So did Dr. Kramer’s neutrality. “Do you know how many calls I’ve already fielded, asking whatidiocyhas been published under my name?”
His stomach dropped, hard and fast.
“Explain this.”
“I… I sent the corrected version—” It didn’t matter what he had or hadn’t done, however, because the flawedNature Physicspaper was incontrovertible proof right now that he’d failed under his supervisor’s trust.Thatwas the fact that mattered to Dr. Kramer. He swallowed the rest of his explanation with a jerky nod.
Explain this, Dr. Kramer had said.
He could. He had to.
He located the paper in his desktop filing system—correct, all revisions present—then ran a query through his email for a confirmation of receipt for the revise-and-resubmit form fromNature Physics.
The search was void.
He should’ve received confirmation on the date of his resubmission. But that had also been the day he’d left for CERN. He’d opened more than thirty actionable emails on that date alone: airport gate changes, first day itineraries, invitations to and solicitations for presentations, a map of the Large Hadron Collider with directions to his adjacent control room, and dozens of others. In the chaos, he hadn’t noticed the missing message fromNature Physics. He hadn’t checked his spam folder for it. That meant that he’d committed a scientific cardinal sin. He’d only examined the data he had, rather than considering what data might be missing.
“Well?” Dr. Kramer rapped his knuckles on the desk.
“Uh.” His gut tightened into a knot now as he opened his spam folder. He willed its list of messages to be irrelevant, useless, exculpatory. But the data didn’t lie: an automatic bounce reply for his revise-and-resubmit form fromNature Physicsshone back at him, bold and unread. His index finger twitched, and the message opened.
Duplicate revision forms for papers submitted toNature Physicswill be rejected. Contact the journal through the general help center to provide further updates or corrections.
What?
He’d submitted his edits on the date of his departure for Switzerland. He knew he had. The link in his revision form attached to the bounce reply showed the corrected paper.
But when he returned to his spam folder, there was an earlier automated message. Sent the day before his own corrections, the reply confirmed receipt of Dr. John R. Kramer and Dr. Ethan Meyer’s revise-and-resubmit form. The paper linked in that form was a half-edited version, a draft from before he’d inserted Dr. Kramer’s reconstructed data. Certifying the updates, Dr. Kramer’s initials were present on the form from his preemptive signing during the Lawrence Livermore negotiations.
So were Ethan’s.
E.M.
And the most critical of his updates were missing.
“I don’t know what… I never would’ve submitted it like this.”
“But itwassubmitted, wasn’t it? Now it’s published, Meyer. Published undermy name. Fix it.”
“I don’t know if I—”
“Fix. It.”
“I will.”
“Good.” Dr. Kramer turned on his heel. “Tell me when it’s done. I have damage control to do.”
The last time he’d committed a mistake under his supervisor’s name, he’d spent the subsequent two weeks running a punishingly detailed analysis on Dr. Kramer’s latest ideas about what lens materials were optimal for splitting lasers in the holometer. That error had been a miscalculation presented during one of SVLAC’s department-wide monthly research updates. An internal inaccuracy. But this? He’d just forfeited a solid portion of his own research hours for the next several months.
It was a learning opportunity. He knew he’d be grateful for it, once his anxiety subsided. Dr. Kramer was a brilliant scientist, and Ethan had benefited hugely from his mentorship, had even received opportunities to contribute to Dr. Kramer’s publications, but Dr. Kramer suffered no fools—he was right not to—and clearly, he’d either been a fool in his hurry to leave for CERN, tripping over extension cords, fumbling through his reports with a stranger, or…
No.
No, he’d submitted the corrected paper, and done it once.
His initials were on the form for the error-riddled version of his supervisor’s submission, yes. But he wouldn’t have signed off on it in that condition.Ever. So the conclusion remained: someone else had initialed theE.M.
He dialed the line for SVLAC’s IT department. “This is Dr. Meyer. I need a digital trace on a signature for a form sent through SVLAC’s email system. I’ve forwarded the document.”
