I make the trip to SoHo. The security guard at the FBTI building lets me in once he knows I have an appointment with Richard Stone, the CTO.

“Hi Richard, I’m Darren. We spoke on the phone.” I introduce myself to a tall bald man when I’m seated comfortably in a guest chair in his office. The office is big, with a massive desk with lots of drawers, and a small bookshelf. There’s even a plasma TV mounted on the wall. I take it all in, feeling a hint of office envy again.

“Please call me Dick,” he says. I have to use every ounce of my willpower not to laugh. If I had a bald head, I’d definitely prefer Richard. In fact, I think I’d prefer to be called Richard over Dick regardless of how I looked.

“Okay, Dick. I’m interested in learning about what you guys are working on these days,” I say, hoping I don’t sound like I relish saying his nickname too much.

“I’m happy to discuss anything outside of our upcoming announcement,” he says, his tone dickish enough to earn that moniker.

I show interest in the standard stuff he’s prepared to say, and he goes on, telling me all the boring details he’s allowed to share. He continues to talk, but I don’t listen. Tuning people out was one of the first things I mastered in the corporate world. Without that, I wouldn’t have survived a single meeting. Even now, I have to go into the Quiet from time to time to take a break, or I’d die from boredom. I’m not a patient guy.

Anyway, as Dick goes on, I surreptitiously look around. It’s ironic that I’m doing exactly the opposite of what everyone thinks I do. People assume I ask pointed questions of these executives, and figure things out based on their reactions, body language, and who knows what else.

Being able to pick up on body cues and other nonverbal signals is something I want to learn at some point. I even gave it a try in Atlantic City. But in this case, as usual, I rely on something that depends far less on interpretive skills.

When I’ve endured enough bullshit from Dick, I try to invoke a frightened state of being so I can phase into the Quiet.

Simply thinking myself crazy is not that effective anymore. Picturing myself showing up like a dumbass at that Brooklyn address Bert gave me for Mira, on the other hand—that works like a charm.

I phase in, and Dick is finally, blissfully, quiet. He’s frozen mid-sentence, and I realize, not for the first time, that I would have a huge edge if I were indeed able to read body cues. I recognize now that he’s looking down, which I believe is a sign that someone’s lying.

But no, instead of body language, I read literal language.

I begin with the papers on his desk. There’s nothing special there.

Next, I roll his chair, with his frozen body in it, away from the desk. I love it when people in the Quiet are sitting in chairs with wheels. Makes this part of my job easier. In college, I realized I could get the contents of the final exams early by reaching into the professor’s desk or bag in the Quiet. Moving the professors aside, though, had been a pain. Their chairs didn’t have wheels like corporate office chairs do.

Thinking of those days in school makes me smile, because the things I learned in college are genuinely helpful to me now. This snooping in the Quiet—which is how I finished school so fast and with such good grades—is how I make a living now, and quite a good living at that. So, in some ways, my education really did prepare me for the workforce. Few people can say that.

With Dick and his chair out of the way, I turn my attention to his desk. In the bottom drawer, I hit the mother lode.

FBTI’s big announcement will be about a device that will do something called ‘transcranial magnetic stimulation.’ I vaguely remember hearing about it. Before I delve deeper into the folder I found, I look at the bookshelf. Sure enough, on the shelf is something called The Handbook of Transcranial Magnetic Stimulation. It’s funny. Now that I know what I’m looking for, I realize that aside from reading body language and cues like that, someone doing this ‘for real’ likely would’ve noticed this book on the shelf as a clue to what the announcement would be. In fact, the shelf contains a couple more books on this subject. Now that I think about it, I notice they have less dust on them than the other books on the shelf. Sherlock Holmes would’ve been proud of my investigative method—only my method works backwards. He used the skill of deductive reasoning, putting the clues he observed together to develop a conclusion. I, however, find evidence to support my conclusion once I know what the answer is.

Returning to my quest for information about the upcoming announcement, I read the first textbook I noticed on the subject. Yes, when I have to—or want to—I can learn the more traditional way. Just because I cheated when it came to tests doesn’t mean I didn’t legitimately educate myself from time to time. In fact, I did so quite often. However, my education was about whatever I was interested in at the moment, not some cookie-cutter program. I cheated simply because I was being pragmatic. The main reason I was at Harvard was to get a piece of paper that would impress my would-be employers. I used the Quiet to attain the mundane requirements of my degree while genuinely learning about things important to me.

When I do decide to read, the Quiet gives me a huge edge. I never get drowsy, even if the material is a little dry. I don’t need bathroom breaks, food, or sleep. To me, it feels like it took maybe an hour to finish the part of the book about the magnetic version of stimulation—and it was actually interesting in certain parts. I even skimmed a few other stimulation types, which seem invasive compared to TMS, as the book calls it. I didn’t absorb it all, of course—that would require re-reading—but I feel sufficiently ready to tackle the rest of the folder I found in Dick’s desk.

I catch myself writing the report to Bill in my head. In layman’s terms, TMS is a way to directly stimulate the brain without drilling into the skull—which the other methods require. It uses a powerful magnetic field to do so—hence the ‘Magnetic’ in the name. It’s been around for a while, but was only recently approved by the FDA for treating depression. In terms of harm—and this is not from the book but my own conjecture—it doesn’t seem worse than getting an MRI.

It takes me only a brief run through the papers in the folder to realize that the FBTI announcement will exceed everyone’s expectations. They have a way of constructing a TMS machine that is more precise than any before, while being affordable and easily customizable. Just for the treatment of depression alone, this device will make a significant impact. To top it off, the work can also lead to better MRI machines, which may open up a new market for FBTI.

Realizing I have enough information, I phase out.

Dick’s voice is back. I listen to his closing spiel; then I thank him and go home.

I log in to work remotely, and write up my report in an email. I list all the reasons I think we should go long FBTI and my miscellaneous thoughts on why it would be a good investment.

I set the delivery of my email for late Friday evening. It’s a trick I use sometimes to make it appear to my boss and coworkers that I work tirelessly, even on a Friday night, when most people go out or spend time with their families. I copy as many people as is reasonable and address it to Bill. Then I click send and verify that the email is waiting in my outbox. It’ll sit there ready and waiting until it goes out Friday night.

Given how much money I’m about to make for Pierce Capital Management, I decide to take the rest of this week off.