She was waiting for me to play my part, to be the trophy daughter she could show off at her country club luncheons.

Beside me, Derek stood stiffly, his hands shoved deep into his pockets.

He looked at the floor, refusing to look at the lens.

“Marcus,” I said, lowering the prototype casing to the desk. “I think you’re focusing on the wrong people.”

My mother’s hand tightened on my shoulder, her fingers digging into my collarbone.

“Sarah,” she warned, her smile frozen in place.

I stepped away from her hand, walking toward the large window that looked out onto the rain-slicked street.

Outside, the streetlights remained dead, but a block away, a small light flickered in the window of a community clinic.

“We aren’t the story here,” I said, looking back at the reporter.

Marcus lowered his camera, his interest piqued by the shift in my tone.

“What do you mean?” he asked.

“This system only works because of the people who assemble it,” I said.

I pointed toward the back hallway where the blueprints for our local micro-grids were pinned to the corkboard.