Sean followed Elliot downstairs and waited for the butler to retrieve his jacket. Elliot paused to scrutinize the paperwork Sean had signed for the plant tour (NDAs, legal disclaimers, etc.), then led him out through the French doors onto a paved deck the size of a tennis court. An infinity pool shaped like a clover dominated the limestone paved space. Water sluiced soothingly over an artificial grotto into a partioned section of the pool from which wisps of steam rose alluringly in the autumn chill.

Must not think of Jason enjoying this pool, Sean gritted his teeth, startling himself with the intensity of his feeling. He'd had years to get used to the brat after all, but seeing the opulence of Jason's home with his own eyes had ripped into the veneer of his emotional makeup exposing the festering envy beneath. A part of Sean detested himself for feeling this way, but his serotonin pathways had grown addicted to negativity for too long to give up so easily. He'd resented Jason for so long that Sean could not remember ever feeling any other way. Why did Jason and Judith deign to attend public school when they had the pick of the swankiest private schools in the state? Sean wondered.

Elliot led Sean past the deck down into an expanse of well-maintained lawn, the butler occasionally speaking into an electronic earpiece. They walked past a sleek Model 429 Bell helicopter resting on a concrete pad, displaying the Fuller Dynamics logo on its blue-white fuselage. A winding path past a rock strewn beach brought them to the edge of a ten-foot tall cliff where a scintillating white Millennium 140 superyacht floated in its moorings against a wooden pier jutting out from the cliff. Sean's eyes bugged. The Fuller Dynamics facility was 30 miles away and Sean had wondered why they hadn't been bused by road. But the water route would be shorter and this yacht before him was faster than most large road vehicles. Sean made his way onto the deck where the gaggle of excited sophomores were already assembled. An armed uniformed guard/deckhand cast off the mooring after glancing at Elliot for confirmation, and the yacht headed out accelerating away from the setting sun towards New Haven.

"What are you doing here?" asked Sean, raising his voice above the purr of the engines, tasting the salty sea spray, "Haven't you seen your dad's factory many times already?"

"Of course," smiled Judith, pushing away a mass of red hair that the wind was whipping about her face "but I never tire of it. Besides, any excuse for a boat ride with my friends is good enough for me."

Sean nodded, pulling his own hair strands out of his mouth, leaning elbows on the rail to stare at the water racing past insanely fast below. They were probably pushing over 60 knots. This close to the water the cold had a bite to it, with fall well underway. He turned to face away from the sea. The yacht's route paralleled the verdant north shore that was ablaze in golden orange hues of a New England fall.

"What did you mean about sampling bias?" Judith turned to Sean, during a lull in conversation with Kaitlyn, "Heard you talking to my mom."

"Something I picked up from a couple of statistics books this week," Sean replied organizing his thoughts, "a subject that your mom is familiar with as a fund manager."

"You know about my mom's work?" Judith looked surprised. Oops.

"Just bits and pieces from conversation, you know," Sean fumbled, "anyways I was reading about how important it is to watch out for sampling bias when we look at a smaller set out of a much bigger set. Sounds like mundane statistical shit, right? Boring stuff that's got nothing to do with anything, right? That's what I thought until it clicked just how much of what we see is filtered by the very nature of the world. The very nature of time."

"What do you mean?" frowned Judith.

"Take your mom's job for example," Sean continued, his thoughts warming up, "a client comes to her firm demanding why they haven't moved his money into the latest and greatest XYZ fund that his friends swear yields a whopping 1% more return than the market. The client's done basic homework, he's dutifully looked at the basket of stocks within that fund and traced their returns back 20 years. And he finds that yes, all those stocks do indeed average 1% better than the market. Sounds straightforward, right? Wrong. He's only seeing stocks that have survived within that basket. He's forgotten to analyze the stocks that were once part of that basket but are now dead and gone. Your mom on the other hand knows all about survivorship bias. She accounts for the dead stocks into the analysis and kindly explains to the client that he wouldn't have done any better than the market if he had invested into that fund 20 years ago."

"Hmm," Judith blinked thoughtfully.

"And once you know to look for it," smiled Sean, "it's everywhere. Those who claim to have lost weight from this amazing new diet that's all the rage in Hollywood. Even assuming they aren't lying through their teeth, the real question is what fraction of people didn't benefit from that diet compared to those that did. But we never see the failures, only the survivors. Or say I go online to write a shitty web serial about young women being...um, bitten by male vampires..."

Sean waited for Judith to stop giggling, "...and I'm looking at all the hundreds of commenters liking my story, and only a handful of comments are negative. And I'm thinking what a great author I am. Sounds reasonable, right?"

Judith nodded cautiously, "Sounds like a fair conclusion."

"Wrong," Sean grinned without humour, "People who thought the story was utter crap aren't likely to spend time commenting, only those who like it do. So the proportion of likes vs. dislikes tells me nothing about how good an author I am. And look at that osprey circling over there. A marvel of nature, perfectly honed predator. Nature is so miraculous, right? Wrong again. We only see the ospreys that survived, not the dead variants through the eons. All those cute little osprey chicks who starved of being born with the wrongly shaped mouth, wings that are too small or whatever. We don't see those. We think nature is amazing only because she hides her mountain of dead babies. Nature mindlessly churns out sentient beings to suffer and die..."

"Wow, that's some dark outlook, dude," a girl laughed beside Sean, "Brood much?"

Sean turned to see Kaitlyn flanking him. Her wiry brown hair was braided into a long plait and she had the same lanky build and sardonic grin as her brother Randall.

"Take a dive, Kaitlyn," scowled Sean, then grinned at her shaking off his dark mood, "Grownup talk. Little girls can go play with their barbie dolls."

"Don't listen to him, Judith," laughed Kaitlyn, "he's full of shit, like my brother."

"Welcome to Fuller Dynamics," Richard's voice boomed over loudspeaker, "we'll be docking in ten minutes. Some of you may wonder why I bother to personally host this tour. The reason is simple. You kids are the shining hope of future. And I am always looking for the best and brightest to work at Fuller Dynamics. I hope some of you may consider joining our team after college..."

I'm sure the fact that younger engineers cost less than older ones has got nothing to do with it, Sean thought sarcastically, making it easier to get rid of the older ones.

Judith beamed proudly at her father's words.

END OF CHAPTER