“Not from this record.”
“Then what does it tell us?”
“That the permission change should be investigated as a separate event. Someone or something authorized the temporary privilege, but we don't yet know who initiated or approved it.”
Andrea leaned forward.
“Was the permission change connected to the external review request?”
“We can't establish that yet. The timestamps are close enough to warrant comparison, but proximity is not proof of a connection.”
Marcus rubbed his forehead.
He had been careful with his account. He had never knowingly requested administrative access to the project folder, and he had no reason to remove Olivia's files.
But his name remained attached to the session.
He knew what people might conclude if they saw only the simplified version of the record.
Priya seemed to understand.
“Marcus, this finding does not establish that you deleted anything. It establishes that the account had temporary privileges during the relevant period. We need the permission audit, the request history, and any available device records before drawing conclusions.”
“Can we get them?”
“We've asked the former provider to check its remaining archives. Some of the original logs may no longer exist.”
Marcus looked at Andrea.
“If the logs are gone, how do we prove what happened?”
“We may not be able to reconstruct every action,” she replied. “But we can still compare independent records, identify inconsistencies, and establish what the evidence supports. We will not treat missing records as proof against you.”
He nodded, although the answer did little to ease his frustration.
That evening, Olivia received a formal update explaining the new finding. She read it in silence, then came to find Marcus.
“Someone gave my project folder extra permissions,” she said.
“The account was granted temporary privileges. We don't yet know why.”
“And then the files disappeared.”
“Yes.”
She studied him for a moment.
“You really didn't do it?”
Marcus answered without hesitation.
“No. I didn't request that access, and I didn't remove your files.”
Olivia looked down at the update.
“Okay.”
It wasn't complete trust. Marcus understood that. She had a right to ask questions, and he had no right to demand that she ignore evidence simply because it made him uncomfortable.
“I want to see the permission records when they're available,” she said.
“You will.”
“And I want the review request investigated just as carefully as the missing files.”
“It will be.”
She nodded and returned to the workshop.
Marcus remained by the doorway, listening to the students discuss how they could reproduce their earlier calibration results. They were no longer waiting for someone else to restore their work. They were rebuilding what they could while preserving the distinction between verified data and uncertain recollections.
It was exactly the discipline he had hoped Open Bench would teach.
He just hadn't expected the initiative itself to become the lesson.
At 9:17 the following morning, Priya sent Andrea a short message.
The former service provider had located one more record.
It was not a file deletion log.
It was a permission-change notification generated by the system when temporary administrative access was granted.
The notification contained a request reference that had not appeared in the earlier backup.
Priya had checked it against the archive of internal forms.
The reference matched the identifier attached to the ClearCurrent external review request.
Andrea called Richard immediately.
Within minutes, the core team assembled in the conference room. Marcus arrived last, carrying his notebook. Olivia sat beside Rachel, determined to hear the findings directly.
Priya placed the two records side by side on the screen.
“The reference numbers match,” she said. “The system recorded the external review request and the temporary permission change under the same administrative transaction.”
Richard's expression hardened.
“Does that mean the request caused the permission change?”
“Not necessarily. It means the two records share a transaction reference. We need to establish how this system generated that reference and whether it could be reused across related actions.”
Andrea asked, “Can the service provider explain it?”
“They're checking. I've also asked them to preserve the relevant logs before any routine cleanup occurs.”
Olivia stared at the screen.
“So somebody requested an external review, and my files got extra permissions at the same time?”
“That is what the current records indicate,” Priya said. “We still don't know who initiated the request, whether the review was approved, or whether the permission change was intended to facilitate it.”
Marcus looked at the timestamp.
The transaction had occurred before the files disappeared.
Not days before.
Not hours before.
Less than twenty minutes.
He wrote the interval in his notebook.
Then he looked up.
“Can we see the full request?”
Priya shook her head.
“Not yet. The archived copy contains only the reference and the partial form. We're still trying to recover the submission details.”
Richard stood.
“Then that becomes our priority. No more speculation about individual accounts until we understand who submitted the request and why the permission changed.”
Everyone agreed.
As the meeting broke up, Marcus stayed behind to study the two records once more.
The shared reference was the strongest link they had found between the review request and the temporary access.
It still did not identify the person responsible.
It did not prove that Northstar had received anything.
And it did not establish that the missing files had been deliberately removed.
But it made one possibility much harder to ignore: the permission change might not have been an unrelated technical event.
Someone had initiated a process involving ClearCurrent.
The process had altered the access available to Marcus's account.
And shortly afterward, the team's files had disappeared.
Marcus closed his notebook.
For weeks, he had been searching for the person who might have taken the files.
Now he wondered whether the more important question came first.
Who had requested access to the project before anyone knew the files would be missing?