"Harold, my boy," said Elsford, "you've been here at Global for two years now and you've shown your ability with two crucial parts of international banking. You can keep systems running and you can keep your mouth shut. Now it's time for you to learn about Kryton."
"Cool name. What does it mean?" Harold really didn't care what the name meant but it seemed as good a response as any. He had worked at a university computing center before coming to Global but the university didn't pay very well. He had heard bad things about how banking institutions treated their staff but they seemed straight up and so far it had been working out well. Damn sure the pay was better.
"Kryton doesn't mean anything. Some systems analyst had a wet dream one night and the name was born. What's interesting is what it does."
Elsford leaned back a bit to give a little more impact to what he was about to say. His first name was Jack but no-one called him that. Harold had no idea why not but this didn't strike Harold as good time to ask. Besides, it had been a long day and everyone else had gone home. He had been about ready to leave but that was when Elsford came into his office.
Continuing, Elsford said, "Kryton is the system for managing the international wire transfers. At present volume it's pushing a bit more than a trillion dollars daily."
Harold listened and looked suitably impressed but he really didn't care as he knew if he stuck to maintaining the systems and away from the money then his job would stay sound and safe.
In what was rapidly looking like it was going to turn into a lecture, Elsford kept talking. "At a trillion dollars a day, there is over ten million dollars turned over per second. Do you know what store and forward means?"
"Sure. It's not a complex thing," said Harold, maybe a bit too disdainfully.
"Tell me," said Elsford.
"For any data element, when you have successfully stored it you acknowledge to the sender that it is received. For a money transfer, the acknowledgement means the sender can log the transfer and debit the account to show the money has moved. Then the receiver can forward it to wherever necessary using the same protocol."
"Good enough, my boy. Good enough," said Elsford and he continued, "Now tell me what it means if it takes a second to perform the forward operation."
Not really sure what Elsford wanted to hear, Harold paused for a moment and then replied, "there's at least ten million dollars in the transfer file at any given second."
"Exactly," said Elsford, pleased that Harold was following what he was saying.
"Now then," continued Elsford in his performance, "do you know how the float works?"
"I didn't think that was legal," replied Harold.
"I didn't ask if it was legal and it is ... more or less. I asked what it does," barked Elsford somewhat gruffly.
"Credit card companies have been doing it for years. In the time between when a customer's payment is received and the time it is credited against the customer's account, the payment is said to be floating. During that float time the credit card company can do whatever it likes with it so long as it finally gets credited." Harold looked to Elsford to see if he was satisfied.
"Are you seeing what Kryton does?" asked Elsford.
"Damn," said Harold.
"Damn what?" asked Elsford.
"Damn. I can't believe you're playing with ten million dollars of someone else's money."
"Not me," said Elsford, "Global is doing it. And it's more like a minute before it goes back out again so the actual sum is somewhere in excess of six hundred million dollars."
"This is sounding like something that puts people in jail. I'm not gay so I'm quite sure I would not enjoy a jail experience," said Harold, looking for a means to back away from all of this.
"Take it easy, my boy," said Elsford. "This is basic banking and they all do it. What's legal for a bank and what's legal for everyone else are not exactly the same thing."
"It doesn't matter, man. My business is making sure the systems work. I don't care if the computers push money or sell chocolate chip cookies for all the difference it makes to systems management."
Harold started shutting down his desk computer as this looked like an excellent time to go home. After hearing all this, he wasn't at all sure if he would come back.
"Harold, I'm not talking about doing anything with the customer's money, not for so much as a millisecond. However, I need to trust you to be absolutely quiet about a proposal. Do you want to hear it?"
"Man, I really don't but I've heard enough already to get my kneecaps shot off, I guess. No, I won't tell anyone anything. I've been here long enough to know I may get my kneecaps shot off for what I've heard so far but it would definitely happen if I talked to anyone about any of this."
Harold didn't like the situation at all but Elsford seemed determined to tell him. He didn't know why but it seemed he would be in more trouble if he left than if he stayed.
"Alright then. There's another level of float here. Global is floating about six hundred million dollars and is pulling the interest from loaning that out on short-term, high-interest transactions. Just as with the money transfer itself, the interest from it floats between when it is received and when it goes to the dummy accounts to receive it here."
"So what you're talking about is stealing from the thief," said Harold.
"You're fast, kid. Global can't possibly complain as how can you steal stolen money? Besides, it's very unlikely they would even know about it."
"You still end up dead if you steal from a dope dealer. It doesn't matter if the money is legal. They will still kill you dead if they catch you."
Harold knew he was in way over his head and was just looking for a graceful way out of it, preferably still with his kneecaps.
"You wouldn't be caught for anything as I'm not asking you to do anything except to run some cover with Audit so they don't get into the systems logs."
"Elsford, those idiots from Audit couldn't find a guppy in a fishbowl," said Harold a bit scornfully.
"I know that, my boy. Global wants it that way as if they were too competent then other things they do could be exposed."
"So why do you need me?" asked Harold.
"Insurance. I believe in covering all the bases," replied Elsford.
Harold looked at him for some time and then said, "No, man. I can't get behind any of this. It's not what I do. Everybody likes a little more jingle but this is not for me."
There was a long silence during which Harold thought all hell was going to break loose. Finally Elsford said, "Congratulations, Harold. You pass."
"I what?"
"I needed to know if you're Global material, my boy."
Not really knowing if Elsford had been testing him or was using this as a backout from what he had said, Harold just went silent. He was tempted to tell Elsford to fuck himself but he held his tongue.
"I'm satisfied you're straight-up and you're honest. I'll report this up to Baumgartner and it's a safe bet you will be moving up."
"Thanks. I appreciate that," said Harold, not meaning a word of it.
"See you tomorrow then, Harold," said Elsford and rose to leave the office.
Harold mumbled, "Sure enough," and he finished shutting down his computer. He then walked slowly to the security exit of the now-darkened building quite sure there was no way in hell he was going to come back.
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