“She will escort you to the security office until your supervisor arrives.”
Grant looked around at the donors.
Humiliation settled over his face.
“This is unbelievable.”
Micah finally spoke.
“No.”
Everyone looked toward him.
“What happened was pretty believable.”
Grant stared at him.
Then Denise stepped between them.
“Mr. Harlan, come with me.”
Grant obeyed.
Not because Micah had suddenly become important.
Because Jonathan had.
Micah noticed the difference.
Jonathan did too.
That bothered him.
When Grant disappeared down the corridor, donors began talking again in low voices. Several approached Micah with concern, but he stepped away from them. Jonathan asked whether he needed medical attention.
“I’m fine.”
“That mark says otherwise.”
“It’s a scratch.”
“It’s swelling.”
Micah looked toward the dome entrance.
“What time is the presentation?”
Jonathan almost laughed from disbelief.
“Micah.”
“What?”
“You were just assaulted by our security contractor.”
“I know.”
“You don’t have to present.”
Micah looked at the gold card.
Then at the broken plastic.
“I spent six months building this.”
Jonathan waited.
Micah continued.
“He doesn’t get to decide whether I stand under that dome tonight.”
Jonathan understood.
He still insisted a medic examine Micah first.
The injury was superficial.
Bruised.
Painful.
No serious neck damage.
Micah changed into the spare shirt from his backpack because the original collar had torn slightly near the clasp. Celeste found another blazer backstage from an event volunteer, but Micah declined it.
He kept the oversized one.
At 7:42, twenty-seven minutes behind schedule, Jonathan walked beneath the dome.
Nearly four hundred guests sat in darkness.
Above them stretched the huge curved screen Bellweather had spent two years upgrading. Jonathan stood beneath a narrow spotlight and looked toward the audience.
“I had prepared a speech about why tonight matters.”
He paused.
“I’m not giving that speech.”
People shifted.
Jonathan continued.
“Instead, I want to introduce the young man whose work you came here to see.”
Micah waited backstage.
His neck still hurt.
His hands felt cold.
Jonathan told the audience that six months earlier, Bellweather encountered a student project unlike anything its technical staff expected from a high-school programmer. That student then worked with professional engineers to transform the idea into the system installed above them. The software they were about to see was not a classroom demonstration.
It was part of Bellweather’s new projection platform.
Jonathan looked toward the stage entrance.
“Micah Carter.”
Applause rose.
Micah walked out.
For the first five seconds, all he could think about was the broken badge.
Then the lights went down.
The ceiling turned black.