Day 41 - Ignorant Story

Ignorant Story
Matthew Ryan Fischer

Anthony worked as a junior information broker for Michelson, Michaels, and Mayer the third largest brokerage firm registered with the ISX – the Information Stock Exchange.  Anthony's focus had always been Zeitgeist Registrations.  It wasn’t a sexy pick, but the work was constant and safe.  The Zeitgeist was always growing, even if had the speed of a snail.  You wanted to invest and hedge your bets, you got into the Zeitgeist.  The rate of inflation was low, but there was always something being added.  There had never yet been a Zeitgeist recession or deflation.  The Zeitgeist was never going to disappear.

Anthony spent a great deal of time analyzing MCDIA reports – Meme Collections Data and Information Analysis.  There were millions of Memes with new ones being added constantly.  They all stated off the same way – cheap at first, unknown and easy to purchase.  The rate of return on most was hardly noticeable, but for the investor that was concerned with portfolio preservation, they were a great way to diversify.  Then, once in a while, the right one would hit and become common knowledge.  It might even become a cliché.  That was when you really made your money.  Those were the ones that made it into the Zeitgeist funds.  But if you were investing after the market had already spoken you weren’t going to get rich.  The trick was finding the right meme early enough to get in when it was still only worth pennies. 

Anthony had a safe and reliable track record.  Safe was his key word.  It was his expressed goal to try to find the safest ones to buy and to play things as safe as an information broker reasonably could.  Customers that invested with Anthony were generally satisfied, but no one ever walked away being ecstatic.

Most of Anthony’s fellow Zeitgeist brokers bet their beliefs.  They bought in on a concept and followed it through to its expected conclusion without wavering to stop and think.  Anthony didn’t really believe in anything in particular – he had no defined philosophy or set of ideals.  He thought tying himself to one school of thought might prove a costly mistake.  He wanted to be free to buy and sell as he pleased, not because of some preconceived notion of what is and isn’t.  Really though, Anthony just liked being on the winning side of an argument.  He didn’t care what the argument was.  The court of public opinion was enough for him.

Anthony wanted to retire in ten years.  Twenty years tops.  He set aside as much money as he could whenever he could and had built a very solid, very steady portfolio.  He had a lot of money tied up in memories, but as far as investments go, memories worked in your favor.  They paid regular dividends and as long as they were healthy, there was always a return on investment.  A lot of information was tied up in memories.  And people were always going to have a soft spot for their memories.  Memories weren’t about to go anywhere.

Anthony got to work early; he had a long day ahead of him.  It was about to get longer.  His manager was there even earlier than he was.  Anthony had an unscheduled meeting downtown at the ISX.  His manager asked him some understandable questions, but for the life of him, Anthony had no idea why the Commission wanted to meet with him.  He hoped it was just some sort of mistake.  It was no mistake.

The higher ups at M, M, & M must have been pretty concerned.  Anthony went to the ISX surrounded by managers and supervisors and legal advisors.  The Commission kept offices on three floors of the ISX.  He hadn’t been to the actual ISX in several months.  Most of his work was done at his work station at M, M, & M.  Normally he would have relished the opportunity to watch the whirlwind at work that was the ISX with all its frenetic energy.  Men and women exchanging the thoughts of the day, lost in the flow where abstract met concrete and produced great sums of money.  But today was not going to be that sort of day.

Today there would be no time for sightseeing.  Today must be important, for today Anthony was given his very own M, M, & M lawyer.  Today, there were to be questions, and it was Anthony’s information that would have great value.  This was not Anthony’s comfort zone.  He knew what sounded like something to believe in and buy into, but he hated questions.  Especially open ended ones.  How could he know information that he didn’t know or didn’t know he knew?  He hated being put on the spot and held accountable for a mystery.

Normally nobody thought too much about the Commission.  They were set up to act as the fact police, but they played pretty fast and loose with that and didn’t try very hard at their job.  When they took an interest in day traders, it usually meant somebody very important had lost an awful lot of money.  Anthony hadn’t lost anyone a lot of money in a very long while.  Or at least he didn’t think he had.

“Do you know a trader Trent Cliff?”

Of course Anthony knew Trent Cliff – he sat at the desk in the cubical right next to Trent.

“Yes.”

“How well do you know him?”

This was a bad sign.  They were out for personal information.  If they were asking this, then Trent must have done something really wrong.  And if Trent had done something really wrong then the Commission must have thought somebody else knew about it and that somebody was the man sitting right next to Trent every day.

The M, M, & M attorney leaned in, cutting Anthony off before he had a chance to speak.  “You don’t have to answer that.”

Good, thought Anthony.  He had no interest in answering that.  He had no interest at all in accidentally implicating himself in one crime or another.  This could just be some witch hunt and the Commission had nothing and was just hoping someone would snap and admit they did or knew something they weren’t supposed to know or do.

“He’ll have to answer that in court.”

“Are we in court?”

Anthony zoned out for a second.  He thought about last night, when he was working late and Trent was working late.  He thought about something Trent had said to him – ‘the sort of tip that people kill for.’  Yeah, that was what he said.  Anthony hadn’t wanted anything to do with that conversation either.  A tip people kill for would mean a tip that could get you killed.  Anthony liked to keep things spic-and-span.  A person could make enough money in this business.  There was no reason to go and do something stupid and risky and dangerous just to make a few extra quid.

Of course Trent had never been the smartest or most patient trader.  He had dollar signs in his eyes the first time Anthony had met him.  Seems maybe he went all-in on a really bad hand.

“Mr. Chance?”  Anthony snapped back to the present reality.

“Could you repeat the question?”

The questions came and went.  They asked him about buying in on Rumors and Conspiracies.  Anthony had no interest in Rumors or Conspiracies.  Rumors were hardly ever founded but they caused all sorts of troubles.  Wars had been started because of Rumors.  And Conspiracies brought out the die hard believers, regardless of any informational data at all.  Conspiracies got people killed.  They asked him his opinion about Trent and Trent’s trading habits.  Anthony didn’t believe in opinions.  They were never reliable and hardly ever had any tangible data associated with them. 

Anthony gave the commission facts.  He gave them as many facts as he had.  In the end, that seemed enough to keep everyone satisfied for the moment.

It was later that day Anthony learned that Trent had been killed.  He had done something to somebody or knew something or tried to trade upon some speculation.  Whatever it was, Trent was dead for it.

Anthony looked at the memory flash drive over and over and over again.  He didn’t want this.  He didn’t need this.  What the hell was Trent thinking, sending it to him?

Anthony told himself he didn’t want to know what was on that file.  That was a lie.  He very much indeed did.  Something that someone was willing to kill and die for – that had to be one of the biggest pieces of information anyone had ever seen.  But Anthony had no desire to end up sharing the same fate as Trent.

Some files are better left deleted.