Chapter 4: The Unlikely Ally
The theft broke something inside Ethan. For three days, he didn't go to class. He sat on the couch in the apartment, staring blankly at the television. Lillian didn't push him; she just brought him tea and sat beside him, projecting a quiet, unyielding strength.
Word spread through the mathematics department like wildfire: The Boy Genius Quit.
On the fourth day, a knock came at the apartment door. Lillian answered it.
Standing in the hallway was Dr. Thomas Caldwell.
He was sixty-five now, his posture still straight and rigid. Since the incident at the championship, Caldwell had been quieter, more careful. He stepped into the living room, looking entirely out of place in the cozy, floral-patterned apartment.
Ethan looked up from the couch. "Dr. Caldwell?"
"Mr. Harper," Caldwell said, taking off his coat. He didn't smile, but his eyes were entirely devoid of the arrogance they once held. "I hear Dr. Thorne is preparing to publish a groundbreaking paper on the Navier-Stokes equation, co-authored by Julian Vance."
Ethan looked away. "Let them."
"No," Caldwell said sharply. The tone made Ethan jump. "I did not shake the hand of a boy who gives up when a bully steals his lunch money. Even if the lunch money is a million-dollar millennium prize."
"They have my notebook. I don't have the proof anymore," Ethan whispered.
Caldwell sat down in the armchair opposite Ethan. "You are Ethan Harper. You resolved the Caldwell-Bennett debate at age ten. The notebook is just paper. The genius is in your head."
Caldwell leaned forward. "Thorne and Vance are presenting the paper at the Global Mathematics Symposium in Chicago tomorrow. It is a live-streamed event. Vance stole your work, but I reviewed his preliminary abstract. He is missing something. Just like I was thirty years ago."
Ethan’s eyes widened. "The pressure paradox."
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"Exactly," Caldwell nodded. "Vance couldn't steal the solution because you hadn't written the final page yet. He is going to present an incomplete, fatally flawed proof to the world. And you and I are going to be sitting in the front row when he does."
For the first time in days, a small, confident smile crept onto Ethan's face.
