“What happened?” Miranda asked them.

Madison and Sebastian looked up sharply, looking like they had found their savior.

Madison rushed toward her, tears welling up in her eyes even though she tried to hold them back. Sebastian followed, his expression visibly tense and his fists clenched tightly.

Miranda immediately sensed something was wrong, but she stayed composed. “What happened? Why are you both sitting outside and not going in?”

“Miranda…” Madison’s voice trembled as she fought to keep her tears from falling. “We can’t get in!”

“What do you mean you can’t get in?” Miranda asked, shocked.

“Yesterday, a campus inspection team and the district fire department suddenly came to the lab for a check…“

Fire safety inspections were routine, so neither Madison nor Sebastian thought much of it. They opened the door and cooperated as expected.

But once the team entered, they didn’t just do a casual walkthrough. They poked around thoroughly, checking every corner.

In the end, they informed Madison and Sebastian that the lab failed the fire safety inspection and ordered them to vacate within a week for rectification.

Without giving them a chance to explain or react, the inspectors slapped a notice on the door and left. Madison added, her frustration palpable, “Sebastian and I were stunned. Last week, the lab across from us had the same fire safety inspection. The staff just did a quick look around and left. But for us? Suddenly, we’re not up to code, and now we have to move out!”

They had just finished setting up the lab, and they hadn’t even used the new CPRT equipment much. How was that fair?

Miranda stayed calm as she processed their words. “If we have a week to move out, why are you sitting outside? Why not go in?”

Sebastian answered, “The district fire department issued the rectification notice, and Mr. Banks said the college needs to conduct an internal review, so they took the keys from us.”

Luckily, Miranda had a spare key.

“Let’s go in and talk.” She opened the door and led them inside.

Once seated, she handed each of them a bottle of water. “Take it easy, have some water first.”

But Madison was too anxious to drink. “Miranda, what are we going to do? I’ve heard that when they issue a rectification notice, it’s basically a secret way of kicking us out. Everyone knows it means we’ll be forced to leave! Are we going to lose the lab we worked so hard to get?”

Rectification indeed carried a loaded implication. It could mean a quick resolution in a few days, or it could drag on for years. The system was open to manipulation.

Miranda thought for a moment. “Where’s the notice?”

Sebastian quickly retrieved it from a drawer. It had originally been stuck to the door, but he had removed it after the inspectors left.

Miranda read it over quickly. The issues boiled down to two major problems.

First, the lab’s fire safety equipment was incomplete, missing essential items like fire extinguishers, fire blankets, sprinkler systems, and alarm devices.

Second, there was improper use of fire and electricity in the lab. During the inspection, they had found one piece of equipment in standby mode, still plugged in.

After reading it, Miranda had to admit that the issues did pose fire hazards. But the strange thing was, other labs with similar deficiencies hadn’t received such notices. Why were they being singled out?

Moreover, when they had applied for the lab, it had already lacked this fire safety equipment. That was an oversight on the college’s part.

Usually, they’d try to cover up these kinds of issues, so why would they go out of their way to catch them now?

As for the improper electrical use….