Dr. Elena Marsh had spent thirty years perfecting the final stage of her revolutionary language system. The world knew Books 1 through 9 of the Callan Method — rapid-fire questions, relentless repetition, students speaking faster than thought.

"Go ahead," she said. "Open it."

One night, a former student — now a disgraced polyglot named Kael — broke in. He didn't want the method for learning. He wanted the PDF to sell to a tech giant building AI that mimicked human hesitation.