Greg Cordell is not based on one person. He is built from observations I have made over the course of a long working life, watching smart, capable people navigate systems that were not always designed with them in mind. I wanted to write a scientist who was genuinely talented but not arrogant about it. Someone who earned his position through real work and was still curious about what he did not know. Those are the kinds of people I have respected most in real life, and they are the ones I wanted at the center of this story.