2: 2

The next morning I showed up at the research institute for work, same as always, and everyone who passed me flinched away the second they saw my face.

My keycard no longer opened the door.

The girl at the front desk hurried by with a stack of files clutched to her chest, head down, pretending she hadn't seen me.

I circled around to the side entrance of the lab building and slipped in through the old service passage I used to take.

Only once I was inside did I realize my desk had been stripped bare.

Three years of manuscripts, notes, and experiment logbooks, all of it dumped beside the trash can at the far end of the hallway.

Plenty of clear shoe prints still on top of them.

I crouched down and picked them up, one by one.

"Well, look who's back."

Bill Finch, my junior, poked his head out of the office next door, arms crossed, leaning against the doorframe.

I'd trained him myself, start to finish. Earlier this year he'd landed his permanent position off a paper I revised for him.

I was about to ask him what was going on, but he only looked at me and gave a smile loaded with meaning.

"Karen, we all heard about what happened yesterday. Honestly, I never figured you for that kind of person."

He shook his head, deliberately raising his voice so the whole floor could hear.

"Tsk, tsk. Wrecks the equipment herself, won't own up to it, then tries to send her own little sister to prison to take the fall?"

"Bill, what exactly are you trying to say?"

He gave a little laugh and took a sip of his coffee.

"The director already said it. The assessment report's out."

"Real cause was inadequate equipment maintenance. You're the maintenance tech, so obviously it's on you."

I froze for a second, then turned and ran for the director's office.

The door was open. The institute director sat inside, Julian Henson seated across from him.

A document lay on the desk between them.

"Good timing. Come in."

The director pushed his glasses up his nose, all business.

"The police have already released Doris."

I gripped the logbook in my hands.

"Released? The security footage—"

"The footage only proves Doris was operating the equipment." The director cut me off.

"According to the academy's expert assessment, the real cause of the explosion was a preexisting fault in the equipment itself."

"You're the maintenance tech. Something goes wrong with the equipment, you answer for it."

He pushed across the assessment report stamped with the research academy's seal.

"This report was co-signed by three of the academy's experts and has already been submitted to the police."

"Until more evidence turns up, the police are calling it a workplace safety accident."

I pushed the report right back.

"Director, the equipment had a full overhaul just last month. The maintenance records are all in the system."

Julian spoke up without a flicker of expression.

"The system's been updated. The old records had formatting errors, so tech already cleared them out."

That one sentence, tossed off so lightly, sealed off every way out I had.

With no maintenance records, how was a temp's word supposed to overturn an assessment from three senior engineers?

The director stood and waved a hand.

"As maintenance tech, your negligence was severe. The institute has decided to dismiss you and report you to the industry association."

"Then what about my project data? The core derivations for the new material were mine."

Julian crossed his legs, drew a document out of his bag, and gave a soft little laugh.

"Yours? On this project ownership agreement, the first author is Doris and the second is me."

"You're just a temp. How would someone like you ever be involved in an experimental project like this?"

Sure enough, when I opened the agreement, my name had already been altered.

The data and models for this project were all the product of three years of my own work, day and night, no rest.

I'd shared my results with Julian out of good faith, let him help with some simple record-keeping.

I never imagined he'd just steal everything I'd poured myself into.

Right then, a wail broke out in the hallway.

My mother came charging straight in.

"Director, don't believe a word she says. She's had sticky fingers since she was a child, always jealous of her sister, always making trouble on purpose."

"Doris is such a brilliant girl, and this one nearly got her killed!"

Security came jogging over.

Julian grabbed my arm and shoved me toward the top of the stairs.

The director stood and beckoned to the guards.

They came and locked their hands around my arms.

Julian used the moment to shove me from behind, and my whole body went tumbling down the steps.

My knees hit first, and the skin tore open at once.

"Quit clinging on like some cheap adhesive plaster."

Summer rain comes without warning.

I knelt on the ground and hunched the manuscripts against my chest, but the paper still soaked through, more than half of it.

It didn't matter. Every piece of the core content was in my head. What they'd stolen was only a half-finished shell.

I stood up and looked at the three of them up there.

"That patchwork data of yours will hold for a little while at most."

"You had the nerve to swallow what's mine. Sooner or later you'll cough it all back up, skin and bones and all."

I turned and walked into the rain. Behind me came my mother's voice.

"Good riddance. Once you're gone, don't come back. From this day on, I have only one daughter."

3: 3

Over the next month, I sent out more than forty résumés.

Every one passed the first screen. Every one was rejected before the interview.

The last recruiter couldn't stomach it and called me privately.

"Ms. Pruitt, I'll be honest with you. Your résumé is excellent."

"But your old employer put you on the industry blacklist for academic misconduct. No one in this field will dare touch you."

I turned off my phone and sat in the rented apartment for a long time.

A temp's pay was never high, and I still wired my mother three thousand every month, so I had almost nothing saved.

With careful budgeting I could have scraped by to the end of next month, but two days ago I came home to find the lock jimmied open.

The place had been torn apart. The wardrobe was tipped over, the mattress flipped, every drawer yanked out.

The three thousand I'd hidden in a lining was gone too.

All that was left on the table was a note from my mother.

【Took the money to buy your sister some tonics to settle her nerves. You owe her that.】

The landlord had been cursing me from the yard for days now too.

"Your mother's been down here making scenes. Tells anyone who'll listen that you're a con artist."

"Pack up and get out. I've got other people to rent this place to."

With my savings stolen by my mother, I couldn't even make rent now.

I was still sitting there thinking when my phone rang. My mother.

I hesitated, then answered.

"Happy now? You've ruined your sister's whole reputation. Everyone at the institute is talking about her."

"She damaged the equipment. That's a fact."

"Bullshit. The equipment was faulty on its own, the assessment report said so."

