CATSPAW: An Alcubierre Metric Connection Novel (The Alcubierre Metric Connection Series)

What can you make with a theory for sending a small beam of light back in time a few milliseconds? Maybe billions? Definitely trouble. Big trouble.

Physics meets finance as an inventor and an investor join forces to turn time into money.

Fans of engineering fiction like The Martian will enjoy how physicist Lee Markson struggles to turn his theory for a practical time machine into functioning investment hardware while his partner, Catalano Automated Trading’s Chief Technology Officer, quantitative analyst Ken Huntsman, fends off attempts by Chief Financial Officer JoAnne Woodbine to destroy the project, and them if necessary.

In this engrossing tale tale of physics and finance, two inter-connected struggles challenge a team attempting to build the world’s first device capable of sending something back in time. The something is tiny – just photons, little pulses of light. The timing is also minute – just a few thousandths of a second. Just the right thing for the right time to make a fortune when applied to automated high-speed trading in the stock market.

Ken Huntsman, the Chief Technology Officer of Catalano Automated Trading (CAT), saw an article in a scientific journal that caught his attention. Lee Markson’s Ph.D. thesis claimed that with current technology it might be possible to send a message back in time on a fiber optic cable. Huntsman, a physicist himself, saw the possibility to make CAT, and himself, a fortune with such a device. He made Markson an offer he couldn’t refuse.

Markson was no fan of Wall Street, but nobody else would take him seriously. Huntsman promised that the company would fully fund the development of a working prototype if Markson would lead CAT in an effort to develop the technology for investment use. The project would be called CATSPAW, an acronym for Casimir Alcubierre Temporal Signal Propagation Anomaly Waveguide. The acronym described exactly what the project was about.

As Markson was finding out that turning his ideas on paper into functioning hardware involved engineering challenges he had not considered, Huntsman was facing unexpected challenges of his own. CAT’s CFO Joann Woodbine opposed the project on ethical grounds and fought to cut off the funding necessary for Huntsman to keep his promise to Markson. Huntsman kept this from Markson in order that he not be distracted from the engineering effort by the threats posed by the conflict among the corporate officers.

As some engineering challenges were resolved and others arose, the fight between Woodbine and Huntsman escalated and could no longer be concealed when Huntsman was suddenly fired by CAT and the FBI came knocking at Markson’s door.