By Aryan Gupta and Lakshana Mukundan
It was around midnight when he called Amanda. It was a night overcast with clouds and a
slight drizzle, the perfect and serene environment. She picked up the phone and seeing Dan’s name,
she chuckled. But her chuckles stopped all of a sudden when she heard someone screamingas if he
were running away from death. She got frightened and immediately cut the phone. She took a moment
to realise what really was happening and then rushed into her car and drove off into the night. An
hour later, she reached a secluded house, almost completely broken down. She got out of the car and
into the house as if everything was normal. She waved a card at a guard who asked for identification
and then entered the building.
As she entered the house, she decided to investigate, to try and find out what had happened.
Amanda had been Dan’s personal attorney for quite some time, and Dan, being a rich businessman,
kept getting into trouble. In his earlier days, he was involved in a money-laundering scandal. He had
gotten out of it for almost 20 years, but his old associates were blackmailing him to help them again.
So he hired Amanda to look into his investors and anybody willing to make any deals with him. He
felt he needed to see if his associates had infiltrated his clientele. Amanda walked across the hallway.
All the lights were switched on, but there was nobody in sight. It was absolutely quiet.
Everything was scattered. The rugs on the floor were displaced from their original positions.
The books which used to be on the bookshelf were now scattered on the floor. Suddenly a brisk wind
flipped a few pages of some books. Yet Amanda remained calm. Amanda put her hand into her pocket
and took out a knife, a small knife with some engravings. If you’d looked closely, you’d have find
something written in a language that looked like Greek. And on the opposite side of the knife, there
were a lot of symbols; small symbols. She thrust the knife into a couch and cut a portion out of the base
of it. A small box slid out right into her hands. She opened the box up and found a key. Taking the
key, she went to the backyard and into the garage. While opening the garage door, she used the key
she had just found. and opened the garage door. The garage had a yellow Camaro. Just then, she had
a small flashback to when Dan and her would drive the entire day, travel to the outskirts of various
states and cities in the very same Camaro.
She picked up the keys from the worktable, got into the car and turned the engine on. She
revved the car a bit and then drove out of the garage. As soon as she got out of the garage, the car
spoke to her. It asked whether the garage should be closed or not, and she replied saying yes, please
close the garage. Amanda then asked Wally, the A.I. companion onboard the very fancy yellow
Camaro, to show her the video footage of the past hour. She saw the footage while driving and noticed
that Dan was never here. She then asked Wally for the latest location of Dan. Wally told her that Dan
was 15 kilometers away just near Amanda’s house around 5 hours back. Amanda was reminded of
the not-so romantic dinner she had with Dan the previous evening. Dan was called away by someone
in the midst of their dinner ‘date’. Dan was being very hideous about it, and she didn’t bother as she
was so lost in his eyes.
Now when she came to think about it, he was probably called away from their dinner by his
former associates, who’d caught hold of him and taken him someplace. She drove back home,
deciding to start her search in her neighbourhood. He had probably been coming to visit her, but she
thought he stood her up after the previous night’s dinner. When she came to her street, she asked
Wally if Dan was last seen there alone or if he had people with him. Wally had detected two more
people. Wally had a remote-controlled connection with Dan, for security purposes, but the connection
seemed to be broken. It had been so for four hours. She drove towards an old godown where Dan’s
company, Omnidrive, stored their machine parts. It was on the next road.
She went towards the gate and was going to take her set of keys out to open it, but it wasn’t
locked! She went inside and saw that all the parts were scattered and thrown around the huge room.
It was like somebody was trying to look for something, and they may have found it. She wore rubber
gloves and then ran towards the safe, where Dan kept his projections of new ideas to expand his
business from Car A.I. to A.I. that could be used in other ways. After she opened it, she gave a big sigh.
All the files she knew about were still there, so she closed the safe. Below the safe, though, she found
one file, wedged in between the safe and the floor. She took it and searched the rest of the godown, but
she didn’t find much, except for a handprint. With the techniques she had learnt from the police after
working in criminal cases, back when she was a law student, she took a fingerprint sample and
quietly made her way out, locking the godown as she left.
She went home to download the file, dated 22-07-2025, fifteen years before present times. It
would probably give insight into why people were targeting him, she thought. Amanda and Dan were
very close, she even considered the thought of getting married to him. She hadn’t felt such affection for
anybody before. She wanted to find him, alive and safe. If she didn’t find him by midnight the next
day, she would bring it up to the police or with Dan’s Private Investigator.
As she was downloading the files, she wondered what Dan would have tried to hide from her
that eventually led to him being in danger. Dan was very open with her, and Amanda thought that he
had shared everything about his past with her. Upon opening the file on her desktop, she found an
encrypted folder. The multi-talented Amanda got down to decrypting this very mysterious folder.
Around two colas and a sandwich later, she got this folder decrypted. And as it turned out, the
scandal he was caught in wasn’t the only crime he committed, he was filed for embezzlement and
fraud too. These are serious business crimes and Amanda was taken aback as she never thought a
man like Dan could’ve ever done such a thing.
Dan, in the eyes of Amanda, was a righteous and honest man . He could’ve never committed a
crime; that too fraud. After seeing these criminal records, Amanda didn’t want to go to help Dan as he
had hidden this from her. Being his attorney, she had thought that he would tell her everything that
she would need to protect him from his very ‘evil’ associates. But Amanda made up her mind that she
wanted to confront Dan about this. So, she ran back into the Camaro, and drove straight to her office
complex where she went through all the details she had obtained about Dan. She found the list of
associates that Dan told her to be careful about. She also found the number of his Personal
Investigator and immediately called her up and told her to come at once. Amanda was initially
jealous of Rachel, his P.I. Rachel and Dan were very close and had known each other for longer than
10 years. But over time, Amanda had got closer and the latter drifted, so she had nothing to fear, and
dreamed freely about her future with Dan. Well, now she got down to finding the whereabouts of
these suspicious associates. And very interestingly she found out that all of the people mentioned on
the list were living within a mile of Dan’s house.
“Rachel, I know we don’t get along, but we really need to find Dan.” I said, over the phone.
“Amanda Dankworth? Dan’s lawyer? Wait, what happened to him?” she asked, frantically.
I explained the entire situation to her, hoping she would understand. “So, you’re trying to get me,
Dan’s P.I., to investigate Dan?” she inquired.
“No, the associates, so we can find Dan and confront him. As his attorney and P.I., we need
to know the truth, don’t you agree?”
She did, and I met her at her office. Dan had been missing for twelve hours, and we found
that one of his associates, Carl Matthews, went to a nearby diner, Kenny’s, every morning.
“Carl Matthews? We’re business journalists, writing about the top A.I. businesses at present
and fifteen years ago, and we’d like to ask you in particular about your partnership with Daniel
Evans.” said Rachel.
“I’d rather not speak about that.”
“It gives us insight about what’s to come next in the A.I. field. With your help, we can gather
information on entrepreneurship and partnership in the A.I. sector, which is a very prominent
industry in today’s world.” Amanda added to Rachel’s statement.
“Really? And share everything to the world so that anybody and everybody can infiltrate our
systems?” Carl raised his eyebrows at us.
“Alright then, if you don’t give us your insight, then we’ll just have to make our own
statements. And they may not put you in a good place.” Rachel smirked.
“What may those statements be?” he challenged.
“Just that you lost ten billion dollars due to your ‘faulty’ bitcoin A.I., which directed all that
money to you, nothing much. You didn’t go to jail because you were all chummy with the police.” I
said, smugly.
“How do you know that?”
“We have sources, we’re journalists.”
“Fine, fine. Come with me, I’m not discussing any of that here.”
Carl left behind fifteen dollars on the table and rushed out of the diner with a sense of fear. He
opened up the door for the women and led them to a limousine. The car driver opened up the door for
the gentleman and the ladies. And once they were seated, Carl gave each lady a glass of wine.
However, both of them declined, and wanted to get straight to business. He still seemed a bit anxious
as to what would come next. The vehicle started to move, the shades came down and the yellow lights
came on. Carl called out to Ross, asking him to play some instrumental music. And after a few seconds
they had a slow-paced song started playing in the background. Ross was Carl’s Personal A.I.
assistant, similar to Wally but much better and much more advanced. Ross could control much more
and had many more functionalities. And then Rachel repeated the statement she mentioned in the
diner.
“So, ten billion dollars, what’d you need it for?” asked Rachel.
“Well, who doesn’t like money?” said Carl.
“The Directors won’t when they get to know that all their money came to you,” said Rachel.
“Who said that they’ll get to know?” said Carl, as he put a black suitcase on the table in
between them. He clicked open the suitcase and turned it around. Amanda’s jaw dropped upon seeing
so much money.
“What’s this for?” said Rachel.
“Take this and keep your mouths shut,” said Carl.
“I’ll keep shut on one condition, tell me more about Daniel Evans, maybe a little about the
scandal? It’ll make a great story,” said Rachel
“I’ll tell you all about the scandal if I have a dance with this lady here,” said Carl.
Carl moved closer to Amanda and extended his arm forward seeking a dance.
Amanda wasn’t in the mood to dance in a limousine, she had motion sickness. Also, she didn’t
want to take a bribe. That’s probably what happened to Dan, she thought. He may have taken the
blame for something that Carl had done. Well, she hoped that Dan hadn’t actually committed those
crimes.
“If you want, I’ll dance with you, once we get out of the limo. You don’t want puke in your
face, do you?” said Amanda.
“We’ll take the cash.” declared Rachel, at the same time.
“Let’s consult with each other.” clarified Amanda. She was not happy with Rachel’s decision
at all. As a lawyer, she knew that it was better to stay out of trouble. The money could have been
black money. With Carl, it was possible. She conveyed that to Rachel, and they struck up a deal. He’d
tag along so that they didn’t tell people the truth about him until they found out the whole thing, and
he’d get his dance with Amanda sometime.
Once they reached Carl’s office, he showed the duo inside and they were seated at his desk
when Carl finally danced with Amanda. Amanda grimaced throughout the whole thing, she missed
the time when she and Dan danced in the gazebo at a park near her house. A little later, she couldn’t
bear to continue.
“Now, on to business.” she said.
“Tell us, when did you meet Dan?” asked Rachel.
“Ten years ago, at an A.I. convention. He was a budding businessman and I was a little more
established. He took a loan from me, after negotiations. About three years later, I encountered a loss,
so he repaid part of my loan. Still, he wasn't as successful as he is now. He still hasn’t repaid the loan
yet and I’ve been trying to contact him. Now, you got the story, you can leave.”
“I don’t think I’m satisfied. What about you, Amanda?”
“I feel you’re missing something.”
“You weren’t in touch with him for seven years and you only tried to contact him now? Tell us
more about that?” inquired Rachel.
“People drift, you know. You ladies must know that more than anyone else. Journalists write,
certain people don’t like what you write and then move away from you,” said Carl.
“People drift, but they don’t come running back after seven years,” replied Amanda.
Rachel eyed Amanda to stand down, and handle it peacefully, without any arguments. She
then asked Carl, “So well, how’s your business doing now?” just to get the conversation back to the
normal tone. Carl talked about how his business had been bought by another company and is now
flourishing under the new set of Board of Directors who’ve taken Artificial Intelligence to a new level,
and who continue to invest heavily in the company. This caught Amanda’s attention, she asked him
who was the head of the Board of Directors.
