In Next Day
Chicago Public School District Board Headquarters
Office of Academic Integrity, Joint Hearing Room B
The room was designed to extract obedience. From the grey carpet to the crucifix-shaped fluorescent lighting, everything screamed: this is where you lower your eyes and nod. The conference table stretched across the room like a runway for judgment. Plastic water pitchers sweated on either end. Six folding chairs lined one wall, already filled.
Kristina Haizen sat between her husband Robert and a Department of Education liaison with the composure of a mother who had endured labor, eviction, and betrayal—and learned how to remain steel in the face of condescension. She wore a cheap maternity dress, patched at the hem, and had the gall to look elegant in it. Her hand rested protectively on her belly, thumb rhythmically brushing her unborn child. She was tired.
And she was furious.
Robert, in his best ironed jeans and a collared shirt that still bore faint traces of paint, sat like a man who didn't quite understand the trap his son had walked into. But he knew one thing: they were humiliating his wife. And that was enough to make his knuckles white.
Daniel Haizen entered last.
He didn't knock. Didn't ask permission. He pushed the double doors open with both hands in his coat pockets and walked into the room like it belonged to him. A tailored black coat, collar stiff and military, covered his lean frame. His eyes were shadowed, not with exhaustion—but calculation. There was no teenager in that room.
Only the storm.
Principal Roy Wexley looked up from his notepad. He was fifty-seven, overweight, and the sort of man who used policy as a shield from relevance. He cleared his throat.
"Thank you for joining us, Mr. Haizen."
Daniel didn't sit.
"Am I on trial?"
"We're here to clarify concerns."
"Then let's not pretend it's voluntary."
Dr. Ruth Navarre, head of CPS testing compliance, offered a tight smile that failed to reach her eyes. She was the kind of woman who wore her bitterness like perfume. Thin-lipped, blazer too large, and proud of her advanced degree like it was a birthright.
"Let's begin with your SAT performance," she said. "You scored a 1600. Perfect."
Daniel tilted his head. "Correct."
"You never scored above a 1340 in practice. Your GPA jumped 0.7 in one semester. Your AP test scores, while not under our purview, also indicate an abnormal spike in output."
Wexley added, "Several teachers noted you used to skip class. Suddenly, you're submitting essays that quote Wittgenstein and Laplace."
"You find that suspicious?"
Navarre leaned forward. "We find it statistically implausible."
Robert opened his mouth to defend his son.
Daniel stopped him with a single raised hand. The room fell silent.
He turned to his mother first.
"Mom."
Her eyes shimmered. He knew what this cost her. What it meant for her to be dragged here in the final trimester of her pregnancy to watch her child be accused of being too smart.
He nodded once, gently.
Then turned to the board.
"Let me be perfectly clear."
His voice shifted. It dropped. Not in volume, but gravity.
"I'm not here to explain myself to people who need PowerPoint to comprehend truth."
A beat.
Navarre raised an eyebrow. "Excuse me?"
Daniel stepped forward.
"You think the numbers are wrong. They're not. You think the data is impossible. It isn't. What you're really saying is that someone like me—who looks like this, whose father works construction, whose mother cleans rooms, whose skin belongs to a different set of expectations—is not supposed to disrupt your curve."
Claude stirred quietly inside him.
"Ready when you are."
He nodded mentally.
"You ran additional tests on me, didn't you?"
Navarre blinked.
"Yes."
"Without parental consent."
Navarre shifted.
"They were internal assessments."
Daniel pulled a manila folder from his coat and opened it.
"This is the test. Here is my response. Annotated. I corrected your logic errors in question 12, restructured your paragraph for clarity in 18, and rewrote your final essay prompt in a superior structure."
He tossed it onto the table. Pages slid out like knives.
Wexley reached for it with shaking hands.
"This was supposed to be confidential."
Daniel smiled. "Then you shouldn't have let a ghost copy escape your print buffer. Claude intercepted the signal at 11:47 PM last Friday."
"Claude?" Navarre asked.
He tapped his temple.
"My second mind."
Navarre swallowed.
Dunton, the district supervisor, cleared his throat. He had remained silent until now, more curious than adversarial. "Even if this is true—which, clearly, is beyond impressive—your tone is inappropriate. We are educators."
"No," Daniel said. "You are administrators."
The room shifted.
"Educators don't drag pregnant mothers to trials in windowless rooms. Educators don't orchestrate ambush audits. Educators ask questions when a mind blooms. They don't accuse it of cheating because it outpaced their syllabus."
A pause.
"You want to know why I got smarter?"
He stepped closer. Claude pulled up the network. He was ready.
"Because I decided to remember who I am."
"Execute."
Daniel tapped his phone.
Phones rang.
All six board members. At once.
The sound was biblical.
Navarre picked up first. Then Dunton. Then Wexley.
Each face drained of color.
"Yes, sir. I—he's right here."
"We weren't aware he was a stakeholder."
"No, sir, we had no knowledge of his..."
Kristina turned to Daniel, confused. Robert's mouth parted.
Daniel looked down at the table. Then back at them.
"What you're hearing is your superiors. Some in the Mayor's office. Others from D.C. One's a Federal Reserve liaison. They want to know why you summoned me to this room without cause."
Navarre dropped her phone.
Daniel turned to his mother.
"They humiliated you today."
Kristina's lip quivered.
"They did," she whispered.
Daniel looked at the panel again.
"You will each issue an apology. Today. In writing. And you will rescind all accusations and enter into a nondisclosure clause with my legal representative."
"And who is that?" Dunton asked, breathless.
Daniel turned toward the door.
It opened.
A man entered. Pinstripe suit. Cufflinks. Quiet eyes.
"Mr. Kingsley," Daniel said. "My butler. Also the acting general counsel of Haizen Holdings."
He placed a leather-bound folder on the table. "Sign."
They did.
Every single one.
When they were done, Daniel stepped back and turned to his father.
"You once told me a man has to fight his own battles."
Robert nodded. Quiet.
"You won this one."
Daniel turned to leave.
Just before the doors closed behind him, he said one last thing.
"I was never a student here. I was simply observing the failure of your systems."
He paused.
"Consider yourselves graded."