“Not yet.” He put a foot on my pajama pants. “The spanking is done, but you need to think about this for a little while. I want you to go over there and put your nose in the corner with your hands on your head.”
“Yes sir.” I nodded and walked to the corner.
I thought the spanking was horrible, but being forced to stand in the corner with my nose pressed against the paint was pure humiliation. I could hear Mr. Prince tapping away on my computer, likely discovering exactly how little progress I had made while he was away on his trip. That was the last time he would see that. I was going to work my fingers to the bone to make sure I figured out what was wrong with the code. It was nearly an hour before Mr. Prince gave me permission to leave the corner. I felt like I was doing the walk of shame as I walked over and gathered the clothing I had lost during the spanking.
“Remember, failure is not an option.” Mr. Prince pointed at me with a shake of his finger and then walked towards the door.
THE SPANKING GOT ME motivated and I worked for two days, barely taking a break. I napped when I was exhausted, but my internal clock didn’t let me sleep long. Even more motivating than being across his knee was making sure I didn’t end up there again. If sheer determination could have fixed the problem, I would have been done in a matter of minutes. As the hours dragged on, day after day, I constantly thought about the spanking Mr. Prince gave me. With the pain removed from it, the idea of being across a powerful man’s knee started to actually turn me on. I wondered if he felt the inverse of that—the control. If I felt like I could have spared ten minutes, I would have spent some time in the bedroom exploring the thoughts in my head, but I didn’t feel like I could spare even ten minutes that I wasn’t sleeping. Suddenly, a bolt of clarity caused to sit up and become more alert than the empty cans of Red Bull had done.
Oh my god. I’ve got it. It isn’t the algorithm that is the problem, it’s the data. It’s the freaking test profiles!
My fingers started dancing across the keyboard as my eureka moment flooded me with adrenaline. I realized I was going to have to tap into the same skills that got me in trouble in the first place—I was going to have to start hacking. I needed data and not just a little data—I needed everything I could get my hands on. I started thinking about all of the social media hacks that had made headlines. That was the data I needed. I pushed the limits of what I could do on my own, breaking into firms that specialized in collecting the information I needed, and siphoning it all into a database. It was a lot easier behind the PrinceSoft firewall. It was such a trusted source that half of the security systems I encountered didn’t put up much resistance.
And now for the special touch that will make this algorithm hum.
I took all of the social media data I had scraped, compiled a new algorithm, and turned it loose on the Internet. It started pulling in more information than I ever imagined. It also evolved as it worked. Every detail it found out about a person set up a search for additional individualized information. Before I knew it, I was moving through porn sites, cataloging viewing habits, and matching those up based on emails. The algorithm could even predict variations of emails that people used when they didn’t want to use their real address. The scariest part was that it started to learn how people posted, how their grammar structure flowed, and it started cataloging forum posts people made anonymously. I had created a monster, but more importantly, I had created something that could literally learn everything about a person.
Mr. Prince won’t like this, but fuck it. He wanted motivation and he’s going to get it.
I started hacking into PrinceSoft again. I had limited access, but with a terminal that was connected to their network, it was easier than it was when I got in the first time. I navigated to all of the dating app data he had stored, even the ones that specialized in matching people with specific kinks, and poured that information into my database. I leaned back in my chair and took a quick nap while my computer matched everything together. When I opened my eyes again, several minutes had passed. The algorithm was done and I had everything I needed at my fingertips.
Now, let’s find some soulmates.
Chapter 4: Ethan Prince
“Uh, Mr. Prince. We’ve got someone in our security system!” The head of my newest security team rushed into my office with sweat on his brow.
“What?” I stood up and felt my blood pressure rising. “You promised me that could never happen again!”
“Yeah, but this is different. This is someone inside the company.” He motioned for me to follow. “They’re accessing everything, at the same time.”
I was starting to wonder what I was paying a security team for anyway if it was that easy to break into PrinceSoft. I had dealt with errant employees before that tried to take data with them before they quit. I assumed that was what we were dealing with, but none of them had ever managed to crack the entire system open. Each division had their own security clearance codes. It shouldn’t have been possible for one person to access something that was outside their division, even if they were on our network.
“Yeah, I mean—look at this.” He pointed at the screen. “I don’t even know where this is in the building.”
“W
e looked at the blueprints.” One of the other security guys turned around. “This area isn’t even supposed to have a terminal.”
“Wait, let me see that.” I walked over and stared at the blinking dot on the screen.
Violet.
“Do you want us to send someone up to that floor? We would need your access card. It’s one of the floors you marked private on the map.” The head of security turned away from the screen.
“No.” I shook my head back and forth. “False alarm—this was a test.”
“A test?” He blinked in surprise.
“Yes, I wanted to see if you were on your toes after the last breach we had. Congratulations, you all passed.” I forced a smile.
I headed to Violet’s apartment the minute I left the security team. I had set that floor up specifically for her. She was only person that actually lived at PrinceSoft. I considered setting her up somewhere off the premises, but I liked being able to check in on her anytime I wanted. I had no idea what she was up to, but she wasn’t being very secretive about it. She obviously knew it would raise a lot of red flags. I pushed the key into her door and when I pushed it open, I saw her standing in front of me with a huge smile on her face.
“So, Mr. Prince.” She tilted her head slightly. “Are you ready to see your prototype?”
Violet started filling me in on everything she had done and my head spun. If anyone traced the hacks she had performed back to PrinceSoft, it would be very hard to explain. I couldn’t focus on that though, because she had done the impossible. She had actually got the algorithm to work. I pulled up a chair as she loaded it up and started matching people together. It was flawless. It ran so many sequences behind the matches that it created a digital profile even the federal government would have been proud to have. The formula was so precise that it was almost scary to watch it in action.
“Here we go, so let’s take Mr. Adam Smith from Spokane, Washington.” She tapped a few keys. “Now, who do you think his soulmate is? I’m betting it is his beautiful wife of ten years.”