"Sir Harold, I was just being polite. You actually dared to take it seriously?" Lester chuckled softly, a hint of open mockery in his tone. "This money—I earned it with my skills. President Schmidt saw the truth clearly. She recognized my ability and my effort."
"I wrote the core code. I worked overtime. Why do you think you deserve this money more than me?"
Lester spoke with smug satisfaction, his eyes sweeping over the private office like a conqueror claiming new territory.
"Come to think of it," he said, voice dripping with arrogance, "I should really thank you for stepping aside."
"From now on, this office... will be mine."
The look on his face, so full of conceit, was a far cry from the polite, humble intern I once knew.
"With your skills?" I took a step forward, closing the distance between us. "You mean the skill of changing variable names on interfaces other people have already debugged? The skill of reformatting existing comments, then submitting pre-organized test cases as if they were core algorithms?"
"Or do you mean the skill of pretending to code nonsense every time President Schmidt walks by, or keeping a pre-written documentation file open to look busy?"
My tone was calm, but each word struck like a needle, hitting every weak spot he tried to hide.
Only later did I piece the truth together.
He had taken advantage of my absence, my distraction from my mother's illness—and exploited every gap I left behind.
As an intern, he couldn't access the actual core systems, but he had full visibility into test scripts, process files, and secondary modules.
In just a month, he carefully crafted an illusion—one where he appeared to be "deeply involved," even "leading the project."
Lester's face shifted instantly. His smug pride and false composure crumbled, replaced by shame and rage at being exposed. His cheeks flushed crimson; his breathing grew uneven.
"Y-you're talking nonsense!" he snapped, voice trembling, eyes darting everywhere but at me.
"You know exactly whether I'm talking nonsense," I said coldly.
"The so-called core modules you claimed to have written—the underlying functions, the logic framework—they're identical to the architecture I built."
"You just wrapped them in clumsy layers of redundant code and sprinkled in flashy, meaningless comments."