She closed her laptop. She walked to the vending machine, bought a stale granola bar, and ate it in the dark. Somewhere in the server room, a cluster of CPUs hummed a requiem for the hours of her life she would never get back.

“You used the ‘Angewandte’ style. It compresses authors. You must edit the output style.”

Her hand cramped. There were over twenty names. She whispered a curse into the stale air of her cubicle.

She began to type. Author: Frisch, M. J. and then the legion of co-authors: Trucks, G. W.; Schlegel, H. B.; Scuseria, G. E.; Robb, M. A.; Cheeseman, J. R.; Scalmani, G.; Barone, V.; Mennucci, B.; Petersson, G. A.; et al.

“You’re still on the citation?” he said. “Back in my day, we typed ‘Gaussian 09, Revision D.01’ by hand and the reviewers just trusted us.”

She clicked . She named it “Angewandte – Full Gaussian Hell.”

She clicked save. A green checkmark appeared. Relief washed over her. She returned to her Word document. She clicked and selected her new entry.

The citation appeared: (Frisch, M. J.; Trucks, G. W.; Schlegel, H. B.; Scuseria, G. E.; Robb, M. A.; Cheeseman, J. R.; Scalmani, G.; Barone, V.; Mennucci, B.; Petersson, G. A.; et al., 2009)

“Do not truncate the authors of Gaussian 09. The et al. is a lie.”

“Still et al.!” she yelled. “The ghost lied to me!”

She collapsed into her chair. The cursor blinked. She had spent 45 minutes wrestling a citation.

Alena rubbed her eyes. “I’ve been awake for 36 hours,” she whispered.

Alena smiled weakly. “EndNote is a cruel mistress.”

“Just use ‘et al.,’” said a voice.

Alena opened EndNote X9. She clicked . Her fingers hovered over the dropdown menu for Reference Type. Computer Program . Yes.