She named the parameters after herself. Julian laughed. How quaint. Watch the screen, Julian, Henderson said. Maya hit enter.
The algorithm went live. On the big screen, a graph appeared. A red line represented the S&P 500, which was currently dipping. A green line represented Maya's portfolio. For the first 10 seconds, nothing happened.
The green line stayed flat. "Dud." Julian said. "It's not executing." "Wait."
Maya said. Suddenly, the green line spiked vertical. "What?" Julian gasped. The algorithm had identified a micro-arbitrage opportunity in the currency futures that the human traders had missed.
It bought and sold within three milliseconds. "Profit." "$14,000." "Luck." Julian spat.
The line spiked again. Then again. It was a staircase to heaven. While the market was crashing, Maya's algorithm was shorting the volatility using the very tail risk Julian had feared as a ladder to climb higher. "Profit."
"$120,000." "Profit." "$340,000." In five minutes, the demo account was up 2.4% in the world of high-frequency trading, that was the equivalent of a miracle. The room was silent except for the hum of the projector fan.
"It's stable." Henderson whispered. "The gamma exposure is neutral. It's perfectly hedged." Maya took her hands off the keyboard.
She turned to Julian. "That." She said, pointing to the profit counter, which was now ticking past half a million dollars, "is what happens when you don't delete the variable for integrity." Julian looked like he was about to vomit. The investors were looking at him with pure disgust.
He knew in that moment that the deal was dead. But he was a Thorn. He didn't lose. Not to the help. He reached into his pocket and pulled out his phone.
He texted his head of security code red in the Onyx Room. "Remove the intruder immediately. Use force if necessary." He looked up at Maya with a shark-like grin. "Well done.
You proved you can code. But you forgot one thing, Maya." "What's that?" She asked. "You're trespassing."
Julian said. "And you just accessed a secured financial terminal without a license. That's a federal crime." The doors to the private suite burst open. Three large security guards in dark suits marched in.
"Get her out." Julian commanded, pointing at Maya, "and confiscate that laptop as evidence." The guards lunged for her. The transition from professional triumph to physical violation was instantaneous. One moment, Maya was the architect of a financial miracle.
The next, heavy hands were clamping onto her biceps, dragging her away from the glow of the laptop screen. "Get your hands off me." Maya cried out, struggling instinctively. The apron she still wore twisted around her waist. "Easy, sweetheart."
The lead guard grunted, his grip tightening to a painful bruise. "Mr. Thorn said remove the intruder. You're trespassing." Henderson stood up, his chair scraping loudly against the marble floor. "Julian, this is unnecessary.
Call them off. We can resolve this like civilized people." Julian stepped between Henderson and the guards, a smug wall of expensive Italian wool. He picked up his wine glass, swirling the dark liquid. "But we aren't dealing with civilized people, Henderson.