Chapter 5 - The Forged Journal
Barbara marched toward the committee table with ridiculous confidence.
She slammed the worn leather journal down in front of Professor Evans.
The cover looked genuinely ancient, coated in layers of artificial dust.
She claimed her late husband had written those exact chemical equations thirty years ago.
She loudly accused Selena of finding the journal in the attic and stealing the life's work of a dead man.
The committee members leaned forward, their expressions turning highly suspicious.
Professor Evans carefully opened the fragile pages of the old book.
He gasped audibly when he saw the exact formulas from Selena's presentation written in faded ink.
The data matched perfectly, down to the most complex decimal points.
Hunter smirked from the back of the room, looking incredibly satisfied with his mother's performance.
He knew that in the academic world, even the suspicion of theft was a death sentence.
The dean stood up and stated that this evidence was entirely damning.
He told Selena that her defense was permanently suspended pending a federal copyright investigation.
Selena stared at the journal, feeling a momentary wave of absolute nausea.
She knew for a fact that she had created those formulas entirely from scratch in her laboratory.
She walked down from the podium and asked to examine the evidence.
Professor Evans hesitated but slowly pushed the journal toward her.
Selena carefully flipped through the yellowed pages, her brilliant mind racing for a solution.
She noticed something strange about the way the ink bonded to the paper fibers.
She remembered a specific chapter from her own doctoral research regarding chemical degradation.
She turned to the committee and asked them to observe the pages closely.
She explained that thirty-year-old ink naturally oxidizes and turns slightly brown at the edges.
She pointed out that the ink in this journal was perfectly, uniformly black.
She boldly declared that the journal was a modern forgery created within the last week.
Hunter loudly mocked her, calling her a desperate liar grasping at straws.
He challenged her to prove her insane theory right then and there.
Selena smiled coldly and reached into her jacket pocket.
"I don't need a lab to prove it, I just need a lighter," she said smoothly.
May you like
She sparked a flame and held it directly under the center of the journal page.
Instead of burning naturally, the black ink violently changed color and turned bright neon green.
