The World Tilts and the Money Falls
Time passed quickly. Christmas came and went, and then New Year’s as well.
And today was January 7.
Nothing much had happened at home in the meantime.
My father went to work, and my mother kept saying, “Ugh, sitting at home all the time is driving me crazy,” and tried to go back to working at a nearby restaurant. So I told her that if she was feeling cooped up, she should at least work out at the gym, and I signed her up for the gym I went to.
But she said it was somehow embarrassing to exercise with me, so she went at a different time from mine.
If there was anything unusual in our family, it was Seohee.
Seohee had been studying hard, saying, “Now that it’s the New Year, I’m a CSAT taker too! I saw on TV that if I don’t work hard starting in my second year of high school, I’ll lose to the repeaters in my third year!”
And every so often, she would come to me with questions about this and that: math, English, Korean, and so on.
Every time, I just taught her whatever I knew. The good thing was that whenever Seohee listened to my explanations, she would go, “Oh...! As expected of a perfect CSAT score...” and understand everything well.
When the mock-exam season came around later, I was planning to make practice problems for her too.
Zero could figure out every possible test question anyway, so if I handled it right, I’d definitely be able to make some razor-sharp questions without leaving an obvious trace.
That was my happy family life.
My business was going well too.
More precisely, I was standing right before a very important turning point.
“Master. Preparation for the photo-editing app, Clear Cam, has been completed.”
At Zero’s words, I nodded.
The API I’d won from my showdown with Steve during the Christmas season.
The moment I got it, I tore into the code like a madman.
Just like when I made FreeChat, I left the design and UI to Zero, but the core engine was something I carved out myself, from zero to one hundred.
Once the completed app went in for App Store review, Steve approved it incredibly fast, just as promised.
As an aside, I released FreeChat not only on the North American App Store but on the European App Store as well.
I was confident FreeChat would work in Europe too.
Europe was just as notorious as the U.S. for obscene messaging fees, and right now, more than anything, it was the football season that was driving Europeans insane.
This player should be thrown out, that player should be killed, if I see him again I’ll break his legs so he never kicks a ball again, fire the manager and let me do it, Park is pretty good for an Asian, all things considered...
European passion for football poured straight into FreeChat, and as a result, the traffic came flooding in.
That helped us take over the European market quickly.
Asia’s still a little weak, though.
Anyway.
Clear Cam was already at the point where I could hit the release button and push it straight into the app stores.
But I couldn’t bring myself to launch it yet.
A small worry had caught hold of my ankle and refused to let go.
The original target for Clear Cam was women.
It was aimed at the universal female desire to look prettier in photos.
That was a truth history itself had proven, so there was no reason it shouldn’t succeed.
But my greed was the problem.
If I’m making it anyway... I want men to open their wallets too.
The issue was the market research Zero had brought me.
“Master. At present, among men in North America and Europe, the act of ‘taking a picture of oneself directly’ is still regarded as taboo. A man taking a photo of himself in front of a mirror is treated as a narcissist or a friendless loser.”
That was Zero’s market analysis.
Still, I didn’t want to give up on the male market.
Bluntly put, that would mean throwing away half the world’s consumers.
Zero said not to overthink it and to stick with the original plan of targeting women first...
But I saw it differently.
I added features to Clear Cam so that men could find “fun” in it too, not just women.
North American and European guys think acting cool in front of a phone camera is lame. But if it’s fun and stylish among friends, or over drinks, they’re all for it.
So I made filters aimed at men as well.
The first male-targeted filter was a football uniform filter for European men.
Because of copyright issues and the like, I couldn’t dress users in exact replicas of famous European club uniforms, but I did make it so they could apply the colors and designs they wanted to a reasonable degree.
The second was the Metal Suit Filter, an homage to the movie that had been released this year and made men all over the world’s hearts race, Iron Man 1.
Again, copyright meant I couldn’t copy the film’s design exactly. But the design Zero made was every bit as sleek as the original, no, even more refined, a high-tech gadget through and through, with a living mechanical aesthetic.
The quality’s solid. Zero designed it, and I optimized it.
On top of that, I added filters that made faces look comical, and a noir-flavored Mafia Filter.
But there was a clear technical problem.
The current Apple phone’s performance was a little too weak to run my app perfectly. The camera resolution was only 2 megapixels, and the processor was crude.
I’d forced it to run by punching through the API, but the app was still too heavy.
Zero. Tell me the truth. Was I reaching? Should I stop being greedy and strip out the male-targeted features now? Just release it with a light, reliable beauty filter.
Zero answered immediately.
