Professor Maxwell sat at his desk, reading a research paper. He couldn't stand reading things off a screen, so he printed everything longer than a page out on the Minerva's single, small laser printer, stapled it at one corner, and read it in comfort. Once he finished reading a particular document, he squirreled it away in one of the subtle crevices of his intricate filing system in case he ever needed to refer to it again; he loathed the thought of printing anything out twice.

From his desk, he could survey the entire office. Just over a dozen young and middle-aged men and women were either scurrying from desk to desk, or sat in swivel chairs reading and typing. Those that were sat down all had headphones on; Maxwell fully understood that this was a perfectly reasonable things to, given the noise of the contractors finishing things off behind the plastic sheeting, but it bothered him for some vague, nebulous reason.

They had been here for almost a week now. Everyone was settled in, and all were set on the first real order of business, doing the groundwork to prepare for their first (and, to date, only) client's request. Professor Maxwell had claimed ignorance of the exact nature of the client (this was only partly true), and had only given his team the vaguest details of the task they would be carrying out for them. As it happened, he only had the vaguest of details at the moment, but he was confident that, sooner or latter, they would call, and he would be able to start the real work. Until then, the groundwork would keep everyone more than busy enough.

Such were Professor Maxwell's thoughts as the phone on his desk rang. He picked it up, answered with his name, and then listened. Before answering, he took a quick look at his staff.

"Yes. I believe we're ready."

He listen for a little while longer, and then reached across the desk for a spiral bound reporters pad and pen, and started to make terse, neat notes.

Ted scanned down the forecast that Sol had mailed him; it was a little disappointing. All of the winners for this afternoon were favourites, or near-favourites. There weren't any outsiders with huge odds. They'd still win a substantial amount for a modest outlay, of course, but it seemed to be a little pedestrian. In any case, his experience over the last week had taught him that he'd be a fool to bet against the forecast. He reached over to the phone, intending to call the bookmakers, then stopped.

It had occurred to him that you could place a bet on practically anything. Placing a bet on something unusual and highly specific (like the Pope dying on a particular day) would attract attention, and they probably weren't ready for that yet. There were still dozens of other sporting events, though. They'd be sure to find one that gave better odds.

He was on the point of ringing Sol to suggest this, but then he decided to try a little experiment. He fired up the WorldPulse forecasting interface for the test system. He'd seen Sol do this dozens of times; how difficult could it be?

Ted didn't let the complexity of the interface through him; he could split it up into sections, and just about follow what was going on in each. He thought for a minute, then decided on premier league football - there was bound to be a surprise sooner or latter, and that would mean good odds for the underdog. He tapped out a few details, then started off the system; things seemed to be going well. Auxiliary forecasts started lining up in a list at the bottom, vying for his attention. This wasn't so hard.

He picked the first auxiliary forecast off the top of the list, and examined it; it looked fairly straight-forward, though he couldn't see how it related to his original proposition. He shrugged, guessing that that was the point, and fed it back into the system. He did the same for the next three auxiliary forecasts on the list. Then he we back to his original query, and tried to see if it had advanced any. It hadn't.

Ted sat back, frustrated. By this stage, Sol had usually made more progress; he usually only had to use seven or eight auxiliaries before the answer popped out. Maybe he just wasn't selecting the right ones. He plunged back into it, and coaxed it through more and more auxiliary forecasts.

This went on for hours, with Ted trying this and that, but failing to make any noticeable progress. Eventually, he had to give up and concentrate on his actual work. After a few minutes, he stopped, and looked at Sol's original forecast again. He'd missed all of the races. This didn't do anything to improve his mood.

Mr Sherwood had become one of the most ardent users of WorldPulse. While Isabelle and Sol hadn't been able to tell him anything concrete, their silence had spoken volumes, and he wanted to know what was going on.

Of more immediate and practical interest were his business rivals. WorldPulse continued to give him the jump on all but a few of them, and from the way that these few acted, he guessed they were getting their information from the same place. Of course, all of the information was tailored to specific clients, but by placing himself in his competitors shoes, and asking the right questions, he could get a fair idea of what WorldPulse was telling them. He had no doubt that his rivals were all doing the same for each other, and for him.

Unlike some of the other WorldPulse subscribers, he was careful to bear this in mind when deciding how to use the information it provided. For example, the information coming in today was suggesting to him that he should buy into a particular company on the NASDAQ. Of course, the first thing was to verify that the information came from public sources, so he couldn't be hauled in for insider trading; however, he had become almost perfunctory in performing this step as his confidence in the system had grown. More importantly, he realized that, if the information suggested to him that he should buy into the company, it was probably also suggesting the same thing to a couple of dozen others around the world.

He though about the ramifications of this for a few minutes, and checked a few details via the public internet and other, less obvious, sources. As far as he could tell, all that would happen would be that the sudden run on the shares would cause the price to spike briefly, then settle down to a level that was nevertheless substantially more than he had paid. What possible harm could there be in that? He picked up the phone and called his broker.

"All of the subjects have taken up the offer? Excellent. Well, it seems that the seeding at least produces sufficiently convincing results."

"Yep. It also means that, assuming there aren't any problems we don't know about yet, we can proceed to something less prosaic."

