The Black woman smiled without humor.
"I know."
"Of course."
The officer nodded.
"We need to document how much of the final result came from you versus later development."
The Black woman looked toward the board photographs.
"I can finish the proof."
"You did."
"No."
"Yesterday I finished his version."
"My version is stronger."
Everyone stared.
The Dean leaned forward.
"What do you mean?"
"The general case on the board still assumes compact support."
"Mine doesn't need it."
The Research Officer's eyes sharpened.
"Can you demonstrate?"
"Yes."
"When?"
The Black woman thought.
"Give me two days."
The Dean said:
"Take a week."
"I said two days."
The Research Officer almost smiled.
"Two days."
The university arranged a closed mathematical review.
Three external scholars.
None previously connected to Halston.
They received anonymized manuscripts.
Version A: student's original submission.
Version B: Professor's draft.
Version C: student's new proof.
Names removed.
Two days later, she entered a small seminar room.
No crowd.
No cameras.
Just a board.
Three mathematicians.
Dean.
Research Officer.
Student advocate.
The Black woman wore jeans and a Halston sweatshirt.
No facilities uniform.
That was intentional.
Not because she was ashamed of it.
Because for once she wanted the work viewed before anything else.
She began.
Three hours.
Questions.
Corrections.
One external reviewer challenged her boundary argument for twenty minutes.
She defended.
He pushed harder.
She changed one lemma.
Not because she was wrong.
Because his objection revealed a cleaner route.
At the end, the oldest reviewer sat back.
"You've solved the stronger problem."