The day before the President’s Fellowship defense, I was standing outside the lab when I heard Garrett talking to the department sweetheart. “I copied all of his data. You can use it directly tomorrow.” I stood in the hallway, frozen for three seconds. Then I pulled out my phone and checked the local Git logs. Last push: three months ago. I slid my phone back into my pocket. That version had three hundred and twenty-seven bugs. And the comments were absolutely loaded with my warmest regards for Garrett. Tomorrow’s defense was going to be a masterpiece. 1 November 15th, 9:40 PM. I grabbed a bottle of iced tea from the vending machine, planning to head back to the lab to run one last batch of data. The lab was at the far end of the seventh floor of the Science Hall. Two of the hallway lights were dead, casting fractured, ghostly pools of pale white light across the floor. I unscrewed the cap and took a sip, my footsteps swallowed by the quiet corridor. As I neared Room 706, I noticed the door was cracked open. The lights were on. I figured it was empty, since I was usually the only one in the lab at this hour. Just as I reached out to push the door, Garrett’s voice drifted through the gap. “Don’t worry, he won’t even make it onto the stage tomorrow.” My hand froze in midair. A second later, Gina’s voice followed. “Are you sure? What if he finds out?” Garrett let out a laugh, that condescending, smug chuckle of his. “So what if he does? I copied everything off his machine, the raw data, the modeling scripts, the lab logs. I wiped his local drive clean, too.” I pulled my hand back and took half a step away from the door. “Tomorrow, you just walk up there and present it as yours. The committee will just think he tried to piggyback on your project at the last second, got rejected, and threw a temper tantrum.” “But what if he has a backup?” “A backup?” Garrett scoffed. “I’ve seen how he works. He only runs things on that one lab desktop. A slob like him probably doesn’t even own a second USB drive.” The sliver of light from the doorway fell across my slippers. I looked down, left foot blue, right foot black. Okay, fair point, I was a bit of a slob. Normally, hearing someone trash me like that might have rubbed me the wrong way. But right now, only one thought consumed my mind: Which computer did this idiot actually rob? I pulled out my phone and accessed my private server dashboard. Project folder: “Fellowship_v2.7”. Last modified: today at 3:14 PM. Status: normal. Thirty-seven source files, completely intact. I scrolled down. The last time my local Git repository had pushed anything to that lab desktop was August 23rd, eleven weeks ago. The version back then was v0.3. I remembered v0.3 vividly. It was a steaming pile of garbage that could compile but couldn’t produce a single correct result. The convergence conditions in the core algorithm were reversed, the feature extraction module leaked memory like a sieve, and the data preprocessing was a caveman-era workaround that I eventually scrapped and rebuilt from scratch. Worse yet, I had treated that version’s code comments as my personal diary, filling them with my deepest thoughts. What kind of thoughts? For instance, line 47: // If you don’t understand this code, don’t worry. I wrote it, and I don’t understand it either. Line 128: // TODO: There is a bug here, but it’s Friday. Even bugs deserve a weekend. Line 203: // If Garrett is peeking at my screen again, please raise your eyes by three centimeters and look at this line. What are you looking at? Go write your own. I added that line in September because he kept making excuses to walk by and sneak glances at my screen. I hadn’t thought much of it then, assuming he was just curious. Looking back, he was scouting his target. I tightened the cap on my iced tea and quietly backed down the hallway. On the walk back to the dorms, the crisp night air cleared my head. Should I report him? Yes, but the paper trail wasn’t solid enough yet; it would be my word against theirs. Should I confront them right now? I could, but where was the fun in that? I pondered it for about ten seconds, then sent a text to my roommate, Wyatt. Are you coming to the fellowship defense tomorrow? Wyatt replied instantly. Is there drama? Massive drama. Bring popcorn. On it. I locked my phone and stepped into the dorm building. The faint sounds of someone screaming at their gaming teammates echoed down the hall. What a beautiful world. Tomorrow was going to be even better. 