All Chapters of Blind Box Office Prank: Chapter 1 - Chapter 9

The next morning, I'd barely stepped through the front door of the office before the receptionist stopped me."Taylor, congratulations! I heard your team split a hundred thousand dollars!"Her eyes practically lit up, and she was still holding half a sausage bun in one hand."You've got to take the whole company out for a big seafood dinner at The Captain's Table tonight, don't you think?"Before I could get a word out, the tech department's group chat had already exploded.Everyone was tagging me, demanding a tiny share of the bonus.Someone else chimed in, dripping with sarcasm: [Must've just been luck. The results weren't even that impressive.]I didn't bother replying. I walked straight to my desk.Haley was slumped over her desk, crying, her shoulders shaking with every breath.The antique monitor, still smeared with dried chili sauce, sat right in front of her. Its screen was covered in scratches, like something dug up out of a grave.Drew's face was dark as a storm clo

Between the deafening whir of the fan and the rest of that wreck of a tower, our team got to work "efficiently."I didn't sit idle all morning, either.On that painfully laggy machine, I wrote a small program.Its whole purpose was to simulate the computer's "random malfunctions."Things like an automatic blue screen every half hour.Or an input-method glitch that quietly swapped out "Mr. Griffin" for "Mr. Scrooge" every time someone typed it.Of course, that was just an appetizer.The real weapon was being saved for Friday's demo.Around lunchtime, Phil Wray, the supervisor from the team next door, wandered over.He and Cyrus were thick as thieves, and Phil's favorite hobby was running to the boss with gossip."Hey, Taylor, I heard your team split a hundred thousand dollars. Why are you still eating takeout for lunch?"He eyed the plate of barbecued pork on my desk with a smirk."Don't want to treat everyone, so you're playing poor?"I took a bite without even looking up.

Cyrus was well and truly panicking now.He shot up out of his chair and started pacing the length of his office.This project would decide whether he could show his face at headquarters, whether he'd get his year-end bonus.There was no room for it to fall apart."So what do you want me to do, huh? You're the team lead. Figure it out!"He was kicking the problem right back to me.That was exactly the line I'd been waiting for."Well, there might be a way."I said it slowly, drawing it out."Since the hardware's a lost cause, we'll just have to make up for it with software.""I can have the team work overtime, manually correcting the color on every single pixel."Drew can make the code more error-tolerant too, robust enough to run even with a sticking keyboard."But..."I let the pause stretch a beat longer."That's basically double the workload.""And everyone's still pretty resentful, honestly, especially about that one hundred thousand dollars..."I let the sentence t

Cyrus was shaking from head to toe.He lunged forward, trying to yank the power cord out.But I'd already planned for that.I'd shoved the tower as far back under the table as it would go.He had to crawl under the table, rear end in the air, scrambling desperately for the cord.That was when a line of code commentary popped up on the screen.It was an "easter egg" Drew had planted on purpose.The font was huge, and it sat right above Cyrus's backside for the whole room to see.[Can you believe how cheap this guy is? Won't even spring for a decent computer, and he wants us to build a smart city? Keep dreaming!][If he'd really given us a hundred thousand dollars, I'd have bought this dump of a company myself by now!]Right at that moment, Cyrus finally yanked the power cord free.The screen went black. The fan noise died.The conference room fell into a silence so heavy it was almost frightening.Cyrus crawled out from under the table, his hair a mess, his tie crooked, his

A flicker of surprise crossed Ava's eyes, quickly replaced by something like admiration."You built this yourselves?""Yes," I answered evenly."With Mr. Griffin forcing us to work on scrap equipment, we built this on our own personal computers, on our own time."As for why the demo went wrong that day..."I paused awhile, holding her gaze steady."It's because we didn't think a boss who disrespects both technology and his own employees, a man who only knows how to lie and cut corners, deserved to take credit for this."We need a fair environment. A leader who actually understands technology and knows how to manage people."Ava fell silent for a moment.Then she suddenly smiled."Making full use of every resource you're given. I like that. Sounds like Cyrus really did 'motivate' you all, in his own way."She stood up, walked over to me, and extended her hand."I'm Ava Cathcart. It's a pleasure to meet you all. I'll personally reach out to the client and start renegotiating