Chapter 1
My phone screen lit up.
[Your account ending in 639 received a 5 dollars deposit. Current balance: 28 dollars.]
It was five dollars.
I stared at the message for a long time, long enough for the screen to go dark and then light up again when a new message popped up in the department group chat.
Joey from Admin dropped a screenshot in the chat, complete with three snickering emojis.
Joey: [Oh my god, Mr. Harris's year-end bonus. Two million eight hundred thousand dollars. Am I seeing this right?]
The screenshot was from the finance system's salary details. No one knew who took it or how it got leaked.
It read: [Samuel Harris, Executive Assistant to the CEO, year-end bonus: 900,000 dollars.]
My name was listed right above his.
[Charles Reed, Deputy Director of R&D, year-end bonus: 5 dollars.]
Our names were stacked one right above the other, practically touching.
It was as if someone had pinned me to the floor and smacked me twice while I was down.
The R&D department suddenly went dead silent. No more keyboard clatter, no more phone calls. Everyone was glued to their phones, but nobody said a word. The silence wasn't sympathy. It was pure rubbernecking.
Zack, the intern next to me, leaned in and whispered, "Charlie?
"Did they mess up or something? How come your year-end bonus is only..."
He didn't finish, but I got the message.
"Maybe it's a bug in the system," I muttered.
Even I didn't buy it.
My phone rang again. It was the CEO's office line.
"Mr. Reed, Ms. Grant wants to see you," Samuel said.
His voice was polite and steady, but there was something in it, as if he were talking down to me.
"Okay." I hung up and got to my feet.
Heading from R&D to the CEO's office meant crossing the whole seventeenth floor. It was an open-plan space with more than three hundred desks.
As I made my way across, I caught snippets of conversation.
"Did you see? Five bucks"
"Deputy Director, and this is what he's come to"
"Rumor has it that he has got something going on with Ms. Grant."
"Shh."
I didn't look back.
I pushed open the door to the CEO's office.
Natalie Grant was sitting behind her big black desk, flipping through a report. She was wearing a gray cashmere coat today, her hair pulled up high, showing off her long, elegant neck.
Not thirty yet, she was calling the shots at a publicly traded company valued at 110 billion dollars.
NovaTech was the number one in the AI chip industry.
And she's been my wife for three years.
No one in the whole building knew about it. We'd signed an agreement.
"Ms. Grant," I said.
I stood in front of her desk.
Natalie looked up. Her eyes were striking, but there was no warmth in them.
"Sit," she said.
I took a seat, the wide desk separating us.
"Has financial staff talked to you about the year-end bonus?" she asked.
"No," I replied.
"Then let me fill you in," Natalie said, closing the report and folding her hands on the desk. "The board tightened the budget this year.
"For R&D, which is a long-term investment department, year-end bonuses are now based on project delivery results.
"The edge inference chip project you led last year was delayed by four months, had one failed tape-out, and the mass production yield didn't meet the target. Overall, you came in last in the department."
"So, five dollars," I muttered, feeling the words stick in my throat.
Natalie shot me a look, her brow twitching a bit. "Charles, you need to face the problem."
I said, "The tape-out failed because the foundry messed up the process. I sent in a fix before the second run. The delay? Marketing suddenly wanted three new specs halfway through, and each one meant changing the whole architecture.
"As for the yield, the packaging partner swapped in new equipment and didn't bother to match the parameters."
I looked at her.
"I wrote all of this in the weekly updates. Every email, I copied you and Samuel," I added.
Natalie didn't say anything.
She tapped her fingers lightly on the desk. "The board only cares about the results, not the process.
"And Samuel was outstanding last year. He led the team that landed a 20 million custom chip deal with Brightwell Group and opened up two new government channels for the company. He earned every penny of that 900,000 dollars."
Samuel had been with the company for less than two years. He was five years younger than me.
Everyone in the company knew he was Natalie's golden boy.
Some say he was more than her golden boy.
"So I'm only worth five dollars," I said, my voice barely audible.
Natalie's expression didn't change. "Charles, the company has its rules. Your position and salary are already more than most get. If it weren't for—" she started, then stopped.
"If it weren't for what?" I pressed her.
Natalie stayed silent.