Maya held the phone against her chest.

“Why?

What are you afraid we’ll hear?”

Keene forced a smile.

“I am protecting the integrity of an investigation.”

Dean Grant stepped closer.

“You tried to confiscate the evidence before hearing it.”

“I tried to prevent public disorder.”

“You threatened a student and suspended a witness.”

Thomas folded his arms.

“You also knew about the grant.”

Hollis stepped between them.

“Richard, say nothing more.”

That command changed the room.

Keene’s lips parted, but no words came.

Elijah pointed to Maya’s phone.

“Please play the rest.”

The recording resumed.

Keene’s voice came through the speaker.

“Once Gerald receives the foundation grant, the building gets its new research wing.

The boy’s submission cannot interfere.”

Then Hollis said, “Reject it, alter the archive date, and let the father complain.

Who will listen to him?”

Dean Grant turned to Keene.

“You sat on the appeals panel.”

“This conversation is missing context.”

“What context makes those words acceptable?”

Keene reached for Maya’s phone.

Owen stepped down and blocked him.

“Don’t touch her.”

“Young man, move.”

“No.”

Hollis glanced toward the security officers.

“Remove both students.”

Neither officer moved.

The older one unclipped his radio.

“Dean Grant, do you want university counsel called?”

“Yes.

Ask the board chair to come here as well.”

Hollis leaned close to Maya.

“You still need my signature to graduate.”

“No,” Maya said.

“I needed it yesterday.”

He lowered his voice.

“Withdraw the recording, and I will fund your fellowship personally.”

“You just threatened me.”

“I offered you a future.”

Maya placed the phone in Dean Grant’s hand.

“I choose the one where I can look at myself.”

Keene moved to the lectern computer and typed rapidly.

Dean Grant saw the screen and caught his wrist.

“What are you deleting?”

“Temporary files.”

Owen aimed his camera at the monitor.

“It says ‘Young Scholars Archive.’”

Keene jerked the power cord from the wall.

The screen went black.

Hollis spread his hands.

“There.

Your supposed archive no longer exists.”

Dean Grant’s grip tightened on Maya’s phone.

“You believe unplugging a computer erases a server?”

Keene stared at the dark screen.

A university attorney arrived with Board Chair Evelyn Ross.

Evelyn looked at Thomas’s uniform, Elijah’s chalk-covered fingers, and the manuscript on the lectern.

“I was told Professor Hollis’s grant presentation had begun,” she said.

“It has,” Elijah answered.

“He’s presenting my work.”

Hollis pointed toward him.

“This child has been coached.”

“By whom?”

“His father.

Possibly Maya.”

Thomas shook his head.

“Ask Elijah any question from the paper.”

Evelyn opened the manuscript.

“Page seventeen.

Why does the sequence remain bounded?”

Elijah walked to the board and wrote three lines.

“Because the correction term shrinks faster than the error grows.

But Professor Hollis’s version leaves out this condition.”

Evelyn compared his work with the page.

“The omitted condition is handwritten here.”

“That is my handwriting.”

Hollis snatched Elijah’s backpack from the floor.

“Then where is the notebook containing the original derivation?”

Elijah reached for it.

“Give that back.”

Hollis emptied the bag onto the floor.

Textbooks, pencils, and a lunch container scattered across the platform.

There was no notebook.

Hollis smiled at Evelyn.

“Because it never existed.”

Thomas crouched beside Elijah.

“You packed it this morning.

I saw you.”

Elijah searched every pocket, then looked toward the side door.

“I left my backpack on the hallway bench for five minutes.”

Maya stared at Hollis’s suit pocket.

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