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."
