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Brandon Carlisle stared at his phone with the specific intensity of a man watching a bomb he'd just lit.
He was the one who'd posted the report card. Class monitor of Class Three at Ashford Prep. The son of one of Ashford City's top five business families. The boy who'd spent months positioning himself as Sophia Langford's most likely suitor.
And the boy who'd been watching that position crumble ever since the verification meeting.
Before Ethan Mercer's demonstration, Sophia had been warming to him. Not enthusiastically, but with the measured tolerance of a beautiful girl who understood that Brandon's family connections and financial resources made him a practical choice. In the social ecosystem of Ashford Prep, they were the "golden couple" that everyone expected to happen.
Then Ethan flew a suit of armor at Mach 6 and destroyed two fighter jets on live television, and overnight, the practical choice became the invisible one.
Sophia's attitude toward Brandon had shifted from lukewarm acceptance to cold disinterest. The way she looked at him now carried something worse than hostility: it carried the particular disdain of a woman who'd recalibrated her standards and found the person in front of her no longer met the threshold.
According to Megan Pryce, Sophia's family had traveled to the capital specifically for Ethan. Thousands of kilometers. The whole family. For the boy Sophia had dumped two years ago.
Brandon couldn't endure it.
I was raised for this. The connections, the money, the family name. Everything I have was supposed to guarantee me a place at the top.
And that orphan from Millbrook County, who had NOTHING, is the one everyone wants.
Why him? Why should a kid who couldn't even pass biology be allowed to have what should be MINE?
The report card had been easy to find. A classmate in the admin office owed him a favor. One photo, one anonymous account, one comment in a trending thread.
And now the internet was doing exactly what Brandon had hoped it would do.
Ethan frowned at his phone.
The report card was real. Biology: 39 points. First year of high school.
What the image didn't show, and what nobody on the internet knew, was the context. That particular exam, a group of kids sitting near him had grabbed his paper as a "joke" halfway through. He'd spent the remaining time trying to get it back instead of answering questions. The 39 reflected an incomplete test, not incomplete knowledge.
But context didn't travel on social media. Screenshots did.
The anti-fans seized on it like dogs on a bone.
"39 points in biology? I could score higher writing with my feet."
"This is the 'genius' you people worship? Hilarious."
"He probably just memorized the word 'plasmolysis' and thought he was a biologist."
Ethan's supporters fired back immediately.
"So what if Professor Mercer didn't ace biology? He's still doing more for this country than every person in this comment section combined."
"You don't need to know everything. Specializing in one field and changing the world with it is more than enough."
"Professor Mercer might not know biology, but he can win a Nobel Prize. You know biology, but will anyone give YOU one?"
The war escalated. Comments bred comments. Quote-tweets bred quote-tweets. By midmorning, the thread was one of the top trending topics in the Republic, and Ethan's headache had upgraded from mild to splitting.
He could have ignored it. Let the fans handle the haters. Let the news cycle move on.
Instead, Ethan typed a response that would cause his supporters to collectively clutch their chests.
"You say I don't know biology. Fine. Then let me tell you: my next project is entering the biological field."
The comment section went nuclear.
His fans, who had been fighting valiantly on his behalf, felt the particular betrayal of soldiers who'd been charging into battle only to hear their general announce he was surrendering.
"Professor Mercer, PLEASE. This is just hater bait. You don't need to respond."
"Please, just stick to physics. Don't let them provoke you into something reckless."
"He's still young. Someone needs to teach him when to stop talking."
"Unfollowed. Impulsive people burn bright and burn out. This won't end well."
The neutral observers, who'd been admiring Ethan from a comfortable distance, began backing away.
"Cross-disciplinary research isn't something you announce on social media like a restaurant review."
"He's seventeen. Brilliant in physics. But biology is a completely different field. This is hubris."
The anti-fans were ecstatic.
"Entering the biological field! Does he think he's omnipotent?"
"I almost choked on my lunch. This is the funniest thing I've read all year."
"The Great Biologist Mercer! Tell us, what miracle drug are you going to invent?"
Ethan, watching the mockery roll in, felt the corner of his mouth twitch upward.
He typed his second response.
"I'm developing a serum. Its function is to enhance various aspects of the human body's physical capabilities."
His fans went silent. Not the supportive kind of silent. The stunned, despairing kind. If Ethan had been standing in front of them, every single one would have grabbed him by the shoulders and screamed: We were about to fight to the death for you! Why are you handing them ammunition!?
The anti-fans nearly broke their phones from laughing.
"Enhance the human body? Has Mercer switched careers to selling health supplements?"
"Let this comment be my sworn oath: if Mercer accomplishes ANYTHING in biology, I will eat my own words. Literally. On camera."
"Don't make promises you can't keep. You're basically signing up for a buffet."
"Ethan Mercer, genius physicist, future Nobel laureate, and now... protein shake salesman."
Ethan read the comments. All of them. The mockery. The disappointment. The gleeful predictions of failure.
Then he closed the app and smiled.
He'd been here before. The factory press conference where only one reporter showed up. The verification meeting where everyone called him a plagiarist. The armor demonstration where every expert in the room said it couldn't work.
Every single time, the people who mocked him loudest were the ones who looked the most foolish afterward.
He wondered what expressions they'd make when the Super Soldier Serum worked.
He ended his vacation early, pulled out the secure phone the Bureau had given him, and dialed.
Director Graves was fishing.
This was technically a vacation, though calling it that was generous. He was sitting beside a river with Chancellor Thayer, both of them holding rods they hadn't looked at in twenty minutes because the conversation had turned to the Whitfield case within the first three casts and hadn't turned back.
"Is the evidence package complete?"
"Fully assembled, sir. We've had actionable material for months. The delay has always been about the Whitfield family's influence, not the strength of the case."
Thayer nodded. "We can't be hasty. The Whitfields are connected to too many enterprises, too many institutions. If we move without proper preparation, the economic disruption alone could cause panic in a dozen sectors."
"Everything needs to be arranged in advance. Transition plans for the affected companies. Communication strategies for the public. Successor appointments for the government positions they control. Minimize the impact, then strike."
Graves felt the familiar warmth of working for a man who understood that power was a tool, not a toy.
This was why he followed Roland Thayer. Perhaps the Chancellor wasn't the best husband or father — the job consumed too much for that — but for the Republic of Valoria, he was exactly the leader the country needed.
They were about to continue when Thayer's chief of staff approached with a tablet.
"Sir, you may want to see this."
Thayer took the tablet. Read the screen. His expression shifted into something that Graves, who'd spent decades reading faces, couldn't quite categorize.
It was somewhere between curiosity, amusement, and the particular alertness of a strategist who's just been handed unexpected information.
He turned the tablet toward Graves.
On the screen was Ethan Mercer's social media post, already trending at number one across the Republic:
"I'm developing a serum. Its function is to enhance various aspects of the human body's physical capabilities."
The two most powerful men in the Republic of Valoria looked at each other over their untouched fishing rods.
Neither of them laughed.