Carl said, “He’s a really nice chap. His name is Adam. He’s treated me really well even after
taking my business.”
This caught both Amanda’s as well as Rachel’s attention. Dan talked a lot about how his
business was going to be taken over by a man named Adam Johnson, who offered him a really
attractive package, and a very well-paid position in the company too. Johnson was the leader of a
tech giant business, taking over almost each and every budding entrepreneur’s business.
The night was almost coming to an end, so Amanda and Rachel went to a diner close by.
They sat opposite to each other, and Amanda looked tense. To break the ice, finally Rachel spoke up,
“Do you love him?”
“What?”
“Do you love Dan?”
“Well yeah. But I don’t know what’s happening right now. I’m completely confused. Seeing
those files, I couldn’t believe my own eyes. Dan, the man I loved could never do such a thing. Fraud
isn’t his thing.” Saying this, she burst out crying.
“Hey, hey Amanda. Look here. Look at me. I know Dan well, I’m his P.I. I also doubt he did
this. I’ve known him for almost 7 years now. He’s been nothing of the kind.”
Looking at Rachel she said, “Really?”
Rachel said, “Yes Amanda, really.”
Then Amanda asked, “Do you also find something strange about Adam?”
Rachel replied saying, “Of course. Dan was really attracted to the offer, but in the last few
days, he became opposed to the offer. I don’t think this Adam person is the ideal person to sell a
company to.”
Wiping off her tears with the tissue Rachel gave her, Amanda said, “Let’s get something to eat
and then get some rest. Tomorrow we’ll look for Adam.”
“Sure,” said Rachel.
Section 10: Enigmatic Paradox
Amanda woke up the next morning ready to talk to Adam Johnson. She was trying to
prepare herself to hear anything and everything about Dan, no matter how horrifying it sounded.
She picked Rachel up from her house and she put in the address of Johnson’s office on her
GPS.
“So, how do we start?” asked Rachel.
“We ask him how he knows Dan, we have a right to know, being his attorney and P.I,
especially if they say they’re doing business together. Then we go through their business files and
contracts, don’t we?”
“Of course, he’s not going to tell us the entire truth.” added Rachel.
“Do you think people tell us everything in any of our cases? Of course, you know that they
don’t. If Dan told us everything, we wouldn’t be stuck here.” Amanda pointed out. Rachel nodded in
agreement.
They got to Adam’s office.
“Staff of Daniel Evans from Omnidrive.” they said, in unison. They were let in. Adam’s
robotic assistant showed them to the office.
“Our client, Daniel Evans, is about to do business with you, is that right?” asked Rachel.
“Oh yes, he is.” he answered, proudly.
“And he sold his company to you for how much?”
“Twenty million dollars. And here, he gets a job as the Assistant Manager of New
Technologies, which will be an asset, as he has very good ideas.” answered Adam. Rachel sighed at
the worth of Dan’s company.
“Have you paid him yet? And may I please see your contract?” asked Amanda.
“Oh yes, I have. I’ve paid him the first five million dollars in advance, and the rest shall be
paid subsequently.”
The women read through the contract and saw that the contract was more towards Adam’s
favour. Dan got a raise and he would be financially set, on paper, but his working hours were for
fourteen hours a day, seven days a week. Adam also had the right to go through all of Dan’s files on
his work computer and he had to report to work whenever called, even in the middle of the night. The
ownership of some of Dan’s property was also in Adam’s name. Amanda wondered why Dan would
agree to such a contract. She kept telling him to go slow, to not rush into such a business. Of course,
when it came to A.I, Dan kept getting ahead of himself. He hadn’t consulted with Amanda or Rachel
before making his decision.
“How did you get him to agree to this in the first place? I’m sure Dan has a personal life which he still
wants to have.” asked Rachel, looking towards Amanda.
“It’s the Board of Directors for A.I., he can’t say no to us, can he? All we’re trying to do is
centralise the whole field to avoid competition. I’m pretty sure he understands that and the only
reason he didn’t tell you two was because he didn’t think you would need to. You haven’t exactly been
working in the field of A.I.” he smirked.
“Alright, just give us your contracts and any documents you have on him. I mean each one,
otherwise, we’ll go digging all around your office like a couple of rodents, and we can get you in
trouble. I’m acquainted with many court judges.” said Amanda, shaking her head.
“It’s been almost 4 days,” said Amanda, “There’s no sign of Dan anywhere.”
“No ransom either, it’s just been blank about him. I checked with a few contacts at the police,
but they also haven’t seen him on any camera,” said Rachel.
“Well Dan’s A.I. companion is one of the best in its kind, if Wally couldn’t find him, I don’t
think anyone could, except...”
“No, I don’t want to hear that man’s name.”
“Adam.”
Amanda had given up all hope of finding Dan and clarifying all her questions about why he
did all that stuff in the files. Rachel tried to keep her going, but it started to become hard. Amanda
started to feel alone without Dan around her. She spent the majority of her time with Wally replaying
old videos of Dan and her. She really missed Dan. It was visible on her face. However, on the other
hand, Rachel kept her search ongoing. She went through each and every file that Adam had given
them.
All of a sudden Rachel’s face lit up and she ran over to her Porche and drove straight to Dan’s
house, where Amanda was. She ran into Dan’s house waving her ID at the camera which let the door
open. She screamed out to Amanda as her voice echoed throughout the house, but Rachel knew just
where to find her. There was a mini-bar right outside Dan’s bedroom. Rachel rushed there and found
Amanda really drunk lying on Dan’s bed. Rachel tried waking her up, but she just wouldn’t. Rachel
then got the bucket of ice from the minibar and dumped it on Amanda’s head to wake her up, and
Amanda woke up completely sober. Rachel then told her, “Sorry for the ice but I think I have an idea
as to what happened. I found some connection between Adam’s colleagues and Dan. Can you look
this up for me?”
In business school, Dan had been good friends with some of Adam’s colleagues, so it made
sense for them to go into business together back then. All of them had ideas to work in the A.I field. At
that time, they went to the A.I convention and there, they met Carl. All of them joined Carl’s company,
but they thought they deserved a little more, being ambitious, young entrepreneurs. Together, they
started another company, which Carl later bought. Dan decided that he needed to do something on
his own, so he left the company, but continued to take their mentorship. His friends, however,
continued to work for the same company.
To start Omnidrive, he followed in Carl’s footsteps and even took a loan from him. Suddenly,
however, he lost touch with Carl, around the time when Dan was accused of a crime of embezzlement
and fraud. When Amanda went with Rachel to meet Carl, he claimed that Dan had taken a loan
from him and not paid him back. In the files that Adam had given them, there was one on all the
records of accounts used in the A.I. business. Adam, being part of the Board of Directors, obviously
had that record. Amanda just wondered why Adam gave them that file as well. She downloaded that
file and it showed that Carl had in fact given Dan money, a loan of ten billion dollars, which hadn’t
been completely paid yet.
Amanda got into her car and drove to her law firm, where she was a senior partner. She
looked into records of all the cases handled by the firm, and there was one that caught her eye.
‘17th July 2025, Daniel Evans charged for embezzlement and fraud.’ it was titled. That was
dated five days before the first file which she found in Dan’s godown. She looked through the file and
saw that Dan had been arrested and released on bail, by Norman Gibson, one of his friends, an
employee of Carl Matthews. Soon enough, Dan lost touch with Carl and started Omnidrive. Ten years
after that, Amanda became Dan’s personal attorney.
Amanda was worried. The thought that had been scaring her for quite some time came back
to her. ‘What if Dan was guilty’
As she exited the files room, she found her boss staring into her soul.
“You haven’t answered for a week. You haven’t heard? Dan Evans, your client, has gone
missing.” she said.
“What do you think I’ve been doing for the past week? I’ve been trying to find out what
happened to him this whole time. As his personal attorney, my job is to defend him.” replied Amanda,
half-bawling.
“Who reported him missing?” she added.
“Adam Johnson, a big name in the A.I. industry.” Immediately, she drove to Rachel’s office.
As soon as she got into her car, she called up Rachel and asked her to look into Adam
Johnson’s activity for the past week. She revved the car up and drove even faster. Every time she’d
think of Dan, her conscience would scream, “Liar,” at her. This was breaking her from the inside and
this was very visible on her face as well. She finally reached Rachel’s office and ran straight to her and
asked, “How sure are you that Dan didn’t lie to us?” and started sobbing.
“Amanda, listen to me, if he did lie, he’d have a good reason for doing so. Dan is a very smart
and intelligent man; he doesn’t need fraud and embezzlement to earn his money. So much so, he’s one
of the most renowned Harvard graduates in business. Unless of course, he cheated his way through
business school.”
“Rachel! Don’t make things worse for me than it already is.”
“I’m sorry, I’m sorry, but it could be true, considering he’s gotten so high up in such a short
time.”
“He’s a successful and talented man,” said Amanda in denial. Amanda had really thought
that Dan would be her first ever love, in her lonely life, which is very unusual for a senior partner.
Rachel slid her a hard drive into the laptop, and said, “Now get to work, we’ve got a lot of
content to go through in a very limited timeframe.”
They both then sat side by side and went through all the files. Their eyes were turning red,
and both of them were becoming drowsy, just when Amanda screamed, “I think I got something!
Come here. Come, have a look!”
Rachel thought that this was really something. Considering their current situation, they
literally had nothing, no clues, no suspects, nothing. Just a lot of doubts. It was an email that Carl had
written to Adam, informing him about the income of the company. Something seemed very off.
According to the records, the company made almost a third of its whole month’s income in a single
day. This is almost impossible to achieve, even after having A.I. in your hands. Seeing this figure, both
Amanda and Rachel could think of only two things, either Carl used the ‘faulty bitcoin’ to his
advantage again, or maybe this time, Dan did something. They knew this all happened four days
right after Dan went missing. Their suspicions rose. The last time Amanda saw so much income in one
day was when she saw the embezzlement case file of Dan’s. Amanda opened up the records, and
checked the source of income, and they were right, it was straight from Omnidrive to New
Technologies, and the transaction was made under the name, Daniel Evans.
So, that meant that Dan was alive, his account was well encrypted, unless his captor was the
one who helped him encrypt it. With the transfer details, they tried to find out the location from which
it was made. The IP address was designated to a computer owned by Norman Gibson, New
Technologies.
They’d found out who’d taken him, but they still didn’t know where. Rachel decided to gather
information from her sources about Norman’s whereabouts in the past fortnight. As Norman worked
for Carl’s company, the whole ploy to capture Dan was definitely to repay the loan he’d taken. The
question was, why did Dan give in? This confused them.
“My sources say he’s not in the New Tech office and he hasn’t been there for a long time. Carl
has been trying to get in touch with him too.” Rachel said.
“Of course, he’s not there, then it would be too easy to find him. So where could he be?” replied
Amanda.
“Adam filed a police complaint, so the police have asked me to work with them. I’m
wondering whether I should do it or not, considering we don’t know if Dan’s even innocent.”
“It’s hard, but we’re not going anywhere by ourselves, we need the police and they need us to
solve this case. We should do it. I’ll try my best to settle a deal with the police so that Dan isn’t
imprisoned.” admitted Amanda.
They drove to the police station and Rachel met the Head Detective. “We have a deal.” she
said as she met up with Amanda again.
