Ursula stared at the labyrinth of numbers, her face ghastly pale. Panic clawed at her chest, but she desperately tried to maintain her tough facade. "You... that's impossible. This data is forged!"
Unfazed by the accusation, Hulda replied in a perfectly mild tone. "Oh? I'd love to hear your expert breakdown on exactly what's wrong with it."
Ursula gripped the edge of the table to steady herself. Hulda's breezy, entirely objective demeanor only made her panic spike further.
While the room waited with bated breath for her to poke a hole in the math, all she could weakly stammer out was, "You... there is no physical way you calculated all of this in thirty minutes! Your sourcing is fake! You didn't write this!"
Whispers instantly broke out across the quiet room.
Only this time, the target of their skepticism wasn't Hulda—it was Ursula.
"So what she's basically saying is the math is flawless, but the source is shady?"
"It looks perfect to me. It's infinitely more detailed than the report she submitted."
"Yeah. Putting them side by side makes her work look like a cheap knock-off."
"A cheap knock-off with fatal flaws. Didn't you hear the Director? If she proceeds with those calculations, the whole thing will implode."
Catching every word of their muttered critiques, Ursula's face turned a violent shade of purple.
Unbelievably, the tide of the room was actually turning in Hulda's favor.


VERIFYCAPTCHA_LABEL
Comments
The readers' comments on the novel: She Quit Her Family and Found Herself