The fluorescent lights in room 4B buzz overhead, and the old projector whirs like it’s coughing up its last breath. Professor Langston—mid-fifties, gray beard, glasses forever sliding down his nose—paces at the front of the lecture hall the way he always does when he’s about to make capitalism sound poetic. “The difference between survival and dominance,” he says, gesturing with his pen, “is strategy. Business is war. You want to be the shark, not the swimmer.”
I smirk faintly. Oh, if only you knew.
Vera’s beside me, scribbling notes like she’s auditioning for valedictorian, with one earbud hidden under her hair, probably blasting music instead. Josh sits on my other side, his best friend Evan next to him—both pretending to care more about quarterly projections than they actually do. I