The police were to raid Norman’s house that evening and Rachel’s sources were to find more
information as soon as possible.
In the evening, the words “Police! Stand back, hands up! Norman Gibson, come out,
wherever you are!” could be heard from a mansion amid many smaller houses. As the police and
Rachel, who insisted on going, were scouring the place for anything that gave evidence that there were
people in the house in the last few days, they saw a few dishes in the sink and some food that didn’t
look spoilt.
As they looked in each room, they saw a woman and two children cowering under a bed. His wife
and children, probably.
“Hands up!” said the Head Detective. The family squealed and shivered. Slowly, they raised
their hands. “You’re Norman Gibson’s wife, right?”
“Yes, yes I am. If you’re looking for Norman, he said he was going on a trip with his old
friend, to a retreat, he said.” she stammered.
“Where is this retreat?”
“He said it was ‘The Sunnyfields’. Often, they went there when they were younger. The thing
is, he’s been acting a little off lately, so we’re not on great terms now. I haven’t called him. In fact, I’m
not so sure if that’s an ‘old friend’.” she said.
But it was, it was Dan. He was a little off, but not for the reasons his wife thought. The police
took Mrs Gibson with them back to the station. Rachel and the Head Detective were to pick Amanda
up at her office and go to ‘The Sunnyfields’; it was worth a try.
Rachel and Amanda sat in one car, while the Head Detective along with his colleagues came
in the other. Amanda and Rachel were still taken aback by what Dan did.
Rachel spoke out saying, “Maybe Dan did it out of compulsion. If he had to do it, he would’ve
done it within the first two days.”
Amanda replied, “Well, maybe then the first time also was compulsion, but why would Dan’s
old friend compel Dan to do anything, forget a huge transaction which could drive Omnidrive into
bankruptcy.”
“Or maybe this is the friend who made him commit fraud in the first place,” said Rachel.
“Norman did pay for Dan’s release, the bail,” said Amanda.
“Do you think it’s been Norman all along?” asked Rachel.
“It’s highly probable, but let’s be prepared for the worst. What if Dan did it himself, for
personal gains?” said Amanda in a very pessimistic manner.
“For you, probably that’s the best, secrets kept from you, and you were thinking of marriage.
Must be devastating,” replied Rachel to keep the conversation going.
Just then Wally spoke up saying that the detective was trying to reach them, using radio
frequency 110 Megahertz. So, Rachel set the frequency to 110 and then heard the Detective commanding
his unit about the proceedings, and what to do, what not to do when they see the target - Norman
Gibson. And when he realised that Rachel was listening to all of this, due to the disturbance echo, he
stopped and said to them, “We’re close now. Set everything up. Be ready.”
As they approached the retreat farmhouse, which seemed like it was abandoned, Amanda
had chills. This farmhouse looked almost exactly like Dan's safehouse, where she’d been the day she
received a call from Dan. It was completely cut off from the grid. There was a special electricity
generator set up right beside the house. It was huge. It had a combination of windmills, solar panels
and even a pool of water which probably used convection to generate electricity. It all seemed like
advanced pieces of machinery. Getting so much work done, so far away from the main city almost
seemed impossible. But the world of A.I. had taught both Amanda and Rachel not to think that
anything was impossible. The Head Detective got out of his car and commanded his unit to slowly
surround the site while Amanda and Rachel stayed in the car as told by the Head Detective.
Suddenly, they heard screams, and shouts, probably of another officer. Rachel and Amanda
stepped out of the car and found themselves to be all alone. No torches were switched on. No lights.
Nothing. They were scared, very scared of thesituation they were in. But like every other pair of girls,
these girls loved adventure, which was probably why they both had liking for Dan in the first place.
They went closer to the house and Amanda gasped even more. The door was exactly the same as the
one she saw at Dan’s. The coincidence was too good to be true. Rachel questioned Amanda, “What
happened? Are you alright?”
Amanda replied, “There’s just too much similarity. Do you think Dan owns this property or
owned this in the past?”
Rachel said, “He hasn’t ever talked to me about this.”
Amanda added, “Ever since he’s hired me, we’ve never dealt with this property, and none of
the documents he showed me reflect this property.”
Rachel said laughing, “If there’s anything at all we’ve learnt all this while is that Dan’s had
secrets, and probably nothing but secrets.”
“Fair point,” replied Amanda. And just then a gate opened up and Amanda heard a voice
saying, “Is this Amanda?”
Amanda replied, “Umm......yes, it is”
Suddenly a small,earth-disguised metallic trap door opened up, and the voice said,
“Welcome Amanda, you may enter, and as for the lady behind, she must be held back, she does not
have access to the vault.”
Rachel said, “Go ahead, hit me up if you need anything, till then I’ll look for these officers”
And Amanda took the plunge into the deep and dark void in the ground.
The void was dark. Amanda turned her flashlight on and followed the shadow of a person,
whose voice she’d just heard. “Was she going to find Dan, after all this time?” she thought. The dark
path ended in a small vestibule, where the man beckoned her to continue to follow him. He led her to a
room further inside, and she entered, shivering. In the room, there were two other men, though one
wasn’t fully visible.
“Ah, Amanda Dankworth. Dan talks about you so much, a pleasure to finally meet you.” one of them
said, reaching forward for a hug. Amanda pushed him away. She didn’t know him at all. This must
be Norman, she thought.
“Tell me, where is Dan? If he talks about me so much, he must be here, right?”
She pulled out a pocketknife and held it beside her, in case anyone tried to harm her. The man
pulled Amanda towards him and took out his rifle. He pointed it to her head and went towards the
other man. The other man, as expected, was her one and only, Daniel Evans. His hair was
dishevelled and he was bleeding as well. He looked as though he had been gagged for days.
“Amanda! You said you wouldn’t harm her if I paid you! How many times did I tell you,
don’t bring her into this.” he cried?
“You haven’t paid me the full amount, Dan.”
“Norman, you realise you’re asking for too much, right? I can’t pay you; I wouldn’t like to go
bankrupt. Let’s just settle here, and don’t you dare touch my girl!”
“It was a deal, if you don’t pay me fully, I will kill her, and you’ll witness her slow death.”
“The Norman I knew at Harvard would never do that. And with this, I repaid the loan to
New Technologies, and more.”
“The Norman you knew, isn’t who I am now. I’ve grown and evolved, gotten higher up in the
world. Now, I have money and power.”
Amanda gagged and grimaced. She was utterly disgusted by Norman; she couldn't seem to
think how Dan was ever friends with him. He cocked his gun to Amanda’s head, and she was ready,
if it prevented Dan from committing fraud again.
“No, no, no. You cannot do this. You cannot kill her. Don’t you have a sense of dignity?”
Amanda took her pocketknife and brought it close to his throat. He released her and pushed
her on the floor, sending her pocketknife away from her. Then, he got her in his clutches again.
Amanda wriggled, she even bit him. They got into a fight, more towards self-defense. In the middle,
however, Amanda managed to give Rachel a missed call. Norman and his men were against Amanda
and Dan, who, though weak, managed to find Amanda’s pocketknife on the floor. Amanda and Dan
did all they could, but two against four was difficult. One of the men shot and it nearly missed Dan.
Norman caught hold of Amanda and pointed his rifle at her head again. Dan was panting and
gasping.
“Leave...her.” he said, weakly. He crawled towards Norman and spit blood on his shoe.
“I love you, and I won’t let you go.” said Dan to Amanda, as strong as he could.
Kicking Norman in the groin to try and escape from his clutches, she said, “I love you too,
Dan.”
Norman groaned and got really angry as Amanda tried escaping from his clutches. He
knocked her down with his elbow with a straight blow to the backbone, and Amanda fell straight
onto the ground. Dan screamed, “Amanda!” And now hormones filled his bloodstream. He felt as
much rage as love for Amanda. He stood back up, blood trickling down his mouth and down his
blood-stained bare chest. He clenched his fist, and dashed straight towards Norman, knocking him
down. Amanda flicked him the knife really quick and now all of a sudden, they dominated the field.
Rachel, along with the Sheriff, approached the area and now Norman and his men were
surrounded by Government agents and policemen. But the action didn’t stop there. Suddenly, they
heard rocks crumbling and crushing. And as they guessed, they were reinforcements for Norman.
They were on their way the moment Norman knew the police came. The men dug a hole in the ground
and came in really fast. And the scene was going to reverse in just a while, the police were
outnumbered and surrounded by Norman and his men. Now the police had just one option, they had
to strategise and find a way around this. Amanda, Rachel and Dan had faced much harder problems
in real life. For Amanda it was fighting cases and making her clients profit from every case, Rachel
had to be secretive and find information to safeguard Dan who hired her. And Dan, he had to combat
fear in real life. Fear of losing Amanda because of his past, because of his previous associates,
specifically Norman. And also fear of dying ever since the day he denied cooperating with Norman.
So, they all came together and formulated a plan and by the time the reinforcements came into the
main vault, Dan, Amanda, Rachel, the Sheriff as well as his squad, moved swiftly into tunnels
surrounding the vault, leaving Norman and his men gagged and tied up to each other.
Dan knew it would be really hard to fight them all using just men, he had to put his mind into
work. So before leaving, he took one of the security cameras off, adjusted the wiring a little bit and set
in a mechanised machine gun. He booted it with the phone Amanda had and kept the phone with
himself. He instructed the sheriff’s men to take off all the security cameras from the walls and place
them on the ground near the main entrance to the vault. And then he spit some saliva on them. To up
the voltage, he provided a bit of static electricity to the cameras and also removed the earthing wires. It
was all set up. As the reinforcements rushed in, they were startled as everything seemed to be cracking
under their feet and it was dark as well, so they couldn’t understand what was happening. When
they’d shoot at the ground, nothing would break, but when they’d step on it, it’d crush like it’s
something hollow. As soon as the men stepped over these crushed security cameras, a huge flow of
current passed through them and they were alarmed. Just then Dan used the machine gun to start
shooting at these men.
As the electric shocks slowed them down by quite a bit, the machine gun worked well on the
reinforcements. And as the ammo on the gun came to an end, the police adopted the guerrilla
techniques to combat this startled side- keep coming in waves and attacking from different directions;
this all confused the reinforcements, and they were forced to retreat. The Sheriff then arrested Norman
for a countless number of crimes and headed for the entrance to the tunnel. Rachel had called a few
contacts and requested them to keep the area clean when they came out from this deadly pit, so that
they could come out safely. The Sheriff had also called for some back up when they were in the
tunnels, so they helped them out, and they were taken straight to the police station.
The way to the police station was a struggle too, it wasn’t like Norman and his men willingly
came with them. One by one, they were taken into the interrogation room, Norman and all his men.
Amanda, Rachel and Dan were also interrogated, though Rachel was a detective herself. Rachel was
surprised that the police were trying to be as thorough as possible with this case.
They even made Carl and Adam go to the station, as Carl was Norman’s boss and Adam was
an integral part in this case.
“Adam, your file really helped, even if you didn’t intend for it to.” said Amanda.
“My pleasure. Dan, I hope we’ll still be doing business together.”
“I need to think, I’ve been moving too fast, business wise.” he said.
“To think, you suspected me.” Carl smirked. “We had a nice dance that day.”
