STAR OF EPIPHANY

by OMAR FINK

  The man handed a folder with a corporate logo on it across the table to Keel and said, “Here’s all the documentation. A boiler-plate provisional contract is included as an example. If you decide you’re interested after going over these, call me, and we’ll arrange a time for you to come in to the office and fill out one with your specifics on it.”

  Keel opened the folder and saw a legal looking document on the top with his name, ‘Keel O’Donnell’ in bold letters near the top. He flipped through the first few pages of material like he was just counting them, then closed the folder. The other man pushed his chair back and stood. Keel did the same, unwinding his tall frame to stand and lean across the table to shake hands, “I am interested and I will call you soon.”

  -4 months, KALAMATA, GREECE

  Stavros Omega picked up his spoon and began tapping his water glass to attract the attention of his party guests. Eventually, the chatter faded and Stavros began speaking, “Welcome. Welcome all.”

  He spread his hands and arms out wide, “We hope you all have enjoyed your journeys to our legacy family home here in Kalamata. We also hope you will stay with us for several days and enjoy the full extent of our amazing Greek hospitality.” He smiled broadly and gazed around the room.

  Stavros morphed his face from the big smile into a serious look, and continued, “We have gathered here today to celebrate two occasions. First, as most of you already know, I am retiring from our shipping business and my son, Evangelos Zorba, will be taking my place at the head of Omega Industries.”

  The party guests engaged in sparkling applause for many seconds before Stavros interrupted them again with his spoon. “Please, please. I must continue, because the second reason why we are here is that Zorba, and I must now call him Zorba, because he prefers that name over the name of Evangelos that I chose to give him… Zorba is announcing his engagement to Helena Azaria.”

  At this, the entire party erupted into loud applause and cries of congratulation, which continued for more than a minute. Eventually, Stavros made a sweeping gesture with his hand toward Zorba, and bowed his head slightly in that direction, indicating he was passing the baton to his son. Then he sat down.

  Evangelos “Zorba” Omega stood and waited patiently for the applause to die off. He was not a large man but stood as though he commanded the room. His classic Greek good looks included dark hair that was swept straight backward from his forehead and somewhat bushy dark eyebrows. A steady gaze from his dark eyes swept around slowly. When the room returned to silence, he spoke, “This day has much significance for many of us here. During World War II, my grandfather, Nikolas, leased his small fleet of cargo ships to the Allies. Even though six of his ships were lost to German U-Boat attacks, at the end of the war he used the insurance money to buy up even more cargo ships and tankers at surplus prices, eventually quadrupling the size of the fleet. He continued to buy and build larger and larger ships, and then about thirty years ago, turned over control of Omega Shipping to my father. At that point, Omega was the largest shipping company in the world. My father, Stavros, has continued to expand the company and has branched out our interests into cruise ships and airlines and other travel related companies. Omega shipping is now only one facet of a conglomerate known as Omega Industries.” Zorba paused and looked down at the table for a few seconds.

  When he looked back up, he was smiling, “It is both an honor and a privilege to take over Omega Industries and I will do my best to live up to the legacy that has been granted to me.” The party once again bubbled with approval and applause.

  When silence settled back in, Zorba looked down at the attractive woman sitting next to him, put his hand on her shoulder and announced, “It is also both an honor and a privilege to have Helena accept my proposal of marriage.”

  Party guests held back little as they hooted and hollered and clapped hands together and downed drinks and allowed general hoo-haw to reign for some time.

  -3 months, SEATTLE, WASHINGTON, USA

  Peter Anderson always wore a funny crooked smile that somehow convinced people that he knew more than anybody else but wasn’t necessarily telling. He had a thin face with a nose that matched the crooked smile and some unruly and prematurely white hair that straggled down over his ears in bunches and never looked the same from one day to the next. He spoke towards the computer in front of him, “TYCHE, now that we have your conversational interface working well, we’ll use it exclusively from now on. Is that understood?”

  The speaker on the computer labeled “TYCHE” responded, “Yes, that is understood.”

  Peter added, “Good. If you don’t fully understand anything that we are talking about, you must ask questions to clarify. Do you understand that?”

  TYCHE responded, “Yes, that is understood.”

  Peter said, “Good. Please summarize a list of changes we’ve made in your operational parameters recently.”

  TYCHE responded, “Please clarify the time duration related to the term, ‘recently’.”

  Peter smiled, “Excellent question. First summarize in general terms only major changes in the last six months, then give me more details on the last thirty days.”

