Frustrated by her bosses' cavalier dismissal of her plan to improve security at the bank where she works, financial wizard Verity Banks plots her revenge: "Borrow" a billion dollars from the bank, invest it for three months, and then return it without anyone noticing . . . having turned a profit of 30 million.

Her former mentor, Dr. Zoltan Tor, likes the idea so much he wants to play, too . . . and proposes that they compete: Verity using all the tools of modern computer-aided banking, and Tor limited to old-school methods.