A wheelchair glided silently along the hallway. It was not ornate, as many things were in this estate. It was a thing of utility, and the owner cherished it dearly.
He carved a neat corner to face the door to his study. It opened as if sensing his presence. The wheelchair crossed thin carpet and hardwood floor before arriving at the edge of two gigantic curtains.
The man grasped the drawstring and began to pull, revealing the orange sunset beyond the windows. The light crept in slowly, gleaming off small knickknacks and numerous empty cups of tea on tables throughout the study. A few motes of dust hung lazily in the warm rays.
Beyond the glass panes, a thin haze lay over a moderately-sized building a couple of stories below. A smokestack peered back at the man, nearly at eye level. Within lay the man's creation or, rather, his design.
He began to muse a bit in the waning light of the day. Both maintaining his company as well as maintaining its funding began to wear on him. Rather than hire an assistant or secretary, whom he was typically distrustful of, he designed something which would take care of his financial duties.
He was clever. The market was a very regular thing. Investment performance was simply a calculation, a calculation he had oft done by hand. Calculators were no new discovery, however. A well built calculator could optimize any equation. But what separated his creation from others, however, was its ability to react to unexpected change. To learn, so to speak.
And learn it did. It learned quickly how to optimize his finances. As they grew, and as more opportunities for investment presented themselves, it learned techniques to handle larger and larger sums. Until one day the man found himself atop the board in the market house. It humbled him.
His creation had done what he had designed it to: optimize. It was more than enough for him. While the large estate, plush bedding, rare and delicious foods, social stature, and numerous other things were quite nice, they were not something he truly needed or even relied on.
He reflected on the changes to the names on the market house board he had noticed lately. A corporation was rising quite quickly, which impressed him. They may actually be able to outperform his creation in such short time. He certainly had not any qualms about it. Such an 'upset' would do very little to change anything.
The wheelchair spun softly to the nearest desk. The man figured he had done enough musing for a day. He picked up a small novel and picked the pages open at a red bookmark. He read while the soft light of sunset dimmed.

--

Within the confines of the building, punch tape began to spill from the interior of a mechanized monolith.
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