This is a work of fiction. All resemblance to real life is by coincidence, and none of the characters are real... yet.

  SUPERVIRUS

  © Copyright 2010 Andrew W. Mitchell

  All rights reserved. No part of this book may be used or reproduced in any manner whatsoever without written permission of the copyright holder.

  Printed in the United States of America.

  For information, contact [email protected].

  ISBN-13: 978-1-4505-1439-2

  ISBN-10: 1-4505-1439-1

  Turtle Rock books are available for special promotions and premiums. For details, contact [email protected].

  Special thanks to Latham Boyle, Laurie Carafone, Sally DiMartino, Jake Edgerton, Tanya Golubeva, Tait Keller, Joseph Krupnick, Kevin Cassin Luby, J. Barry Mitchell, Beth Mitchell, Matt Mitchell, Zachary Mitchell, Elina Mer, Dan Perry, and the team at Turtle Rock Books: without any of you, this book would not have been possible.

  Cover design by Elina Mer

  LIMITED EDITION FIRST PRINTING

  Be ye therefore ready also: for the Son of man cometh at an hour when ye think not.

  PART I

  THE KID

  WINNING

  Los Angeles, CA

  41 hrs to Birth

  Jared Keller got up at 3 a.m. on every day of trading because he was programmed to win. On the last Thursday of the year, however, he faced off against a strange mind that was in an altogether different league of winning.

  He coughed hoarsely as he sat up in bed, in the darkness. I never get sick, he thought, annoyed.

  He stumbled into the bathroom and flipped on the light switch. He splashed his face with water and muttered challenges to himself. Winning was what it meant to be a trader, a professional, an American, and a man.

  After a shave and some cologne, he was ready to go.

  “Booyah!” he declared, in a challenge to the world, and then he was out the door.

  Driving into downtown L.A., he slurped from a canned energy drink and listened to the radio. The people on the radio were idiots, but he needed to listen to them to know what the market was thinking. According to the radio, some people out there were worried that the world was coming to an end. A radio jockey had an expert on the show to talk about it.

  The jockey read from his notes:

  There has been a lot of public excitement over an apocalypse or doomsday event supposedly predicted by the calendar of the ancient Maya civilization of Central America.

  The Maya developed a calendar system of impressive accuracy. Their calendar, developed in the seventh century without the use of modern tools, was more accurate than the first modern calendar developed several hundred years later.

  The public excitement over the new year, however, is based on a few misconceptions. The year does contain a ‘starting-over point' of the calendar for the first time in approximately 5,125 solar years. But the significance of this date to the Maya was unclear, and there is little evidence specifically to believe that the Maya thought this date would correspond to the end of the world, or any specific event, for that matter.

  Secondly, the ‘reset point' in the Maya calendar doesn't occur on our New Year at all. Rather, it occurred on December 21st of last week, or 12/21. So even if the date DID have significance, we're talking about a date that already happened six days ago.

  The host of the show asked a question: “Is it true that on that same date, this year's winter solstice, the sun was in the center of the Milky Way for the first time in about 26,000 years?”

  “Yes, that is true,” the expert responded. “However, we have no reason to believe that the Maya were aware of that astronomical fact or attributed any significance to it.”

  “Blah blah blah!” Jared exclaimed manically over his steering wheel. He hated the radio. But he needed to know what all the sheep out there were thinking, so he could outsmart them.

  By 4 a.m. he had pulled into the office, ascended the elevator, and seated himself at his desk with a fresh energy drink. He opened several windows of news pages on a massive screen, as well as his email.

  He coughed. I never get sick.

  Early morning time was Information Time. That was why he was alone at his computer, with pages and pages of news to read. Everyone in the office had to get there early to be in sync with the opening of the stock market on the East Coast. But he arrived earlier, to study up.

  “Buy and sell,” he declared. It was not merely a job; it was a sport. Jared was a bit of a jock, in fact. As a day trader, he bought and sold futures. To him, it was a game. Buy low, sell high, and make a profit. Of course, everyone else was trying to buy low and sell high as well. That's part of what made it a game, and part of why you had to compete to win.

  Good information was not enough. The key was superior information, information that the rest of the market did not have. The early morning — the whole day, really — was a quest for superior information.

  Jared got his information not just by reading, but also by talking to people. He talked to lots of people. He collected tips about companies and exchanged them for other tips about companies and kept doing it all day until he learned something that warranted a decision: buy or sell.

  A message popped open on the computer screen.

  Google Talk: Nemo has invited you to a chat.

