Elena didn't confront Katherine immediately. She spent 2 days in the institute's records room gathering her original sketches, cloud backups, and factory prototype records from 3 years earlier.
The most important evidence came from her former academic mentor, who had retained Elena's original registration form for the first competition she entered. Its official submission date predated Katherine's actual portfolio upload by a full 8 months.
Katherine arrived at the review hearing in a loose dress, clutching a printout of her pregnancy test results. Nolan was beside her, and Marcus and Elena's mother had also traveled to Averton.
The first thing Elena's mother said when she saw her was, "How did you get so thin?"
Elena didn't answer. Marcus reached for her arm, but she stepped back. His
