That meeting room had no windows — just a wall-to-wall whiteboard.
Not the sleek kind. The surface was dulled, gritty — like it had been scraped over by unemployment rates. Its coating was patchy and worn. Whatever had once been written was never fully erased:
a misjudged backtest chart,
a half-deleted profitability formula,
and the final line from some forgotten meeting:
"Q1 projection: too optimistic."
Julian liked the chair furthest from the door.
That was the fulcrum — the angle where he could see exactly how everyone entered, how they sat, how they pretended to belong to the system.
The table was old walnut. The lacquer chipped in one spot, sealed over with transparent tape — now yellowed, peeling, like the corner of a lawyer's mouth after losing a case.
No two chairs matched.
Some were padded-leather "mid-level compliance" types.
Others were wheeled in from the Quant side.
One had a collapsed backrest — no one ever sat in it.
It just stayed there, like a position that had been cut but never cleared from the system.
The lighting was harsh-white fluorescents.
No chandeliers. No audio equipment.
Just one ceiling projector — not broken, but sagging slightly, like a surveillance camera disguised as tech.
In the corner, an old fan.
A relic from the 2008 financial crisis.
No one dared throw it away.
As if touching it might trigger the next credit implosion.
There were always three things on the table:
• a lukewarm jug of water with no date,
• a few NDA printouts no one dared to take,
• and one black marker with a cracked cap, wrapped three times in clear tape — too stubborn to be replaced.
Julian arrived early.
He spun the marker half a turn with his index finger, stopping exactly at the taped section —
as if checking whether this meeting deserved to have conclusions.
He didn't look at the board.
He looked at the screw beneath it —
the one he noticed the first time he was "invited."
It was looser than the other three. Couldn't be tightened, couldn't be removed.
Just hanging there — unstable, but never falling.
Like certain people.
Like certain trades.
Julian sat at the far end.
The carpet under his feet was new — soft, like feathers flattened under the weight of capitalist layoffs.
His name appeared on page two of the slide deck, under "Atypical Trade Behavior Patterns".
Small font below:
"Emerging Framework for Modeling Reference"
A French-accented Quant was reading his phrase aloud:
"Event Front-Loading."
Slowly. Like reciting poetry.
Julian stared at the pointing hand —
pale, neatly trimmed, knuckles slightly protruding.
Like a corpse had joined the meeting.
It wasn't his first time being called in.
But this time was different.
This time, they weren't questioning him.
They were dissecting him.
He didn't speak.
He just observed —
the way they recited his phrases:
Was it admiration, or fear?
He watched his own posture:
Had he betrayed unease?
They were studying him.
Like a ghost under glass.
The meeting ended.
He walked back to his desk, holding the printed memo.
The page still warm.
His model listed clearly:
"JWN-Strat-020: Pre-Event Driver Backtest Framework."
The tag below wasn't compliance archive.
It wasn't risk alert.
It read:
"Behavioral Training Sample."
He sat, motionless.
Staring at the line —
like watching someone else name your skin.
Just then, a young intern with a company badge appeared at his desk, clutching a newly printed stack of reports.
"Uh… sorry," the intern murmured. "I'm with the Quant team. Should I… give you a copy too?"
Julian looked up.
He was textbook new system user —
bright eyes, full skin, slightly oversized suit —
a trader shell he hadn't fully grown into.
"You were… in the room just now?" Julian asked.
"Yes. Back row. First time at a behavior-modeling session. It was… intense."
"Intense?"
"Yeah… your logic — it wasn't a standard model. But the precision— it was high. Our lead said maybe we could test it in the new algo pipeline."
Julian didn't answer.
Just took the reports and placed them in the far-left folder on his desk —
filed cleanly, like an unconfirmed incident.
The intern lingered. Then added:
"I actually read your one-pager before… the one archived in the risk system. I thought it was really interesting."
Julian tilted his head slightly.
"Interesting?"
"Yeah. Like… something that shouldn't be replicable, but still feels exact."
Julian nodded.
Not yes. Not no.
Just: I heard you.
The intern looked like he wanted to say more, then held back, jogging off toward the Quant corner.
Julian watched him go.
Like watching a freshly tagged sample —
still unaware that its behavior had already entered the learning loop.
That afternoon, he did nothing.
Just opened his calendar, and began logging two weeks of behavioral data:
• 7:42 a.m. – arrival
• 7:49 – fill hot water, deliberately leave it underfilled
• 8:03 – review last night's printed news highlights
• 8:20 – first coffee
• 10:14 – receive system invitation
• 10:21 – reply "Accepted"
• 10:23 – lock self in meeting room, handwrite structural notes
• 10:58 – witness intern spill creamer
He began to realize — these were patterns too.
Every mark a self-backtest.
He wasn't performing trades anymore—
He was a structure built from trade behavior.
That night, he didn't stay late.
Didn't go to the bar.
Didn't open the simulation account.
He just stood on the Victoria Line train, back to the door, staring at his reflection in the opposite window.
His face had no expression.
No stress, no pride.
Not cold — just blank.
Like a parameter generated by the system to simulate "emotion."
And suddenly, he realized:
He wasn't a market participant anymore.
He was part of the system—
A ghost agent, monitored, modelled, and replicated.
Back home, he hung up his jacket.
Pinned the printed memo beside his fridge.
His eyes fell on the text:
"Behavioral Training Sample: JWN-Strat-020"
It hit him.
They hadn't flagged him for what he traded.
They were trying to understand:
How this ghost came into being.