Reborn in the '80s, I Became a Research Legend

Back in the eighties, the day Barret Gilbert got into college, he tore up the engagement contract our two families had drawn up, right in front of the whole village.

And just a few hours earlier, my parents had gone into town to buy meat to celebrate for him, and their truck rolled into a ravine. Bodies still warm in the ground.

Yet there he stood, holding the hand of the city girl from the youth-placement office, and to make sure she didn't get the wrong idea, he said with a cold, blank face:

"I always thought of you as a little sister. It was only because my family was poor when I was young that I ate a bit of your family's rice."

"But you kept using that debt to force me to marry you. Now that I'm a college student, I'll pay all that money back."

In my past life, I carried his child a thousand miles to the city to find him, and he shoved me down a flight of steps to please his new woman.

I watched the blood spread out beneath me and died in that back alley with my unborn child, two lives gone at once.

In the haze, I thought I saw my mother speaking to me. "Baby girl, a man like that isn't worth it."

When I opened my eyes again, I was back at the moment he broke the engagement. I didn't wail and thrash the way I had before. I calmly slapped years of receipts, every dollar of my family's money he'd spent, across his face.

"Pay it all back and get out. Don't foul the road my parents have to walk into their next life."

...

"Gayle Fox, do you really have to make such an ugly scene right now?"

Barret frowned, staring at the receipts scattered across the ground, exhaustion in his voice.

"I told you, I'll pay the money back. Using your parents' deaths to pressure me. Does that make you feel good?"

Without thinking, he tucked Cora Pruitt behind him, as if terrified I might so much as brush the hem of her clothes.

That one protective movement made my eyes ache with a sharp, physical pain.

In my past life, when the village flooded, he shielded Cora exactly like this and left me to fight for my life in the water.

Saving him left a scar on my leg, over a dozen centimeters long, and afterward he told me it was disgusting when I wore a skirt.

Now here he stood in the new cloth shoes I'd stayed up three nights to make, stepping back in revulsion from the blood seeping out beneath my parents' coffins.

"That's right, Marlin. Barret getting into college is a happy thing. If you keep pushing like this, you'll make everyone laugh at us."

Cora spoke gently, softly, but something smug flickered at the bottom of her eyes.

She wore the trendiest city blouse, crisp synthetic cotton, and a pair of gleaming little leather shoes.

And me, in coarse cloth washed pale, my hands rough with calluses from years in the fields.

In my past life, Barret took the last of my family's food ration into town for exactly one reason: to buy Cora that blouse.

He'd said back then, "Cora's a city girl. She can't be made to suffer out in the countryside."

But he forgot that to scrape together his tuition, I'd been eating thin foraged-greens gruel for half a month straight.

"Laugh at us?" I let out a cold laugh and pointed at the receipts on the ground.

"You owe a debt, you pay it back. That's the way of the world. Barret, you ate off my family, you wore what my family gave you, and now you want to walk away like none of it happened?"

"Three thousand two hundred dollars. One cent short today, and you can forget about college!"

The color drained from Barret's face.

In these times, three thousand two hundred dollars was a fortune, no question about it.

"Gayle, you're insane! Where would I get that kind of money?"

"That's your problem." I looked at him without any expression at all.

"Didn't you say I was using that debt to force your hand? Pay it back, and we're even."

Barret stared straight at me, as if searching my face for some sign I was only sulking.

"Are you telling yourself this is how you'll get my attention?"

He softened his tone, and there was a lofty, condescending charity in it.

"Gayle, stop this. Be good and take the receipts back. When I graduate and get assigned a job, I'll bring you to the city and give you a good life."

How funny. He'd said the same thing in my past life.

And how did that turn out? He brought me to the city only to make me Cora's free housemaid.

When Cora was pregnant, he forced me to give blood. When Cora's labor went wrong and the doctors asked whether to save the mother or the child, he wouldn't even choose. He only chose Cora.

Looking at that face he thought was so full of feeling, I felt nothing but sick.

"Barret, drop that disgusting act of yours."

I bent down, picked up a bloodstained rock, and hurled it hard at his feet.

"My parents' bodies aren't even cold. If you don't sign the IOU today, I'll go to the county and report you for fraud!"

"You wouldn't dare!" Barret finally lost his composure.

"Watch me." My gaze cut like a knife.

Seeing this, Cora gave Barret's sleeve a light tug.

"Barret, since Marlin needs money so badly, let my father front it for now."

She turned to me, charity in her voice.

"But Marlin, a person can't be too greedy. This money buys out your engagement. From now on, please stop pestering Barret."

I ignored her sweet-faced little speech and slapped the paper and pen straight against Barret's chest.

"Sign it. Fingerprint it."

Barret Gilbert signed the IOU with a shaking hand.

When he looked at me, there was something in his eyes he probably didn't even notice himself. A flicker of panic.

He must have gotten used to me trailing after him like a dog. This sudden hardness in me was something he couldn't wrap his head around.

"Gayle, you'll regret this." He ground the words out through his teeth.

