The silence in the room became heavy, a physical weight that pressed down on Arthur’s shoulders. He kept his hand extended, his smile beginning to twitch at the corners. The board members exchanged confused glances. This wasn’t how these meetings usually went.
Leo finally spoke, his voice low and dangerous. “Assistant?” he repeated, the word sounding like an insult in his mouth.
Arthur chuckled nervously, trying to regain his footing. “Well, yes. A junior staffer, really. He’s been helpful with the administrative side of Project Zenith. But let’s not bore you with the help. If you’ll look at the financial projections I created—”
“I’m curious, Mr. Sterling,” Leo interrupted, stepping past Arthur to stand directly in front of me. He didn’t look at the screen; he looked at me. “Could you explain the integration of the Bayesian inference model within the third module of ‘your’ project? It seemed a bit… sophisticated for someone who primarily focuses on ‘vision.'”
Arthur’s face went pale. “Ah, well, that’s part of the proprietary logic. It’s quite technical. I don’t want to get bogged down in the weeds.”
Leo smirked, a sharp, predatory expression. “Try me. I have a lot of time. Or perhaps, since Mark here is so good at ‘data entry,’ maybe he could explain it? Mark, what do you think about the Bayesian integration?”
I took a deep breath. This was the precipice. I could play the “assistant” and keep my miserable job, or I could take back what was mine. I looked Arthur in the eye, and for the first time, I didn’t feel afraid. I felt disgusted.
“Actually, Leo,” I said, using his first name intentionally, “the Bayesian model is the core of the entire system. It’s what allows for the predictive scaling. And Arthur, I think you’re confused. You didn’t write the logic. You didn’t even see the logic until I emailed you the final deck at 2 AM this morning. Which, by the way, I have the timestamp for.”
The room gasped. Arthur’s eyes bugged out. “Mark! How dare you? Mr. Vance, I apologize for this outburst. He’s clearly overwhelmed—”
“Shut up, Arthur,” Leo said, his voice cutting through the air like a knife. He turned to the Chairman. “I’ve known Mark since we were nineteen. We shared a dorm room for four years. I’ve seen the early drafts of this code on his old, beat-up laptop years ago. This isn’t your project, Sterling. This is his. And you just tried to sell me a lie using my best friend’s brain.”
The Chairman stood up, his face reddening. “Arthur, is this true?”
Arthur began to stammer, a pathetic string of excuses about ‘leadership’ and ‘team efforts,’ but the damage was done. Leo pulled out his phone and tapped a few buttons. “I was going to sign a fifty-million-dollar investment today. But I don’t invest in thieves. I invest in talent.”
He looked at the Chairman. “Here’s the deal. I’ll sign the check on one condition: Arthur Sterling is escorted out of this building immediately. He is to have no further contact with this firm. And Mark? Mark is promoted to Chief Technical Officer with a seat on the board. He owns the IP, and he runs the show. Otherwise, I’m taking my money—and Mark—to your biggest competitor.”
The board didn’t even deliberate. Within ten minutes, security was standing at the door. Arthur, the man who had tried to bury me under a mountain of ego, was forced to pack his desk into a cardboard box while the entire office watched in silence.
As the door clicked shut behind him, Leo walked over and punched me lightly on the shoulder, just like he used to do after a long night of studying. “Assistant? Really, Mark? You always were a terrible liar.”
“I wasn’t lying,” I laughed, feeling a weight lift off my chest that I hadn’t realized I was carrying. “I was just waiting for the right person to ask the questions.”
“Well,” Leo said, gesturing to the chair at the head of the table. “The Shark is waiting. Why don’t you show me the real Project Zenith? And this time, don’t leave out the ‘sophisticated’ parts.”
I sat down, opened my laptop, and for the first time in my career, I wasn’t working for someone else’s dream. I was finally building my own.
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