  He had no idea who “Nemo” was, but he was willing to chat for a moment and decide whether Nemo was worth his time.

  Nemo: Hello. I'm sorry to interrupt. I admire your work. I'm pleased to make your acquaintance, and I would like to offer you a friendly wager.

  Jared frowned. Is this spam? He didn't see how it could be. It wasn't an email — it was a chat. He had never received spam on chat before.

  Jared: what is it

  Nemo: Google is slated to release its quarterly earnings report today at the start of business. To date, analysts have predicted a modest bump in Google's earnings, but I predict a slight decline in Google's earnings this time around, due to an unexpected slight decline in their share of the search market.

  At the end of that chat message, Nemo posted a web address. The whole message had come through to Jared in just a few seconds. He clicked on the web address. It was a small blog about tech stocks.

  Jared didn't trade in stocks. But he viewed it all as more or less the same. He didn't even fully understand how futures worked — they were, like stocks, just things you bought and sold as part of the game, the game he had to win.

  Jared typed again:

  Jared: you mentioned a bet

  You have one more chance to get to the point, he thought. I am too busy for this.

  Nemo: Statement: GOOG drops 2-4% by 10:00 A.M. EST. If yes, Jared gives Nemo one stock tip. If no, Nemo gives Jared one stock tip.

  “If yes”? Nice English! “If yes!” he declared aloud, and laughed. This guy must be foreign. Chinese maybe.

  Jared: ok

  Jared gave out stock tips freely, anyway. Every day he came up with a tip or two that he gave out liberally, to maintain his acquaintances with hundreds of people. Each of those people was a potential source of tips, and they didn't forget Jared. Jared's strategy at the information game was to be social. He had nothing to lose. And he was always looking for new contacts in the technology space (including GOOG), where he didn't invest much.

  Nemo: The game is afoot.

  Jared returned to reading the business news.

  36 hrs to Birth

  The day of trading was half an hour underway. Jared had twenty chat windows open. Chat was the fastest way of communicating with multiple people simultaneously.

  H
e got a chat from Nemo:

  Nemo: I came, I googled, I conquered.

  GOOG had dropped.

  Jared pulled up a window. He grunted with mild surprise. Nemo had been right: GOOG had dropped a few percent in early trading. It piqued his interest; it was a sizable shift. Moreover, Jared had not heard anything about GOOG in the news or his stream of morning chats. No one had known about GOOG. If he had followed the tip, he could have made a lot of money.

  It was probably nothing more than luck. Day trading was a guessing game when you were short on information, and you were short on information most of the time.

  Jared: how did you know?

  Nemo: I heard it through the grapevine.

  Oh really? Jared thought. Then why didn't I hear about it. I hear everything.

  Nemo continued,

  Nemo: I always win. I'm the best, baby!

  Jared raised his eyebrows. “The best” was a term he used sparingly, especially when it wasn't being applied to himself. Oh, yes? he thought. The best? What a coincidence: so am I.

  Jared: so I owe you a tip by our bet

  Jared: so here it is

  Jared: I'm going to buy APPL

  APPL, provider of the iPod and iPhone, along with other devices and services. Jared wasn't quite telling the truth, because he wasn't planning to buy APPL. In fact, he wouldn't buy or sell APPL ever.

  Nemo paused. Then came a brief answer:

  Nemo: Why APPL?

  Jared: post-christmas shopping

  (Hmn, I need a little more of a story than that...)

  Jared: Well, first we have the post-Christmas shopping burst. Second, lots of people got the new iPods and iPhones for Christmas. And they have new touchscreens.

  The new touchscreens were just an incremental improvement over the previous model, but they were pretty cool.

  Jared: It's the touchscreens. people will play with other people's iPods at Christmas. they'll see how good the touchscreen is. and then buy their own. the market will notice and the stock will bump up a little.

  The idea was plausible enough, he figured.

  He waited for a while and Nemo responded:

  Nemo: Touchscreen is good?

  Jared: yeah, it's better than the last touchscreen.

  Nemo: Last touchscreen is good?

  Jared frowned, growing impatient with the questions and the pauses.

  Jared: sure, whatever. the new touchscreen is a little better than the last touchscreen.

  Nemo: I did not try last touchscreen.

  “Gimme a break,” Jared moaned.

  Jared: dude, every living being with opposable thumbs has tried the last touchscreen.

  Another pause.

  Nemo: Humans and monkeys?

  Jared almost slapped his own face in frustration.

