The flight home was quiet—too quiet. Emily Sullivan stared out the oval window of the private jet as darkness swallowed the horizon. The sky beyond was a deep velvet, and with every mile flown she felt her heart sink into that hush.
Behind her, Brian Karanell thumbed through his phone. Once in a while he frowned—something flickered on the screen. Then came a soft, triumphant hum.
He glanced up.
“Neurograsp got funded,” he announced, voice taut with satisfaction.
Emily turned. “What?”
“The full amount. Private equity. Finalized this morning.”
Her breath caught. Years of struggle—late nights, rejected grants, malfunctioning prototypes—had finally led to this. It had happened.
Emily was an electronics engineer by training, a rising academic at Veligrad Institute of Technology, where sh