“No. My calculations indicate that Master’s intuition is correct. It is true that the current hardware specifications are strained, but the code Master wrote has overcome more than 98 percent of those hardware limitations through software optimization.”
...
“Fun beats inconvenience. Even if the battery drains a little faster, men will gladly want to try on the suit. Batteries can be charged. Trends, fun, and style cannot simply be acquired at will.”
Zero spoke in her usual flat, but utterly certain voice.
...Right. I’ll trust my instincts and Zero’s calculations.
I made up my mind.
Release it. And send a tailored ad message to every FreeChat user.
In an apartment in New Orleans, USA.
“Damn, Ronnie Stark really is incredible!”
“That ‘I am Iron Man’ line at the end was insane.”
“Did you hear? Iron Man 1 sold like crazy in Europe too.”
“I’ve got a friend from Britain. At first he said Iron Man was just some toy robot movie, but then he even bought the mask.”
“The thing you wear on your face?”
“Yeah, the one that costs about 150 bucks.”
“One toy mask for 150 dollars?”
“The quality was good, though. He even sent me a picture of it just to show off.”
Luke, a man in his early twenties, was drinking beer with his friends and talking a mile a minute.
They had gotten together after a long time, and had just finished watching Iron Man 1 on DVD.
“Man, I’d kill for my own Iron Man suit. Flying through the sky, blasting beams, mowing down terrorists!”
“You’d be too fat for it to fit over your stomach.”
“What the hell, you bastard?”
“Heh...”
Right as their childish back-and-forth was rolling on, Luke’s iPhone, sitting on the table, vibrated.
Vrrrrrm!
[FreeChat: A new message has arrived.]
Who is it?
Luke absentmindedly picked up his phone.
At this hour, the only person likely to contact him was... his girlfriend.
But when he turned on the screen, the message he saw was one sent from the official FreeChat account.
[Do you wanna be a HERO?]
“...What’s this?”
Luke muttered and, without thinking, opened the message.
Maybe because he had just finished watching Iron Man, the word “hero” oddly grabbed his attention.
When he opened it, what appeared on the screen was...
[Make your photos look like a movie! Download Clear Cam now!]
[Launch event: Free for the first 10,000 users! (After that, $2.99)]
An app ad? They advertise apps too?
It was a message introducing a new camera app called Clear Cam.
2.99 dollars? What makes it so expensive?
Usually, paid apps were 99 cents or 1.99 dollars.
At 2.99 dollars, this was on the pricey side.
Sure, some game apps cost 5 or even 10 dollars.
But that was a game, not something like a camera app.
Luke was about to close the message without much thought.
But... that part does sound interesting.
The Metal Gadget Suit Filter on the Clear Cam introduction page.
That genuinely made him curious.
So if I take a picture... the camera recognizes me and puts a suit on me? Like an Iron Man filter?
“That’s... interesting.”
Any man would have to wonder what he looked like in an Iron Man suit.
And the first 10,000 users get it free. Free means I should download it. If it sucks, I can just delete it.
While Luke downloaded Clear Cam, his friends were busy having one of those debates men always seem to have: who was stronger.
The download finished quickly, and Luke launched the Clear Cam app right away.
Login with FreeChat!
Log in with FreeChat? So there’s no signup needed?
Luke tapped “Login,” and after a moment of spinning sandglass animation, the app came to life.
The camera turned on immediately.
[..............]
On Luke’s camera screen, his friends drinking beer and snickering appeared in the frame.
It looked like a normal camera.
“What, that’s it? Nothing special.”
Luke muttered in disappointment.
Then a strange icon at the top of the screen caught his eye.
An icon shaped like a steel mask, labeled Metal Gadget Filter.
Is this that Iron Man filter I saw earlier?
Luke tapped the icon out of curiosity.
Shiiing!
The screen flashed with a sound effect. And then—
“Holy shit!”
A scream burst from Luke’s mouth.
Across his friends’ faces on the screen, intricate mechanical parts snapped together in a blur, and in an instant, steel masks were fitted over them.
Even when his friends turned their heads or opened their mouths, the masks moved naturally with them.
“Hey! Hey, Miles, stay right there. Everybody else, come here! This is insane!”
“Stay where?”
“What the hell’s going on?”
“What, is it porn?”
The others crowded around to look at Luke’s phone screen.
Then their eyes widened just like Luke’s had.
“Whoa! What is that? You put a suit on Miles?”
“What? What suit?”
“Hey, hey! Miles! Strike a pose!”
“What kind of pose?”
“No, just do something. Like, pretend you’re shooting a gun, anything!”
“What exactly are you making me do?”
At their urging, Miles grudgingly struck a pose.