2 Back in our room, Wyatt was sitting cross-legged on his bed, engrossed in a mobile game. “Spill,” he said, his eyes glued to the screen. “What’s the drama?” I kicked off my slippers, climbed onto my bed, and flipped open my laptop. “Garrett stole all the data off my lab computer. He’s giving it to Gina to present at the defense tomorrow.” Wyatt’s thumbs froze. The game’s voiceover chimed from his phone: An ally has been slain. “What did you say?” He whipped his head around. “I said Garrett stole my—” “No, I mean, how are you so damn calm?” he yelled, staring at me. “Your research got stolen! The fellowship data! The defense is literally tomorrow! You should be marching to our advisor’s office right now!” I yawned, looking at my laptop screen. “What’s the rush? He stole v0.3.” “What the hell is v0.3?” “The build from three months ago. A scrapped draft.” Wyatt went quiet for three seconds. “What does ‘scrapped draft’ mean in this context?” “It means the code compiles but won’t run. If it runs, it won’t produce results. And if it does somehow produce results, they’re entirely wrong.” Another three seconds of silence. Then, Wyatt slowly set his phone down, his eyes lighting up with a familiar, wicked spark. It was the look of a man who smelled premium, grade-A gossip. “Hold on, hold on.” He slid off his bed and lunged over to mine. “Are you saying he stole a pile of garbage code?” “Not complete garbage,” I corrected him. “The basic framework is solid. But the core logic is entirely broken. Plus…” I pulled up the backup of the old build and scrolled to the pages heavy with comments. Wyatt leaned in and read for five seconds. Then he lost it. “Oh my god, you actually called him out in the comments?” “I wouldn’t call it calling him out,” I said, scrolling to line 203. “Just a friendly warning.” Wyatt read it aloud: “If Garrett is peeking at my screen again, please raise your eyes by three centimeters and look at this line. What are you looking at? Go write your own.” He laughed so hard his shoulders shook. “There’s more,” I said, scrolling down further. Line 315: // This function is named garrett_is_watching. No explanation provided. Line 472: // The following algorithm is inspired by the ring topology of my advisor’s horseshoe baldness. Confidential. Line 519: // If this code appears in anyone’s presentation slides other than my own, I highly recommend they check themselves into a psychiatric ward. Wyatt literally fell off my bed, laughing. “Did you know he was going to steal it back then?” “Nope.” I closed my laptop. “I just like talking to myself in the comments. I’m telling you, coders who don’t write comments have no souls.” “That’s not comments, man. That’s a burn diary written in C++.” “Call it what you want.” “So what’s the game plan for tomorrow?” Wyatt climbed back onto his bed, rubbing his hands together in anticipation. “Just present like normal.” “That’s it?” “What else do I need to do?” I set my laptop aside and pulled up the blanket. “Think about it. Gina is going to stand before the committee with a piece of junk code riddled with over three hundred bugs. She doesn’t even know what the functions do. How long do you think she can survive their questions?” Wyatt thought for a moment. “Three minutes?” “You’re giving her too much credit.” “Besides,” I turned over, facing the wall, “Professor Harrison is on the panel.” “Harrison? The balding guy?” “He supervised my undergraduate capstone project.” Wyatt grinned again. “He knows my coding style like the back of his hand. My variable names, my indentation habits, my function structures. Those things are like digital fingerprints. You can’t steal them, and you can’t fake them.” The room fell quiet, save for the muffled sounds of video games from next door and a distant alarm ringing down the hall. “Ryan,” Wyatt called out. “Yeah?” “You are an absolute menace.” “I know. Now go to sleep.” “No, seriously. You usually look like a lazy slacker, but you’re cold-blooded when it counts.” I didn’t reply. I was already running through the possibilities. The defense order was determined by a random draw. If Gina went before me, the fallout would be glorious. If I went before her, she’d get a front-row seat to the difference between v2.7 and v0.3. Either way, it was a win. I closed my eyes. I slept like a baby. 3 November 16th, 8:00 AM. The defense was held in the lecture hall on the third floor of the Science Hall. I walked out of the dorms wearing my favorite grey hoodie, the