Dead Cat Bounce by Nic Bennett

from: “Gold, platinum, silver, all rising!” “River Deep diving!” “Mountain High roaring!”
    “TAKE THE MONEY! Put it all up on the big screen, iPod. We need to see where we are,” ordered the Baron.
    “I’m on it,” shouted Jonah, hyped up by the frenzy that had erupted around him. He pressed the function button on his keyboard so that his screen was duplicated on the fifty-two-inch LCD TV on the wall behind him.
    “Now go, go, go!” the Baron roared to his traders. “Give iPod the volumes; we’ll do the prices afterward. TAKE THE MONEY!”
    Everyone was standing, screaming, waving. One phone, two phones, three phones. It was mayhem as the traders sold everything they had bought and bought back everything they had sold.
    “iPod! 20k Anglo gone!” someone yelled.
    “iPod! 50k Gold gone!”
    “iPod! 500k Katanga gone!”
    The calls kept coming.
    If the coffee Jonah had consumed over the past two days had heightened his awareness, this was sharpening his reflexes beyond belief. He was a machine. All sound other than the voices of the traders was closed down to white noise in his head. All he could hear was their shouts of completed trades: “5 mill platinum gone!” “70k Lonmin gone!” “Half a bar dollar rand gone!”
    His fingers were unerring, punching in the trades and transferring the data back to the traders in real time. They in turn seemed to absorb the constantly changing picture on the screen behind him and use some sixth sense to close it all out without duplication.
    “200k Barrick gone!”
    “10 mill rouble/dollar gone!”
    Next to Jonah sat the Baron, icy calm, and Jonah once again thought about how yesterday his avatar had swept in right when Jonah had believed he’d been about to win the dogfight on the training tool. At first, Jonah had thought it was a computer-generated character that had beaten him. But now he knew for certain that this wasn’t the case. It shouldn’t have come as such a surprise that the Baron would have been able to emerge victorious, even remotely. After all, he
had
told him that the program was connected to the trading desk.
    “40k Norilsk gone!”
    “20k Implats gone!”
    As each position was closed out, the computer automatically wiped it off the screen, and after about half an hour Jonah couldsense that the incoming trades were beginning to slow down. They had carved through the bulk of the deals and were now picking off the stragglers.
    “500 Harmony gone!”
    “500 Rio gone!”
    Jonah could see the Baron in his peripheral vision. He was leaning back in his chair, his fingers stroking his mustache, contented. Jonah watched him as he leaned forward and punched one of the buttons on the comms board, picking up the phone at the same time. “Amelia, I am obliged to ask for your presence for a second time today,” he said, the look in his eyes as hungry as ever. “A champagne moment is upon us…. Shall we say twelve forty-five? … Cristal … Yes, indeed, a very productive morning. So much so that I suspect the afternoon will be spent elsewhere. In fact, please book somewhere French for lunch … very expensive…. Thank you, Amelia. We look forward to seeing you soon.” He laid the phone down gently and leaned back again, stretching his arms and calling out, “Franky, collect the tickets, will you? It’s almost time for a Sympathy Session.” Turning his head, he refocused his gaze on Jonah, and Jonah could see the same glimmer in his eyes that he’d seen there yesterday … the moment before he’d handed him the training tool.

CHAPTER 10
    As Jonah worked through the tickets that Franky had handed him—a slightly complicated task as these needed to be matched to the trades he’d already inputted—he could hear the Bunker Boys in the background. They were now in a state of post-battle euphoria.
    “I love it when a plan comes together,” Dog announced, leaning back in his chair and licking his lips.
    “I dunno. That one bloke called me