A shooting pose, a peace sign, all sorts of things.
And his friends cheered.
“Damn, what is this? Apple phones can do this kind of thing with the camera?”
“No, I just got an app ad and downloaded it, but this actually works?”
“Come on, tell me too!”
“Hey, hey! Everyone sit down around the table. I’ll take your picture!”
“I want to see too!”
“I’ll take it and show you! Just hold still!”
Click!
They weren’t usually fond of taking photos.
What did men need pictures for, anyway?
But Iron Man was another matter.
This didn’t feel like “taking a photo.” It felt more like a game.
They took turns wearing the Metal Suit and posing in all kinds of ridiculous ways for the camera.
“Hahahaha! John, you’re ugly even with the suit on.”
“At least it hides the belly.”
“Isn’t there one that covers the face? Hey, Luke! Is there no face-covering one?”
Snap!
“Oh, there is!”
“Yeah, John really does get handsome once his face is covered.”
While the friends laughed over the photos they’d taken on Luke’s iPhone, his phone rang again.
Ding!
It was a FreeChat message from his girlfriend, Sarah. There was an attached photo.
[Sarah: Baby, look at this! Don’t I look insanely pretty in photos?!]
In the picture, Sarah’s skin looked as white and flawless as porcelain, and her eyes seemed larger and brighter than usual.
She had the fresh, radiant look of a model in a magazine spread.
In the corner of the photo was a small watermark that read, “Shot with Clear Cam.”
“...!”
Luke’s eyes widened. His girlfriend had always been pretty, but the clean resolution and skin that looked even clearer than real life were stunning.
But Luke’s joy didn’t last long.
“...A girl?”
“That bastard... don’t tell me he betrayed us and has a girlfriend?”
“He’s handsome and has a girlfriend too? The world’s unfair!”
“Execute him! Execute him! Execute him!”
“We’ll forgive him if he buys us pizza.”
“...”
The traitor was now the concern.
I swallowed hard and stared fixedly at the monitor.
On the screen, Clear Cam’s real-time download graph was displayed.
...Why is it so slow?
The download graph wriggled like a worm.
At launch, it had spiked up in a flash, but then it stalled and started crawling sideways.
Per-minute downloads bounced around between 100 and 120, up and down and up and down again.
Was this a failure? Was targeting men too much? Should I have just aimed at women?
My palms began to sweat.
Unlike FreeChat, which was a free messaging app, this was a paid app, and at least partly a challenge I’d pushed forward on my own instinct.
If this stumbled, it wouldn’t be the end of the world, but I might never trust my own intuition again.
“Go up already...”
I was tapping my leg in anxiety when it happened.
Twitch!
The slope of the graph sharpened slightly.
Twitch, twitch.
The line that had been slowly lifting its head suddenly—
Whoosh!!
Like a fountain firing off, it shot straight up.
[Current download speed: 632 per second]
The graph was climbing like a lunatic, as if it meant to punch through the ceiling.
The numbers were rising so fast that the last digit was almost impossible to see.
“...!”
I sprang to my feet.
“Congratulations, Master.”
Zero’s calm voice came to me.
“Master’s strategy has hit the mark. The rate of male user influx is exceeding projections by more than 300 percent. In the United States, the Metal Suit Filter, and in Europe, the My Football Team Filter, have become the catalysts for virality.”
What about female users?
“As if not to be outdone by the popularity among male users, the number of female users is also increasing exponentially.”
“Huu...”
Only then did I let out a breath of relief and sink back into my chair.
It was a success. A huge success.
Thank God. Really, thank God.
I stared blankly at the rising red graph on the monitor. It was beautiful.
As I enjoyed the climbing download graph for a moment longer, Zero spoke again.
“Master. Now that you are reassured, you should turn your attention elsewhere.”
Elsewhere?
“Yes. To the place that will move in the exact opposite direction of Clear Cam’s download graph.”
Zero switched my monitor view. There, a stock trading program filled with blinking numbers appeared.
“Tomorrow night, Wall Street will become a bloodbath.”
The day after Clear Cam launched.
Inside the trading room of a major investment bank on Wall Street, New York.
“Hey, Bob! What do you think today’s going to be like?”
“About what?”
“Come on, the market mood.”
“Well... probably pretty good?”
For the past week, the New York stock market had been in a full-blown bull run.
With expectations of government stimulus and year-end consumer sentiment working together, the Nasdaq had kept rising into the new year, up a whopping 7 percent.
“Did you see the news? The government’s buying more mortgage-backed securities.”
“Hell is over. We’ve bottomed out. Now all that’s left is to go up.”
“Speaking of which, look at this picture.”
