Chapter 3

After Theo left, Nina leaned over from the next desk, her voice barely above a whisper. "Are you nuts? You agreed? That's Peter, the guy you've been dealing with for a whole year. You've been carrying all their projects on your own."

"Company's orders," I replied, opening the folder. Inside was a copy of Sunny's resume.

I flipped to the first page and saw that her education section listed a master's degree in chip design from Berringer Technical University.

Nina leaned over to take a look. "Wow, Berringer Technical University. That's something."

I didn't say anything.

Back when I applied to Berringer Technical University, I got rejected. My advisor told me they only accepted two students for the chip design master's program that year, and the spots were already filled.

Sunny was two years ahead of me. If she was in the same program, she must've been one of those two.

I opened my laptop and searched the alumni network for graduates of Berringer Technical University's chip design program from the past five years.

When the results popped up, my fingers froze on the keyboard for a moment. Then I closed the page.

When I got home that night, Theo wasn't there.

On the coffee table was a bouquet of lilies, with a card that said: [Sunny, welcome back.] It was signed by the Ludwig Group, but the handwriting was clearly Theo's.

He'd asked the company receptionist to order flowers for Sunny, but they were delivered to my place instead.

Maybe the receptionist mixed up the address.

Or maybe it wasn't a mistake. Theo never tried to hide anything from me.

I moved the flowers out to the balcony, hooked up my external drive, and carefully checked every original design file from the past three years.

I extracted the creation times, edit histories, and version logs for every file and made three backups.

Nina messaged me, asking what I was up to.

I replied: [Working overtime.]

The meeting with the Sableton client was set for Friday.

On Wednesday afternoon, Sunny came over with the technical documents I'd put together.

She set the documents on my desk and tapped her finger on page seven. "Sofia, can you help me out with this data? I don't really get it. Could you explain it to me?"

I glanced at it. Page seven was the key parameter table for the chip's cooling module. They were the numbers I'd gotten after running more than four hundred simulations.

I explained, "These numbers show how cooling efficiency relates to chip size when it's running at full load. The smaller the number, the better the cooling."

Sunny blinked and tucked her hair behind her ear. "If the client asks about this on Friday, what should I say it's based on?"

"It's based on finite element thermal analysis."

"Finite element?" Sunny echoed, her face going blank.

After a couple of seconds, she smiled and patted my hand. "You're seriously amazing, Sofia. I spent forever trying to wrap my head around this stuff and still can't get it. The client will be there on Friday.

"Sit in the back and have my back, okay? If I get stuck, step in and fill in the gaps."

"Sure," I said.

After Sunny left, Nina lowered her desk all the way down, hiding behind it so only her eyes peeked out at me. "Sofia, she doesn't even know what finite element analysis is. How can someone with a master's from Berringer Technical University not know that?"

"Maybe she studied something else," I said.

Nina sat up from behind her desk. "So you're defending her now?"

"I'm presenting a possibility," I replied.

"Fine." Nina got to her feet. "Then I'll present another one. Her degree? It's probably fake.

*****

On Friday morning, the conference room was filled with four people from the client's side. Peter White, my contact for the past year, was leading them.

As soon as Peter sat down, he glanced over at me. "Ms. Summers, why are you sitting in the back?"

Sunny jumped in before I could say anything. "Hello, Mr. White. I'm Sunny, the lead presenter for this project. Sofia's in charge of technical support."

Peter nodded and didn't say anything more.

Sunny fired up the projector and started walking everyone through the proposal.

For the first ten minutes, she sailed through it smooth as butter, since I'd written out every word for her.

At the eleven-minute mark, the client's technical director raised his hand. "Director Shen, what's the basis for selecting the key parameters in your cooling solution? And why didn't you go with the industry-standard backside cooling method?"

Sunny pressed the clicker twice, but the slide wouldn't advance.

She tilted her head and glanced at me.