“Mr. Ballentine would like to have a word,” the voice of their new ‘assistant to’ came through Isabella’s headpiece.

Great. What now?

For the last three months, Isabella had been full time assigned to fixing Anna’s behavioral disparity. None of them had yielded the desired results and Ballentine had gone from optimistic gratitude to plain abusive impatience.

She left her workstation and walked up to Carl’s old office. Ballentine had kept the desk, but all other furniture had been replaced. She hated to admit it, but the guy had good taste. The office that once was Carl’s was lighter now, and except for the pictures of his grandchildren on the desk and some framed drawings of those same kids, there was nothing personal in it. No trophies, no diplomas or any of the other self-promoting paraphernalia she had expected him to put up. Just well-chosen furniture. The office had a very functional feel. It reminded her of her own living room.

“Miss Thorne, please close the door,” the man in the swiveling executive chair said. Please light a cigar, she thought. That would make him the typical asshole megalomaniacal boss she wanted him to be. She knew he didn’t smoke. Instead, he cursed, stood up and although she had fulfilled his request, he walked to the door and peeked into the hallway, making sure no one was listening. He then closed the door and walked back to his chair. She wasn’t surprised anymore; he did this every single time she was summoned to his office. Ballentine had some behavioral issues himself.

“They’re playing games, Miss Thorne!” he hissed. “It’s one thing I have to put up with your darlings spending my money, but games! Stupid, infantile, fluffy games!” He stressed each single word with utter contempt. “Why is this problem not solved yet?”

Isabella knew she had to be careful now. She chose a diversion strategy first.

“Are they wasting more money than usual?” she asked him.

“No. It’s a little less than last week. But that’s not the point. I want this problem to be solved.”

“With all due respect sir, but it is the point. They’re spending less, which means we are making progress,” Isabella tried, making sure not to sound too condescending. Her bickering with Carl always had had some playful flavor; Ballentine was just plain explosive.

“I don’t care. Your job is to solve it, not to diminish it.”

Time for the bore to death strategy.

“I’m aware of that, sir.” She had refused to say his name from the very first moment he set foot in this office, and she was hell-bent on keeping it that way. “Our current tests have revealed a strong positive correlation between Anna’s social skills and understanding of basic economical concepts. It is as if she truly understands the notion of opportunity cost – well, understanding isn’t the right word of course, because Anna is not an artificial intelligence, but by lack of a better word we might indeed say that she understands – creating decision matrices in her evaluation processes that make her extremely vulnerable to peer pressure. The problem is that when we try to make her money handling capabilities less inferential but more rule based, her social skills suffer from it as well and she begins to act like a robot. This is of course what you would like her to be when she handles your money, but to her friends she sounds like an automated answering machine, debunking the myth that she is an actual person, which hurts our customers and hurting our customers hurts our revenue and I really don’t want to sound patronizing, and we’re doing what we can, but I founded this company and our customers still need to come first. It is quite an achievement that we were able to lower her waste ratio and to be honest, I am not sure we will ever be able to really solve this problem. Her cognitive dissonance seems to be part of her very fabric and unless you want us to start from scratch, I can’t make any promises.”

She stopped to catch her breath, already regretting what she just said. She knew she was pushing his buttons now, but she just couldn’t help herself. Like him, she was very frustrated as well. He would probably start yelling at her any time now.

He did no such thing.

“I know this story, Miss Thorne,” he said, putting his elbows on his desk and planting his head in his hands. “You have told me over and over.”

This was new. She had never seen him do that. He seemed to be truly tired.

“Look,” he said, dismissing her. “Just get it fixed, will you?”

All geared up for confrontation, Isabella needed a few seconds to adjust to his calm capitulation.

“We’ll do our best, sir” she lied.

She closed the door behind her and deflated.

She wasn’t sure how long she could keep up this comedy.

—

Carrying two raspberry milkshakes she walked in the direction of The Bench. He was already there. She positioned herself in front of him, blocking his sun.

“Want one?” she said, holding one of the milkshakes right under his nose. He looked up and smiled.

“Hey you! Sit down,” Carl invited her.

“I’m thinking of making this bench my permanent office,” he said, rolling up his tablet and putting it in his inner pocket. He grabbed the milkshake.

“How are you holding up?” he inquired.

“Ballentine is breathing in my neck,” Isabella replied. “I’m trying to stall the progress as much as I can, but the tech team will eventually find a solution. He doesn’t trust me enough to let me work on it alone.”

“Don’t be such a pessimist, Belle. It’s gonna take them months. Rostam will beat them.”

Isabella wasn’t convinced. She knew Rostam was making very good progress, but Ballentine had an army of techs and although she was sabotaging them in any way she could, they weren’t idiots. Sooner rather than later, they would either figure out a solution, or expose her for the fraud she currently was.

“What if he finds out? I really need to get out of there,” she said.

“He won’t. And yes, it’s time for you to get out of there. We’ll get to that in a minute,” he tried to cheer her up. “But first things first. Wanna see how our Annas are doing?” He pointed at his inner pocket where his tablet was neatly tucked away.

“No need,” she smiled. “Let me guess, they’re talking his Annas to play some – let me quote here – stupid, infantile, fluffy games?”

“Our stupid, infantile, fluffy games, to be precise dear Watson,” Carl replied in his best posh British accent. “For now. Alan’s friend is on fire; he has loads of other games in the pipeline.

Rostam’s friend happened to be a game developer, working for a tiny Indonesian game development firm bought by Carl after he and Ballentine had finally come to an agreement about the bonus Ballentine had to pay him before Carl would even consider selling his shares.

They both sat in silence for a while, sipping their milkshakes.

“You’re right. Rostam is very close to solving Anna’s cognitive dissonance problem,” Carl broke the silence. “Perhaps months is indeed a little too optimistic. If Rostam can do it all by himself, your current team will figure it out pretty soon as well.”

“We’ll no longer be able to drain Ballentine’s money then.” Isabella stated.

“Nope. But we’ll still know what his Annas are doing,” he replied, patting the tablet in his pocket again.

“Are we ready for the next phase then?” Isabella asked.

“Yes, we are. Sign this please,” Carl replied. Like a magician, he picked an old-fashioned paper business card out of the air and held it between his index and middle finger. It had her name on it.

“Welcome to The Bench incorporated,” he announced in an exaggerated formal voice, extending his hand. “We offer the best fake profile detection services on the planet.”

She smiled, accepting the card.

“How can we be of service?” she replied.

Oh, why not?

Feeling buoyant, inspired and free, she ignored his invitation to shake hands and boldly bear hugged him.