Market Signals

Francis was one of those rare people whose physiological state was inexplicably entangled with financial markets. He didn't need to, and seldom did, look at an app to know the movements of indexes, the staccato of options, or the tides of yields. All that and much more echoed across the subtlest flickerings of his emotions and the slow shifting of protein synthesis patterns.

A hedge fund had located him and after making him sign unparseable documents and then explaining to him what he was had spent time and money monitoring everything in his body that could be monitored, to the conclusion that he was a scientific mystery and, more importantly, of no financial value. His body reacted to market information, yes, but everything they could read in his flesh could be read more quickly and reliably on a Bloomberg terminal. He wasn't a prophet but a meat ticker.

So they made him sign even more documents, showed him the door, and did not look for more people like him.

Francis did. It wasn't hard: He just had to look for people who felt exactly the way he felt, breathed as he did, skin flushed or pale in a synchrony more perfect than lovers'. People all their lives at the mercy of a storm they couldn't conceive, ready to believe an impossibly familiar stranger with an incredible story that made sense deeper than words.

It took them a while to find enough people like themselves. But one day a dozen people stood next to Francis with identical expressions. They could see the stock exchange building below them and feel the scurrying around of numbers inside themselves. They held their breath as one.

Half a second later all trading paused.

They smiled and futures scattered in sudden panic. And then they jumped.

(Originally posted on my blog.)