Immune (The Rho Agenda #2)(38)
“I’m Heather McFarland. I believe I can explain.”
“Well?”
The faces stared back at her. Dr. Caldwell, Dr. Zumwalt, Mr. Smythe, and even her own father looked at her with a mixture of disbelief and dismay.
“It was my fault,” Heather said, unable to keep her hands from shaking. “I was so excited when I read the Fermi Paper that I used its equations in our report.”
“But that fails to explain why you didn’t document your source.” Dr. Caldwell’s face grew even more severe.
A small sob escaped Heather’s lips before she could stifle it. “I know. I was responsible for that section of the paper. I never meant to cheat. I must have gotten sloppy in our rush to the finish.”
“Sloppy?” Dr. Caldwell took a step toward her. “That is something I cannot believe. Everything about your team’s report is first class, all meticulously assembled and documented. But you tell me that you got sloppy with your attribution? Ridiculous. If there is one thing I can tolerate even less than plagiarism, it is a lie. And you, young lady, are a liar.”
“Now see here,” Gil McFarland sputtered.
“You take that back!” Something about the tone of Jennifer’s voice caused all eyes to settle on her. Her delicate features had warped into a mask of anger, her forehead creased in concentration, her eyes alive with something that seemed vaguely familiar to Heather.
Jennifer stepped closer to the startled professor, her eyes locking his gaze. “Apologize. Now!”
For several seconds, everyone stood frozen in place, awed by the surrealistic confrontation. Suddenly, Dr. Caldwell bowed his head, both hands rising to rub his temples.
When he raised his head again, the harsh look of moments before was gone.
“Odd. I don’t normally allow myself to become emotional. My response was entirely inappropriate. I apologize to you all, especially to you, Heather. I had no business questioning your veracity. Unfortunately, that does not alter the sanctions that the judging committee has decided to impose.
“Your award has been stripped and will be presented to the runner-up team. As for your cold-fusion apparatus, you have a choice.”
Heather felt the constriction in her chest increase. “What choice?”
“The committee has decided, due to your age, to allow you the possibility of partial redemption. If you choose to donate your apparatus to the national science foundation, signing over all rights to the ingenious design, we will refrain from issuing a formal report on your disqualification. Otherwise, you can keep your device and we will issue a formal report, something that will go into your academic record to be considered by future college admissions boards.”
Mr. Smythe interrupted. “That’s not a choice. Even if your report is not formalized, the plagiarism story will still be out there in the press. These kids will be humiliated.”
“I’m afraid we cannot help that. All we can offer is to mitigate the long-term impact of this situation.”
Dr. Caldwell picked up his satchel and turned back toward Principal Zumwalt, indicating the papers on the table.
“That is your copy of our report.”
As he made his way to the door, Dr. Caldwell paused to survey the three shocked students one last time.
“Think it over.”
Then he was gone, leaving behind a group so disheartened that they didn’t notice that Heather never bothered to wipe away the tears that dripped from her chin.
35
Raul’s harness dangled from his buttocks as he swung himself up along the wall of alien machinery to which the far ends of the cables were attached. The knotted muscles in his arms seemed ready to burst through the thin layer of skin that covered them. In his concentration, he hardly noticed the minor amount of effort the climb required.
Dr. Stephenson had been encouraging him to explore his connections to the ship’s machinery, only the good doctor had no idea how successful that exploration had become. With every attempt, Raul’s access to the ship’s neural network got better, despite the severe damage the ship’s systems had suffered. Like him, she had been horribly injured, but she was a survivor.
Crude as they were, the connections Dr. Stephenson had made between the machines and his own amputation-exposed nerve bundles had been effective. It had taken a while to make sense of the wild sensory data that bled into him through his optical nerve and through the cables he now thought of as his tail. At first, he had thought the strange sensations were only pain-induced hallucinations. How wrong he had been.
His nanite-infested bloodstream had worked miracles, accepting the attachments as if he were a hybrid plant with some new genetic sprigs grafted to his trunk. New skin had grown up around them in a way that just seemed right. Even better, the physical connections to his nervous system were getting better. Yes, the nanites had been one busy little colony, always analyzing his health, always seeking ways to fix imperfections. And while they could not regenerate lost limbs, they were very good at keeping him alive and incorporating usable new parts.
What Raul had initially thought were hallucinations were his first feeble attempts to deal with the data coming from the ship’s damaged neural network, a magnificently capable system that his consciousness roamed at will. It was incredible. Now, when he thought about something, he not only thought about it with the neurons in his own brain, he thought about it with all the functioning neural pathways in the ship.