“You do know that you’re his mentor, so it could be what he learnt from you. He still works
for your company, you’re his boss. Though you haven't done enough for life imprisonment, you might
still get arrested for other crimes.” Rachel pointed out.
“Also, what did you mean when you said ‘dance’?” asked Dan, looking at Amanda and Carl.
“Being a bit of a misogynist, he would only give me a bit of information if I danced with him.
He asked me to dance in his limo at first, but we came up with a compromise.” answered Amanda,
smiling at Carl.
Carl was then called for interrogation. Hearing about his crimes back in the day, he was
arrested for six months, on charges of embezzlement and fraud.
Next, it was Rachel’s turn. The police mostly asked her if she ever suspected Dan for any
cases, or if Dan had ever told her about these ‘associates’. In Amanda’s interrogation, they asked the
same questions. It made sense, as both were Dan’s hires to defend him in cases and business, and both
were romantically involved with him, some time or the other. Both of them weren’t aware of the
associates much, as Dan didn’t talk much on that topic. He always diverted the conversation to
something else, and both made a choice not to torture him.
“It’s mostly because of Dan that you could find the real culprits, and he helped us catch them.”
started Amanda.
“So?” asked the detective interrogating her.
“If he pleads guilty, don’t arrest him. Pardon him, maybe with a warning. He has good
intentions. He wasn’t guided well when he was younger, but he’s smarter now.”
“How do we know he wouldn’t go into money laundering.”
“Knowing Dan, he’ll think it’s too much trouble to cover up. He won’t go into that direction; I
give you my word.”
“Ms. Dankworth, I know you’re a very good lawyer, who wins most of her cases. Senior
Partner at Henson and Carter is a big achievement, but you have personal issues in this case.”
“Speaking of cases, I could work a few cases as a prosecutor, if you pardon him.” she tempted
him.
“You’re good. You’ve got a deal.” said the detective. They shook hands and he showed her out
of the room.
Last but not the least, they interrogated Dan.
“Daniel Evans? Born on September 17th, 1999?” asked the head detective.
“Yes, sir.”
“Where did you meet Norman Gibson and Carl Matthews?”
“Norman was my close friend at business school. We joined Carl’s company afterwards.”
“What about your case regarding embezzlement and fraud?”
“I was under the wrong mentorship, sir. I admit that. I overpriced my products and hoarded
money, so I got arrested. Though Norman bailed me out, I felt like I was mingling with the wrong
crowd. I left New Tech and started Omnidrive, with a loan from Carl.”
“Have you repaid this loan?”
“Not until recently, when Norman held me captive. He made me pay the loan to New Tech,
thought I might as well do it, as I’d met him anyway. He threatened to torture and kill my girlfriend,
Amanda, if I didn’t pay him more money. Please understand, sir, I never wanted to get in touch with
them ever again, so that’s why I didn’t repay his loan. I can say that I plead guilty, which is a
statement normally said in court.”
“Daniel Evans, you’re free to go, on a warning. You’ve helped us catch the real culprits here.”
Dan’s head rose. He was surprised. He thought that he should just go to jail, once and for all, only
then will he really be free of his old associates. However, he was worried, worried that Amanda may
not accept him had he gotten arrested. He was scared that she wouldn’t want to marry him, he was
thinking of proposing sometime soon. Little did he know that it was Amanda who made a deal with
the Head Detective.
“Will you accept me, still, if I asked you to marry me, even after you know about my past
life?”
“These two weeks, I’ve been thinking a lot. As a lawyer, I could say that you’ve been a bit of a
coward. As your girlfriend, I say the same thing. I need some more time to think. I love you, Dan, I
really do, but how can I be sure that you’ll never get into any shady business again? I recommend that
you notify me and Rachel about your business whims, that’s what we’re hired for. After a lot of soul-
searching, I’ll tell you if I’m ready to marry you or not. Till then, hold on, be strong.” she answered,
tearing up inside.
She didn’t want to break his heart, but she didn’t want her husband to be involved in crimes.
As a lawyer, that was totally against her profession. She had to think about it, whether to forgive him
or not. When Dan proposed to her, it felt like she was asleep, and dreaming. As she thought about the
two weeks from when she got the call from her boyfriend and client, Daniel Evans, she thought just
about how lucky she and Rachel had been, their impulses ended up being right most of the time.
Normally, people weren’t this lucky. Her disagreements with Rachel subsided a little. And Dan, in the
past two weeks she’d gotten to know so much more about him, but if he was anything like the Dan she
knew, she wouldn’t want to tell him about the deal she made with the Head Detective. She was also
proud that her expertise as a lawyer could help pardon him. She’d fulfilled her job, to defend her
client. This was the time for Amanda Dankworth to decide if, despite his crimes and flaws, Daniel
Evans was the man she loved.
The next day, Dan called her first thing in the morning. Amanda picked her phone up and
seeing Dan’s name threw it on her bed. Dan was safe. He wasn’t going to prison.
“Dan doesn’t deserve prison, he’s so nice and kind and caring”, said Amanda to herself. “But
at the same time, he hid secrets from me. He was reasonable though. If I knew all the facts, I might’ve
never loved him in the first place. Still, that isn’t good enough a reason for him to hide it, if our love
had to be true, he should have trusted me about this. What if he’s hiding more things from me? I’m a
lawyer, if I get married to him and he commits more crimes, my certification will be taken away from
me due to character issues. I’ve worked so hard on my career.”
Looking at the picture hung up near her bed which was taken on the day she was promoted
and got the office of Senior Partner, she told herself, “There’s too much at stake, my career, my life, my
heart. I don’t want to let myself down again for something I didn’t even do. I love him enough to give
everything in without expecting anything in return. But the least he can do is to at least be truthful
with me. Share everything with me. And certainly not keep me under the shades, doing all the shady
stuff he’s been doing.”
This was the first time Amanda Danksworth had fallen in true love. She’d read about it in so
many books, not the ones related to law, but certainly so many novels, so many movies. She’d think
by the looks of Dan, he’d already been with many ladies before her. The first always has a special
place in the heart. And the first hurts the most too!
These past two weeks, she did everything in her power to save Dan. She wouldn’t have done
this much, put so much effort and time, for just her client. She wouldn’t have danced with a random
man and remembered her dance with Dan if she didn’t love him. So clearly, she did love him, loved
him very deeply and fondly and madly.
Just then she got a call from the Managing Partner of the firm she worked for, Henson Carter.
“Yes sir?”
“Hey Amanda, I’d like to inform you that we’ve landed yet another huge client and he seeks
to be represented by you.”
“Oh,” said Amanda in a very surprised tone, “Who is it?”
“It’s the new head of New Tech, Adam Smith. His company took over Dan’s company a while
back”
Amanda was stunned. She had not interacted with Adam at all. And as for Adam, he was
well represented by another corporate law firm which happened to be Henson Carter’s competitor.
She had no problem in representing Adam, but she knew if some dispute was raised against Adam,
she would have to choose sides. Adam was a huge client. Dan, on the other hand, was a huge chunk
of her heart. And as everyone would’ve thought, she decided to go forward with both Dan as well as
Adam as clients, on one single condition: Dan gets a promotion and directly answers to the head -
Adam. Adam, on the other hand, didn’t lose the opportunity to grab the best lawyer he’s ever seen on
the field. He’d never seen any lawyer so involved in the client’s business; little did he know that she
had feelings for her client - Dan. She knew she needed Dan in her life, she couldn’t live without him,
but at the same time she decided to make him vow that he’d never get back into that kind of business
and cut all his connections with that part of his life. She dialled Dan immediately and waited
anxiously for him to pick the phone up. After five rings of the phone, Dan picked the phone up, and
said, “Hey Amanda”
“I’d like to meet you sometime soon, tell me when you’re free.” said Amanda, into the phone.
She planned to tell Dan that she was going to be Adam’s lawyer as well. She also needed to tell him
that she loved him and couldn’t live without him being a part of her life.
“I need to catch up on some work, that too, I’ve just got a deal with Adam. I’ll call you when
I’ve got that sorted out.” he replied.
He seemed rushed. Perhaps he seemed unhappy about the fact that she had to think about
their status. She’d relayed this to Rachel, who turned out to be an extreme romantic. “Hey, you’d
better sort everything out with Dan soon, don’t keep me waiting.” she’d say, every day. Amanda and
Rachel had less issues, as they’d spent some time without being jealous of each other.
About a week later, Amanda got a call from Dan, who told her that Adam had given him a
promotion to Chief Operations Officer of his company. He asked if they could meet that Friday
evening at a park near Amanda’s house. They’d gone for many of their first dates there. Amanda
remembered them fondly, and on Friday, she wore her favourite summer dress and went to meet Dan.
“Hey. How’ve you been?” he asked. His hands were in his pockets. He looked nervous.
“Good. I’m still a senior partner and... I’ve just gotten a new client. It’s Adam, your boss. I’ll be
representing both of you, whenever you need it. I don’t think Adam knows about us though. What
about you?”
“As I said, I’ve been promoted. I think this deal’s going to be a good one.”
“You promise me, please don’t go into any shady business, it’s a hassle to get you out.”
“I’ve learnt my lesson. I’m definitely done with that, trust me. Please.” he replied. Looking into
his eyes, she could see he meant well.
“You’ll consult with me before taking any business deals, right? As your lawyer, I’ll be able to
help you.”
“And as my girlfriend?”
“About that, I’ve decided that I can’t live without you in my life. I miss you. I’d really like to
pick up where we left off, but maybe continue a bit slower. Dan, I love you, you hold an extremely
special place in my heart. This does sound awfully sentimental, but it’s true. I think I should tell this to
you now rather than never. Say, would you go out on a date with me?” she asked, hoping he
accepted.
“Well, why would I say no?” he responded, with a smirk. He kissed her; he was overjoyed.
As both of them were busy getting used to working for Adam, they could only meet on a
formal date two months later. They kept meeting informally, or at the office. On Saturday, October
15th, 2040, she was waiting for him outside ‘Chez Dupont’, a restaurant where they both loved to go
out for dinner. When he arrived, she led him in and pulled out a chair for him. As they ate, Amanda
could tell that it had become as romantic as it had before Dan had gone missing. Dan wasn’t called
away on a phone call, and neither was she. The pair laughed and talked, even more than they did
before. If anyone saw the two of them together, they’d know that Amanda and Dan truly loved each
other, and enjoyed spending time with one another. They were closer than ever before.
After dinner, they headed back to Dan’s home. They waltzed into the house, and Dan
switched his stereo speakers on and played a very slow and romantic song. And Dan asked Amanda
for a dance, and to his delight she agreed. His hand on her waist, her hand on his shoulder, and their
feet moving together in harmony, it was the epitome of love. Their eyes gazing into the depth of the
others. Time seemed to have stopped between the two lovebirds. Slowly, they could feel the music
starting to fade away. But they didn’t stop, they kept going on and on. It was past midnight, yet they
didn’t feel tired. Everything seemed perfect. And just when Dan dipped Amanda down, Amanda’s
phone rang. Dan brought Amanda back up and then she went to pick her phone up. She said, “It’s
past midnight, what do you want?” And after a minute or so, she cut the call. Dan was so lovestruck
he didn’t even bother to ask who called her so late at night. Amanda asked Dan if they would sleep
now, it had been a long day for the both of them, and Dan agreed.