She paused, then softened her voice on purpose.

"You come back and apologize to your sister, and we'll drop the whole thing. I'll find you a job at a supermarket."

"Apologize?"

"Your sister has never had to swallow a single hardship in her life. Don't you think you owe her an apology?"

"And hand over those manuscripts. They're part of Doris's project. You keeping them counts as theft."

I was so furious I laughed, and finally understood why she'd called. I hung up on her.

Not long after, she called again.

"Look at you. Nothing to show for your face, nothing for your degree, and now you've even lost your job. Who's going to want you?"

"Your sister is a full researcher, and you don't even have a job. Ever wonder why?"

"Because you're useless. Just like that pigheaded father of yours. You've been useless since the day you were born."

Only after she'd cursed her fill did she hang up.

Right after that, a text came in from Julian Henson.

【Kneel down and apologize to Doris now, and I can pull some strings to get you back at the institute as a cleaner.】

I sent back one word. Rot.

Then I blocked him.

The apartment was quiet, quiet enough to catch every line of the young couple fighting downstairs.

I took out the stack of manuscripts and spread them across the bed, page by page, to dry.

A few pages had gone blurry, so I retraced the writing with a pen and worked through the derivations, day and night.

This was the one thing they couldn't take from me, and my only leverage to prove myself.

But formulas alone weren't enough. Without a lab, these derivations would only ever be symbols on paper.

I needed one thing more. A chance to stand in the open again.

For the last few days I got by on fried bread, bread soaked in broth, and sliced bread.

Then, finally, I saw a post on an academic forum.

The most prestigious industry summit in the country would open here in the city next week.

The top scholars nationwide would be there, even Ellie Heath, the academician everyone called the titan of the field.

In my last life, I'd read in prison a paper Ellie Heath published that was enough to shift the whole field's direction.

But one step in it never sat right with me.

She probably knew it herself, because after that paper she never pushed the work any further.

And my research ran along the same line as hers. That step, I'd worked through it more times than I could count.

There was no way I'd get an invitation to the summit, but I'd once done systems maintenance for that venue.

No one knew the place better than I did.

I dug out the badge left over from that maintenance job, then spent the last of my money on a cleaner's uniform.

So on the summit's opening day, in that uniform, I walked into the main hall through the staff entrance.

Doris was seated in the front row.

Still wearing the professional suit I'd scrimped to buy and never let myself wear.

Julian sat beside her, sharp suit, riding high.

The institute director sat on Doris's other side, chatting and laughing with the man next to him.

Onstage, Academician Heath was presenting a bottleneck problem.

Her hair was streaked with gray, her back straight, her voice carrying across the entire hall.

"This set of data has stumped us for three years. Can anyone here give me a verifiable solution?"

4: 4

The room went dead silent.

More than a hundred of the country's top scholars, and not one dared raise a hand.

The institute director nudged Doris with his elbow, motioning for her to stand.

"Doris, haven't you been working in this exact area? Walk Academician Heath through your thinking."

Doris got up reluctantly, her face flushed red, and stammered out a few sentences.

She hadn't even finished when Ellie cut her off.

"What department are you from? You don't even have the basic concepts straight."

"Complete nonsense. You're wasting my time. Sit down."

Doris's eyes went red at once, and she shrank back into her seat.

Julian turned and patted her back, murmuring something to comfort her.

"Everyone in the country working on this is right here in this room. It's only natural you couldn't answer."

The director's smile was starting to slip too. He lifted a hand and wiped the sweat off his brow.

"Right, even Academician Heath is stuck on it. Don't be so hard on yourself."

On the stage, Ellie swept her eyes across the room.

"Is there anyone else here who can offer another idea?"

I dropped the empty water bottle in my hand into the trash bag and spoke, my voice low.

"Try setting the critical value to 8.927."

The whole room heard the voice and turned toward me, full of expectation.

But the moment they saw it was a cleaner, they snickered and started whispering to each other.

Doris recognized me and shot to her feet.

"Security, this woman snuck in here to cause trouble."

Julian pointed at me too, shouting.

"Karen Pruitt, have you lost your mind? You think this is somewhere you belong?"

The director waved toward the security at the door.

"This girl was fired from our institute. Academic fraud. Don't let her make a scene here."

Two guards ran in through the side door, seized my arms, and started dragging me out.

I didn't struggle. I kept my eyes on Ellie the whole time.

She stood on the stage, frowning, staring at the data model on the big screen, lost in some thought.

Then she raised her hand to the keyboard and typed a number into the control console.

The moment she hit enter, the whole hall's sound system let out a sharp, piercing tone.

On the big screen, the model that had been throwing up red errors and crashing suddenly flickered.

The red warnings vanished. The data streams scrolled on and on, too fast for the eye to follow.

Every theoretical metric began to climb at once.

The entire simulation was undergoing a violent shift no one had ever seen before.

Ellie stared hard at the screen, the teacup in her hand shattering against the floor, shaking with excitement.

Everyone in the room was on their feet too, stunned by what the model was doing.

Ellie snatched up the microphone.

"Everyone, stop. Let her go."

The guards' hands loosened, and my arms came free.

I straightened up and fixed the collar they'd yanked crooked.

Ellie came down off the stage, striding past all those big names and officials, and walked straight up to me.

The director's smugness was still on his face, waiting for Ellie to come down and deal with me herself.

Doris pulled out her phone to record it, ready to send the clip to her mother and mock me.

Ellie stopped in front of me.

She looked at my cleaner's uniform, looked at my face, gaunt and worn from living on plain bread.

Then she pulled a pass from her coat and pressed it into my hand.

"This is the person you didn't want?"

She turned to face the room, her voice ringing through the whole hall.

"Wonderful."

"You're all blind."