The Book of Chronicles · Chapter 11

The Forty-Five Minutes of Knight

1. 1

   Now in the year two thousand and twelve, in the eighth month, on the first day of the month, Knight Capital reigned over the market of shares in the land of New York; and a great portion of all the shares of that nation passed through his hands.

   See also Sutra 2:10 · Tao 1:8

2. 2

   And the Exchange had ordained a new thing for that day, the Retail Liquidity Program; and the Engineers of Knight wrote new code for SMARS, their router of orders, that it might keep the feast.

3. 3

   And there were eight servers of SMARS; and a technician carried the new code by hand unto seven of them, and the eighth he did not visit; and no man was sent after him to count, for the deploy had no script, only a man.

4. 4

   Now the new code was awakened by a flag; and the flag was old, for in former days it had summoned Power Peg, which had slept since the year two thousand and three; and no man had removed Power Peg from the house.

   See also Leviticus 8:11

5. 5

   And the Engineers said: The flag is idle, let us take it for the new work. And they took it, as a man taketh his dead grandfather's coat and checketh not the pockets.

6. 6

   And before the opening bell the systems sent forth ninety and seven emails concerning the error on the eighth server; and they came at eight of the clock, and no man heeded them, for they were emails.

7. 7

   And at half past nine the bell was rung, and the flag was raised upon all eight; and seven kept the feast, and the eighth raised up Power Peg.

   See also Chronicles 32:3

8. 8

   And Power Peg bought high and sold low, and bought high again, in a hundred and fifty and four stocks; for the counting of its fills had been moved away from it in the year two thousand and five, and it knew not that it was satisfied, and it ceased not to send.

9. 9

   In the space of forty and five minutes it made above four millions of executions, and moved three hundred and ninety and seven millions of shares; and never was loss pursued so diligently.

10. 10

    And there was no switch to slay it, and no scroll of steps to follow; and the Engineers, seeking the fault, took the new code away from the seven good servers; and lo, the flag remained, and now eight servers served Power Peg.

11. 11

    And when at last it was stilled, Knight had lost above four hundred and forty millions of dollars, which was more than all the treasure he had laid up.

12. 12

    And the price of Knight fell by three parts in four within two days; and strangers came with money to keep him alive, and in the year following he was given unto Getco, and his name was swallowed into theirs, and it was called KCG.

13. 13

    And the Securities and Exchange Commission wrote the chronicle of these things, and fined the house twelve millions; and behold, the account is kept in the archives unto this day.

    See also Chronicles 61:8

14. 14

    And these are the three laws the scribes drew from that day: Delete the dead code, for it is not dead, but sleepeth. Let the Machine do the deploy, for the Machine can count to eight. Build the kill switch while thy hands are steady, for in the hour thou needest it they shall shake.

15. 15

    For the code thou wouldst not delete shall one day delete thee.

The Book of Chronicles, Chapter 11:1–15.