Eve finds NeuroMama, a worthless stack of nothing but shady documents, and importantly, without a significant number of shares available to borrow. She knows how to manipulate markets and doesn't care much for legality. Eve buys a significant position in NeuroMama over a period of time. She can do this cheaply, but slightly drives up the price.

Alice sees that the stock price has increased and this puts it on her radar of companies to investigate. She sees that NeuroMama is a worthless stack of nothing but shady incorporation papers. Alice thinks the stock value will decline. She goes to her broker, Bob, to borrow shares so that she can short sell. Bob calls around Long Island and locates some shares belonging to Eve for Alice to borrow.

Alice offers these shares for sale. Eve buys up a significant portion of them and puts them back on the market for sale at a massive markup.

Eve calls back her shares. Alice is required to return the shares to Eve. But Alice has sold those shares, so she must buy them back. She tries to find anyone to buy them from. Unfortunately, Eve is the only one selling, so Alice must pay Eve's price.

The only money that has changed hands is between Alice and Eve. There was no $34B, only a small fraction of the shares changing hands at highly inflated prices. If Eve is caught she'll need to disgorge her earnings to Alice.