"I'll just look at one answer to get the engine running," he promised himself.

Anton froze. The "invisible hand" felt very much like it was currently strangling his throat. He realized the GDZ had given him the words , but it hadn't given him the music .

Anton wasn't a bad student, but Bogolyubov’s definitions of "social stratification" and "globalization" felt like trying to read a menu in a language he hadn’t learned yet. Every Tuesday night, he would sit at his desk, staring at the glossy blue cover of the book, feeling like a philosopher trapped in a teenager’s body.

The next day, his teacher, Lyudmila Petrovna—a woman who could smell a copied answer from the hallway—called him to the board.