"The only thing I regret is not seeing sooner what kind of animal you are."

I took the IOU and tucked it carefully against my body.

Then I turned, knelt before my parents' coffins, and pressed my forehead to the ground three times, hard.

In my past life, for the sake of Barret's face, I'd let my parents' funeral be a rushed, shabby thing.

He'd said a funeral was bad luck, that it would drag down his fortune.

I believed him. And I never even got to see my parents one last time.

This life, I would send them off with dignity.

The day after the funeral, I took the village's letter of introduction to the youth-placement office in town.

I was signing up for the remote western frontier.

In my past life, I'd handed that placement over to one of Barret's relatives, and all I got in return was a light, careless "thanks."

This time, I would live for myself.

I'd barely stepped out of the office when Barret stopped me.

There were dark shadows under his eyes. He looked like he hadn't slept.

"Gayle, are you really going out west? That's nothing but bitter, frozen country out there."

There was a note of probing in his voice, one he didn't even seem aware of.

"None of your damn business." I stepped around him to go.

He grabbed my wrist, gripping it with startling force.

"Is this because I didn't speak up for you yesterday? Cora's not in good health, I was only"

"Barret, is something wrong with you?" I wrenched my hand free.

"Who you protect, who you love, does any of that have one cent to do with me?"

In my past life, I stood in the snow burning with fever, waiting for him, while he sat by the warm stove reading with Cora.

My legs went numb from the cold, and he blamed me for spoiling their pleasant afternoon.

And now he came around playing the devoted man?

"Gayle! Do you have to burn every bridge?" Barret's face flushed with anger and shame.

"You think going out west will change anything? You're a village girl. You'll be out there farming dirt either way!"

"I'd rather farm dirt than be an ungrateful mongrel like you."

I looked at him coldly. "And don't forget you still owe me three thousand two hundred dollars. You have one month to pay it back, or I'll show up at your college and hang a banner over the whole thing."

Barret's face went ashen in an instant.

Just then, Cora Pruitt came walking over from the general store nearby.

She had an expensive tin of face cream in her hand, smiling as she looked at the two of us.

"Barret, what are you two talking about?"

Barret instantly put on a gentle face.

"Nothing. Gayle says she's going out west, and I'm trying to talk her out of it."

Cora clapped a hand over her mouth in shock. "Oh my. The west is so hard, Miss Fox, how could you ever stand it?"

She came closer and lowered her voice, pitching it so only the three of us could hear.

"Miss Fox, you really don't have to be this stubborn. Just apologize to Barret, and I can have my father arrange a temp job for you in the city."

"Something like, oh, sweeping the streets."

Her eyes were full of scorn and challenge.

I looked at her, and suddenly I smiled.

"Miss Pruitt, since you're so fond of picking up trash, this man I don't want, you go right ahead and keep him."

"You!" Cora's face changed.

I couldn't be bothered with either of them. I turned and walked off with long strides.

I had more important things to do. The special transport west left in three days.

I had to have every last piece of paperwork settled within those three days.

I thought everything would go smoothly.

But I'd underestimated Cora's methods, and I'd underestimated just how shameless Barret could be.

The day before the transport left, the town police came and took me away.

The charge: someone had reported that my parents, before their deaths, had embezzled relief grain belonging to the village collective.

And the man who reported them was Barret.

Sitting in that cold interrogation room, I felt the blood freeze in my veins.

Gayle Fox, someone has filed a formal report against you, and we dug two sacks of grain stamped with a government seal out of your backyard.

The officer's face was hard as he laid the evidence in front of me.

On top of that, your frontier placement has been suspended until the case is cleared.

I stared at those two sacks of grain, my mind racing.

That wasn't relief grain at all. That was the stale rice my parents had traded for at a steep price on the black market, all to scrape together Barret's tuition.

To keep from being found out, they'd deliberately packed it in old government sacks.

Barret knew the truth. He knew all of it.

And still he'd turned the very thing my parents had died for into a weapon against me.

In my last life he'd done the same, dumping every ounce of filth on me just to be rid of me.

I'd thought a second life meant I was guarded enough this time. Yet here they were again, driving me to the wall.

The door of the interrogation room swung open, and Barret walked in.

He looked at me, his eyes tangled, a flicker of guilt in them. But mostly there was the smugness of a man who held all the cards.

Gayle, all you have to do is tear up that IOU for the three thousand two hundred, and apologize to Cora in front of everyone.

Then I'll go tell the police I remembered wrong about the grain.

He dropped his voice, and there was charity in his tone.

A girl like you, carrying an embezzlement charge, your whole life is ruined.

You won't make it out west either. Stay in the village, and everyone's spit alone would be enough to drown you.

I looked at this man I'd loved across two lifetimes, and felt only that he was a complete stranger.

Barret, you'll even use the dead for your own ends. Aren't you afraid of what's coming to you?

My voice was shaking, not from fear, but from a hatred too deep to hold.

I'm trying to help you! Barret's voice shot up.

