"Roseanne! Do you have any idea how many times I''ve called you? Not one answer, not a single one! It''s been ages, Roseanne. Were you nning on ghosting me for life if I didn''t reach out?" Leda Reynolds was fuming, her words a mix of irritation and disbelief.


    Roseanne quickly scrolled through her missed calls and, sure enough, there was a string of attempts from Leda.


    She had meant to call back a few times but had been swept up in her busy schedule andpletely forgot.


    Feeling guilty, she hurried to apologize, "I''m so sorry, Leda. I''ve been swamped these past few days, and then one thing led to another, and...ahem! I promise, I''ll try my best to prevent this from happening again... No, I''ll make sure it doesn''t happen again!" In truth, Leda was aware of Roseanne joining theb from day two.


    Her rtionship with Owen was lukewarm at best. They got along as kids, but after Owen went abroad for his studies and became a celebrated "genius physicist," they drifted apart.


    Their encounters as adults could be counted on one hand.


    Leda only knew that Owen was always buried in his work at theb, clueless about what he was actually doing.


    Now, seeing Roseanne''s state, she got the picture-


    It was worse than being a corporate drone; disappearing for a week was short for them, and not replying to messages for a month was the norm.


    "Let''s not make a habit of it," Leda softened her tone. "But you absolutely can''t bail on me next month, got it?"


    The reason for her call was to remind Roseanne about it.


    Roseanne chuckled, "Of course, how could I forget our Leda''s big day? I''ve already picked out your gift. Just you wait for the surprise."


    "That''s more like it." Leda was satisfied and looking forward to it.


    After hanging up, Roseanne grabbed her stuff and headed back to theb.


    As she approached the experimentation area, she heard a groan:


    "Ah, where did I go wrong? I''ve checked these numbers eight times and still can''t find the mistake."


    Sammy was staring at the screen, frustrated. After days of hard work, this was thest thing he needed.


    Usually, variations in the data were minor, but Sammy''s calctions were all over the map and made no sense at all. He was at his wit''s end.


    Scratching his head, he turned to Stoddard for help. "Mr. Stoddard, you''re faster with numbers than I am. Can you see where I went wrong?"


    Stoddard adjusted his sses, gave


    the data a once-over, and carefullypared it to the original samples "Could it be an issue at the third node? The data there is messy easy to mess up. Here, and here, your steps aren''t clear. Maybe...try calcting it again?"


    Sammy groaned even louder, "But I''ve done it eight times already! What if I end up with a ninth different answer?"


    Jen had a different take, "I think the


    third node is fine. Sammy just 0 skipped a few steps. The form he used isplex, so simplifying it makes sense. Liz, what do you think?"


    Sammy''s calctions required a highlyplex form, and Liz, who majored in data analysis


    Von ve


    college, was just the right person to consult. N?velDrama.Org owns this text.


    After reviewing a set of raw data, she circled somemonalities among Sammy''s results, recalcted, and came up with a new solution.