"I'll be most interested to hear what you have in mind."

"Patience. You've got a little while to regroup yet. You'll probably be hearing from me again in a couple of weeks." He hung up.

Professor Maxwell hung up at his end, and looked across the office. A couple of members of his small staff were busily monitoring the information feeds, and diagnostic data from the live WorldPulse system, but most were fairly relaxed; they were more or less treading water until the results of their efforts were came through. He grudgingly admitted to himself that he probably should announce them; he got up from his seat and clapped his hands to gain their attention.

"If I could just have your attention for a minute or two," he said, and then paused. All eyes were looking at him; he never liked speaking to groups like this. Years of practice had enabled him to deliver a lecture adequately, but in circumstances such as these, where he hadn't written one jot in preparation, he was still next to useless. Nevertheless, he had their attention; there was nowhere to go except forwards.

"I have just received a phone call from out client. He informs me that the first attempt at seeding the system has succeeded with flying colours; the desired forecasts were made, and were indistinguishable, as far as we can tell, from, um, real ones."

An uncertain cheer went up from the audience; Professor Maxwell waited uncomfortably until it had died down. When it had, he continued.

"What we have achieved is unprecedented; it has never been done before." He was getting into the swing of things now, and, while not enjoying it, was not actively hating every second. "However, now is not the time to rest on our laurels, tempting as that may be. Now is not the time to celebrate our past achievements with not thought for the future. No," he looked around the audience, "now is the beginning of the next phase of our important and unique work; we must knuckle down, and ensure that, when our next assignment arrives, we are ready to do even better. I know that each and every one of you will rise to the challenge and exceed every expectation."

To his great surprise, there was a smattering of applause. Maybe he was getting better at this (or maybe, said the voice at the back of his mind, you're their employer and you look like you're expecting applause).

"Well," he said, raising his hands in what he hoped was a gesture of magnanimity, "show me that my confidence is not misplaced."

Sol arrived at work the following morning to find something unexpected on his desk. It was a large, thin rectangle, covering most of the desk (his keyboard had been moved out of the way). It was wrapped in dark blue wrapping paper with shiny swirls that caught the light, and tied with a wide blue ribbon. There was no card, so he shrugged and tore a strip from the paper. He saw his own face looking back at him.

He felt a light kiss on his cheek, just below his ear, and heard a whispered "Happy Birthday". He turned to see Beth, who had been on tiptoes, drop back to her normal height, but kept her hands behind her back.

"Well, you didn't think we'd forget, did you? I know it's a bit late, but..." she trailed off. After a moment's pause, she began again. "Anyway, the mirror's from Isabelle; she had to take a call, but she'll be here in a minute. She said I should get you this."

Beth presented him with the contents of her left hand, which was a three foot long branch with a ribbon tied around it. She looked a Sol quizzically; he shook his head and said, "It's a long story. I'm not sure I'll have occasion to use it, I'm afraid."

"I didn't think it's be much of a present," said Beth, "So I got you this as well." She reached around with her right hand, and gave Sol an oddly-shaped package which turned out to be oddly heavy. He put the stick down, and unwrapped Beth's other present to reveal a large, polished crystal ball and a velvet-covered stand.

"It's... It's great. Thanks. You shouldn't have, really."

Sol leaned over and gave her a peck on the cheek.

"Don't worry about it; just promise you'll remember my birthday."

Sol laughed. "I will."

"Do I get a kiss as well?" chimed in Isabelle, walking across from the meeting room door.

"Oh, I don't know. It might set an inconvenient precedent."

"C'mere"

Sol leaned over his desk, slightly awkwardly, and kissed her chastely on the cheek.

"Thanks for the mirror. Now I'll be able to dress myself properly."

"Don't jump the gun. You still need female advice. Doesn't he?"

"Oh yes. Definitely." agreed Beth, looking him up and down appraisingly.

"Hey; it's my birthday. You have to be nice to me."

"You're birthday was two weeks ago." Isabelle pointed out.

"Damn."

"Oh, and I should tell you," she continued, "we're going out for a meal tonight."

"What?"

"It's your birthday. We have to do something."

"My birthday was two weeks ago."

"I don't care; we're taking you out."

Sol looked unconvinced.

"Oh, go on," said Beth, "It'll be good to get out and have some fun. Things have been a bit morose since we found out about", she lowered her voice, "you know."

Sol looked at her for a moment. "O.K. Nothing big, though. Just dinner. And don't go inviting the whole office."

Isabelle sprang up on the balls of her feet. "Yay! I knew you'd come round." She turned, and called out "Hey, Ted, have you got a minute."

"For you, I've got five." he came over.

"You got any plans for tonight?"

"Not really, no."

"Great; we're going out for Sol's birthday. Meet up in town about 8:00 at the Cow."

Isabelle and Beth wandered off, discussing places in town to eat. Ted surveyed the wrapping paper and presents on the desk.

"So, it's your birthday, is it?"

"Two weeks ago, but what with everything we never got round to doing anything for it then."

"OK. Well, happy birthday. I'll buy you a drink tonight."

"Cheers," said Sol, without a hint of sarcasm. That was a nice, simple transaction. He didn't have to wrack his brains trying to think what to get Ted for his birthday.