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slacking.
    With Dad at the helm you lived for the occasional approving pat on the shoulder or nod. They were few and far between.
    But that made them more precious, of course. Anyone could give smiles and nice words. They were essentially meaningless. When barely anyone got praise, every piece was valued. Mike devalued his currency, handing it out to everyone like that. He should hoard it, make people truly strive to earn it.
    “Treat them mean to keep them keen,” Dad liked to say. It was how he’d trained her and she’d ended up sharp as a tack; the head of her class. A real achiever.
    Th is was no way to run a business; playgrounds and competitions and falling all over yourself to indulge your employees. Even if it was fun.
    Rachel had sent her to make and deliver a cup of coffee to Mike Summers’ PA upstairs and now she stood overlooking the competitors in the atrium, tapping her finger on the railing, her swift tattoo creating a soft chime on the cool metal. She could feel the frustration, the agitation rising in her like a tide. They were doing it, those programmers; buried deeply in the midst of the struggle, the delight. This was what she loved, this bending one’s will to a problem, solving it within the rigid limits of a computer’s understanding, with precision, conciseness, each keystroke a piece of the puzzle.
    No, that was the absolute limit! She was not going to stand by any longer , regardless of what the Platform Division was doing. Hurrying down the stairs she snagged a nearby empty workspace on the edge of the atrium, downloaded the spec and threw together an elegantly simple piece of code to fulfill it. She attached it to an email which she made anonymous and bounced through two network nodes to strip the IP address.
    Peering round the edge of a giant ‘jungle leaf’ made out of painted material, she watched Mike receive it. He stiffened in his seat . A small smile of what looked like triumph curved his lips. Would he announce a mystery contender? Perhaps she would have to stop playing if he did. There were too many curious eyes around the building, to be a go-fer feverishly and strangely poised over a console while there was a mystery competitor on the loose. She still needed to avoid too much attention given her ultimate intentions. Winning this event was a necessary evil.
    But oh! It sure felt good to be in the game.
    Mike didn’t say a word. He acted like he’d never received the emailed solution. She double-checked the email address she’d used. No, she had the right one, she was certain.
    She waited in suspense for one of the competitors to finally complete their own version of code , for someone else to win that stage. For the next set of specifications to appear on the screen. It was another ten minutes until someone else cracked it.
    Tui won.
    That grated on her too. She was certain her solution was better, and she’d certainly sent it through faster. She narrowed her eyes at his sunny smile, the smugness almost hidden behind it, but visible to her.
    You’re good , mate, but you’re not good enough.
    She sat poised over the keyboard until the rustle and tapping told her the new specs were available. Swiftly she accessed them through the network rather than taking them from the screen. It was more discreet. She raced herself to set a better time, regardless of the increase in difficulty.
    Layers. Layers within layers. A dozen different functions with delicate tipping points. Her fingers flew and she muttered under her breath, scarcely keeping up with the code appearing on the screen. ‘Yes!’ she hissed, and gave a soft laugh as she sent this new program through.
    She caught Mike’s reaction as he received it, his own hands dancing on the keyboard of his laptop. Tracing? She wiped the system logs and then left the work station. She went to her bag and pulled out her own laptop, choosing another work area, bland and impersonal.
    Time to work from the laptop. Her computer had