The next morning, when Dan woke up Amanda wasn’t beside him. When he checked, she
was in the bathroom and then her phone rang once again. Dan checked it, and then he saw the name,
‘Norman’.
she chuckled. But her chuckles stopped all of a sudden when she heard someone screamingas if he
were running away from death. She got frightened and immediately cut the phone. She took a moment
to realise what really was happening and then rushed into her car and drove off into the night. An
hour later, she reached a secluded house, almost completely broken down. She got out of the car and
into the house as if everything was normal. She waved a card at a guard who asked for identification
and then entered the building.
As she entered the house, she decided to investigate, to try and find out what had happened.
Amanda had been Dan’s personal attorney for quite some time, and Dan, being a rich businessman,
kept getting into trouble. In his earlier days, he was involved in a money-laundering scandal. He had
gotten out of it for almost 20 years, but his old associates were blackmailing him to help them again.
So he hired Amanda to look into his investors and anybody willing to make any deals with him. He
felt he needed to see if his associates had infiltrated his clientele. Amanda walked across the hallway.
All the lights were switched on, but there was nobody in sight. It was absolutely quiet.
Everything was scattered. The rugs on the floor were displaced from their original positions.
The books which used to be on the bookshelf were now scattered on the floor. Suddenly a brisk wind
flipped a few pages of some books. Yet Amanda remained calm. Amanda put her hand into her pocket
and took out a knife, a small knife with some engravings. If you’d looked closely, you’d have find
something written in a language that looked like Greek. And on the opposite side of the knife, there
were a lot of symbols; small symbols. She thrust the knife into a couch and cut a portion out of the base
of it. A small box slid out right into her hands. She opened the box up and found a key. Taking the
key, she went to the backyard and into the garage. While opening the garage door, she used the key
she had just found. and opened the garage door. The garage had a yellow Camaro. Just then, she had
a small flashback to when Dan and her would drive the entire day, travel to the outskirts of various
states and cities in the very same Camaro.
She picked up the keys from the worktable, got into the car and turned the engine on. She
revved the car a bit and then drove out of the garage. As soon as she got out of the garage, the car
spoke to her. It asked whether the garage should be closed or not, and she replied saying yes, please
close the garage. Amanda then asked Wally, the A.I. companion onboard the very fancy yellow
Camaro, to show her the video footage of the past hour. She saw the footage while driving and noticed
that Dan was never here. She then asked Wally for the latest location of Dan. Wally told her that Dan
was 15 kilometers away just near Amanda’s house around 5 hours back. Amanda was reminded of
the not-so romantic dinner she had with Dan the previous evening. Dan was called away by someone
in the midst of their dinner ‘date’. Dan was being very hideous about it, and she didn’t bother as she
was so lost in his eyes.
Now when she came to think about it, he was probably called away from their dinner by his
former associates, who’d caught hold of him and taken him someplace. She drove back home,
deciding to start her search in her neighbourhood. He had probably been coming to visit her, but she
thought he stood her up after the previous night’s dinner. When she came to her street, she asked
Wally if Dan was last seen there alone or if he had people with him. Wally had detected two more
people. Wally had a remote-controlled connection with Dan, for security purposes, but the connection
seemed to be broken. It had been so for four hours. She drove towards an old godown where Dan’s
company, Omnidrive, stored their machine parts. It was on the next road.
She went towards the gate and was going to take her set of keys out to open it, but it wasn’t
locked! She went inside and saw that all the parts were scattered and thrown around the huge room.
It was like somebody was trying to look for something, and they may have found it. She wore rubber
gloves and then ran towards the safe, where Dan kept his projections of new ideas to expand his
business from Car A.I. to A.I. that could be used in other ways. After she opened it, she gave a big sigh.
All the files she knew about were still there, so she closed the safe. Below the safe, though, she found
one file, wedged in between the safe and the floor. She took it and searched the rest of the godown, but
she didn’t find much, except for a handprint. With the techniques she had learnt from the police after
working in criminal cases, back when she was a law student, she took a fingerprint sample and
quietly made her way out, locking the godown as she left.
She went home to download the file, dated 22-07-2025, fifteen years before present times. It
would probably give insight into why people were targeting him, she thought. Amanda and Dan were
very close, she even considered the thought of getting married to him. She hadn’t felt such affection for
anybody before. She wanted to find him, alive and safe. If she didn’t find him by midnight the next
day, she would bring it up to the police or with Dan’s Private Investigator.
As she was downloading the files, she wondered what Dan would have tried to hide from her
that eventually led to him being in danger. Dan was very open with her, and Amanda thought that he
had shared everything about his past with her. Upon opening the file on her desktop, she found an
encrypted folder. The multi-talented Amanda got down to decrypting this very mysterious folder.
Around two colas and a sandwich later, she got this folder decrypted. And as it turned out, the
scandal he was caught in wasn’t the only crime he committed, he was filed for embezzlement and
fraud too. These are serious business crimes and Amanda was taken aback as she never thought a
man like Dan could’ve ever done such a thing.
Dan, in the eyes of Amanda, was a righteous and honest man . He could’ve never committed a
crime; that too fraud. After seeing these criminal records, Amanda didn’t want to go to help Dan as he
had hidden this from her. Being his attorney, she had thought that he would tell her everything that
she would need to protect him from his very ‘evil’ associates. But Amanda made up her mind that she
wanted to confront Dan about this. So, she ran back into the Camaro, and drove straight to her office
complex where she went through all the details she had obtained about Dan. She found the list of
associates that Dan told her to be careful about. She also found the number of his Personal
Investigator and immediately called her up and told her to come at once. Amanda was initially
jealous of Rachel, his P.I. Rachel and Dan were very close and had known each other for longer than
10 years. But over time, Amanda had got closer and the latter drifted, so she had nothing to fear, and
dreamed freely about her future with Dan. Well, now she got down to finding the whereabouts of
these suspicious associates. And very interestingly she found out that all of the people mentioned on
the list were living within a mile of Dan’s house.
“Rachel, I know we don’t get along, but we really need to find Dan.” I said, over the phone.
“Amanda Dankworth? Dan’s lawyer? Wait, what happened to him?” she asked, frantically.
I explained the entire situation to her, hoping she would understand. “So, you’re trying to get me,
Dan’s P.I., to investigate Dan?” she inquired.
“No, the associates, so we can find Dan and confront him. As his attorney and P.I., we need
to know the truth, don’t you agree?”
She did, and I met her at her office. Dan had been missing for twelve hours, and we found
that one of his associates, Carl Matthews, went to a nearby diner, Kenny’s, every morning.
“Carl Matthews? We’re business journalists, writing about the top A.I. businesses at present
and fifteen years ago, and we’d like to ask you in particular about your partnership with Daniel
Evans.” said Rachel.
“I’d rather not speak about that.”
“It gives us insight about what’s to come next in the A.I. field. With your help, we can gather
information on entrepreneurship and partnership in the A.I. sector, which is a very prominent
industry in today’s world.” Amanda added to Rachel’s statement.
“Really? And share everything to the world so that anybody and everybody can infiltrate our
systems?” Carl raised his eyebrows at us.
“Alright then, if you don’t give us your insight, then we’ll just have to make our own
statements. And they may not put you in a good place.” Rachel smirked.
“What may those statements be?” he challenged.
“Just that you lost ten billion dollars due to your ‘faulty’ bitcoin A.I., which directed all that
money to you, nothing much. You didn’t go to jail because you were all chummy with the police.” I
said, smugly.
“How do you know that?”
“We have sources, we’re journalists.”
“Fine, fine. Come with me, I’m not discussing any of that here.”
Carl left behind fifteen dollars on the table and rushed out of the diner with a sense of fear. He
opened up the door for the women and led them to a limousine. The car driver opened up the door for
the gentleman and the ladies. And once they were seated, Carl gave each lady a glass of wine.
However, both of them declined, and wanted to get straight to business. He still seemed a bit anxious
as to what would come next. The vehicle started to move, the shades came down and the yellow lights
came on. Carl called out to Ross, asking him to play some instrumental music. And after a few seconds
they had a slow-paced song started playing in the background. Ross was Carl’s Personal A.I.
assistant, similar to Wally but much better and much more advanced. Ross could control much more
and had many more functionalities. And then Rachel repeated the statement she mentioned in the
diner.
“So, ten billion dollars, what’d you need it for?” asked Rachel.
“Well, who doesn’t like money?” said Carl.
“The Directors won’t when they get to know that all their money came to you,” said Rachel.
“Who said that they’ll get to know?” said Carl, as he put a black suitcase on the table in
between them. He clicked open the suitcase and turned it around. Amanda’s jaw dropped upon seeing
so much money.
“What’s this for?” said Rachel.
“Take this and keep your mouths shut,” said Carl.
“I’ll keep shut on one condition, tell me more about Daniel Evans, maybe a little about the
scandal? It’ll make a great story,” said Rachel
“I’ll tell you all about the scandal if I have a dance with this lady here,” said Carl.
Carl moved closer to Amanda and extended his arm forward seeking a dance.
Amanda wasn’t in the mood to dance in a limousine, she had motion sickness. Also, she didn’t
want to take a bribe. That’s probably what happened to Dan, she thought. He may have taken the
blame for something that Carl had done. Well, she hoped that Dan hadn’t actually committed those
crimes.
“If you want, I’ll dance with you, once we get out of the limo. You don’t want puke in your
face, do you?” said Amanda.
“We’ll take the cash.” declared Rachel, at the same time.
“Let’s consult with each other.” clarified Amanda. She was not happy with Rachel’s decision
at all. As a lawyer, she knew that it was better to stay out of trouble. The money could have been
black money. With Carl, it was possible. She conveyed that to Rachel, and they struck up a deal. He’d
tag along so that they didn’t tell people the truth about him until they found out the whole thing, and
he’d get his dance with Amanda sometime.
Once they reached Carl’s office, he showed the duo inside and they were seated at his desk
when Carl finally danced with Amanda. Amanda grimaced throughout the whole thing, she missed
the time when she and Dan danced in the gazebo at a park near her house. A little later, she couldn’t
bear to continue.
“Now, on to business.” she said.
“Tell us, when did you meet Dan?” asked Rachel.
“Ten years ago, at an A.I. convention. He was a budding businessman and I was a little more
established. He took a loan from me, after negotiations. About three years later, I encountered a loss,
so he repaid part of my loan. Still, he wasn't as successful as he is now. He still hasn’t repaid the loan
yet and I’ve been trying to contact him. Now, you got the story, you can leave.”
“I don’t think I’m satisfied. What about you, Amanda?”
“I feel you’re missing something.”
“You weren’t in touch with him for seven years and you only tried to contact him now? Tell us
more about that?” inquired Rachel.
“People drift, you know. You ladies must know that more than anyone else. Journalists write,
certain people don’t like what you write and then move away from you,” said Carl.
“People drift, but they don’t come running back after seven years,” replied Amanda.
Rachel eyed Amanda to stand down, and handle it peacefully, without any arguments. She
then asked Carl, “So well, how’s your business doing now?” just to get the conversation back to the
normal tone. Carl talked about how his business had been bought by another company and is now
flourishing under the new set of Board of Directors who’ve taken Artificial Intelligence to a new level,
and who continue to invest heavily in the company. This caught Amanda’s attention, she asked him
who was the head of the Board of Directors.
Carl said, “He’s a really nice chap. His name is Adam. He’s treated me really well even after
taking my business.”
