Chapter 1

At 3:00 pm, I finally sauntered through the doors of the research institute. My pockets were stuffed with sheets of scrap paper covered in the formulas I'd just worked out, and my mind was still humming with streams of data.

The algorithmic bottleneck that had plagued the entire project team for half a month had finally been cracked by me at home. Now, all I had to do was run the data through the institute's supercomputer once, and I could present results that would shut everyone up.

As soon as I walked into the bullpen, my colleague, Samson Smith, poked his head out from his cubicle and frantically winked at me.

He lowered his voice and whispered, "Valerie, you're finally here! Ms. Rothschild sought you out several times this morning, and she asked about you twice in the afternoon. Her expression was as black as coal."

I shrugged nonchalantly and draped my jacket over the back of my chair.

The newly appointed deputy director, Sienna Rothschild, was an old-school bureaucrat transferred in from a state-owned enterprise. As far as I could tell, her entire world consisted of rules, discipline, and attendance sheets.

I knew she'd taken an immediate dislike to me from her first day on the job.

"Let her be." I booted up my computer to import the data.

"The year-end review meeting is this afternoon. You'd better get ready," Samson reminded me.

Oh, right. I'd completely forgotten.

Well, that worked out. It would be the perfect opportunity to unveil my new algorithm.

Little did I know, I was far too naive.

Ms. Rothschild sat ramrod straight beside the institute's director, Regina Prescott, in the conference room.

Ms. Prescott flashed me a smile, though there was a hint of resignation in her expression.

The meeting was long and tedious until the projector displayed the nominees for the "Outstanding Contribution of the Year Award".

In a heartbeat, the room came alive.

I instinctively straightened in my seat. I'd spearheaded the resolution of four major technical problems this year—two of which were critical defense projects. Who else could possibly deserve this award but me?

However, when that glaringly familiar name appeared on the screen, I actually wondered for a moment if my eyes were playing tricks on me. The name listed beside the award recipient was unmistakably "Eugene Croft".

Naturally, the stipulated 80 grand prize went to him as well.

Eugene rose to his feet and graciously bowed to everyone around him. He also cast a triumphant look in my direction out of the corner of his eye.

My mind went blank.

Eugene? The man who couldn't code to save his life, whose entire repertoire consisted of PowerPoint decks and presentations, and who somehow managed to introduce a million bugs in projects I'd already wrapped up for him?

Immediately after, my name appeared on the screen. I'd won the "Technical Innovation Incentive Award".

The prize was five grand, exactly one-sixteenth of 80 grand.

Me? Receive an incentive award and five grand? I almost laughed out loud.

This was, without a doubt, the funniest joke I'd ever heard in my entire career.

The air in the entire conference room seemed to freeze. Quite a few of my colleagues cast sympathetic or gleeful looks my way.

I stared at the screen with a stoic face, though my chest felt as though a massive boulder had been lodged inside it.