You really want to fight me until we both go down? Cora's father is a county official. You can't beat her!

Just bow your head, and we can go back to the way things were......

The way things were? I let out a cold laugh.

The way you used to work me like a dog? Bleed me dry and still expect me to be grateful for it?

I shot to my feet and slammed both hands down on the table.

Barret, keep dreaming.

The wildness in my eyes made him take a step back.

Fine. If you won't take the easy way, then you can sit and wait for prison.

He turned and slammed the door on his way out.

I sat alone in the interrogation room, my nails biting bloody crescents into my palms.

Cora's father was a county official. With that kind of power behind her, crushing me was easier than crushing an ant.

My frontier placement stolen, my parents branded embezzlers, and now the threat of prison hanging over me.

It really was a hopeless trap.

But I was Gayle Fox. I had already died once. There was no way they would ever grind me under their heels again.

I drew a deep breath and forced myself to stay calm.

In my past life, though I was trapped at Barret Gilbert's side, I studied every kind of knowledge I could, desperate to be worthy of him.

I remembered it clearly. It was this very year that the province issued a strict, top-secret directive on cracking down against the sabotage of national production and construction and the illegal resale of key materials.

And the investigation task force put in charge of the case had secretly arrived in our county that very day.

Cora Pruitt's father, Clarence Pruitt, was one of the main targets that task force was quietly watching.

I lifted my head and looked at the officer across from me.

"Comrade, I want to see your station chief."

"I want to file a signed report against Clarence Pruitt, head of the county machinery plant's supply section. He's been colluding inside and out, stealing and reselling the plant's key industrial materials for a long time."

The officer froze, certain I'd lost my mind.

"What nonsense are you spouting? Section Chief Pruitt's been a model worker at the plant year after year. You think you can just report a man like that?"

"I'm not just reporting him. I have proof." I fixed my eyes on him.

In my past life, Clarence Pruitt was caught three years later on exactly this charge: colluding with black-market operators, smuggling the plant's most critical imported precision bearings and specialty steel out to be sold off at a high price, nearly crippling an entire key national production line.

And that ledger that could never see daylight was hidden in the lining of a camphorwood chest Cora had brought with her when she came down to the countryside.

Barret had once let the secret slip to me, showing off the Pruitt family's dirty fortune and their web of power and money.

Half an hour later, the station chief rushed in.

He looked at me, his eyes wary and uncertain.

"Gayle Fox, do you know what happens to people who file false reports and make false accusations?"

"I'm willing to bear all legal responsibility." I said it word by word.

"In the lining of Cora's camphorwood chest, there's a black ledger. It records every detail of Clarence Pruitt's thefts and a full list of his underground buyers."

"Go and check it now. One look and you'll know."

The station chief's face shifted again and again. Given that this involved major state assets, he finally gritted his teeth and dialed a classified line.

Three hours later, everything had turned.

Clarence Pruitt's reselling operation was raided outright by the task force, and he was taken away for questioning that same night.

When they came for Cora at the youth-placement housing, she was still shrieking that her family had connections, that she knew all kinds of people.

And Barret was detained on a charge of false accusation.

When they walked him past me in handcuffs, his whole body was shaking.

"Gayle... save me, I know I was wrong, I really know I was wrong!"

He dropped to his knees, sobbing, and grabbed at the leg of my pants.

"Cora forced me into all of it, she made me do it!"

I kicked him off.

"Barret Gilbert, take all that devotion of yours to prison and think it over in there."

I got my innocence back, cleared my parents' name, and reclaimed my frontier placement in the west without trouble.

The day I left, I didn't even glance back at the village that had raised me.

The wind and sand out west were harsh, but the air was free.

Drawing on the memories of my past life and my own relentless work, I put down roots at the western research base.

Three years later.

Washington, D.C., outside the key national laboratory.

Barret Gilbert stood in the wind in an old suit washed pale, his face worn and hollow.

Beside him stood Cora, just as gaunt and haggard.

After Clarence Pruitt's downfall, Cora lost everything she'd leaned on, and Barret was expelled from college over his record.

The two of them had scraped by out in the world, swallowing every kind of contempt.

This time Barret had gotten his hands on some half-finished mechanical patent from somewhere, hoping to sell it to a major laboratory for one big payout that would turn his life around.

"Barret, do you really think this mysterious Engineer Fox will take an interest in our thing?" Cora was trembling.

"They will! Once Engineer Fox nods, we're back on top!" A feverish light burned in Barret's eyes.

The office door opened and the assistant said coldly, "Engineer Fox will see you now."

Barret excitedly straightened his clothes and pulled Cora inside.

And as they lifted their fawning faces, ready to greet the research heavyweight who could change their fate,

both their expressions froze on the spot.

Behind the wide desk, in my white coat, I unhurriedly took off my gold-rimmed glasses.

"Long time no see, you two."

Barret's pupils shot wide, his lips trembling as if he'd been frozen three days in a bitter wind.

"Gayle Fox? How can it be you!"