I let him in.
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He sat at my kitchen table, set the briefcase down beside a stack of unpaid bills, and opened it with careful hands.
The first paper he turned toward me was a patent filing.
The second was a sale agreement.
The third had a number on it so large my brain rejected it at first.
"What am I looking at?" I asked.
Arthur tapped the first page. "A patented industrial process filed under the name Richard."
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I looked down.
Then I stopped breathing for a second.
The diagrams on the filing were mine.
The process flow, refinements, notations, and structure of the system itself. Every major improvement I had spent years building into Line Seven, my last project at the company, was laid out on those pages.
Under inventor, it said: Richard.
"That's impossible," I said.
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"No," Arthur replied. "Unfortunately, it's very possible. It was filed months ago and recently sold to Halverson Industries for 3.2 million dollars. The deal is set to finalize this Friday."
