Could Adrian have hired a top-tier hacker to monitor my every move online?

The thought lodged itself in my mind like a splinter.

"River, what do we do now? The internet’s full of people trashing you," Zane said, panic edging his voice.

I stared down at my phone, reading the flood of comments from Adrian’s rabid fans.

"Tsk tsk, the copycat can’t steal anymore, huh?"

"You've been leeching off our genius for years, but he’ll always be ahead of you. You’re just a rat in the dark who can never keep up."

Their arrogance burned into me. I drew in a deep breath. "It’s fine. I have another robot. I’ll use that one to compete."

I was ready to shut myself away again when my phone lit up. Lila was calling. I’d told her clearly not to contact me before the championship. My eyes stayed cold on the screen. I blocked her number without hesitation and turned to Zane.

"He’s not going to guess this one. There’s no way Adrian will think of an animal-model bot."

With a do-or-die resolve, I headed back into the lab.

The first thing I did was to cut the network connection entirely. No hacker would be able to watch me this time.

I carefully wheeled out a different project: an animal-model robot with capabilities far beyond the humanoid one. This one was designed to navigate the most complex terrain imaginable. As a half-finished prototype, it was something I had never mentioned to anyone.

Three hours later, the assembly was done, and the code was fully tested.

I stood in silence before the arachnid-shaped machine, a storm of emotions running through me.

Five years of work. Its most unique feature? The ability to shift into eighteen different forms to adapt to any environment.

There was no way Adrian could know about this.

Exhaling slowly, I began uploading the data, only for my laptop to freeze mid-process. The spinning circle on the screen sent a chill down my spine.

When the upload finally completed, I rushed to check Adrian’s latest data.

My gut dropped.

His robot had changed into a spider model exactly like mine. Every parameter matched, down to the last decimal. His upload time? One minute before mine.

"Too many humanoid bots in the competition this year," his post read. "I’ve decided to use this spider bot instead. If you guys like it, I’ll even send you model kits…"

I swept everything off my desk with a violent crash.

"How? Why?!" My eyes burned, my control hanging by a thread.

Zane burst in at the sound. One look at the spider bot, and realization dawned on him.

"Could the organizers be helping him cheat? Feeding him your data?" he asked, because it made no sense otherwise.

I stood frozen, shadows pooling around me.

There were only two hours left before the submission deadline. I couldn’t build another bot in that time.

"I’m calling the organizers."

Jaw tight, I pulled out my phone, only to see that Lila had called me over a hundred times. After realizing she’d been blocked, she’d used someone else’s phone to send me two texts.

"River, I love you. My love for you is like your shadow."

"When you’re here, I’m here. When you’re gone, I vanish."

Something flickered in my mind; it was a connection I couldn’t quite catch.

I shook my head, pushing it aside, and dialed the organizers. I laid out my accusations in detail.

The organizer’s voice was cold and bureaucratic on the other end of the line.

"River Lowell, this year’s National Robotics Championship is led by the National Institute of Robotics and founded by two academicians themselves," he said.

"This competition involves universities from across the country. There is absolutely no way we would open the back door for one student, especially…" His tone sharpened into a smirk. "Especially since your school isn’t exactly prestigious. You wouldn’t have the pull to bribe an academician even if you wanted to."

Then, the jab landed. "If your skills aren’t up to par, spend your time learning instead of throwing dirt on others."

Just like that, he hung up. No matter how I tried, they wouldn’t listen.

"River! It’s getting worse online," Zane said, his face pale as he handed me his phone.

The screen was filled with bile from Adrian’s fan base.

"Shameless! Openly stealing someone else’s design? Get out of the competition!"

"Someone on Adrian’s team must’ve been bribed. How else could this copycat rip the latest design so fast?"

Adrian, ever the saint in public, had posted: "Genius ideas often collide. Maybe River’s concept just happened to match mine. It’s fine. He can have this design. I’ll compete with another robot."

Beneath his post, a flood of praise followed.

"Adrian is a class act! So magnanimous, even to a thief."

"Haha, as if he could even use stolen goods properly."

"Disgusting. Someone should call the cops before this parasite gets more ambitious."

I stared at the screen, my blood running cold.

Why?

Was I supposed to give up? Or repeat the exact same doomed path as last time?

No.

I refused to. There had to be something I wasn’t seeing.

Even in my rage, my mind sharpened. My memories of Adrian replayed in fast flashes, moments from years of rivalry.

Before him, people had called me a prodigy. However, from the moment we met in college, my brilliance had been dimmed by his shadow. Adrian was always one step ahead, always releasing my ideas before I could.

Then, a spark hit.

"Zane, do you believe two people can have identical brainwaves?" I asked.

He blinked. "Identical? Not even identical twins can do that."

"If I gave you a robot you knew inside and out, what’s the fastest you could build another from scratch?"

Zane took his time answering. "River, I’m not at your level, but I’m no slouch either. With every part ready, assembly and tuning would still take me at least half a day. Robots have too many delicate, precise components. This isn’t copy-paste. You can’t just whip one up instantly."

My grin spread slowly, then broke into open, almost manic laughter. "You’re right. Building from scratch takes hours. So, how the hell do two robots appear less than a minute apart?"

"It’s not possible. It’s not science."

My gaze locked on the two machines in front of me, eyes gleaming, the thrill of revelation running through me like lightning.

I wheeled the spider bot beneath the gravity hammer. My finger hovered over the button, my voice a low whisper.

"I’ve found your flaw."