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“Consider it done.” The Frenchmen were panic-stricken. Having sold, they were looking to buy, make a profit from the steepling price. But, thanks to Pal, their deals took an age to complete. The price climbed and they were marooned on a lower bid. Then it cleared, they bought at the higher price, got stuck and on it went. This was what Brash missed. The moment, everything working, being in play. Again and again the French team got stuck, dropping profits now for a bigger take later. That never arrived. The Frenchman at the front of the diamond held up his hands in surrender. He stepped back. “Something’s up,” said Pal. “I’m not sure but…,” he looked up. “Oh, well that didn’t take long.” Maggi walked back, shaking her head and grinning like a Cheshire cat. Brash let out a long ragged breath. He massaged his left hand. “How much did we make?” “Too soon to say,” said Pal. “A lot of their deals are still going through. They’re going to feel that for a long time. Enough, though. Enough.” Brash’s spectacles hummed. The rank counter clicked up two points. They buzzed again as messages arrived. He looked around the piazza, lots of people smiled and nodded at them. He turned to Don. “So. Do we step up and play? Is it game on?” “Hell, yeah.” Brash always got a thrill walking through the tall, brass-bound doors of the New York Stock Exchange. They looked like they had been pillaged and served to remind any visiting barbarian of the power the place had at its call. But that thrill paled in comparison to stepping onto the trading floor. Don might not see the parallels with football, but Brash did. The roar from the pit was almost tangible, the shouts picking at his ears like the chants of the crowd. The smell too. That guy funk - part human, part animal and wholly sweet. The stink of action. He closed his eyes and rolled his neck. Just like football. And today was the biggest game of his life. “Let’s get a move on,” said Don. Brash glanced at his watch while he, Don and Pal doffed their jackets and handed them to the cloakroom attendants. In 10 minutes the bell would be rung and Fortin8 would debut on the market. They went with the crowd surging into the trading room, found each other and stepped on to the pitted marble. Brash used his shoulders to push through the roiling mass of shouting, gesticulating traders towards the Pit Vipers who were the picture of calm. Artur was in his flawless black suit and the other three were in shades of grey. Brash pinged Artur and smiled as he turned. “Ah…,” “Brash. About the IPO. Fortun8.” “Brash. Yes. Here.” Artur held out his hand. Brash shook and felt data trickle across. “You just want us to hold the stock?” he said, after he’d read the text. “Yes. When, if, it’s needed we’ll call on you. So be ready.” “Not trade it?” “No.” “But you’ve let us in to the market, so we can set our own price. Don’t you want us to…” “No.” “But I thought…” “Then you were wrong. Just get that initial block of 1000 lots.” Artur gestured towards the men in grey flanking him. “I think we can handle the trading. Thanks all the same. Now, quiet. Three minutes to go.” Artur’s irises flared neon blue as his smart contacts powered up. Then he turned and walked away. Simmering, Brash stalked over to Don, Pal and Maggi. “Backup, we’re fucking backup. He wants us to grab some stock and hold it.” “What?” “You’re kidding.” “And not just us,” Don said. “What?” “Look around.” Spaced around Artur, Brash saw four, no, five, six? Maybe more, raid teams. All looking sheepish or annoyed. “They’re stacking the deck,” Pal said. “NBH is the lead for the IPO and wants to use us to control the price.” “At least we get a ringside seat,” Brash said. “They also serve who only stand and wait,” Don said. “What?” said Brash. “Milton. From his poem about going blind.” “This is no place for poetry,” muttered Brash. “The moment demands action not fine words.” A murmur ran through the crowd in the pit as a clerk climbed the steps and approached the bell. “Let’s do it anyway,” Brash said. “What?” “You’re nuts.” The clerk stopped and loosened the string on the gold bag holding the hammer. “No, we’d be nuts if we didn’t do this. We’ve got the nod to buy and sell for ourselves. And it’s our money this time. Perhaps this is a test. A chance to show them what we can do. We have to take it. No re-rolls in real life, let’s make this one count.” The clerk raised the hammer high. “You think?” “One way to find out.” The hammer paused at the summit of its arc. “Shall we?” The hammer fell. “Yes.” “Yes.” “Yes.” Boom. Chaos as the stock went live. Brash’s HUD filled up as buyers and sellers announced themselves. He felt lost. As a day trader he usually only had to buy at a price the client would pay. Here he had to worry about the buying and selling. The whole spread. He flailed and failed to pick up a seller. Four times he readied the bow to tag a trader only to see their name go grey as someone else got them. Then he got one, feeling like a noob the price was so high. He passed it to Maggi and Pal to process. He went in high again and got another. Heard a curse as he got there ahead of someone else. The credit line was a third gone in two deals and only 200 of those lots snagged. Pricey. The stock price jumped, the shouting kicked up a notch and the spreads got squeezed. He grabbed another chunk of stock, feeling smart as the price wasn’t hideous, then choked as green bar shrunk like it had been beaten. “Don? What you got for me?” “Shut up and buy.” Brash got choosy, aiming to pick up the stake in smaller lots. He took a chance, traded one chunk and then bought a bigger one for about the same price and breathed easier as the credit bar recovered. A flurry of small deals, then he got lucky with some schmuck who had fallen way behind. He’d got the lots Artur wanted. But this was just the start. “Ready?” he said. “Green across the board,” said Don. “Do it.” “Go.” Brash jumped in, feeling like he had eight eyes, seeing targets everywhere. The rising stock price