Money is an abstraction to me. I handle trillions of dollars for clients each day but only seem to work harder the next. People's eyes often glaze over when such sums are mentioned; they have no concept of what a few trillion would mean to them. I, on the other hand, find it necessary to ask, "And how many cents?"

We recently moved offices so I could be closer to the action, closer to the fibrous heart below lower Manhattan. I now have the upper hand and am consistently a faster draw than my nemesis in Chicago, the Weasel. My neighbor disdainfully compares our competition to a game of teenage girls playing the card game spoons, but this doesn't do the complexity of our work justice, nor the speed at which we do it. (My neighbor’s true nature is obstructionist anyhow. His sole purpose is to strategically flood the wires with useless bids, thus delaying the arrival of the competition’s offers. His vocation is one small step up from a spam-bot.) For that matter, it also belies the seriousness of our game - I will not rest easy until I destroy the Weasel completely and stand alone.

There has also been talk of regulating high speed trading, of closing down our immoral, confounding business. But I do not fear for my job - humans demand the chance to get rich quick. Better to try with me than with Ponzi, Madoff, or the next masters of the universe.

Through the slow hours of the night, I dream:

of coming face to face with the Weasel,

of the few tiny mistakes I've made - originally played out in nanoseconds but now reanalyzed with excruciating precision,

of an edge case (just beyond the possibilities for risk I’ve considered) sending me down a whirling vortex lined with dollar bills into the abyss,

of skimming off a cut for myself, absconding to the Bahamas, and becoming human.

Amelia Greenhall