1 At the year-end wrap party, the entire company was celebrating the successful completion of Project Apex. As I took the stage amidst the applause to give my speech, my director, Susan, suddenly snatched the microphone from my hand. With a smirk, she deleted my name from the “Project Lead” line on the PowerPoint slide and replaced it with her own. “Don’t get the wrong idea, everyone,” she announced, her voice dripping with false modesty. “Andrew was a great help, running errands for me, but the core architecture of this project? That was all me, fueled by sleepless nights and gallons of coffee.” “You’re still young, Andrew,” she continued, locking eyes with me. “You’ll have plenty of other chances. So, this time, I’m not shy about taking the million-dollar bonus and the promotion. I’ve earned it.” She watched me with a defiant glare. I could feel the sympathetic stares of my colleagues, hear their whispers. Some called her shameless, a vulture. Others sneered at me, a grown man, for being so weak. I didn’t argue. I didn’t cause a scene. I just took a quiet step back. And with both hands, I presented her with the “Sole Developer and Lifetime Liability Agreement.” “Susan’s right,” I said, my voice steady. “With great power comes great responsibility.” “The final sign-off for the project’s delivery… that should be yours, too.” … Susan’s smile widened as she took the document, signing her name with a triumphant flourish. The moment the party ended, she stormed into my office with her cronies in tow, eager to claim her spoils. “Andrew, since you were just an errand boy, you don’t deserve a private office,” she declared, gesturing for her lackeys to start packing my life into cardboard boxes. “Your things are in the way.” “There’s an empty desk in the corner by the server room. The Wi-Fi’s decent. You can squat there. It’s not like you have any real work to do anyway.” I watched as she carelessly tossed some of my personal belongings into the trash. A flicker of anger sparked within me. “Susan, do you really have to be so brutal?” She let out a sharp, derisive laugh, her crimson-painted nail jabbing me in the chest. “Brutal? This is just how the game is played, sweetie. It’s a lesson: you have no connections, no one watching your back. You were born to be stepped on.” Just then, the ping of a company-wide email echoed through the floor. The official commendation had been announced. Susan was credited with the entirety of Project Apex’s success. Not only did she receive the million-dollar bonus, but she was also formally nominated for the position of Vice President. Instantly, the colleagues who had pitied me moments before changed their tune. Their faces twisted into masks of fawning admiration. “Congratulations, Director Reed! So well-deserved!” “I knew it! A project this massive needed your leadership. Andrew could never have pulled it off.” They swarmed around her, offering her water, massaging her shoulders, their praise for her built on a foundation of insults directed at me. Susan shot me a triumphant smirk over their heads. “I’m buying everyone coffee this afternoon to celebrate!” she announced loudly. Then, she deliberately walked over to my new, cramped desk and slammed a cup of scalding hot water down on the corner. Water splashed across the back of my hand, leaving a painful red welt. “You can have this, Andrew,” she said, her voice dripping with condescension. “To cool you down. Don’t want you getting all bitter.” A wave of cruel laughter erupted around me. I said nothing. I just silently wiped the water from my hand. Pulling out my phone, I sent a message to the department’s group chat, along with a fifty-dollar digital gift card for the office coffee fund. The message read: [Congrats to Susan on the VP nomination! You’re a rockstar!] The chat fell silent for a beat. Then, it exploded with a frenzy of “Thanks for the coffee, Andrew!” and “Class act!” Susan glanced at her phone, a look of pure contempt on her face. “Glad to see you know your place,” she sneered. She leaned in, her voice a low, menacing whisper. “Keep your mouth shut from now on, do your work like a good little boy, and maybe I’ll let you have the scraps from my table.” I immediately bowed my head, my face a mask of obsequious flattery. “Of course, Susan. Anything you say. Oh, by the way, here’s the final project handover list. All the technical details are inside. Just need your signature.” I handed her a thick stack of documents, crammed with complex parameters and API documentation. She didn’t even glance at it, too lost in the intoxicating glow of her promotion. She grabbed a pen and scribbled her signature across the page. “Great. Don’t bother me with trivial stuff like this again. I’m a strategist now. I have bigger things to worry about.” As I watched the ink dry on her arrogant signature, a cold, hidden smile touched my lips. That wasn’t a simple handover form. It was her signature on a death warrant, confirming her as the project’s “sole developer.” By signing it, she had just claimed responsibility for every single line of code. Any problem, any bug, any failure… was now hers and hers alone. 