This caught both Amanda’s as well as Rachel’s attention. Dan talked a lot about how his
business was going to be taken over by a man named Adam Johnson, who offered him a really
attractive package, and a very well-paid position in the company too. Johnson was the leader of a
tech giant business, taking over almost each and every budding entrepreneur’s business.
The night was almost coming to an end, so Amanda and Rachel went to a diner close by.
They sat opposite to each other, and Amanda looked tense. To break the ice, finally Rachel spoke up,
“Do you love him?”
“What?”
“Do you love Dan?”
“Well yeah. But I don’t know what’s happening right now. I’m completely confused. Seeing
those files, I couldn’t believe my own eyes. Dan, the man I loved could never do such a thing. Fraud
isn’t his thing.” Saying this, she burst out crying.
“Hey, hey Amanda. Look here. Look at me. I know Dan well, I’m his P.I. I also doubt he did
this. I’ve known him for almost 7 years now. He’s been nothing of the kind.”
Looking at Rachel she said, “Really?”
Rachel said, “Yes Amanda, really.”
Then Amanda asked, “Do you also find something strange about Adam?”
Rachel replied saying, “Of course. Dan was really attracted to the offer, but in the last few
days, he became opposed to the offer. I don’t think this Adam person is the ideal person to sell a
company to.”
Wiping off her tears with the tissue Rachel gave her, Amanda said, “Let’s get something to eat
and then get some rest. Tomorrow we’ll look for Adam.”
“Sure,” said Rachel.
Section 10: Enigmatic Paradox
Amanda woke up the next morning ready to talk to Adam Johnson. She was trying to
prepare herself to hear anything and everything about Dan, no matter how horrifying it sounded.
She picked Rachel up from her house and she put in the address of Johnson’s office on her
GPS.
“So, how do we start?” asked Rachel.
“We ask him how he knows Dan, we have a right to know, being his attorney and P.I,
especially if they say they’re doing business together. Then we go through their business files and
contracts, don’t we?”
“Of course, he’s not going to tell us the entire truth.” added Rachel.
“Do you think people tell us everything in any of our cases? Of course, you know that they
don’t. If Dan told us everything, we wouldn’t be stuck here.” Amanda pointed out. Rachel nodded in
agreement.
They got to Adam’s office.
“Staff of Daniel Evans from Omnidrive.” they said, in unison. They were let in. Adam’s
robotic assistant showed them to the office.
“Our client, Daniel Evans, is about to do business with you, is that right?” asked Rachel.
“Oh yes, he is.” he answered, proudly.
“And he sold his company to you for how much?”
“Twenty million dollars. And here, he gets a job as the Assistant Manager of New
Technologies, which will be an asset, as he has very good ideas.” answered Adam. Rachel sighed at
the worth of Dan’s company.
“Have you paid him yet? And may I please see your contract?” asked Amanda.
“Oh yes, I have. I’ve paid him the first five million dollars in advance, and the rest shall be
paid subsequently.”
The women read through the contract and saw that the contract was more towards Adam’s
favour. Dan got a raise and he would be financially set, on paper, but his working hours were for
fourteen hours a day, seven days a week. Adam also had the right to go through all of Dan’s files on
his work computer and he had to report to work whenever called, even in the middle of the night. The
ownership of some of Dan’s property was also in Adam’s name. Amanda wondered why Dan would
agree to such a contract. She kept telling him to go slow, to not rush into such a business. Of course,
when it came to A.I, Dan kept getting ahead of himself. He hadn’t consulted with Amanda or Rachel
before making his decision.
“How did you get him to agree to this in the first place? I’m sure Dan has a personal life which he still
wants to have.” asked Rachel, looking towards Amanda.
“It’s the Board of Directors for A.I., he can’t say no to us, can he? All we’re trying to do is
centralise the whole field to avoid competition. I’m pretty sure he understands that and the only
reason he didn’t tell you two was because he didn’t think you would need to. You haven’t exactly been
working in the field of A.I.” he smirked.
“Alright, just give us your contracts and any documents you have on him. I mean each one,
otherwise, we’ll go digging all around your office like a couple of rodents, and we can get you in
trouble. I’m acquainted with many court judges.” said Amanda, shaking her head.
“It’s been almost 4 days,” said Amanda, “There’s no sign of Dan anywhere.”
“No ransom either, it’s just been blank about him. I checked with a few contacts at the police,
but they also haven’t seen him on any camera,” said Rachel.
“Well Dan’s A.I. companion is one of the best in its kind, if Wally couldn’t find him, I don’t
think anyone could, except...”
“No, I don’t want to hear that man’s name.”
“Adam.”
Amanda had given up all hope of finding Dan and clarifying all her questions about why he
did all that stuff in the files. Rachel tried to keep her going, but it started to become hard. Amanda
started to feel alone without Dan around her. She spent the majority of her time with Wally replaying
old videos of Dan and her. She really missed Dan. It was visible on her face. However, on the other
hand, Rachel kept her search ongoing. She went through each and every file that Adam had given
them.
All of a sudden Rachel’s face lit up and she ran over to her Porche and drove straight to Dan’s
house, where Amanda was. She ran into Dan’s house waving her ID at the camera which let the door
open. She screamed out to Amanda as her voice echoed throughout the house, but Rachel knew just
where to find her. There was a mini-bar right outside Dan’s bedroom. Rachel rushed there and found
Amanda really drunk lying on Dan’s bed. Rachel tried waking her up, but she just wouldn’t. Rachel
then got the bucket of ice from the minibar and dumped it on Amanda’s head to wake her up, and
Amanda woke up completely sober. Rachel then told her, “Sorry for the ice but I think I have an idea
as to what happened. I found some connection between Adam’s colleagues and Dan. Can you look
this up for me?”
In business school, Dan had been good friends with some of Adam’s colleagues, so it made
sense for them to go into business together back then. All of them had ideas to work in the A.I field. At
that time, they went to the A.I convention and there, they met Carl. All of them joined Carl’s company,
but they thought they deserved a little more, being ambitious, young entrepreneurs. Together, they
started another company, which Carl later bought. Dan decided that he needed to do something on
his own, so he left the company, but continued to take their mentorship. His friends, however,
continued to work for the same company.
To start Omnidrive, he followed in Carl’s footsteps and even took a loan from him. Suddenly,
however, he lost touch with Carl, around the time when Dan was accused of a crime of embezzlement
and fraud. When Amanda went with Rachel to meet Carl, he claimed that Dan had taken a loan
from him and not paid him back. In the files that Adam had given them, there was one on all the
records of accounts used in the A.I. business. Adam, being part of the Board of Directors, obviously
had that record. Amanda just wondered why Adam gave them that file as well. She downloaded that
file and it showed that Carl had in fact given Dan money, a loan of ten billion dollars, which hadn’t
been completely paid yet.
Amanda got into her car and drove to her law firm, where she was a senior partner. She
looked into records of all the cases handled by the firm, and there was one that caught her eye.
‘17th July 2025, Daniel Evans charged for embezzlement and fraud.’ it was titled. That was
dated five days before the first file which she found in Dan’s godown. She looked through the file and
saw that Dan had been arrested and released on bail, by Norman Gibson, one of his friends, an
employee of Carl Matthews. Soon enough, Dan lost touch with Carl and started Omnidrive. Ten years
after that, Amanda became Dan’s personal attorney.
Amanda was worried. The thought that had been scaring her for quite some time came back
to her. ‘What if Dan was guilty’
As she exited the files room, she found her boss staring into her soul.
“You haven’t answered for a week. You haven’t heard? Dan Evans, your client, has gone
missing.” she said.
“What do you think I’ve been doing for the past week? I’ve been trying to find out what
happened to him this whole time. As his personal attorney, my job is to defend him.” replied Amanda,
half-bawling.
“Who reported him missing?” she added.
“Adam Johnson, a big name in the A.I. industry.” Immediately, she drove to Rachel’s office.
As soon as she got into her car, she called up Rachel and asked her to look into Adam
Johnson’s activity for the past week. She revved the car up and drove even faster. Every time she’d
think of Dan, her conscience would scream, “Liar,” at her. This was breaking her from the inside and
this was very visible on her face as well. She finally reached Rachel’s office and ran straight to her and
asked, “How sure are you that Dan didn’t lie to us?” and started sobbing.
“Amanda, listen to me, if he did lie, he’d have a good reason for doing so. Dan is a very smart
and intelligent man; he doesn’t need fraud and embezzlement to earn his money. So much so, he’s one
of the most renowned Harvard graduates in business. Unless of course, he cheated his way through
business school.”
“Rachel! Don’t make things worse for me than it already is.”
“I’m sorry, I’m sorry, but it could be true, considering he’s gotten so high up in such a short
time.”
“He’s a successful and talented man,” said Amanda in denial. Amanda had really thought
that Dan would be her first ever love, in her lonely life, which is very unusual for a senior partner.
Rachel slid her a hard drive into the laptop, and said, “Now get to work, we’ve got a lot of
content to go through in a very limited timeframe.”
They both then sat side by side and went through all the files. Their eyes were turning red,
and both of them were becoming drowsy, just when Amanda screamed, “I think I got something!
Come here. Come, have a look!”
Rachel thought that this was really something. Considering their current situation, they
literally had nothing, no clues, no suspects, nothing. Just a lot of doubts. It was an email that Carl had
written to Adam, informing him about the income of the company. Something seemed very off.
According to the records, the company made almost a third of its whole month’s income in a single
day. This is almost impossible to achieve, even after having A.I. in your hands. Seeing this figure, both
Amanda and Rachel could think of only two things, either Carl used the ‘faulty bitcoin’ to his
advantage again, or maybe this time, Dan did something. They knew this all happened four days
right after Dan went missing. Their suspicions rose. The last time Amanda saw so much income in one
day was when she saw the embezzlement case file of Dan’s. Amanda opened up the records, and
checked the source of income, and they were right, it was straight from Omnidrive to New
Technologies, and the transaction was made under the name, Daniel Evans.
So, that meant that Dan was alive, his account was well encrypted, unless his captor was the
one who helped him encrypt it. With the transfer details, they tried to find out the location from which
it was made. The IP address was designated to a computer owned by Norman Gibson, New
Technologies.
They’d found out who’d taken him, but they still didn’t know where. Rachel decided to gather
information from her sources about Norman’s whereabouts in the past fortnight. As Norman worked
for Carl’s company, the whole ploy to capture Dan was definitely to repay the loan he’d taken. The
question was, why did Dan give in? This confused them.
“My sources say he’s not in the New Tech office and he hasn’t been there for a long time. Carl
has been trying to get in touch with him too.” Rachel said.
“Of course, he’s not there, then it would be too easy to find him. So where could he be?” replied
Amanda.
“Adam filed a police complaint, so the police have asked me to work with them. I’m
wondering whether I should do it or not, considering we don’t know if Dan’s even innocent.”
“It’s hard, but we’re not going anywhere by ourselves, we need the police and they need us to
solve this case. We should do it. I’ll try my best to settle a deal with the police so that Dan isn’t
imprisoned.” admitted Amanda.
They drove to the police station and Rachel met the Head Detective. “We have a deal.” she
said as she met up with Amanda again.
The police were to raid Norman’s house that evening and Rachel’s sources were to find more
information as soon as possible.
