Dr. Zimm took a deep breath before stepping through the tall doorway leading into the Corp’s boardroom.

Lenard did not. The robot simply whirred into the shadowy room behind Dr. Zimm, trailing him like an eager teenager on “Take Your Humanoid to Work Day.”

Twelve severe-looking men and women ringed the boardroom’s massive mahogany table. Their stern faces belonged to representatives of Big Banking, Big Tech, Big Pharma, Big Defense, Big Media. If an industry was Big, with global reach and limitless greed, it fought for a seat at this particular table. The world’s wealthiest companies joined forces to form the Corp for one reason and one reason only: to grow even wealthier. The billionaires on the board did not like being disappointed by the people they hired to help them make their fortunes grow.

People like Dr. Zacchaeus Zimm.

“The girl continues to elude you?” said the pink-faced chairman. He was furious. So were all the others.

“For the moment, yes,” said Dr. Zimm as calmly as he could. He’d been steeling himself for this face-to-face inquisition ever since he received the call to “report immediately” to the Corp’s top-secret headquarters located in the mountains of West Virginia. The boardroom was, actually, an underground bunker that could double as a bomb shelter, should that ever prove necessary.

“But you keep telling us that she is the key to expediting our dominance of quantum computing,” said a frustrated woman who had already made her fortune in Silicon Valley but was eager to make another one.

“She will be,” said Dr. Zimm. “Especially when she starts working with Lenard.” He pointed to the robot, who stood silently beside him, blinking and grinning. The pinpoint spotlight directly over his plastic head made his sculpted hair look like the wavy wax pile left behind by a sputtering black candle.

“Ladies and gentlemen,” said Dr. Zimm, “believe me when I tell you that, without a doubt, Max Einstein possesses the most brilliant mind in the field of quantum mechanics. Hers is the twenty-first-century brain that will take the leaps Albert Einstein, himself, could not!”

“How do you know that?” demanded the chairman.

Dr. Zimm grinned. “I just do.”

Lenard giggled.

“How?” demanded the Russian oligarch on the board. “Have you worked with her before? Did you know her parents? Was she a student of yours?”

“That is my secret to keep.”

“Dr. Zimm and Max Einstein have a special connection,” said Lenard. “Or, at least, that’s what he keeps telling me.” Another giggle.

“We want our quantum computer!” shouted the representative of Big Banking. “A closed system that no one else can access without paying us a fee!”

“Of course you do,” said Dr. Zimm. “We all do.”

Dr. Zimm knew that standard computers, with their bits and bytes, their zeros and ones, could only work on problems one step at a time. Quantum computers, on the other hand, would use the concepts of quantum entanglement and superposition where each zero could be tangled up with a one. The zeros and ones could exist on top of each other. They could be there and not there at the same time.

In other words, quantum computers could work on problems in all sorts of simultaneous steps.

They could solve complex problems much faster than the most sophisticated “classic” computer.

They would be worth a lot more money.

“In time,” Dr. Zimm told the board, “Max Einstein will see that she is better off with us. With me.”

“That’s what you keep telling us,” said the woman from Big Media, her anger rising. “But we’re in a race, doctor. We’re not the only ones working on quantum computing. Microsoft, Google, IBM, Caltech, MIT—they’re all chasing after the same prize!”

“But none of them have Max Einstein!” shouted Dr. Zimm.

“Neither do we!” the chairman shouted back.

“But we will,” said Lenard, a smile creeping across his rubbery face. “I am, at this very moment, cross-referencing several intelligence sources and social media feeds that will, I can say with ninety-six percent certainty, tell us where we might apprehend Maxine. However, at this instant, my computations are only operating at thirty-three percent of their potential capacity. I am having trouble linking to the external cellular network. Perhaps you should reconsider your decision to locate your headquarters in an underground bunker? Either that, or install better Wi-Fi.”

He giggled.

The board was stunned into silence. Dr. Zimm, too.

“What about Dr. Zimm?” said the chairman, directing his question to Lenard. “If we have you to grab the girl, why do we need him?”

“Good question,” said Lenard. “However, in my estimation, Dr. Zimm remains a useful, if non-vital, element in our equation for success because of his claim of a special relationship with our target. However, going forward, I assure you that I will be leading the hunt for Maxine Einstein. I also assure you that she will be in Corp custody soon. Very soon.”

And then he giggled and chuckled. For a full minute and a half.