Chapter twelve

The conference room was packed when Claire arrived the next morning.

Word had spread and it seemed like half the company had shown up to watch. Executives lined the back wall and developers crowded near the door.

She walked to her assigned seat at the front and set down her laptop bag. Her hands were steady even though her heart raced.

Theresa was already seated across from her and looked surprisingly calm. 

Brian stood at the front of the room and waited for the noise to die down.

"Thank you all for being here. As you know, we have a situation that needs to be resolved. Amber and Theresa will both attempt to crack an encryption code that neither of them has seen before. They have one hour. Whoever succeeds receives the senior developer position. Whoever fails will be terminated immediately."

The room went completely silent.

Brian held up a USB drive. "The encryption is on here. Military grade security. I've verified that neither of you could have seen this before today."

Brian walked over and connected both their laptops to the large projector screen at the front of the room. "Your work will be displayed so everyone can follow your progress."

The screen split in two, showing both of their displays side by side.

Brian handed each of them the USB drive and they plugged them into their laptops. Complex code and layers of encryption filled both sides of the screen.

She studied it carefully and her mind started working through possible solutions. This was harder than anything she'd done before but it was solvable.

"Your hour starts now." Brian pressed the timer on his phone.

The room went silent except for the sound of typing.

She opened her coding program and started building her solution. Her fingers flew across the keyboard as she broke down the encryption layer by layer.

On the big screen, everyone could see her work appearing line by line on the left side.

She built her base algorithm, then started implementing the recursive functions she needed.

Twenty minutes passed and she was making solid progress. The solution was coming together perfectly.

She allowed herself a quick glance at Theresa's side of the screen and her hands slowed on the keyboard.

She frowned, Theresa's work looked exactly like hers. What the hell, she thought.

She knew Theresa was good in coding but she was never a match for her so when did she suddenly become so good?

She pushed the thought away and kept working. She was nearly through with the problem when an idea formed in her mind.

The same idea from yesterday. Let Theresa go first and fail, prove she that she was a fraud.

She stopped typing and looked up at Theresa's work, everything was similar to hers. She wasn't through with hers, she will leave Theresa to present first.

“Let me see how you will steal my work thief”. She thought.

"Theresa, why don't you present your solution first?"

Theresa's fingers paused on her keyboard and her brow furrowed in confusion. "What?”

Claire leaned back in her chair. "You look like you're making good progress. Go ahead and finish. I want to see your approach."

“So that you could steal my work” Theresa clenched out.

The smugness inside Claire was almost overwhelming. “Let's see how you get out of this one dumbass”. She thought, she would never allow Theresa to steal her work the second time.

Theresa stared at her for a moment, then shrugged. "Alright. If that's what you want."

Claire sat back and watched the right side of the screen.

Theresa's fingers moved across the keyboard and code continued to appear on the display.

Five minutes passed and Theresa's solution was building itself perfectly on the screen. The algorithms were clean and logical. The structure was flawless.

Claire's smile wiped off as Theresa smiled and announced, “Done”.

The room erupted in whispers and Claire stared at the screen in shock. Theresa's completed solution filled the right side of the display…and was definitely hers.

Was it possible that she and Theresa thought about the same method?

No, no, no, she shook her head to disperse the thought as soon as it appeared, this was her idea, one that no one knew, she developed it herself so how come?

Brian walked over to examine it closely. "This is correct. Excellent work, Theresa." 

He turned to look at Claire. "Amber, you have ten minutes left to complete your work"

She couldn't speak. Her mind was racing.

She looked at her own half-finished code on the left side of the screen.

If she finished now, her solution would look identical to Theresa's. Everyone would think she copied.

Her throat felt tight. "I need a minute." She croaked.

“You don't feel so cocky now do you?” Theresa mocked and turned to face everyone.

“Everyone, this is the proof that Amber has been copying me from inception, I am the genius here and the one who deserves the senior developer position”.

Murmurs rippled across the crowd and people nodded

 "Amber, either continue or forfeit." Brian said and Claire stared at the screen but couldn't make her hands move to the keyboard because she was so damn angry at everything.

"Amber, I'll ask you this one more time, do you have a working solution?" Brian asked.

Theresa's smug laugh carried across the room, "well Amber, It's your turn to prove your talent, go ahead and show everyone what you can do."

Claire’s gaze slowly traveled across the room, all eyes were fixed on her, most of the gazes judgemental and some filled with disappointment in her, they didn't expect that she was the one actually copying from Theresa, it means all her works must be stolen.

“But I didn't copy her”. She screamed inwardly and stared hard at Theresa, the thiefing snake must be so happy right now.

Her mind raced furiously on what to do and an idea suddenly formed in her mind.

“Time to wipe that smirk off your face dumbass”.