Caldwell left the judges’ table and moved toward the board.
He was pale now.
Not angry.
Not yet.
Something worse.
Unmoored.
Preston reached the third transition and Caldwell interrupted.
“That convergence claim—”
Preston tapped his notebook without even turning around.
“Verified in my appendix, sir. Three separate checks.”
The room made a strange sound then.
Not applause.
Not shock.
A kind of collective pain.
Because everybody understood that the boy had anticipated the challenge before it was spoken.
He finished the last stretch of proof.
Then, at the bottom of the board, he wrote the final line.
A single equation.
Simple enough to fit on a T-shirt.
Powerful enough to settle a thirty-two-year war.
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