I turned to the reporter with a smile. “What better brand ambassador than Madame de Martineau herself? And now that she’s passed on, this seemed like the best homage possible.”

When the hologram spun again, she shimmered into the same white Graziella sheath dress that I was currently wearing. The audience laughed and turned their applause my way. I gave a little wave to the hologram and a bow of acknowledgment to the crowd.

“I guess you’re a pretty good brand ambassador yourself,” Najarian said.

“I hope to be,” I said as champagne corks began to pop. “Want to come back?”

Lester shadowed me as I headed out of Reception. “It’s okay, Lester,” I said over my shoulder. “We’ll be in my office.”

He nodded and stood down like the good soldier he was.

I led the reporter down the corridor to my corner office. He let out a low whistle as he came in. “A lot of glass,” he said, turning a slow revolution through the room.

“Transparency,” I said. “That’s our new watchword.”

He looked out at the balcony. “Is that where—”

I gave a short nod. “Can I get you anything?”

“No, thanks.”

“Please, have a seat.” I waved to one of the visitor chairs as I took my own seat in the high-backed leather chair behind the desk.

“I see you have a virtual assistant.” The reporter nodded at the Ma Belle speaker on my desk.

I brightened. “Yes. It’s a wonderful tool. Our R and D people have been doing amazing work with robotics, too. Garment manufacturing is the perfect application for robotics. Before long, sweatshops will be a thing of the past.”

“Displacing a lot of workers.”

I shook my head. “Relieving them of demeaning drudgery. Look, when mechanized farm equipment came along, it displaced a huge population of agricultural workers. But nobody’s arguing that we should go back to toiling in the fields. Because other jobs came along to fill the gap. Better jobs, with more meaningful work. Nobody has to be a field slave anymore. And someday soon nobody will have to make clothes in a sweatshop, either. That’s the way forward.”

I could see he was growing restless with my sermonizing, but I went on anyway. This was the story the company needed to get out there. No more exploitation of labor. No more minimum-wage workers. No more unpaid interns. It was a new day at CDMI.

He let me wax on for a few more minutes before he cleared his throat and changed the subject. “Our readers are more interested in how you personally were exploited. You spent two months in jail for a crime you didn’t commit.”

I sighed. It was inevitable that the interview would take this turn. “Yes, and to answer your next question, yes, it was awful.”

“How did you manage to get through it?”

“An ordeal like that helps you discover just how deep your inner resources are. I had a wonderful mentor when I was a girl. Gina Casco,” I said, and spelled it for him. “She taught me how to visualize what I wanted to be and make it come true. I wanted to be strong in jail. I wanted to be a survivor. And so I was.”