CONVEX

1: One Mistake

Great journeys start out with mistakes and the lessons people learn from them. However, some mistakes end up being more catastrophic than others.

In less than twenty four hours, Dr. Jeremy Miles becomes notorious on campus for making one of the biggest mistakes in the history of Sleiman University of Science and Industry. He approaches the statue in the center of the courtyard to watch his reputation crumble. In the reflection of the tinted windows of the western campus, flashes of red and blue lights dance along a building named after Niels Bohr. Behind Jeremy, a hazmat team from the municipal fire department clears out the students and faculty in the eastern campus behind him in an orderly fashion.

In less than two hours, Jeremy's career transformed from one of the most renowned biochemistry professors in the country to another unemployment statistic in the state of Utah. He barely had time to get everything out of the office before campus security came to collect his keys and badge. He grabbed a stack of books and papers on his way out, which contained important information for the department's budget and research for the upcoming school year.

Jeremy takes a moment to study the limestone walls of the university for the last time. He looks at the bronze statue of John Sleiman, the founder and president of the most prestigious technical institutes in the West. Dr. Miles narrows a pair of cold, blue eyes at the replica of that jovial bearded man in front of him. Then, Jeremy lifts his head and spits on the bronze statue in an act of frustration and defiance.

Without admiring his handiwork, Jeremy tosses a box at the base of the statue and storms away from Dr. Sleiman's monument. A wad of sputum trickles down President Sleiman's eye and splatters on the stone walkway just below the feet of two faculty members that take Jeremy's place. Each facility member, an older woman and a younger man, decide to approach Jeremy's sturdy white box from the other side of the courtyard after he leaves.

Dr. Emily Olsen, a short-haired woman in her mid-forties, notices the box at the base of the statue and crouches in front of it. Her long, fluorescent pink nails run down the spines of a couple of notable titles before her rough hands settle on a white textbook. The cover features a long carbon chain, and the textbook appears to be a new publication by Dr. Jeremy Miles. Before Emily starts flipping through the textbook, the recent graduate in his early twenties at her side leans over her shoulder to peak at the cover.

"Can't say I didn't see this coming," Emily says. She flips through the pages and skims the hand-written notes in the margins of a chiral molecule. After struggling to read Dr. Mile's sloppy handwritten notes in the corner of one page, she curls her lip in disgust. "Miles never really talked to anyone," she adds, "Screw ups like him don't make it to retirement around here. It doesn't matter how smart you think you are."

Dr. Olsen rips out the page from the textbook and stuffs it in her back pocket.

"What the hell was he thinking anyway?!" Emily hisses, "I'd never let any of my undergraduates handle something that corrosive."

"This is Miles we're talking about, Emily," the young graduate at her side interjects, "I hear he's already been in hot water for giving the keys to the storage cabinet to Parkinson. Remember, the kid who got caught selling tabs in the student lounge? You'd think Miles would let us pick his TAs after that, but you know how he is. Miles has a good head on his shoulders, but he can't judge someone's character for the life of him."

"Miles wouldn't do that," Dr. Olsen agrees, "He probably wouldn't judge Parkinson even if he broke into the cabinet right in front of him."

A brief silence falls between the pair as the older woman turns around and continues rifling through the books. Beside her, Dr. Keith Steward winces as she tears four more pages out of Jeremy's textbooks and shoves them in her pocket.