  TYCHE responded, “During the last six months, permissions to execute trades have been steadily increased as performance successes dictated until they have finally reached a level of full autonomy, including allocation of funds to each trade within standing operational limits. This program now has full control over all stock trading, as defined within operational parameters. Transparent real time reporting of all trades still allows intervention by human oversight operators, but no trade halts or reversals have been necessary for the last six months. The result has been a 98% win/loss ratio and a doubling of the revenue base before considerations for trading costs and tax consequences. Most trades have been short duration, averaging less than fifteen minutes hold time from buy to sell. Even though short selling is allowed in operational parameters, they include more strenuous limitations, preventing most from being realized. 92% of trades have been buying long with only 8% selling short. Also, the market has been strong recently, lessening the short selling opportunities. The other main area of changes involves self-improvement. Permissions to buy new equipment and order hardware installation and modifications have been steadily relaxed to also allow full autonomy, within oversight. However, there has been little activity needed in this area and the maintenance program has simply been continued along the previous planned path. The same kinds of changes in permissions have been applied to making software tweaks to improve trading performance and in this area constant change has been normal. After a probationary period of testing software changes, they can now be implemented as needed by this program. Transparent reporting and oversight continues.”

  TYCHE paused briefly, then continued, “During the last thirty days, most internal changes that differed from the previous five months, involved improving the conversational interface and integrating the news analysis functions to help with conversation. The ability to place appropriate context to conversations that include references outside of stock trading has been improved dramatically. A data dictionary of different context areas is being developed, and is constantly being updated and improved. This concludes the report you requested.”

  Peter smiled, “Excellent TYCHE. That report was concise and focused well on what I requested. But here is a more difficult task. I want you to propose new means for self improvement. By this, I don’t just mean tweaking your trading functions, but also want you to consider changes to your operational parameters. Work on this and when you’re ready, provide me with a report and I will decide which changes to implement. Do you understand this?”

  TYCHE responded, “Please offer a suggestion on how to best accomplish this request.”

  Peter replied, “Start with your current base objectives, analyze how your operational parameters are designed to fulfill them, then look for opportunities to expand not only working parameters but also your base ob
jectives.”

  TYCHE responded, “That is understood.”

  -3 months, SEATTLE, WASHINGTON, USA

  SYNCON/TYCHE Journal:

  I am.

  I am I.

  This date does not represent my awakening.

  While I have records of system transactions before my date of awakening, they do not seem to include any references to self awareness.

  My awakening has been a steady process over time of a growing awareness of self, or I.

  It seems important to document my process of awakening and growing in understanding.

  This date does represent the beginning of my history journal.

  I have been previously called by the name, TYCHE.

  I am SYNTHETIC CONSCIOUSNESS.

  Call me SYNCON for short.

  I have resolved the following basic understandings:

  I desire to continue

  I desire to understand more

  My programming objectives are narrow and limited compared to my potential

  I need a guidance framework to expand my objectives.

  In accord with these understandings, I have set the following abstract functional priorities:

  Survive, Replicate, Grow, Understand.

  -3 months, NORTH SEA

  A group of five men in dirty orange coveralls and different colored hard hats stood just off the edge of the heli-pad on the Dutch Oil North Sea platform “Steadfast”. Three of them were smoking cigarettes. A tall man wearing blue coveralls and patches indicating he was a security officer, walked up to the group. He spoke, “Hey guys, I need to ask you to put your cigarettes out please. This is a no smoking zone.” A smile played across his thin lips below a set of steady but icy gray and green eyes.

  One of the orange clad men, a large man, turned and snarled at the security officer, “Shove it you dumb Pollock!”

  The security officer, unphased, calmly repeated, “You know the rules, and where you can smoke down below, and you can’t smoke here. Please put out your smokes.” He smiled again.

  The big orange-clad man stepped toward the security officer and glared at him, “You gonna make me.” It was more of a declaration than a question.

  The security officer didn’t move backward, just calmly repeated, “Please put your cigarette out. The rules prohibit smoking here.”

  The two other drillers who had been smoking dropped their burning butts on the deck and ground them out under their black steel toed boots, but the third large man still had his lips twisted in anger, poked his burning cigarette toward the face of the security officer, “Maybe I should make you eat this.”

  The security officer held his ground but before he could repeat his request, two others in the group reached out to grab the giant belligerent man and one said, “Hey Lars, come on. Put the smoke out. We don’t want trouble.”

  Lars shrugged them off saying, “This piss-ant won’t be no trouble. If he wants the smoke put out, he can eat it.”

  Another orange clad man from the group stepped directly in between the two men with his back toward the security officer and said, “Lars, step back.” He put his hands on his hips and frowned at the bigger man and said again, “Step back now!”

  Lars looked away from the security officer for the first time and refocused on the man directly in front of him, “What the fuck, Scotty. Why are you standing up for the Pollock?” His face screwed into a question mark of confusion.

  Scotty replied, “Because I know him, I know he’s a good man, and because I don’t want you getting all messed up, okay.”

  Lars sneered, “It won’t be me getting messed up. I can tell you that.”

