The Professor's Chilling Demands

Zachary Newman's suite was impressive but austere, much like the man himself. At precisely 7 AM, Elara and Julian stood before him, having spent the entire night preparing their presentation.

"Sit," Newman commanded, gesturing to two chairs positioned across from his imposing desk.

Neither Elara nor Julian spoke as they arranged their materials. The weight of exhaustion pressed against Elara's shoulders, but she maintained perfect posture. Showing weakness before Newman would be fatal to their cause.

Julian connected their presentation device to the room's display system. Their prototype's interface materialized on the large screen. "Professor, we've prepared a comprehensive overview of our—"

"Skip the introduction," Newman cut in sharply. "Show me what you didn't reveal yesterday."

Elara nodded and took control of the presentation. "Our core innovation lies in the neural mapping algorithms. Unlike conventional approaches, we've developed a recursive pattern that—"