“Please tell me what just happened.”

The meeting was over and the Board Members had left the building. Isabella sat in one of Carl’s comfortable leather office chairs, holding a glass of water. Carl circled around her, which made her nervous.

She felt tired. An hour ago, she had been extremely cross with him and now she felt she owed him an apology. Too much emotion in too little time; she was used to having fights with him, but she never lost her temper and usually it was him who had to apologise for shouting at her.

“I thought you screwed up,” she said finally. “I really did. I mean, your figures just couldn’t possibly be right. I was angry and I overlooked other explanations. I shouldn’t have shouted at you. I’m sorry,” she whispered.

He stopped hovering and sat down in the seat opposite of hers. “Are you kidding me?” he replied. “You finally showed me you aren’t a robot after all. I can handle a little fight now and then. I’m a big boy,” he said, leaning forward and looking her straight in the eyes. For a moment, she feared he would grab her hand. She wasn’t sure she would be able to handle that.

“Why on earth did you vote in favour of Ballentine?” Carl askd instead, leaning back again.

“A year ago, Ballentine showed up at my doorstep. I had never seen him before and I only understood who he was when he introduced himself and stepped inside. He was all nice and charming and he asked me for a favour.”

Isabella fell silent. Carl narrowed his eyes and then raised an eyebrow. He looked worried.

“Not your everyday favour, I presume?” he said after a while.

“No,” she replied quietly, looking down in her glass of water, turning it around nervously. “He needed some money to be laundered.”

Carl looked surprised. She figured he hadn’t seen that coming. Who would have?

“What money?”

“I don’t know. I asked the same question. He just looked at me and said: ‘Mine. How else do you think I’m funding your little playground here’”

“Djeezis Belle. Are you saying our company is funded with criminal money?”

She sensed his mood change immediately. The winter look in his eyes said it all. She had never seen him so cold.

“I don’t know where it comes from, but yes, I think so.”

“And you helped him?”

She knew he wasn’t judging her, but he looked disgusted and she felt guilt and frustrated. She put the glass down on the coffee table and placed her fingers on both of her eyes, trying to push back the tears.

“He threatened to pull the plug, and we were making such great progress. Anyway, I refused,” she replied defensively.

“But you eventually gave in, isn’t it?” he replied.

Maybe he wasn’t judging, but he definitely was coming at her. She shifted uncomfortably. The anger and frustration of the last months were ready to snap back at him.

“He threatened me!” she screamed, jumping up and knocking over her glass of water.

She immediately regretted her outburst. Carl had a right to be angry and he usually didn’t respond well to rage directly aimed at him. This afternoon’s events and tutoring his daughter had taught her a few things about him. She was too tired to fight anyway.

“I’m sorry,” she mumbled, while trying to stop the water from spilling on the floor.

Carl did the exact opposite of what she expected him to do. He stood up and put his hand on her shoulder. “Hey, Bella. It’s OK. Don’t worry. It’s only water. Sit down, please.” He gently pushed her back in her seat and sat down on the coffee table next to the puddle of water.

“What happened?” he asked her, dropping his voice. It soothed her.

“He threatened me,” she said softly. “Then and there. I didn’t believe it first. He just smiled and left. The next day, I was being followed. And the next and the next. I should have known he was serious. We typed him as a General as soon as he came into the picture. He wouldn’t stop until he got what he wanted.

“Did he hurt you?”

“No. I didn’t let it get that far. It was pretty obvious I couldn’t stop him. Ultimately, I gave him what he wanted.”

Carl said nothing.

“We were pretty well on our way with our new cognitively enhanced Anna,” Isabella continued. “He knew about it because Gretchen kept him informed. He wanted us to build in money handling capabilities. I didn’t like the idea of automated profiles handling money, but that’s what he asked for. We partly succeeded, but it became clear really fast that we still had a big problem with Anna’s cognitive dissonance, which in combination with money handling is simply asking for trouble.”

“The Prada Experiment?”

“Exactly. He didn’t care. He didn’t want to wait. I warned him but he didn’t listen. So I gave him ten thousand Annas with their friending functionality switched off; in that way, there would be no peer pressure and I hoped that would keep the cognitive dissonance effects under control.

“So he has ten thousand non-functional Annas?” Carl said with a hint of optimism in his voice.

“Yes, they can’t make friends. They don’t post either. They exist with the sole purpose of moving his bloody money around. They don’t show in the control panel either; nobody knows they exist.”

“The feds do,” Carl remarked.

“Ah, yes, there’s that. Well, he had that coming,” Isabella scoffed.

“Did you tip them off?” Carl asked

“No, oh, God no. I didn’t need to. That was just a matter of time!”

“What do you mean?”

“Because he is a greedy ignorant idiot who doesn’t understand one thing about statistics. I warned him the feds use data analytics too, but he didn’t listen. So I didn’t really make an effort to hide his transfer activities.”

She looked at him and saw he was amused now. He usually was when she gave him one of her lectures, so she felt encouraged to continue.

“There are ten thousand zero friends facebook profiles who all register to the same obscure gambling site that probably is under surveillance already. They all receive an initial 10$ registration bonus to start gambling. Miraculously, they all win and they keep winning. These same ten thousand friendless facebook profiles then register to another gambling site – this one perfectly legal – and what do you think? Surprise, surprise: they all lose the money they just won on the dark side!”

She looked dismissive and sneered: “A halfwit middle school student with a minimal grasp of probability would understand that this is in fact a very unlikely situation. So yes, I knew the feds would figure this out and eventually pay us a visit.

“What did you tell them?”

“A white lie. I told them about the Prada Experiment and how it failed. Of course I didn’t know about gambling, other than the theory behind it. They weren’t too eager to listen to that lecture,” she winked at him.

“I suggested to have a look at the owner of the legal website. They thanked me for that valuable suggestion and left.”

Carl stood up.

“Okay… But I still don’t understand what happened in the meeting. If you despise him so much, why did you vote in favour of him then?”

“Because he already tanked this company,” she answered, feeling a lot better now she had finally told Carl her story. “Even before the vote. Last Friday, his puppet bitch Dausend gave him a lot more than ten thousand Annas. I’m angry and I want to make him pay. And that works better if he’s the owner of this mess!”