2 Susan’s victory lap didn’t last long. Trouble arrived just two days later. The client sent a sudden email requesting an additional “high-concurrency stress test.” And they specifically demanded that the Project Lead—the sole developer—conduct the demonstration personally. Susan stared at the red error codes popping up on her screen, her eyes practically bulging out of their sockets. She didn’t know the first thing about code. She barely knew how to open the command terminal; her only skill was reading from a PowerPoint. Panicked, she came clattering over to my corner desk, her heels hammering against the linoleum floor. “Andrew, write me an automated demonstration script. Now.” Her tone was as arrogant as ever, as if it were my duty, as if she hadn’t spent the last two days humiliating me. I kept my eyes on my monitor, my fingers flying across the keyboard. “Sorry, Susan,” I said without looking up. “I’m just a grunt now, remember? You revoked all my core system permissions. I couldn’t help you even if I wanted to.” Her temper snapped. She slammed her palm down on my keyboard so hard the enter key popped off and skittered across the floor. “Cut the crap! I’ll give you temporary access! If you can’t handle a simple task like this, you can pack your things and get out. Don’t think I won’t fire you!” Heads popped up over cubicle walls, our colleagues’ eyes glinting with malicious glee, all of them waiting to see me fail. I flinched dramatically, hunching my shoulders and making myself small. “No… please don’t fire me,” I whimpered. “I have a mortgage to pay. My parents… they depend on me.” Seeing her threat had worked, Susan’s expression softened slightly. She pulled two thick wads of cash from her designer purse and tossed them onto my desk. “Twenty thousand dollars. Get it done, and the money is yours. Screw it up, and you’re gone.” I stared at the cash, swallowed hard, and put on my best money-grubbing act, my hands trembling just so. “Okay, okay! Thank you, Susan! Thank you for the chance! I’ll get it done right away!” She granted me the temporary permissions, and I wrote the script in record time. But deep within the code, buried in the foundational logic that she would never, ever understand, I planted a little surprise. An Easter egg. One that would only hatch at a very specific time. Armed with my script, Susan’s demonstration for the department heads was a resounding success. As the data flowed seamlessly across the big screen, the CEO nodded in approval, praising her as a rare, multi-talented asset. Susan glowed under the praise, her face flushed with triumph, a self-satisfied smile plastered on her face. But after the meeting, she marched back to my desk with her posse and snatched the twenty thousand dollars right back. Then, citing “project security protocols,” she had the IT department completely wipe my computer. “It’s not that I don’t trust you, Andrew,” she said, her voice dripping with fake concern. “It’s just company policy. Can’t be too careful.” “I’ve deleted all the backups and logs. We wouldn’t want any of the company’s core secrets getting leaked, would we?” She looked down at me, her expression that of someone looking at a piece of trash that had served its purpose. “As for the twenty thousand… I’ll put it on your tab. We’ll see what’s left for you at the end-of-year review.” With that, she turned and sashayed away, leaving me staring at a blank screen. I wasn’t angry. In fact, I had to bite my lip to keep from laughing out loud. Go ahead, delete it all, I thought. Wipe it clean. Erase every last trace. She had just personally destroyed the only evidence that could ever prove her innocence. She had burned her own escape route to the ground. Now, not even a miracle could save her. 3 The day the million-dollar bonus hit her account, Susan bought a red Porsche. She parked it right in front of the main entrance, in the most conspicuous spot possible, ensuring no one could miss it. She then spent a full half-hour taking selfies with it. Her social media was a shrine to her success: a picture of her hand on the steering wheel, a new Hermès bag sitting on the passenger seat. In another photo, she proudly displayed the cover of the “Sole Developer and Lifetime Liability Agreement.” The caption read: [Heavy is the head that wears the crown. But every sacrifice is worth it when your hard work is finally seen.] The comments section was flooded with fawning praise from our colleagues, each one tripping over the last to kiss up to her. I saw the post while I was in the breakroom, eating a cup of instant ramen, the scent of spicy beef filling the small space. A female colleague was reapplying her makeup nearby, her voice loud enough for the entire floor to hear. “You know, some people are just destined to be worker bees their whole lives. But look at Director Reed. Now that’s a queen. That’s a woman who knows how to win.” “Exactly,” her friend chimed in. “You can’t blame her for taking the credit. The corporate world is a battlefield. If you lose, you lose.” When a man is down, everyone wants to kick him. The same people who used to call me “bro” and bum free lunches off me now wouldn’t hesitate to step on my face to get closer to Susan. Just then, the CEO’s executive assistant rushed in, her face flush with excitement. She had a major announcement. “Listen up, everyone! The CEO from corporate headquarters is visiting next Monday! And he has specifically requested a live demonstration of Project Apex’s real-time data performance!” The office erupted. The corporate CEO was the real kingmaker, a man whose single word could decide the fate of our entire branch. When Susan heard the news, her face lit up, and she nearly spilled her latte. To showcase her hands-on expertise, she immediately rejected any offers of assistance from the tech department. “I don’t need any help,” she declared grandly. “This project is my baby. I know it inside and out. No one else is to touch it.” “I will personally conduct the demonstration for the CEO. I’ll show headquarters what I’m made of. That VP title is as good as mine.” She ran into me in the breakroom and paused, wrinkling her nose and waving a hand in