Bob Knowlton at Simmons Securities
Bob Knowlton was sitting alone in the conference room of Simmons Securities. The rest of his group had left. One of the secretaries had stopped and talked for a while about her husband's enrollment in graduate school and had finally gone home.
Bob, alone on the floor, slid a little farther down in his chair, looking with satisfaction at the results of the first computer simulation of the newest Millenium derivative. He liked to stay after the others had gone. His appointment as project head was still new enough to give him a deep sense of pleasure. His eyes were on the graphs before him, but in his mind, he could hear Dr. Alan Jerrold, the director of research, saying again, "There's one thing about this place you can bank on. The sky is the limit for a person who can produce!"
Knowlton felt again the tingle of happiness and embarrassment. Well, dammit, he said to himself, he had produced. He wasn't kidding anybody. He had come to Simmons Securities two years ago. While testing some proposed derivatives, he had stumbled on the idea behind the Millenium family of derivatives, and the rest just happened. Jerrold had been enthusiastic: A separate project had been set up for further research and development of these derivatives, and he had gotten the job of managing it. The whole sequence of events still seemed a little miraculous to Knowlton.
He shrugged out of the reverie and bent determinedly over the sheets of paper when he heard someone come into the room behind him. He looked up expectantly; Jerrold often stayed late himself and now and then dropped in for a chat. This always made the day's end especially pleasant for Bob. It wasn't Jerrold. The man who had come in was a stranger. He was tall, thin, and rather dark. He wore steel-rimmed glasses and had a very wide leather belt with a large brass buckle. Lucy remarked later