Chapter 58: Celeste's Counterclaim
Celeste asked a commercial court to freeze work she could not describe.
Her counterclaim alleged that my overseas improvements derived from Sterling equipment, confidential diagrams, and research knowledge acquired before I left. It requested an interim order against my independent entity and any Mercer Nova project using the disputed work.
If granted, the order would not restore Sterling's suspended license.
It could stop my new program anyway.
The filing requested control over records, equipment schedules, and development communications until ownership was decided. Sterling also sought permission to inspect my entity's archives. Rhea opposed that demand before discussing a single scientific claim.
"A trade-secret allegation is not a key to every file she owns," she said.
The court limited initial production to dates, custodians, ownership agreements, and the specific images Sterling identified. No research parameters or unrelated project records would leave independent custody.
That order prevented the counterclaim from becoming the archive seizure Celeste wanted.
Rhea read the filing in Mercer Nova's conflicts room. Julian sat across from us with outside counsel, but the response remained mine to direct. The claim targeted my entity first and Mercer Nova only through its development agreement.
"What do you want us to do?" Julian asked.
"Preserve every record. Disclose the commercial agreement. Do not attack her motive before we answer ownership."
"And the project?"
"Prepare for a temporary pause if the court orders one."
His operating chief objected. A pause would cost staff time and an upcoming facility window.
Julian looked at me, not her. "Do you want Mercer to seek a separate ruling?"
"Only on its own contract rights. Do not claim my patent for me."
"Understood."
He signed the litigation separation notice. Mercer Nova would fund its defense, while my independent entity controlled the technical ownership response. The company could provide records it already possessed, but Julian would not testify about research he had not witnessed.
Celeste's filing attached an affidavit calling AURORA-9 a Sterling-created platform and my overseas work an unauthorized continuation. She offered no post-departure laboratory record. Instead, she argued that similarity itself proved theft.
The affidavit also treated my five years abroad as one uninterrupted use of Sterling knowledge. It ignored that general expertise could not become a company secret merely because I learned part of my profession there. Sterling had to identify a protected item, show that it owned that item, and connect it to my later work.
Its first filing did none of those things.
Similarity proved relationship between an improvement and the platform it improved.
It did not decide who owned the new work.
My overseas lab records began months after I left Sterling. Independent witnesses had signed each development stage. The filing date for the improvement application predated my role at Mercer Nova.
Rhea assembled the dates without placing any experimental detail into the response.
"The court needs provenance, not a lesson in cell science," she said.
We submitted sealed date indexes, employment separation records, independent witness declarations, and the ownership agreement for my overseas entity. The diagrams themselves remained protected pending the court's confidentiality order.
Celeste issued a public statement calling the suit a defense of Sterling innovation. She did not mention that Sterling's own development rights remained suspended.
I did not answer publicly.
The interim hearing was scheduled in forty-eight hours. Until then, Mercer Nova voluntarily preserved the disputed project without changing its status. A voluntary hold was not an admission and did not give Sterling access.
That evening, the court required both sides to identify every image they claimed showed overlap.
Sterling submitted its latest investor presentation as proof that the improvement belonged to the company's future pipeline.
I opened the exhibit on the secure screen.
Slide fourteen contained a diagram I recognized.
It was not in any Sterling archive when I left.
I had completed it two years later.