New York felt different when I came back it always does after you’ve seen another world the buildings were the same the faces mostly new but the air had changed a little colder a little faster everyone talking about globalization like it was a new religion money no longer belonged to countries it floated above them invisible and hungry and everyone wanted a piece
Carter stayed in Tokyo to clean up the mess I was sent back to help the firm rebuild its reputation stateside they called it risk management which was ironic since none of us believed in managing risk we believed in outsmarting it
The new office was sleeker quieter no more shouting across the floor just screens whispering data and traders whispering lies we were leaner meaner better dressed and more detached every move measured in milliseconds now information replaced instinct but the greed was the same
I was promoted vice president of something vague that sounded important the pay was good the hours endless I told myself it was success but it felt more like being trapped inside a machine that never stopped humming
Clients wanted global access now money moving from Frankfurt to Singapore to New York before lunch the world was a loop and I was in the middle of it riding waves of currency and debt I stopped sleeping properly time zones blurring coffee and ambition keeping me alive
Sometimes at night I’d sit by the window of my new apartment overlooking the Hudson lights flickering like a calm sea but I knew the storm underneath markets never sleep they just dream in numbers
One afternoon I got a letter from my father not an email an actual letter said he was thinking of retiring maybe buying a small place in Florida said he hoped I’d come visit sometime he underlined that word twice visit it hit me harder than I expected I wrote back said soon knowing it was a lie
Weeks later I met someone new her name was Julia an analyst sharp quiet eyes that missed nothing she’d come from Boston fresh MBA thought the world still made sense she asked questions others were afraid to and laughed at things I thought I’d forgotten could be funny
We started having coffee then dinners she liked talking about art and I pretended to listen mostly because I liked how she looked when she explained things she believed in
One night she asked if I ever got tired of chasing numbers I said you get used to it she said that sounds sad I didn’t answer because maybe it was
At work the mood shifted again the word hedge fund became magic everyone wanted in returns so high they didn’t look real which meant of course they weren’t but no one cared I met men who called themselves geniuses because they could move billions with a few keystrokes they spoke of markets like gods they could manipulate and I listened fascinated and afraid
I left the old firm that year joined a new fund startup small aggressive all ambition and caffeine we rented a floor in Midtown called ourselves innovators we weren’t we were gamblers with better suits
The founder a man named Dalton was brilliant and ruthless he said the future wasn’t about stocks or bonds it was about speed whoever traded fastest would own the world I wanted to believe him because he sounded like the voice in my own head
Julia didn’t like him said he reminded her of a magician who’d lost his soul I told her she was being dramatic she said maybe but she stopped calling after that
The fund grew fast too fast we doubled our capital in six months everyone rich everyone reckless we called it efficiency the newspapers called it genius I called it inevitable
Sometimes in the middle of the noise I thought of Tokyo of the silence after the crash of Anne’s empty desk of my father’s letter but those thoughts were like static easy to ignore when the screen was green
One night Dalton toasted to the future said we’re changing history I raised my glass with the rest but in the back of my mind I knew history doesn’t change it repeats with better marketing
And as the champagne burned down my throat I felt that old whisper again the one that said you’ve seen this before and you’ll see it again
Because greed always finds a way to evolve