one that had been washed at least a thousand times. Wyatt insisted on tagging along. “You’re not even presenting.” “I’m the audience,” he insisted. “You told me to bring popcorn, and I did. You can’t lock me out now.” “There are actual seats in the lecture hall, Wyatt.” “It’s the spirit of the popcorn that matters.” I didn’t bother arguing with him. As we entered the lobby, I spotted Garrett and Gina standing near the main bulletin board. Garrett was wearing a crisp navy shirt today, his hair slicked back with enough gel to withstand a hurricane. Gina was in full makeup, clutching a stack of printed materials to her chest. They were whispering to each other, looking completely relaxed. When Garrett caught sight of me, he paused for a fraction of a second. Then, a smug, oily smile spread across his face. It was the kind of smile that said, I ruined your life, and you don’t even know it yet. “Ryan,” he said with a nod. “Big day. Ready for the defense?” “I’ll get by,” I replied. His eyes swept down to my faded hoodie and my mismatched slippers. Yes, I had shown up to a prestigious fellowship defense in slippers. His smile widened, likely assuming I had given up on life because my data was deleted. “Hang in there, bud,” he said, patting my shoulder with just the right amount of patronizing warmth. “Yeah, you too.” I glanced at Gina. “Good luck, Gina.” Gina nodded, tightening her grip on her papers, but she refused to meet my gaze. Guilty people never look you in the eye. That rule hasn’t changed since middle school. Wyatt and I headed up to the third floor. A crowd had already gathered outside the lecture hall. Fellowship defenses were public events. Anyone from the department could sit in. It always drew a massive crowd because, let’s face it, there is no entertainment quite like watching academic careers crash and burn in real-time. Wyatt slid into a seat in the back corner and pulled out his phone. “I’m taking this spot. Perfect angle.” “What, are you livestreaming this?” “Pretty much. I’ll record your set.” “Don’t.” “Come on, you might go viral.” I ignored him and found a seat in the middle row. At 8:20 AM, the five-member committee walked in. Right in the center was Professor Harrison. He was in his late fifties, his horseshoe baldness having expanded over the years from a small bay into a full-on ocean. I had roasted his hair in line 472 of my old code, and seeing him in the flesh made my stomach do a slight flip. I really hoped Gina wouldn’t scroll down to that specific line on the projector. Whatever, what happens, happens. Professor Harrison scanned the room, his gaze lingering on me for half a second. He knew me. I had worked under him for an entire year on my undergraduate thesis. He knew my coding style the way a mother knows her child’s handwriting. In other words, he could spot my work instantly. At 8:30 AM, the moderator announced the presentation order. Gina was third. I was fifth. She was going before me. I took a slow, deep breath. Perfect. Time to let the drama unfold. 4 The first two students gave decent presentations. One was on smart traffic optimization, the other on NLP sentiment analysis. The committee asked some standard questions, and the atmosphere remained calm and academic. Then the moderator announced, “Next up, Gina.” Polite applause rippled through the room as Gina stood up and walked to the podium. Wearing a tailored white shirt, black dress pants, and an elegant updo, she looked every bit the rising star of academia. If you didn’t know any better, that is. She plugged in her flash drive, and the projector flared to life with her title slide. “Good morning, members of the committee. My research is focused on multi-objective path planning optimization using deep reinforcement learning.” Yep. That title. It was the exact title of my v0.3 build back in August. I had completely shifted gears by v1.0, abandoning path planning to focus on graph neural networks in dynamic topologies. She hadn’t just stolen outdated code; she had stolen a research direction I had already discarded. “The core innovation of this study lies in a modified DQN algorithm, which integrates an attention mechanism to achieve multi-objective balance.” I listened, my lips twitching. That was the abstract from my v0.3 documentation, lifted word-for-word. The committee members nodded as she spoke. The first five minutes of her presentation were smooth. Anyone can memorize a script and click through pre-made slides. But the real test of a