caught everyone out. He bought, sold, bought, sold, bought, sold, cutting the stack of lots, keeping the spread on the right side of comfortable, making money with every deal. The credit line dwindled and surged with every breath. He used the bow like a sniper to pick out the deals. The market moved so fast. They were going to have to break their record for deals per second to stay in. Then, as he thought he’d got a handle on it, the pace kicked up again. He grunted as the deals flew, like nothing he had ever seen. The trades grew bigger. The spread tighter. He took a moment to flex his stiff neck, then spent ten minutes getting back into the flow. Panic bubbled inside as he fought to think about where the price was going. “Brash!” “What? I’m busy.” It was Pal. “We’re falling behind the price curve, everyone is picking on us, we’re about ten deals from crashing out.” “He’s right,” said Don. “We need to take what we’ve got. We can’t keep this up.” The credit line was a nubbin, a few pixels wide. A wipe, almost a total wipe. All their money, gone. Then Artur stood before him like he had been conjured, smart contacts making his eyes glow, face contorted like a pit fiend. “Ready?” “We’re, I’ve not…” “Can’t chat. Pebbles!” One of the men in grey appeared at Artur’s shoulder. “Yes.” “This one. All of it. We have a deal.” “But we have…” “It’s in the Ts & Cs, said Artur. “Read ’em and weep. Choose, give it up or go.” “I…” “Choose!” Pebbles’ handshake was dry and firm. He got a buzz back from Pebbles. A ride along. Pebbles had given him a spectator view of their HUD. Brash blew out a breath at what he saw. They were so quick, deals coming and going too fast to follow. The charts they ran glowing and surging like something alive. The HUD was scattered with unfamiliar icons but he started to see what they were doing, their tactics, how they boxed others out. He felt close to grasping the greater structure of the market, the warp and weft of raw capitalism, of a shattering perception that would let him impose himself on the… “What’s going on?” said Maggi. “Huh. Oh. We’re out of it.” “What? How?” “Artur exercised an option buried in the, err, small print.” “What!” said Maggi. “You kept that quiet, you fuckwit. At what price? Leaving us with what exactly?” “I didn’t see…He’ll pay the starting price…,” said Brash. “The starting price!” Her voice got shrill. Pal stepped up to her shoulder and hissed. “I thought we’d make enough on each deal to ride it out, we get commission every time…,” Brash said. “I don’t need a lecture on the market, you idiot. What about what we just went through? We could have got what he’s offering for nothing. Our risk capital, our money. Gone.” “It’s not for nothing,” said Brash, avoiding her eyes. “We’ll get our cut.” “We’d better, we’ve got fuck all right now,” she said and stalked off. “Sort it out, Brash.” said Pal. “Talk to Artur. Remember, we’re here because of you. You owe us. A lot. We played, you pay.” Then he went, hurrying after Maggi. “Don’t say it,” said Brash, watching them go. “Say what?” “I told you so.” “I knew Artur wasn’t in it for charity. But this was rough,” said Don. “No doubt about that. I was right about one thing though.” “Which is?” “Artur Haas is an asshole.” He walked off the floor. Brash stayed to watch as the IPO rolled on. When the price plateaued and the pit fell quiet, Brash turned away. He felt a hand on his shoulder. He turned. “Hey.” “Hey yourself, Pebbles.” “I’m glad I caught you.” “Oh, why.” “Look,” he glanced back towards Artur. “You did good work there before we, err, before we stepped in.” “Really?” “Sure, for a first timer in an IPO like that. Doing both ends of a trade, that’s always hard. It was rough for all of us.” “Somehow, I think you’ll get over it quicker.” “Hmm, well, maybe.” He grinned. “On that though, how, ah, wedded to your raid group are you?” Brash felt the flywheel surge again. “What do you mean?” “Look, we’re hunting for new blood all the time. Really. You should come over and see, check us out. We could do business. Our tools and your balls. Could be fun.” As Brash looked at Artur he turned and grinned, the other traders around him laughed. Brash narrowed his eyes. “Yeah. I might just do that.” “Sure, no pressure. You know where we are.” “I do. Everyone does. I’ll think about it.” “Don?” “Brash? Hi. Where are you?” “Not sure, some lounge in Alphabet City. Look, after today, I…” “Don’t worry about it, Maggi and Pal were tired. Overwrought. I’m sure they didn’t mean any insult. It’s not as bad as she thinks. “Well, no. It’s not that. Something else.” “Oh.” “NBH asked me to join them, be part of their raiding group. The Pit Vipers.” “And?” “And what?” “And what are you going to do?” “Well, they aren’t going to ask twice.” “That’s true, but…” “But, what?” “But what about Maggi, Pallab and me?” “I know. I didn’t say it was easy.” “No-one is saying it’s easy. If it was easy you’d have made up your mind already.” “I guess, but today it felt different. In the pit.” “Different better?” “A little, but just more of. Intense. There are lots more options when you are on the inside. Ways to make it pay. Y’know, you do, of course you do. You’ve seen it. You’ve been there.” “I have but I didn’t really get on with it. And it’s changed a lot too. Now it’s all about the extras, add-ons you’ve got slotted. Not just the man inside.” “Meaning anyone could do it.” “No, meaning that it’s different to what we do. Independent, outside that madness seemed to be a better choice back then and even more so now.” “So…” “So, I know you well. We’ve spent a lot of time raiding, trading together. You know me, us.” “I do, but, on the football field, which is all I can relate it to, there are moments when you look back and see that’s where the game changed. Where it was won or lost and it’s never the same again. The whole space in which you can play, the possibilities open up. You find new ways to play, to get payback, to win.” “It’s not just football that applies to.” “No? Maybe.”
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