Ragnar "Vault" Noir's life was a loop.
Every morning, he woke up in his shoebox apartment in Queens, New York. The walls were thin enough to hear his neighbor's burnt toast pop, again, and the radiator hissed like a dying snake.
His mattress creaked as he sat up, rubbing eyes gritty from three hours of sleep. Then, he ran a hand through his messy blonde hair.
He was a fifth-year PhD student at Columbia, drowning in student debt and surviving on a stipend that barely covered ramen. After tuition, rent, and loan payments, he had $270 left each month.
He ate microwave meals, wore thrift-store shirts, and rode the subway to work, memorizing insulin receptor diagrams on the way.
His peers called him "the lab ghost" because he haunted Building 12's basement long after midnight, scribbling equations on whiteboards.
But Ragnar didn't care. He had a purpose. His mother had died of diabetes complications when he was 16. Her memory haunted him.
"You're smart, Ragnar. Fix this," she'd whispered before slipping into a coma.
So he did. Chemistry degree. PhD acceptance. A crumbling lab shared with three other students.
Clara Nguyen, a biophysics PhD candidate, who mocked his "glorified noodle diagrams,".
Raj Patel, a machine-learning prodigy who coded algorithms to predict protein folding.
Lena Hayes, a master's student, she fetched coffee.
Their advisor, Phd. Marcus Thorn, was a silver-haired titan of biochemistry. He'd taken Ragnar under his wing, praising his "raw grit". Thorn's daughter, Emily, had Type 1 diabetes.
"We'll save her," he'd say, clapping Ragnar's shoulder. "Together."
Their goal was to create a drug to teach the body to fix itself.
On Fridays, they escaped to The Rusty Beaker, a dive bar near campus.
"When we cure diabetes," Raj slurred, raising a $4 lager beer , "I'm buying a yacht."
Clara snorted. "You'll get a 'Thanks!' footnote in Thorn's Nature paper. Maybe a free pen."
Ragnar never joked.
He just worked.
Three years into his PhD, Ragnar hit a wall. The insulin analogs they'd designed kept failing. The molecules were too unstable, too weak.
Then, one rainy night, it clicked.
He'd been staring at a 3D model of insulin on his computer. The protein chains looked like tangled noodles.
A breeze ruffled the curtains—odd, since the windows were sealed. A shadow from the swaying fabric slid across his screen, darkening a sliver of the molecule. For a heartbeat, the shaded area drew his eye to the binding site.
Wait… He leaned closer. If the molecule anchors here, maybe it could self-replicate…
Like a key fitting into a lock… but teaching the lock to make the key itself.
His hands shook as he scribbled equations.
He was so engrossed in the work, he didn't notice the shadow retreating.
By dawn, he'd drafted GlycoFix—a molecule that could attach to insulin receptors and train the body to regulate glucose naturally.
…
The next morning, Ragnar burst into Professor Thorn's office, papers fluttering. The man sat like a king in a thrifted chair.
"It works!" Ragnar slammed his notebook on the desk. "Simulations show GlycoFix could cure diabetes! We need to publish—!"
Professor Thorn leaned back in his creaky office chair, steepling his fingers. "Ragnar, this is… remarkable." He flipped through the coffee-stained pages, nodding. "The self-replicating mechanism is brilliant. However your notes…" He chuckled, tapping the scribbled equations. "Let me refine this. I will clean up the data and then we'll publish."
Ragnar's chest swelled.
Thorn stood, clapping his shoulder. "Run more simulations. Triple-check the binding sites. I'll handle the rest."
That night, Ragnar rode the subway home grinning. His reflection in the flickering train window showed a man transformed: tired eyes bright with hope.
This is it. Mom, I did it.
…
Ragnar worked like a machine. He re-ran simulations. Cross-referenced data. But Thorn grew a bit… distant.
"Not today, Ragnar," the Professor would say, rushing past the lab.
Department meetings, grant proposals… Priorities.
Ragnar's gut knotted. He cornered Thorn in hallways, waving updated graphs at his face.
"Later," Thorn promised, eyes darting. "I've got a collaborator from MIT arriving—"
"Collaborator?"
"Focus on your trials, Ragnar."
…
On one Tuesday morning, Ragnar found Clara hunched over her laptop in the lab.
"Seen Thorn's new paper?" she asked, voice flat.
The screen glowed with a Nature article: "GlycoFix: A Novel Insulin Analog for Diabetes Remission" Authors: Dr. Marcus Thorn, Dr. Evelyn Choi (MIT), Dr. Rajesh Gupta (Stanford)
Ragnar's vision blurred. "That's—that's my title. My data—"
Clara zomed in. The figures matched his simulations. The molecular diagrams mirrored his sketches.
"No co-authors listed," she said. "Not even a footnote."
…
Ragnar burst into Thorn's office without knocking. Thorn sat behind a mahogany desk, signing paperwork.
"You stole it," Ragnar hissed. "You said we will…"
"And we did!" Thorn cut him off; he didn't even look up from his desk. "Let's be clear. You didn't 'solve' anything. I took your scribbles and turned them into science. Without me, GlycoFix would've rotted in your sad little notebook. I deserve the credit."
Ragnar greeted his teeth. "I'll expose you! The ethics board—"
Thorn slid a document forward—a dismissal form. "Your PhD committee reviewed your 'progress.' Frankly, Ragnar? You're unfocused. Obsessive."
Ragnar's hands trembled. Obsessive. The word his undergrad advisor used before kicking him out of the lab.
"Sign this," Thorn said softly, "and I'll recommend you for a teaching gig in Nebraska. Or fight me—" His smile chilled. "And you'll never work in academia again."
Ragnar's breath came in shallow gasps. The room tilted. He stumbled out of the office, clutching his chest.
He staggered back to the lab, his hands trembling as he rifled through his desk. The notebooks were still there, untouched. Pages of equations, coffee-stained and smudged, but intact.
He flipped to page 43. There it was: GlycoFix's molecular sketch, dated a month ago, his scrawl circling the binding site. "Self-replicating mechanism?? Test w/ modified insulin."
Clara and Raj hovered in the doorway, silent.
"He stole it!" Ragnar shoved the notebook at them. "Look! The simulations, the sketches, it's all mine!"
Raj avoided his eyes. "I… saw the data you ran last week. It matched Thorn's paper."
Clara crossed her arms, jaw tight. "You think we don't know? But going against Thorn? He's tenured. He's got the dean's ear. We'd get blacklisted."
"What are you saying?! So you're just okay with this!?"
"It's how it works…" she muttered. "You don't bite the hand that signs your stipend."
Ragnar's phone buzzed. An email:
Subject: PhD Program Dismissal
…committee review concluded… scholarship terminated effective 60 days…
On the subway ride home, tears streaked his reflection in the grimy window.
In his apartment, he spread the notebooks across the floor. The formulas glowed under his desk lamp.
"I'll fight. I'll sue. I'll—" His chest exploded with pain. He gasped, clawing at his shirt.
As Ragnar clutched his chest, the purple glow of his salt lamp stretched shadows across the wall. For a split second, they coiled into a shape—a jagged tower, its peak brushing the ceiling.
"…Another lost…Another chosen…Oh Great One…May He bless the Godless Soul…"
He crumpled to the floor; the last thing he saw was the coffee-stained page:
August 14th – Breakthrough. Mom, I did it.