1 On the eve of the National Robotics Competition, I smashed my meticulously designed robot and announced my withdrawal. Everyone said I was a fraud, terrified of being exposed. The internet forums exploded with mockery. Only Cole Jensen, the campus prodigy, offered a hollow defense: “I believe in Austin Kane’s talent. He’s the only one worthy of being my rival. Whatever he’s going through, I hope he returns to the competition and proves himself.” In my past life, my meticulously assembled robot turned out to be identical to his. No matter how I tried to prove he had plagiarized my work, he just played the magnanimous victim online. “It’s okay,” he wrote, “Austin can have this design. I can always build something better.” His fans cyberbullied me into oblivion. No one believed me. Fueled by a desperate need for vindication, I tried to build a new robot overnight. But a power supply in one of the components exploded, causing severe brain trauma. I was in the ICU by morning. The internet cheered, saying I got what I deserved. That same night, my girlfriend signed the form to take me off life support. Even as I died, I couldn’t understand it. How did he get my robot’s data? And how did my girlfriend end up in his arms? When I opened my eyes again, I was back. It was the day before the competition. … “Austin, this dynamic humanoid design is insane! We’re definitely taking first place in the competition this time!” My best friend Walt’s excited voice snapped me back to reality. I stared at the human-sized robot before me, a violent shiver running down my spine. “I’ll submit the data now, and then all we have to do is wait for the live demonstration tomorrow!” Walt said, already tapping away at the computer. “Wait!” I yelled, stopping him. “I have a better idea.” My hands trembled as I opened my own laptop and navigated to the competition portal. I found Cole Jensen’s submission: the robot’s parameters and a video demonstration. Identical to mine. Of course it was. “What the hell?” Walt gasped, leaning over my shoulder. “How is this possible? I checked his design this afternoon, and it was totally different from ours!” “That son of a bitch, where did he steal this from?” I clenched my jaw so hard it ached. In my past life, I’d also seen his completely different design that afternoon and paid it no mind. It wasn’t until thirty minutes before the submission deadline that I discovered he’d updated his entry to a perfect copy of mine. I’d frantically reported him to the organizers and posted my entire build process online as proof. But the organizers dismissed my claim, and Cole’s fans tore me to shreds. “Copycat Kane is at it again! He was always stealing Cole’s ideas, and now he’s trying to frame him? Shameless!” “Cole released his data first, idiot. How dare you try to claim his work as your own?” Buried under an avalanche of hate, I had stayed up all night modifying the robot, determined to prove them wrong at the competition. But somehow, Cole’s robot on stage the next day was, once again, a perfect match for my modified version. The crowd jeered at me, throwing water bottles. Defiant, I tried to activate my robot to showcase its unique dynamic systems, but it exploded on the spot. The blast sent me to the ICU. With his strongest competitor out of the way, Cole coasted to victory. He won the two-million-dollar prize and was taken on as a protégé by a pioneer in the field of robotics. His future was limitless. Meanwhile, I lay dying in a hospital bed. To add insult to injury, the competition officials announced that they’d found highly flammable and explosive materials in my robot’s wreckage. They concluded I’d been planning some kind of terrorist act and had become a victim of my own malice. But I knew. I had built that machine. There was nothing like that inside it. The university expelled me. The internet branded me a monster. They doxed my parents, sending funeral wreaths to their home and throwing paint on their door, telling them they deserved to die for raising such a demon. The night I was admitted to the hospital, my girlfriend signed the papers to end my life, telling the world I had succumbed to my injuries. The public celebrated. My parents, hearing of my death, went gray overnight. Drowned in grief, they took their own lives. My soul watched it all, trapped in a cage of rage, refusing to move on. And then, I woke up. Back on the day before it all went wrong. This time, I would find the truth. I would clear my name. And I would make Cole Jensen pay. 2 “Austin, we still have time to modify it!” Walt insisted, his face grim after seeing the organizers’ email dismissing our complaint against Cole. “This competition isn’t just about the two-million-dollar prize. The winner gets a mentorship with Dr. Aris Thorne. We can’t give up.” “I’ll do the modifications myself,” I said, taking a deep breath. “Walt, you keep arguing with the organizers. Stall them.” Reborn, I trusted no one. Not even my best friend. In my last life, my girlfriend, Sierra, had been by my side the entire time I worked on the robot. The memory of her, tucked under Cole’s arm after my death, was seared into my soul. She must have been the one who leaked the data. But she didn’t understand programming or advanced mechanics. Even if she gave him the blueprints, she couldn’t have accessed the core operational code. And Cole and I had been rivals since freshman year. I was his shadow; every idea I had, he somehow brought to life just a step ahead of me, earning me the nickname “Copycat Kane.” We avoided each other on campus like the plague. There was no way he could have seen my robot. So how was his operational code identical to mine? It was a puzzle I still couldn’t solve, even