"You could have," he said. "But that isn't the question we need to answer today."
He turned to the final notebook.
Several pages described a revised calibration method that he had developed after leaving Caldwell Industries. The approach involved comparing sensor readings against a series of reference measurements and identifying when environmental differences were likely to distort the results.
Marcus recognized the underlying principle in ClearCurrent.
However, Olivia's team had developed its own sequence for handling inconsistent measurements. Their method included a particular adjustment that had emerged from their experiments, not from the original Lantern design.
Elliot examined the students' dated notes.
"This is interesting," he said. "Your team arrived at a solution to a problem we struggled with. The underlying challenge is the same, but the implementation isn't identical."
"Could Lantern have been the source of the commercial proposal?" Rachel asked.
"Possibly. But we need to establish which version of the project was transferred, who received it, and whether the material included the details that appear in Northstar's presentation."
Elliot connected the old storage device to a separate computer.
The device contained archived project files, including the original technical documentation for Project Lantern. Some files were incomplete, and others had been saved in formats that required additional software to open.
Elliot began comparing the files with the Northstar presentation.
For the first hour, the similarities were unsurprising. Both systems used common sensor components and familiar approaches to processing electrical measurements.
Then he found a technical appendix containing a calibration table.
He stopped scrolling.
"Richard, look at this."
The table included a sequence of reference measurements that Elliot recognized from his original work. But the final adjustment was different from the one he had documented in Project Lantern.
It also differed from the adjustment recorded in Olivia's earliest notes.
Marcus compared the three versions.
"That means there are three different methods," he said. "The original Lantern method, our ClearCurrent method, and the one in Northstar's proposal."
"Exactly," Elliot replied. "We need to determine where the third version came from."
Caldwell contacted the legal team and requested that the archived Lantern files be preserved for the independent review. He also instructed the company to identify every person or organization that had received the project documentation.
The initial inventory produced an unexpected result.
Project Lantern's files had been shared with two outside engineering contractors during its final year. One contractor had closed its business. The other had been acquired by a larger technology company.
That company was Northstar Energy Solutions.
The acquisition had occurred four years earlier.
The discovery offered a possible explanation for how Northstar might have obtained information about Project Lantern. But it did not explain the newer calibration sequence or establish whether ClearCurrent's missing files had been involved.
Marcus was careful to make that distinction.
"If Northstar inherited the old Lantern files legally, they may have a legitimate basis for some of the similarities," he said. "But that doesn't explain the files that disappeared from Olivia's project."
"Agreed," Patricia Cole replied. "We must investigate the two questions separately. Ownership of the old project and access to the new student work are not the same issue."
The legal team began examining the original contractor agreements. They needed to determine what Northstar had acquired, what restrictions applied to the archived technology, and whether the company had the right to use any of the material commercially.
Meanwhile, Elliot reviewed the technical appendix once more.
He noticed that the final calibration adjustment included a small but important change. The adjustment reduced the number of measurements required during setup, but it also made the system more sensitive to certain types of sensor variation.
"It looks as though someone tried to simplify our original method," he said.
"Was that your decision?" Caldwell asked.
"No. My original version didn't contain this change."
"Could someone have developed it independently?"
"Yes. That's why we can't draw conclusions from the design alone."
Marcus looked at the table.
"If the method is less reliable under some conditions, the next step should be to test it."
Elliot smiled.
"That is exactly the right question."
They arranged an independent comparison of the three methods. The test would use identical sensor units and the same set of controlled conditions. Each method would be evaluated against the same reference measurements, and the results would be documented before anyone decided which version performed best.
Olivia and her team were invited to observe.
For the students, the opportunity was enormous. Their project had begun as a small workshop experiment, and now its design was being compared with technology developed by professional engineers over several years.
But Marcus reminded them that the goal was not to prove their method superior.
"The goal is to learn which method works best, where it works best, and where it needs improvement," he told them.
The tests began the following week.
The original Lantern method produced consistent results in most of the standard conditions, though it required more manual calibration. ClearCurrent's method performed well across the same conditions and was easier for new users to set up. The method in Northstar's proposal was faster, but its readings became less consistent when the sensors were exposed to certain changes in temperature.
The findings were preliminary, and the team planned additional trials. Still, they established that the three methods were not interchangeable.
That mattered because the commercial proposal had described the Northstar platform as a fully validated solution.
Patricia added the results to the investigation file.
"These tests don't tell us who created the third method," she said. "But they show that the method requires further validation before anyone can responsibly claim it works across all the conditions listed in the proposal."
Caldwell looked troubled.
"If Northstar inherited the original project and then changed it, they may have made a technical mistake. That still wouldn't establish that they took ClearCurrent's work."
"Correct," Patricia said. "We must keep those questions separate."
Marcus agreed, although he was increasingly concerned about the consequences for Olivia's team.
Their missing files remained unexplained. The anonymous warning had not been traced to its sender, and the access record still showed activity through Marcus's account.
That evening, he visited the workshop and found Olivia comparing the recovered files with her handwritten notes.
"Did the tests tell you anything useful?" she asked.
"They confirmed that the three methods have meaningful differences. But we still don't know how Northstar's version was developed."
Olivia nodded slowly.
"Then we're back where we started."
"Not exactly," Marcus replied. "We know more than we did before. We know which questions to ask next."
He helped her document the latest results, making sure that every test condition and measurement was recorded.
When they finished, Olivia opened the project's original notebook.
On the first page, the team had written its initial objective:
Build an affordable tool that helps community buildings understand their energy use.
Marcus looked at the sentence.
It had not changed, despite the missing files, the commercial proposal, or the growing investigation.
Whatever had happened, he wanted the students to remember why they had begun the project.
The next morning, however, an email arrived from Northstar's legal department.
The company acknowledged that it had acquired the old contractor's Project Lantern archive. It denied using any confidential student material and stated that its monitoring platform had been developed through its own engineering process.
Attached to the response was a copy of the original Lantern transfer agreement.
The document included a clause permitting Northstar to evaluate the archived technology for potential commercial use, subject to certain restrictions.
Patricia reviewed the clause with the legal advisers.
"It may explain Northstar's access to the old files," she said. "But we need the complete transfer record before we can interpret the restrictions properly."
Caldwell authorized the review.
Then Marcus noticed a detail in the attachment.
The agreement had been signed on behalf of the original contractor by a man named Stephen Vale.
The same name appeared in Martin Cole's email about the commercial proposal.
Marcus sent the document to Rachel and asked her to add it to the timeline.
The connection was significant, but it still did not prove that Vale had accessed ClearCurrent's files. He might simply have been responsible for handling the old Lantern archive.
Nevertheless, the investigation had identified a person who appeared in both the historical technology transfer and the newer commercial proposal.