“What is that? An Iron Man suit? Did you do some cosplay? You really have strange hobbies.”
“It’s not cosplay. There’s a paid app on the iPhone called Clear Cam. If you take a photo with it—”
“The iPhone really is a ridiculous toy. It can do all kinds of things.”
“People actually pay for an app like this? ...Though I’ll admit the one taken with the Noir Filter looks pretty cool. How much was it?”
“It said the first 10,000 users were free, so I downloaded it right away, but that was already over. 2.99 dollars. So I just bought it.”
“Not bad for a toy.”
“My wife liked it when I took her picture with this app.”
“You still take pictures of your wife?”
“My wife, unlike yours, has perfect stock defense.”
The traders joked with one another over coffee.
The prevailing expectation was that today too, the market would either move sideways or close with a modest gain and a pleasant mood.
That was when it happened.
“Huh?”
One trader staring at the monitor frowned.
“What is it?”
“Someone’s scooping up put options like a maniac. And not just any puts... super high-risk ones with short expirations?”
“Buying ultra-high-risk puts?”
“Yeah. They’re even sweeping up contracts expiring this morning.”
On the screen, an unidentified account was vacuuming up put options that bet on a market decline, along with inverse leveraged products that profited when the index fell.
The amount was in the hundreds of millions of dollars. And it kept growing.
“What kind of lunatic shorts a bull market like this?”
“Maybe some hedge fund guys just can’t quit short-selling.”
“Degenerate gamblers.”
“Hedge fund bastards are worse than gamblers. They’re trash that betrayed America.”
The traders laughed at them.
With such a clear upward bias, who in their right mind would bet on a fall?
Ding ding ding!
Before long, the opening bell rang.
The market moved exactly as expected.
The index rose about 0.7 percent, getting off to a pleasant start.
“All right, let’s go!”
“Buy! Buy!”
“Push it! Don’t back down!”
The traders flashed hand signals and hammered the buy button.
The screen was plastered with green numbers announcing gains.
And yet something felt wrong.
They were all shouting buy orders, the mood was good, and still the graph wasn’t rising the way the trading room’s energy suggested it should.
It was like a roller coaster climbing slowly uphill, with something vaguely unsettling about it.
But at least it wasn’t falling, so everyone kept their worries to a minimum—
Then it happened.
Snap.
The waist of the graph, which had been struggling upward, suddenly buckled.
“...Huh?”
“...Hmm?”
No one even had time to wonder why.
Rumble!
The graph plunged downward.
Like a roller coaster dropping off a cliff.
-1 percent, -2 percent, -3 percent...
It happened in an instant.
“W-What? What the hell is going on!”
“Did some bad news break? Check the news!”
“There’s nothing! Sell orders are just pouring in!”
“That makes no fucking sense! There has to be something!”
“T-Telecom! The telecom sector is collapsing!”
“And the defensive stocks are falling with it!”
“M-Motorola’s stock is...!!!”
“Oh, shit...”
“Apple is up 2 percent... 3 percent!! No, 4 percent!!”
The trading room turned into chaos in the blink of an eye.
The traders hurried to buy and prop up prices, but they were nowhere near enough to stop the flood of sell orders.
On the contrary, terrified retail investors and institutions started dumping shares, and the drop accelerated even faster.
-4 percent, -4.5 percent
“No, no...”
“Hold it! Hold it up! What are you doing?!”
“We can’t! The buy side’s vanished!”
“We can’t keep up with the market orders!”
The faces of the traders who had been laughing and chatting just moments ago drained white.
Someone hurled a phone. Someone else just stared at the monitor, dumbfounded.
It might have been called a correction after having risen too much recently.
But no one calls giving back all the gains a correction.
This was a collapse.
“Oh, God...”
One veteran trader clutched his head and groaned.
“Is America... going under?”
Hundreds of billions, even trillions of dollars were evaporating in real time before his eyes.
So hell wasn’t over after all.
It had only shut its doors for a brief rest.
Then a memory flickered through his mind.
The “lunatic” everyone had mocked before the opening bell.
The buyer of put options who had bet hundreds of millions, maybe even billions, on the market falling.
Did that guy know something?
By now, what had happened to that lunatic’s account? In the exact opposite direction of the plunging index, his returns would be blowing through the ceiling.
“I should have followed him...”
The trader muttered like he was coughing up blood.
“If I’d bought those puts, I’d already be up 100 percent... no, 500 percent by now...”
And then that same trader shouted,
“Hey, we should sell too!”
At the very moment Wall Street was drowning in screams, Kim Dohyun heard Zero say to him:
“Master, it appears the profits will be significantly higher than expected.”