Chapter 1

It was three in the afternoon by the time I finally ambled through the research institute's front doors.

My pocket held a sheet of scratch paper covered in freshly worked-out derivations, and my head was still buzzing with streams of data.

The algorithm bottleneck that had stumped the entire project team for two weeks? I'd finally cracked it in one go, sitting in the study at home.

Now all I had to do was run the data through the institute's supercomputer, and I'd have results that would shut everyone up.

The moment I set foot in the office area, my colleague Riley Collin poked her head out of her cubicle and winked at me frantically.

She whispered, "Tommy, you're finally here! Brad came looking for you several times this morning, and he's been by twice more this afternoon. His face is as dark as a thundercloud."

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

The new deputy director, Brad Michielsen, was a relic transferred over from a government-run corporation. Aside from discipline and attendance, I doubted there was room in his head for anything else.

He'd disliked me from his very first day on the job. I'd known it right away.

"Let him keep looking." I turned on my computer and got ready to import the data.

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

Only then did I remember.

Fine by me. It was the perfect chance to show off my new algorithm.

But I'd been far too naive.

In the conference room, Brad sat beside the institute's director, Dean Perrin, ramrod straight, like an iron tower.

Dean, at least, gave me a smile, but there was a trace of helplessness in it.

The meeting was long and tedious. Only when the list for the Outstanding Contribution of the Year Award appeared on the projector did the room finally come alive.

I instinctively sat up straighter. This year, I'd led the charge on four major technical problems, and two of them were core defense projects. If this award didn't go to me, who else could it possibly go to?

Yet when that glaring name popped up on the screen, for a moment I thought my eyes were playing tricks on me.

The name listed as the recipient read, plain as day, "Tessa Lynch."

And the 80,000-dollar prize that came with it naturally went to her as well.

Tessa rose and gave the room a demure bow, the corner of her eye darting smugly in my direction.

My head rang, and my mind went completely blank.

Tessa? The same Tessa who couldn't even write decent code and only knew how to make slide decks and give presentations? The one who could turn out a pile of bugs even on a project I'd wrapped up for her?

Next, my name appeared on the screen.

I'd received the Technical Innovation Encouragement Award, with a prize of 5,000 dollars. That was one-sixteenth of 80,000 dollars.

An encouragement award? Five thousand dollars? I nearly laughed out loud.

It was easily the funniest joke I'd heard in my entire career.

The air in the conference room seemed to freeze. Plenty of my colleagues cast glances my way, some sympathetic, some gloating.

I stared at the screen without expression, my chest tight, as if a boulder were lodged in it.