In the conference room, my mentor Vance and boyfriend Liam demanded I surrender the first-author credit of the Genesis-X d**g to my junior, Chloe. They conspired to steal my core research, threatening to withhold my PhD if I refused. I agreed to step down immediately. But before leaving, I permanently deleted the crucial neural blocker formula from the database. By handing them the turnover sheet for a lethal, incomplete d**g, I sacrificed my faith in the pure academic ivory tower, forever becoming cold and unapproachable. As Liam proudly flaunted the stolen data, my fingers brushed the hidden recorder capturing his exact words: "As long as the data looks good, no one cares about the side effects." He had no idea he was holding a ticking time bomb.