front of her face as if I were a cloud of toxic fumes. “Ugh, you reek of poverty. I can’t believe you get some kind of sick satisfaction from eating that garbage.” She looked down her nose at my cup of ramen, her disdain practically dripping from her eyelashes. “You see, Andrew? The project is doing just fine without you. You’re nothing but a disposable coder, a cog in the machine. Don’t ever overestimate your own importance.” I slurped down the last of my noodles and drank every last drop of the broth. Then I looked up, my face stretched into a sycophantic, almost pathetic, smile. “You’re right, Susan. I’m a cog, and you’re the queen. I wish you all the best next week. I hope you soar. Maybe you can give your little brother a boost on your way up.” Susan snorted and turned away, the sharp click-clack of her heels echoing down the hall. “At least you know your place.” Late that night, my phone buzzed, its screen a harsh glare in the darkness. It was a voice note from Susan, her tone as imperious and demanding as ever. “I need a speech for the presentation by morning. Focus on my innovative thinking and the grueling all-nighters I pulled. Don’t write about the boring code stuff, make it sound visionary, high-level.” “And if it’s not good, you can expect a termination letter on your desk. Don’t think for a second that I owe you any loyalty.” I listened to the message, a cold smile playing on my lips as my thumb hovered over the screen. I typed a single word in reply: [Done.] 4 The day before the CEO’s visit, right before closing time, Susan showed her true colors. She cornered me at my desk, the HR manager standing behind her like a silent executioner. In her hand was a freshly printed document. “Andrew Foster,” she began, her voice cold and formal, “a review of your performance has revealed a pattern of passive-aggressive behavior, a negative attitude, and a severe disruption to team morale.” She slapped a termination agreement on my desk. The edge of the paper caught my cheek, leaving a stinging, paper-cut-like welt. “Sign it. Now. And get out. I’ve already had your things packed.” The office fell silent. You could have heard a pin drop. No one dared to speak up for me. I looked at Susan’s face, twisted with a sick, triumphant excitement, and I knew exactly what she was doing. She was tying up loose ends. The CEO was arriving tomorrow. She couldn’t risk me being there. She was afraid I’d say something, steal her spotlight, or expose her lies. So, in this final moment, she was kicking me to the curb for good. “Really, Susan? You’re going this far?” I picked up the agreement, my voice trembling with manufactured disbelief. My eyes started to well up. “I just finished writing that speech for you. The ink is barely dry.” Susan crossed her arms, a cruel smirk on her face. “Don’t play dumb with me. I know what you’re thinking. Having you here is like keeping a time bomb in the office. I can’t sleep at night.” “Now get out, before I have security throw you out. Let’s not make this any uglier than it has to be.” I took a deep breath, picked up the pen, and signed my name. The nib nearly tore through the paper. “Fine. I’m leaving.” As I was gathering my box of belongings, I made sure to place a black flash drive right on top, where it was impossible to miss. “This is the final documentation for the project, and all the security keys. It’s all on here. Don’t lose it.” Susan snatched the flash drive and plugged it into her laptop, her eyes darting nervously as she scanned the contents. When she saw that all the directories and files were there, a wave of relief washed over her, replaced by the smug smile of a victor. “Considerate of you,” she sneered. “Now, get out of my sight. And don’t let me see you in this industry again. If I do, I’ll make sure you regret it.” I walked toward the elevator, clutching my box, feeling the weight of everyone’s stares on my back. As I passed Susan’s desk, I paused. She was busy directing someone to project the PowerPoint from the flash drive onto the main conference room screen, a test run for the big day. Her face was flushed with ambition. I leaned in close, lowering my voice so only she could hear. “Just a friendly tip, Susan, so you can’t say I didn’t complete the handover.” “That authorization key for the core algorithm… it expires tonight. At midnight. You should probably renew it.” Susan was busy fiddling with the font size on a slide. She waved a dismissive hand without even looking at me. “Don’t try to scare me with your tech jargon. The project has been delivered. There’s no expiration date. Are you that desperate for a shakedown?” “Now get out. The sound of your voice is pathetic. It’s bad luck.” I just shrugged and stepped into the elevator. The moment I walked out of the company building, a cold wind hit my face, but I felt nothing but a pure, exhilarating sense of freedom. I pulled out my phone. On the screen was a single, large, red button. It was the remote control for the trial-version kernel of Project Apex. I glanced back one last time at the brightly lit tower, a slow smile spreading across my face. You wanted this project so badly, Susan. So I’m going to give you a parting gift you’ll never forget. I pressed the red button: REMOTE DECOMMISSION. A small line of text appeared on the screen: [COMMAND SENT. CORE COMPONENTS WILL SELF-DESTRUCT IN T-MINUS 12 HOURS.] Tomorrow, at 9:00 AM. The exact moment the CEO’s inspection was scheduled to begin. The exact moment Susan Reed’s career would go up in flames. She loved stealing credit. Now, she would be buried under the blame for the rest of her life.
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