Most Accurate System for Total Economic Recalibration (MASTER)

Economics class was kicking your ass.

It was hardly your fault, some egghead decided that the most boring class had to be held every day at the crack of dawn. You weren't the only one that struggled to keep your eyes open during lessons, but for some reason you were the one that Mr. Pickworth seemed to care about. Oh the "privilege" of having a family friend for your professor. You weren't even allowed to drop it; not only did you need the credits to graduate this year, if you didn't at least score in the top ten percent your father would give you one of his talks about "applying yourself" and living up to the Doe family name.

You needed every help you could get, so you jumped on the opportunity when Mr. Pickworth offered extra credit for whoever could most accurately predict the impact Apple's big announcement would have on their stock prices. Your roommate, Lee Honda, beat you the last two times the professor offered it, so this time you were going above and beyond. You looked into Apple's history and how the prices reacted to their last few announcements, you searched the web for rumors on what the announcement might be, and now you were trying to find some kind of extra source to back up your thoughts.

That's when you came across MASTER, the most accurate economic simulation in existence. Or at least, so it claimed.

Not that you were in any position to judge; it was 11:30PM, guesses needed to be in by midnight, and you needed the extra credit. You made an account, agreed to the terms and conditions without reading them, dismissed the splash screen that advertised the perks of your administrator position, typed Apple Inc. into the search bar, and input the event "Apple announces a new iPhone" set for tomorrow. The possible depth of information was staggering, showing how it would influence the stock of their competitors, the price of the materials used to make it, and the value of human life in the third world countries that mined those materials.

But you only cared about the stock price. It was close enough to what you predicted, so you put it down as your answer, submitted it, and went to bed.

You had dragged yourself out of bed and into the shower when you realized how stupid you had been; This wasn't going to be a new product announcement, this was going to be an internal restructuring announcement. Your dad was on the board for Apple, and you knew how often he complained about the CEO. He told you they found a replacement and were going to announce the change today. Your answer was going to be way off!

You spent the day with dread building in your stomach. There's being wrong, then there's being stupid wrong. The professor probably meant that as a softball question for you, and you blew it.

You sat down with the rest of the class, and the announcement started. The Soon-to-be-Former CEO was on stage, looking rather happy for someone who was about to be replaced. But rather than announcing that he was stepping down, he said something you never would have expected "I'm pleased to announce the next step in the iPhone line!"

A groan come from Lee, it seems like he was expecting a management change too. Personally, you were struck silent as you check the stock prices. They were exactly as the simulator had predicted.

(This story is public. Feel free to add to any branch.)