Chapter 64: The Order of Authors
The first author list put my name at the top.
The second moved it beneath Celeste.
The third removed it.
The tribunal displayed the three versions beside their creation dates. The first predated the incident. The second appeared during Sterling's investigation. The third entered the investor archive after I was gone.
The scientific files had not changed enough to explain the order.
The account history did.
All author-order edits came from an administrative group assigned to Celeste's brand team. The role allowed changes to investor materials and public-facing program pages. It did not grant authority to decide patent inventorship.
The first change preserved my name but moved it below Celeste under a new heading: PROGRAM LEADERSHIP. The second removed the scientific-author field entirely. The third restored an author field with Celeste alone.
The sequence showed how presentation changed without a new conception record appearing between versions.
The auditor overlaid the modification dates with my employment status. The first change followed my suspension. The final removal followed the later termination document. The presentation tracked management's story, not a new scientific event.
No research review, invention disclosure, or claim amendment separated the three lists.
Only crisis did.
Celeste said a team account could be used by multiple employees.
"Correct," the auditor said. "The record identifies the group, not the person at the keyboard."
I did not claim she had personally moved my name. The evidence placed the changes inside the team she controlled.
The tribunal compared the edits with brand tickets. One ticket requested that Celeste appear as program lead after the crisis. Another instructed the team to avoid highlighting former personnel. Neither used the word inventor.
The tickets carried ordinary campaign approvals, not scientific signatures. Celeste's chief of staff approved the first. A brand operations manager approved the second. The tribunal did not infer that Celeste personally dictated either instruction.
What it could see was governance: her department received the request, altered the author presentation, and later used the altered slide to support her co-inventor claim.
Sterling counsel called the changes ordinary communications cleanup.
"Why did communications change author order in a scientific-origin slide?" Rhea asked.
"The slide was prepared for investors."
"Then it is not a research authorship record."
Counsel could not use the same slide as scientific proof and dismiss its edits as merely promotional.
The chair separated the conclusions.
The pre-incident list supported my priority within the working team's own records. The later versions showed a post-incident removal process. The brand account did not prove who conceived any claim, and it did not prove Celeste personally performed an edit.
It did show that Sterling's presentation of authorship changed after the science had already been recorded.
Conrad testified by declaration that leadership needed a current employee to represent the program after my departure.
"Representation is not conception," the chair said.
His declaration explained business motive, not scientific origin.
The auditor restored the full version history to the hearing record. My name did not return to a company page; the tribunal had no authority over Sterling's website in this proceeding. It returned to the sequence the tribunal would use.
Celeste watched the first list become the baseline.
"Evelyn supervised the team," she said. "Supervision explains first billing without proving sole invention."
"Then show your earlier contribution record," I replied.
Her counsel promised witness testimony and executive notes.
Before they could present them, the version archive produced one linked legal instruction. It came from Nathan's employee account after the accident and before the third author list.
The tribunal sealed the message until counsel reviewed privilege. Its subject line concerned investor-material consistency, not legal advice.
The chair ordered the nonprivileged instruction disclosed.
Nathan had written one sentence about my name.
Remove Evelyn Sterling from all investor materials.