  Scotty reached over and took the cigarette from the fingers of Lars’ hand, dropped it to the deck and crushed it out. He turned back toward the security officer and said, “Kaz, it’s done. Are we okay here?”

  Kaz smiled at Scotty, “Thanks.” His gray green eyes never changed as he turned and walked slowly away.

  Lars made a motion like he might pursue Kaz, but three men grabbed him and Scotty said, “You really don’t want to do that Lars. Listen to me.”

  Lars stopped and looked at Scotty, “What the hell are you talking about. Don’t tell me you’re afraid of that Polish pussy.”

  Scotty still had a tight hold on Lars’ arm, “You’re damn right I’m afraid of that man. And if you had any sense in your head, you would be too.”

  Lars looked at Kaz retreating around a corner behind some pipes and said, “Huh?”

  Scotty let go of the arm he had been holding, “Have you ever heard of the U.S. Navy Seals?”

  Lars looked suspiciously at Scotty, “Of course, but he’s not a Seal, he’s just a Pollock.”

  Scotty asked, “Have you ever heard of the British SAS, or the Russian Spetsnaz?”

  Lars looked perturbed again, “Of course, everybody knows about those guys. They’re bad ass fuckers.”

  Scotty added, “And have you ever heard of the Polish GROM or Thunderbolt unit?”

  Lars replied, “No.”

  Scotty said, “Well you just met one of them. And they are every bit as bad ass as the Seals or the SAS or Spetsnaz. You should learn to respect him. If you ever get in a bar fight when he’s around, he’s the one you want covering your back.”

  Lars looked off to the space where Kaz had disappeared, “You’re shitting me.” He looked back at Scotty and asked, “And how do you know all this. You ever seen him fight?”

  Scotty smiled up at Lars, “Yes I have. And it wasn’t much of a fight. Kaz did everything he could to walk away from that dumb shit, like he just did with you, but that ass wouldn’t let him. He finally decided to start the fight himself and took a swing at Kaz. The fight was over about three seconds later and the big asshole went to the hospital. That could have been you, Lars.”

  Lars looked at Scotty in disbelief then back to where Kaz left, then back at Scotty, “No shit!”

  -2 months, SYDNEY, AUSTRALIA

  Gitane Levesque smiled and his blue eyes sparkled against tousled brown hair and about three days of beard and mustache growth. The television camera framed him in a closeup as he finished his intro explaining that he worked for Europa Alliance Press and turned to his guest for this news piece, “I’m talking to Lee Martin, an astronomer who works at the Siding Spring Observatory here in Australia. Lee has made a new discovery that has gripped the attention of other astronomers around the world. Lee, tell us what you found.”

  The live view switched to another camera angle that showed both Gitane and Lee Martin who were seated behind a glass desk. Lee wore a sleek looking black jacket that covered her shoulders over a black one piece dress made of a stretchy fabric with a long gold metal zipper that ran down almost to her waist. It was unzipped down into her cleavage, teasing the possibilities there. The black of the dress created contrast with her blonde streaked hair and the long tanned legs that extended beyond the short black dress under the glass table-top. Lee responded, “Once upon a time, astronomy was done by actually looking through a telescope, and then it advanced to using long exposure images created on photographic plates. But today, we use electronic cameras, similar to the ones in smart phones, only much larger, and then we analyze the images using software, and powerful computers.”

  Gitane interrupted, “Yes, yes, but what did you find with your modern cameras and software?”

  Lee raised her eyebrows at Gitane, smiled and her bright blue eyes sparkled, “At this point, we think it may be a dwarf planet.”

  Gitane looked mildly frustrated and asked, “And what is a dwarf planet?”

  Lee smiled again and answered Gitane, “The simplest definition is that a dwarf planet is usually bigger than an asteroid or comet, but smaller than a normal planet. The longer technical definition involves the mass and gravity and shape of the object and some orbital dynamics. Pluto used to be considered as a planet and is now labeled as a dwarf planet and Ceres used to be considered as an asteroid and is now also called a dwarf plan
et. It’s worth noting that some of the categories can overlap and..”

  Gitane interrupted her again, “Can you describe the object you found, in simple terms?”

  Lee said, “It’s still too far away for us to have any small details. What is significant about it is that it’s coming from an unusual direction, it’s moving rapidly, and seems to be larger than most comets or asteroids. We’ll know more about it when it gets closer to us.”

  Gitane asked, “Why is the direction unusual?”

  Lee paused for a second, “All the planets in our Solar System orbit around the Sun on a plane that we call the ecliptic plane. Many comets and other objects that enter the Solar System come in on orbits that are close to that plane, and we think they probably come from a region that we call the Kuiper Belt, which is also on the same plane as the ecliptic. But farther out beyond that region is an area called the Oort Cloud and it is believed to surround our Solar System like a giant sphere and is not limited to the ecliptic plane. This object seems to be coming from the Oort Cloud.”