In the evening, the words “Police! Stand back, hands up! Norman Gibson, come out,
wherever you are!” could be heard from a mansion amid many smaller houses. As the police and
Rachel, who insisted on going, were scouring the place for anything that gave evidence that there were
people in the house in the last few days, they saw a few dishes in the sink and some food that didn’t
look spoilt.
As they looked in each room, they saw a woman and two children cowering under a bed. His wife
and children, probably.
“Hands up!” said the Head Detective. The family squealed and shivered. Slowly, they raised
their hands. “You’re Norman Gibson’s wife, right?”
“Yes, yes I am. If you’re looking for Norman, he said he was going on a trip with his old
friend, to a retreat, he said.” she stammered.
“Where is this retreat?”
“He said it was ‘The Sunnyfields’. Often, they went there when they were younger. The thing
is, he’s been acting a little off lately, so we’re not on great terms now. I haven’t called him. In fact, I’m
not so sure if that’s an ‘old friend’.” she said.
But it was, it was Dan. He was a little off, but not for the reasons his wife thought. The police
took Mrs Gibson with them back to the station. Rachel and the Head Detective were to pick Amanda
up at her office and go to ‘The Sunnyfields’; it was worth a try.
Rachel and Amanda sat in one car, while the Head Detective along with his colleagues came
in the other. Amanda and Rachel were still taken aback by what Dan did.
Rachel spoke out saying, “Maybe Dan did it out of compulsion. If he had to do it, he would’ve
done it within the first two days.”
Amanda replied, “Well, maybe then the first time also was compulsion, but why would Dan’s
old friend compel Dan to do anything, forget a huge transaction which could drive Omnidrive into
bankruptcy.”
“Or maybe this is the friend who made him commit fraud in the first place,” said Rachel.
“Norman did pay for Dan’s release, the bail,” said Amanda.
“Do you think it’s been Norman all along?” asked Rachel.
“It’s highly probable, but let’s be prepared for the worst. What if Dan did it himself, for
personal gains?” said Amanda in a very pessimistic manner.
“For you, probably that’s the best, secrets kept from you, and you were thinking of marriage.
Must be devastating,” replied Rachel to keep the conversation going.
Just then Wally spoke up saying that the detective was trying to reach them, using radio
frequency 110 Megahertz. So, Rachel set the frequency to 110 and then heard the Detective commanding
his unit about the proceedings, and what to do, what not to do when they see the target - Norman
Gibson. And when he realised that Rachel was listening to all of this, due to the disturbance echo, he
stopped and said to them, “We’re close now. Set everything up. Be ready.”
As they approached the retreat farmhouse, which seemed like it was abandoned, Amanda
had chills. This farmhouse looked almost exactly like Dan's safehouse, where she’d been the day she
received a call from Dan. It was completely cut off from the grid. There was a special electricity
generator set up right beside the house. It was huge. It had a combination of windmills, solar panels
and even a pool of water which probably used convection to generate electricity. It all seemed like
advanced pieces of machinery. Getting so much work done, so far away from the main city almost
seemed impossible. But the world of A.I. had taught both Amanda and Rachel not to think that
anything was impossible. The Head Detective got out of his car and commanded his unit to slowly
surround the site while Amanda and Rachel stayed in the car as told by the Head Detective.
Suddenly, they heard screams, and shouts, probably of another officer. Rachel and Amanda
stepped out of the car and found themselves to be all alone. No torches were switched on. No lights.
Nothing. They were scared, very scared of thesituation they were in. But like every other pair of girls,
these girls loved adventure, which was probably why they both had liking for Dan in the first place.
They went closer to the house and Amanda gasped even more. The door was exactly the same as the
one she saw at Dan’s. The coincidence was too good to be true. Rachel questioned Amanda, “What
happened? Are you alright?”
Amanda replied, “There’s just too much similarity. Do you think Dan owns this property or
owned this in the past?”
Rachel said, “He hasn’t ever talked to me about this.”
Amanda added, “Ever since he’s hired me, we’ve never dealt with this property, and none of
the documents he showed me reflect this property.”
Rachel said laughing, “If there’s anything at all we’ve learnt all this while is that Dan’s had
secrets, and probably nothing but secrets.”
“Fair point,” replied Amanda. And just then a gate opened up and Amanda heard a voice
saying, “Is this Amanda?”
Amanda replied, “Umm......yes, it is”
Suddenly a small,earth-disguised metallic trap door opened up, and the voice said,
“Welcome Amanda, you may enter, and as for the lady behind, she must be held back, she does not
have access to the vault.”
Rachel said, “Go ahead, hit me up if you need anything, till then I’ll look for these officers”
And Amanda took the plunge into the deep and dark void in the ground.
The void was dark. Amanda turned her flashlight on and followed the shadow of a person,
whose voice she’d just heard. “Was she going to find Dan, after all this time?” she thought. The dark
path ended in a small vestibule, where the man beckoned her to continue to follow him. He led her to a
room further inside, and she entered, shivering. In the room, there were two other men, though one
wasn’t fully visible.
“Ah, Amanda Dankworth. Dan talks about you so much, a pleasure to finally meet you.” one of them
said, reaching forward for a hug. Amanda pushed him away. She didn’t know him at all. This must
be Norman, she thought.
“Tell me, where is Dan? If he talks about me so much, he must be here, right?”
She pulled out a pocketknife and held it beside her, in case anyone tried to harm her. The man
pulled Amanda towards him and took out his rifle. He pointed it to her head and went towards the
other man. The other man, as expected, was her one and only, Daniel Evans. His hair was
dishevelled and he was bleeding as well. He looked as though he had been gagged for days.
“Amanda! You said you wouldn’t harm her if I paid you! How many times did I tell you,
don’t bring her into this.” he cried?
“You haven’t paid me the full amount, Dan.”
“Norman, you realise you’re asking for too much, right? I can’t pay you; I wouldn’t like to go
bankrupt. Let’s just settle here, and don’t you dare touch my girl!”
“It was a deal, if you don’t pay me fully, I will kill her, and you’ll witness her slow death.”
“The Norman I knew at Harvard would never do that. And with this, I repaid the loan to
New Technologies, and more.”
“The Norman you knew, isn’t who I am now. I’ve grown and evolved, gotten higher up in the
world. Now, I have money and power.”
Amanda gagged and grimaced. She was utterly disgusted by Norman; she couldn't seem to
think how Dan was ever friends with him. He cocked his gun to Amanda’s head, and she was ready,
if it prevented Dan from committing fraud again.
“No, no, no. You cannot do this. You cannot kill her. Don’t you have a sense of dignity?”
Amanda took her pocketknife and brought it close to his throat. He released her and pushed
her on the floor, sending her pocketknife away from her. Then, he got her in his clutches again.
Amanda wriggled, she even bit him. They got into a fight, more towards self-defense. In the middle,
however, Amanda managed to give Rachel a missed call. Norman and his men were against Amanda
and Dan, who, though weak, managed to find Amanda’s pocketknife on the floor. Amanda and Dan
did all they could, but two against four was difficult. One of the men shot and it nearly missed Dan.
Norman caught hold of Amanda and pointed his rifle at her head again. Dan was panting and
gasping.
“Leave...her.” he said, weakly. He crawled towards Norman and spit blood on his shoe.
“I love you, and I won’t let you go.” said Dan to Amanda, as strong as he could.
Kicking Norman in the groin to try and escape from his clutches, she said, “I love you too,
Dan.”
Norman groaned and got really angry as Amanda tried escaping from his clutches. He
knocked her down with his elbow with a straight blow to the backbone, and Amanda fell straight
onto the ground. Dan screamed, “Amanda!” And now hormones filled his bloodstream. He felt as
much rage as love for Amanda. He stood back up, blood trickling down his mouth and down his
blood-stained bare chest. He clenched his fist, and dashed straight towards Norman, knocking him
down. Amanda flicked him the knife really quick and now all of a sudden, they dominated the field.
Rachel, along with the Sheriff, approached the area and now Norman and his men were
surrounded by Government agents and policemen. But the action didn’t stop there. Suddenly, they
heard rocks crumbling and crushing. And as they guessed, they were reinforcements for Norman.
They were on their way the moment Norman knew the police came. The men dug a hole in the ground
and came in really fast. And the scene was going to reverse in just a while, the police were
outnumbered and surrounded by Norman and his men. Now the police had just one option, they had
to strategise and find a way around this. Amanda, Rachel and Dan had faced much harder problems
in real life. For Amanda it was fighting cases and making her clients profit from every case, Rachel
had to be secretive and find information to safeguard Dan who hired her. And Dan, he had to combat
fear in real life. Fear of losing Amanda because of his past, because of his previous associates,
specifically Norman. And also fear of dying ever since the day he denied cooperating with Norman.
So, they all came together and formulated a plan and by the time the reinforcements came into the
main vault, Dan, Amanda, Rachel, the Sheriff as well as his squad, moved swiftly into tunnels
surrounding the vault, leaving Norman and his men gagged and tied up to each other.
Dan knew it would be really hard to fight them all using just men, he had to put his mind into
work. So before leaving, he took one of the security cameras off, adjusted the wiring a little bit and set
in a mechanised machine gun. He booted it with the phone Amanda had and kept the phone with
himself. He instructed the sheriff’s men to take off all the security cameras from the walls and place
them on the ground near the main entrance to the vault. And then he spit some saliva on them. To up
the voltage, he provided a bit of static electricity to the cameras and also removed the earthing wires. It
was all set up. As the reinforcements rushed in, they were startled as everything seemed to be cracking
under their feet and it was dark as well, so they couldn’t understand what was happening. When
they’d shoot at the ground, nothing would break, but when they’d step on it, it’d crush like it’s
something hollow. As soon as the men stepped over these crushed security cameras, a huge flow of
current passed through them and they were alarmed. Just then Dan used the machine gun to start
shooting at these men.
As the electric shocks slowed them down by quite a bit, the machine gun worked well on the
reinforcements. And as the ammo on the gun came to an end, the police adopted the guerrilla
techniques to combat this startled side- keep coming in waves and attacking from different directions;
this all confused the reinforcements, and they were forced to retreat. The Sheriff then arrested Norman
for a countless number of crimes and headed for the entrance to the tunnel. Rachel had called a few
contacts and requested them to keep the area clean when they came out from this deadly pit, so that
they could come out safely. The Sheriff had also called for some back up when they were in the
tunnels, so they helped them out, and they were taken straight to the police station.
The way to the police station was a struggle too, it wasn’t like Norman and his men willingly
came with them. One by one, they were taken into the interrogation room, Norman and all his men.
Amanda, Rachel and Dan were also interrogated, though Rachel was a detective herself. Rachel was
surprised that the police were trying to be as thorough as possible with this case.
They even made Carl and Adam go to the station, as Carl was Norman’s boss and Adam was
an integral part in this case.
“Adam, your file really helped, even if you didn’t intend for it to.” said Amanda.
“My pleasure. Dan, I hope we’ll still be doing business together.”
“I need to think, I’ve been moving too fast, business wise.” he said.
“To think, you suspected me.” Carl smirked. “We had a nice dance that day.”
“You do know that you’re his mentor, so it could be what he learnt from you. He still works
for your company, you’re his boss. Though you haven't done enough for life imprisonment, you might
still get arrested for other crimes.” Rachel pointed out.