defense isn’t the presentation. It’s the Q&A. Gina concluded her final slide with a polite, “Thank you. I welcome your feedback.” Professor Harrison flipped through the printed report in his hands. He looked up, pushing his glasses up his nose. “Gina, in your modified DQN algorithm, what is the theoretical foundation for your reward function?” Gina froze for a fraction of a second. “Uh… it is based on the Pareto optimality theory in multi-objective optimization.” The answer itself wasn’t wrong, but Professor Harrison didn’t stop there. “And how exactly did you map the Pareto frontier to the reward signals? What was your normalization strategy?” Gina’s lips parted. “It was… a weighted sum approach.” “Weighted sum?” Professor Harrison frowned. “Your slide on page seven shows adaptive weights. Why are you suddenly talking about a simple weighted sum?” Gina’s fingers tightened around the presentation clicker until her knuckles turned white. “I apologize, Professor. I misspoke. I meant to say an adaptive weighting approach.” “Then how did you implement the adaptation mechanism? How did you tune the hyperparameters?” Silence. Three seconds. Five seconds. Gina’s mouth opened and closed, but no sound came out. That kind of silence is the kiss of death in a defense. Another committee member interjected, “Why don’t you show us your source code? If we look at the actual implementation of this algorithm, it should clear things up.” I sat in the audience, my breathing steady and my pulse calm. But if anyone had looked closely, they would have seen a slow, wicked grin creeping onto my face. I knew what was coming. The second she opened that source code, the real show would begin. Gina hesitated, her hand trembling as she opened the file explorer. She located the project directory and double-clicked the main script. Lines of dense code flooded the projector screen, visible to the entire room. The first line was the standard file header. The second and third lines imported the libraries. The fourth line, however, was a comment I had written at 11:00 PM on August 20th. It stared back at the entire room in bright green font: // Another day of burning my life away for science. Too bad I’m burning my liver, not writing actual papers. A quiet chuckle rippled through the back of the lecture hall. Professor Harrison adjusted his glasses, his gaze locking onto the screen. Gina panicked, her fingers frantically scrolling down. Line 47. // If you don’t understand this code, don’t worry. I wrote it, and I don’t understand it either. Let’s all be confused together. More laughter broke out, louder this time. Gina’s face drained of color. She scrolled faster, trying to find the core math, but she had no idea how the project was structured. The faster she scrolled, the worse it got. Line 128 flashed onto the screen. // TODO: There is a bug here, but it’s Friday. Even bugs deserve a weekend. I’ll deal with it next week. The lecture hall erupted into giggles. Even some of the committee members couldn’t hide their grins. Professor Harrison’s face remained stoic, but I knew him well enough to see the slight flare of his nostrils. He was holding back a laugh. Gina finally reached the core algorithm section between lines 203 and 250. Right above the main function was a massive, glaring comment block. Nobody could miss it. // If Garrett is peeking at my screen again, please raise your eyes by three centimeters and look at this line. What are you looking at? Go write your own. The laughter stopped instantly. It was replaced by a wave of sharp, sudden whispers. Garrett’s name was printed in plain English on the giant screen. People in the audience immediately began turning their heads, searching the room. Out of the corner of my eye, I saw Garrett sitting in the second row. He looked completely petrified. In a span of two seconds, his face flushed a deep crimson and then went entirely sheet-white. Professor Harrison slowly took his eyes off the screen and looked directly at Gina. “Gina,” he said. His voice wasn’t loud, but the room went so quiet you could hear the low hum of the ventilation system. “This code explicitly mentions your colleague’s name. Can you explain what this comment is doing in your program?” Gina’s hand shook violently. The presentation clicker slipped from her fingers, clattering loudly against the wooden floor.
🌟 Continue the story here 👉🏻 📲 Download the “MotoNovel” app 🔍 search for “461186”, and watch the full series ✨! #MotoNovel
Leave a Reply