As expected, Carl had relished his little victory, but contrary to his habit, he had been quite subtle about it.  He had bought himself a Blade Runner action figure and had placed it carefully on his desk as a cryptic sign for all Interview conspirators to remember who had owned them. None of them had openly acknowledged the presence of the figure, but they could not help themselves and had tagged him Deckard from that day on.

The Interview itself had turned out to be one of those moments eternally burned into the collective mind of a project team. A recollection that gave an instant sense of belonging, but also instantly closed ranks on anyone who had joined the project after the event. Two completely opposite outcomes resulting from the same idea occurring at the same time. A collective mind suffering from cognitive dissonance. The memory brought her back into the present. Cognitive dissonance was the title of her presentation for today, and also the biggest technical nightmare in the Anna 3000 project.

She browsed through her presentation one more time. She knew that all of the meeting’s attendants, after having received the agenda to today’s meeting, had openly sighed at the painful prospect of having to sit through one of her scientific lectures. Yet, this was precisely Carl’s instruction: terrorize them with a dull fifty-two page presentation with an alarming level of detail. After a minute or two, just before everyone would desperately seek refuge in their tablets, phones or assistants, Carl would cut her short and start his One Man Show.

He was convinced that people in a state of relief would be more susceptible to his charm. She would have hated him for it if this were pure vanity – or cruelty, depending on your point of view; It wasn’t, though. He was right. It worked.

She spotted Carl spotting her. It was her cue to come out of her hiding spot and socialize. It was also her cue for trying to spot her lab techs, who, as she expected, were in their turn spotting the guests. They were playing Reverse Executive Cluedo.

They would further argue that simply collecting data by observation was 1. not very efficient, and 2. no fun at all. Reverse Executive Cluedo was designed to record an ongoing event, evaluate the sample data against previously recorded data, and then provide instant feedback on the probability of possible outcomes, giving the player the opportunity to change or add parameters and by doing so, alter or refine the prediction. These parameter adjustments were also recorded, so that they could later be measured against the actual outcome, scoring the players against each other. Because of the competitive nature of human gamers, they were convinced that the amount of bad decisions were minimized, and the data collection process was optimized.

The theory had already proven true in the days they played the similar Peer Paper Bag Fortune and Manager MASH games. Reverse Executive Cluedo was harder because of the relative lack of sample data, which was why today they were overly excited, running around recording who had parked their car where, who had arrived first, who was drinking what, who was talking to whom, how long these social courtesies took and what not, frantically tapping on their tablets and keeping track of their, and presumably, each other’s scores.

They had ranked the Board Members according to their personal net worth, the market value of their respective companies, discounted for lack of marketability and number of years their earnings were expected to continue. The latter two variables had turned out to be quite subjective and were still the basis of ongoing debate, which was why they had eventually chosen to work with personal rankings, enhancing their competitiveness even further. Finally, to enrich the game lingo, they had compiled a list of fifteen stereotypes that they had quantifiably identified in behavioral data.

—

As home thrown parties always gravitated towards the kitchen, so did office gatherings naturally drift towards the coffee corner. Isabella closed her presentation, walked over and entered the Reverse Executive Cluedo playground. Control Freak and Perfectionist herself – her team had had no problem whatsoever telling her how they had classified her – , she greeted the Politician, who was talking to the other Politician on the board. Smiling back at their Insolent Opportunist and Safety First Bureaucrat, she headed over to Carl (Stargazer and Stuntman), who was talking to a woman from a small IT firm with a Spartan reputation that operated out of Austin, Texas. She wasn’t sure how her team had classified her. Desperate Diplomat, most likely.

Even without hearing their conversation, she knew he was proudly explaining the origin of their glass display stuffed with Prada bags that separated the coffee corner from the entrance hall.

“Very good to see you, Dr. Dausend,” she greeted the woman, adding, “No, I haven’t forgotten about our mutual friend. Trouble is, he hasn’t been in contact yet and I can’t get hold of him,” she said throwing up her hands.

“Mutual friend” was another current nightmare on Isabella’s to-do list. Passive investor from the very start , Gus Ballentine (not classified yet, but a General and a Loose Cannon as fas as she was concerned) had developed a serious fixation on being active and had found Dr. Gretchen Dausend to take up his cause. As Gus’s deep pockets had facilitated their start in the first place, he felt they owed him.

Gretchen smiled and couldn’t thank her enough for her efforts. “For the life of me, that man is impossible to get hold of! I don’t expect it will be easy for you to find him. But he’s dead serious, you know—”

She had met him only once before. He was the kind of man who kept lobbying from the fringes to get what he wanted. People like him never took no for an answer. Because of the reservations she had about having active investors in general and Ballentine’s persona in particular, she had been covertly sabotaging his admission for a while now. She felt it was perfectly justified: an earlier Reverse Executive Cluedo simulation with Gus on board supported her skepticism.
“I know,” Isabella replied, “I’ll do my best.”

The last time she had joined a Board Meeting, she had expected Carl to fume about wasting his time. He had done no such thing. On the contrary: he had taken The Interview as an opportunity for the greatest sales pitch ever. He had of course conveniently failed to mention how the interview really ended. The board members believed he had found Anna out by feeding her the wrong name of a professor in University. They had all agreed this had been a very clever move. Carl had waved the compliment away by stating it had been an accident. The Board Members had all praised him for his modesty. Carl had smiled and said there was – of course – no way he could have outsmarted Isabella’s mastermind by anything else than sheer luck. All faces at the table had turned to Isabella and had nodded in agreement. All was good and everyone had been happy. By the time Isabella felt the blush subside, Carl had already convinced the whole room. Project Anna 2000 had been born.

This time she didn’t know what to expect. She wondered what he was up to. He seemed to be in an exceptionally good mood today.