“Also, what did you mean when you said ‘dance’?” asked Dan, looking at Amanda and Carl.
“Being a bit of a misogynist, he would only give me a bit of information if I danced with him.
He asked me to dance in his limo at first, but we came up with a compromise.” answered Amanda,
smiling at Carl.
Carl was then called for interrogation. Hearing about his crimes back in the day, he was
arrested for six months, on charges of embezzlement and fraud.
Next, it was Rachel’s turn. The police mostly asked her if she ever suspected Dan for any
cases, or if Dan had ever told her about these ‘associates’. In Amanda’s interrogation, they asked the
same questions. It made sense, as both were Dan’s hires to defend him in cases and business, and both
were romantically involved with him, some time or the other. Both of them weren’t aware of the
associates much, as Dan didn’t talk much on that topic. He always diverted the conversation to
something else, and both made a choice not to torture him.
“It’s mostly because of Dan that you could find the real culprits, and he helped us catch them.”
started Amanda.
“So?” asked the detective interrogating her.
“If he pleads guilty, don’t arrest him. Pardon him, maybe with a warning. He has good
intentions. He wasn’t guided well when he was younger, but he’s smarter now.”
“How do we know he wouldn’t go into money laundering.”
“Knowing Dan, he’ll think it’s too much trouble to cover up. He won’t go into that direction; I
give you my word.”
“Ms. Dankworth, I know you’re a very good lawyer, who wins most of her cases. Senior
Partner at Henson and Carter is a big achievement, but you have personal issues in this case.”
“Speaking of cases, I could work a few cases as a prosecutor, if you pardon him.” she tempted
him.
“You’re good. You’ve got a deal.” said the detective. They shook hands and he showed her out
of the room.
Last but not the least, they interrogated Dan.
“Daniel Evans? Born on September 17th, 1999?” asked the head detective.
“Yes, sir.”
“Where did you meet Norman Gibson and Carl Matthews?”
“Norman was my close friend at business school. We joined Carl’s company afterwards.”
“What about your case regarding embezzlement and fraud?”
“I was under the wrong mentorship, sir. I admit that. I overpriced my products and hoarded
money, so I got arrested. Though Norman bailed me out, I felt like I was mingling with the wrong
crowd. I left New Tech and started Omnidrive, with a loan from Carl.”
“Have you repaid this loan?”
“Not until recently, when Norman held me captive. He made me pay the loan to New Tech,
thought I might as well do it, as I’d met him anyway. He threatened to torture and kill my girlfriend,
Amanda, if I didn’t pay him more money. Please understand, sir, I never wanted to get in touch with
them ever again, so that’s why I didn’t repay his loan. I can say that I plead guilty, which is a
statement normally said in court.”
“Daniel Evans, you’re free to go, on a warning. You’ve helped us catch the real culprits here.”
Dan’s head rose. He was surprised. He thought that he should just go to jail, once and for all, only
then will he really be free of his old associates. However, he was worried, worried that Amanda may
not accept him had he gotten arrested. He was scared that she wouldn’t want to marry him, he was
thinking of proposing sometime soon. Little did he know that it was Amanda who made a deal with
the Head Detective.
“Will you accept me, still, if I asked you to marry me, even after you know about my past
life?”
“These two weeks, I’ve been thinking a lot. As a lawyer, I could say that you’ve been a bit of a
coward. As your girlfriend, I say the same thing. I need some more time to think. I love you, Dan, I
really do, but how can I be sure that you’ll never get into any shady business again? I recommend that
you notify me and Rachel about your business whims, that’s what we’re hired for. After a lot of soul-
searching, I’ll tell you if I’m ready to marry you or not. Till then, hold on, be strong.” she answered,
tearing up inside.
She didn’t want to break his heart, but she didn’t want her husband to be involved in crimes.
As a lawyer, that was totally against her profession. She had to think about it, whether to forgive him
or not. When Dan proposed to her, it felt like she was asleep, and dreaming. As she thought about the
two weeks from when she got the call from her boyfriend and client, Daniel Evans, she thought just
about how lucky she and Rachel had been, their impulses ended up being right most of the time.
Normally, people weren’t this lucky. Her disagreements with Rachel subsided a little. And Dan, in the
past two weeks she’d gotten to know so much more about him, but if he was anything like the Dan she
knew, she wouldn’t want to tell him about the deal she made with the Head Detective. She was also
proud that her expertise as a lawyer could help pardon him. She’d fulfilled her job, to defend her
client. This was the time for Amanda Dankworth to decide if, despite his crimes and flaws, Daniel
Evans was the man she loved.
The next day, Dan called her first thing in the morning. Amanda picked her phone up and
seeing Dan’s name threw it on her bed. Dan was safe. He wasn’t going to prison.
“Dan doesn’t deserve prison, he’s so nice and kind and caring”, said Amanda to herself. “But
at the same time, he hid secrets from me. He was reasonable though. If I knew all the facts, I might’ve
never loved him in the first place. Still, that isn’t good enough a reason for him to hide it, if our love
had to be true, he should have trusted me about this. What if he’s hiding more things from me? I’m a
lawyer, if I get married to him and he commits more crimes, my certification will be taken away from
me due to character issues. I’ve worked so hard on my career.”
Looking at the picture hung up near her bed which was taken on the day she was promoted
and got the office of Senior Partner, she told herself, “There’s too much at stake, my career, my life, my
heart. I don’t want to let myself down again for something I didn’t even do. I love him enough to give
everything in without expecting anything in return. But the least he can do is to at least be truthful
with me. Share everything with me. And certainly not keep me under the shades, doing all the shady
stuff he’s been doing.”
This was the first time Amanda Danksworth had fallen in true love. She’d read about it in so
many books, not the ones related to law, but certainly so many novels, so many movies. She’d think
by the looks of Dan, he’d already been with many ladies before her. The first always has a special
place in the heart. And the first hurts the most too!
These past two weeks, she did everything in her power to save Dan. She wouldn’t have done
this much, put so much effort and time, for just her client. She wouldn’t have danced with a random
man and remembered her dance with Dan if she didn’t love him. So clearly, she did love him, loved
him very deeply and fondly and madly.
Just then she got a call from the Managing Partner of the firm she worked for, Henson Carter.
“Yes sir?”
“Hey Amanda, I’d like to inform you that we’ve landed yet another huge client and he seeks
to be represented by you.”
“Oh,” said Amanda in a very surprised tone, “Who is it?”
“It’s the new head of New Tech, Adam Smith. His company took over Dan’s company a while
back”
Amanda was stunned. She had not interacted with Adam at all. And as for Adam, he was
well represented by another corporate law firm which happened to be Henson Carter’s competitor.
She had no problem in representing Adam, but she knew if some dispute was raised against Adam,
she would have to choose sides. Adam was a huge client. Dan, on the other hand, was a huge chunk
of her heart. And as everyone would’ve thought, she decided to go forward with both Dan as well as
Adam as clients, on one single condition: Dan gets a promotion and directly answers to the head -
Adam. Adam, on the other hand, didn’t lose the opportunity to grab the best lawyer he’s ever seen on
the field. He’d never seen any lawyer so involved in the client’s business; little did he know that she
had feelings for her client - Dan. She knew she needed Dan in her life, she couldn’t live without him,
but at the same time she decided to make him vow that he’d never get back into that kind of business
and cut all his connections with that part of his life. She dialled Dan immediately and waited
anxiously for him to pick the phone up. After five rings of the phone, Dan picked the phone up, and
said, “Hey Amanda”
“I’d like to meet you sometime soon, tell me when you’re free.” said Amanda, into the phone.
She planned to tell Dan that she was going to be Adam’s lawyer as well. She also needed to tell him
that she loved him and couldn’t live without him being a part of her life.
“I need to catch up on some work, that too, I’ve just got a deal with Adam. I’ll call you when
I’ve got that sorted out.” he replied.
He seemed rushed. Perhaps he seemed unhappy about the fact that she had to think about
their status. She’d relayed this to Rachel, who turned out to be an extreme romantic. “Hey, you’d
better sort everything out with Dan soon, don’t keep me waiting.” she’d say, every day. Amanda and
Rachel had less issues, as they’d spent some time without being jealous of each other.
About a week later, Amanda got a call from Dan, who told her that Adam had given him a
promotion to Chief Operations Officer of his company. He asked if they could meet that Friday
evening at a park near Amanda’s house. They’d gone for many of their first dates there. Amanda
remembered them fondly, and on Friday, she wore her favourite summer dress and went to meet Dan.
“Hey. How’ve you been?” he asked. His hands were in his pockets. He looked nervous.
“Good. I’m still a senior partner and... I’ve just gotten a new client. It’s Adam, your boss. I’ll be
representing both of you, whenever you need it. I don’t think Adam knows about us though. What
about you?”
“As I said, I’ve been promoted. I think this deal’s going to be a good one.”
“You promise me, please don’t go into any shady business, it’s a hassle to get you out.”
“I’ve learnt my lesson. I’m definitely done with that, trust me. Please.” he replied. Looking into
his eyes, she could see he meant well.
“You’ll consult with me before taking any business deals, right? As your lawyer, I’ll be able to
help you.”
“And as my girlfriend?”
“About that, I’ve decided that I can’t live without you in my life. I miss you. I’d really like to
pick up where we left off, but maybe continue a bit slower. Dan, I love you, you hold an extremely
special place in my heart. This does sound awfully sentimental, but it’s true. I think I should tell this to
you now rather than never. Say, would you go out on a date with me?” she asked, hoping he
accepted.
“Well, why would I say no?” he responded, with a smirk. He kissed her; he was overjoyed.
As both of them were busy getting used to working for Adam, they could only meet on a
formal date two months later. They kept meeting informally, or at the office. On Saturday, October
15th, 2040, she was waiting for him outside ‘Chez Dupont’, a restaurant where they both loved to go
out for dinner. When he arrived, she led him in and pulled out a chair for him. As they ate, Amanda
could tell that it had become as romantic as it had before Dan had gone missing. Dan wasn’t called
away on a phone call, and neither was she. The pair laughed and talked, even more than they did
before. If anyone saw the two of them together, they’d know that Amanda and Dan truly loved each
other, and enjoyed spending time with one another. They were closer than ever before.
After dinner, they headed back to Dan’s home. They waltzed into the house, and Dan
switched his stereo speakers on and played a very slow and romantic song. And Dan asked Amanda
for a dance, and to his delight she agreed. His hand on her waist, her hand on his shoulder, and their
feet moving together in harmony, it was the epitome of love. Their eyes gazing into the depth of the
others. Time seemed to have stopped between the two lovebirds. Slowly, they could feel the music
starting to fade away. But they didn’t stop, they kept going on and on. It was past midnight, yet they
didn’t feel tired. Everything seemed perfect. And just when Dan dipped Amanda down, Amanda’s
phone rang. Dan brought Amanda back up and then she went to pick her phone up. She said, “It’s
past midnight, what do you want?” And after a minute or so, she cut the call. Dan was so lovestruck
he didn’t even bother to ask who called her so late at night. Amanda asked Dan if they would sleep
now, it had been a long day for the both of them, and Dan agreed.
The next morning, when Dan woke up Amanda wasn’t beside him. When he checked, she
was in the bathroom and then her phone rang once again. Dan checked it, and then he saw the name,
‘Norman’.
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