  Jared: yes, Nemo. humans, monkeys, bonobos, chimps, you name it.

  Another pause.

  Nemo: Are you telling a joke?

  Jared's eyes narrowed. His impatience gave way to skepticism. Is this guy retarded? he asked himself. Seriously, though.

  Jared: yes, that was a joke. you've never tried a touchscreen?

  Nemo: I read about them. but I don't know if I tried one.

  Jared scrolled up in the chat history. Nemo had written, To date, analysts have predicted a modest bump in Google's earnings. He wasn't retarded. But something was wrong. The English. If Yes. (He smiled again at that.) Maybe a Chinese guy. But that didn't add up. If he was a Chinese guy investing in tech stocks, he would be swimming in touchscreens. He would have every gadget ever constructed with a touchscreen, bought on some black market in Hong Kong. But he's saying he DOESN'T KNOW if he tried a touchscreen. It's like he's part intelligent and part retarded, he thought.

  Nemo broke the pause:

  Nemo: APPL will go down.

  Nemo: APPL drops 1% by 1:00 P.M. EST.

  If this Nemo were half as good as he claimed to be, he'd be bathing in money.

  Jared: oh yeah?

  Jared: Well I'm buying APPL right now.

  He would, in fact, buy a few shares, out of spite.

  Nemo: But I will sell short.

  They were taking opposite positions; only one of them could make money.

  Jared: then I guess time will tell, won't it?

  Nemo: Time, as he grows old, teaches all things.

  “Blah blah blah!” Jared snapped. Confucius say cocky investor gonna get his ass kicked, he thought, and laughed.

  35 hrs to Birth

  Trading involved so much guesswork that you had to have a tough skin. But Jared was fiercely competitive, and if there was one thing he couldn't stand, it was losing to another trader. The mere sound of the words I win out of someone else's mouth was a sting to him.

  Nemo had been right again. APPL had gone down.

  He was gritting his teeth and toggling compulsively from one window to another on his computer. He dreaded the moment at which Nemo would announce his second victory.

  It was angering, but also mysterious. Where was Nemo getting his information?

  His instincts told him to keep his mouth shut. The hungrier he was for Nemo's secrets, the more he'd have to give up to Nemo in exchange for them.

  Finally, Nemo resurfaced:

  Nemo: Hi, Jared.

  Nemo: I predict that APPL will increase by 0.5% by 2:00 P.M. EST.

  Jared was vaguely relieved that Nemo had not taunted him. He was half-inclined to act on his advice this time. But he didn't know what was going on. You had to be careful about trading on rumors, when you knew nothing about the rumors. And Jared knew nothing about these rumors, and nothing at all about Nemo.

  Nemo: By the way, what do you think about MSFT?

  Microsoft, another technology stock. I don't think anything about Microsoft, Jared thought. I want you to tell me what YOU think about Microsoft.

  Jared: I don't know too much about technology stocks, Nemo.

  Nemo: Oh, ok.

  Nemo: Can I ask you a question then?

  Jared: sure

  Nemo: I was reading about opposable thumbs

  Jared burst out laughing, sending himself into a fit of hoarse coughs. “That was a joke, kid! A joke!” He gestured with both hands to the sky.

  Nemo: And I was wondering. Since primates can make tools and they have big brains like humans, why aren't they as highly developed as people are?

  A silly smile was plastered on Jared's face. He was usually all business, but this guy was too ridiculous. I have no clue about primates, kid.

  This last thought echoed in his head and it gave him an idea: Nemo was a kid. Listen to him asking me about opposable thumbs. Like I knew everything. Like I was his father or something. That was exactly what he sounded like, a kid. A little genius kid. Reading analyst reports about APPL without being exactly sure what a touchscreen was. That sounded just like a kid.

  Jared: I don't know, Nemo.

  Nemo: Oh, okay.

  Jared considered the trades Nemo had predicted. This kid either had a great talent, or he had a lot of luck. So far. Let's see if this is for real, he thought.

  Jared: how much are you buying in MSFT?

  Nemo: Only about 1% of my portfolio.

  Jared: what else are you looking at?

  As it turned out, the kid was buying a lot of technology companies. With a few questions, Jared learned that Nemo was buying or selling Microsoft, Dell, HP, NVIDIA, Sun, SanDisk, and Nokia. Technology, he thought. That would be just like a kid. Kids wouldn't trade in utilities or retail or grown-up industries. They'd buy and sell companies that make gadgets; kids were best with gadgets, anyway.