after being reborn. Thinking of Sierra sent a sharp pain through my chest. Why would she betray me? We were childhood sweethearts, practically engaged. At the most critical moment of my life, she had shoved me into the abyss. I slapped myself, hard, the sting forcing me back to the present. The robot. That was what mattered now. I worked with frantic speed, dismantling the machine, rewriting the code. I’d already designed an upgraded version, but the performance was unstable, so I had opted for the more conservative build for the competition. My intuition for mechanics and programming had always been my gift; I was confident even the base model could win. But there was no time for caution now. It was all or nothing. An hour later, I stared at the upgraded robot and let out a breath of relief. I had done this modification completely alone. Unless Cole was a god, there was no way he could know the new specs. I wiped the sweat from my brow and was about to submit the new data to the organizers when Walt burst back into the room. “Dude, Cole just updated his submission! Look at this!” My blood ran cold. I snatched the laptop from his hands. The video on the screen… “How is this possible?” I whispered. The robot in Cole’s updated video was a perfect replica of the one I had just finished modifying. I watched the fluid, lifelike movements on the screen, read the fawning comments from his fans, and felt the color drain from my face. I scrolled to Cole’s post on social media: “I felt my initial design was a winner, but there are so many brilliant minds at this competition. After careful consideration, I decided to upgrade my robot. Its performance isn’t stable, but if I can get some feedback from the judges, it’ll be worth it…” Beads of sweat rolled down my forehead. The core of the upgrade was the programming data, a sequence of code that had come to me in dreams, a program I had treasured like a gift from the muses. No one else could possibly know it. Unless… could Cole have hired a top-tier hacker? Was he monitoring my every move through the network? A terrifying theory began to form in my mind. “Austin, what do we do now?” Walt asked, his voice shaking. “The forums are tearing you apart.” 3 I stared at my phone, at the torrent of hate from Cole’s fans. “LMAO, the copycat ran out of things to copy?” “He’s been leeching off Cole for years, but a god will always be a god, and a rat in the shadows will always be a rat!” … I took a deep breath, the venomous words blurring on the screen. “It’s fine,” I said, my voice dangerously calm. “I have another robot. I’ll enter that one instead.” I was about to head back into the lab when my phone rang. It was Sierra. I had explicitly told her not to contact me before the competition. I stared at her name on the screen, then coldly blocked her number. “I don’t believe it,” I said to Walt, my voice filled with a grim determination. “There’s no way he could have predicted this arachnid model.” With the resolve of a cornered animal, I re-entered my workshop. This time, I disconnected the entire lab from the network. No hacker could watch me now. I carefully brought out the components of my other project. Its utility and performance were, in many ways, superior to the humanoid model. It was a machine designed to operate in complex, hazardous terrains. It was still a prototype, a secret I had never shared with a single soul. Three hours later, the assembly and programming were complete. I stood back, looking at the spider-like robot with a mix of pride and anxiety. I had spent five years developing this machine. Its most unique feature was its structure; it could shift between eighteen different forms to adapt to any environment. There was no way Cole could know about this. Taking a deep breath, I began to upload the data. But just then, my computer froze. The spinning loading icon on the screen filled me with a sickening sense of dread. When the upload finally finished, I frantically checked Cole’s submission. It had changed. It was now an arachnid-like robot. My arachnid-like robot. I scanned the parameters. They were identical to mine, down to the last decimal. And his upload timestamp was exactly one minute before mine. His latest social media post read: There are too many humanoid robots at the competition this year, don’t you think? I decided to enter this arachnid model instead. If you guys like it, maybe I’ll send you all some miniatures… I swept everything off the desk in a blind rage. “How?!” I screamed, my voice raw. “WHY?!” The world was tilting, my mind fraying at the edges. Walt rushed in at the sound of my roar. He saw the arachnid robot in front of me and understood instantly. “Could it be the organizers?” he asked hesitantly. “Did they give him your data?” It was the only rational explanation he could think of. I stood frozen, a dark, suffocating aura clinging to me. There were only two hours left until the deadline. I couldn’t build another robot from scratch. “I’m calling the organizers. Now,” I bit out, pulling out my phone. I saw that Sierra had called me over a hundred times. After finding her number blocked, she’d used someone else’s phone to send me a single text message: Austin, I love you. My love for you is like your shadow. Where you are, I am. When you are gone, I vanish. The words sparked something in my mind, a fleeting thought I couldn’t quite grasp. I shook my head, dismissing it, and dialed the competition hotline, laying out my accusations. 4 The response from the organizer was cold and bureaucratic. “Mr. Kane, this competition is sponsored by the National Science Institute and was founded by two of its most distinguished members.” “It involves universities from across the country. We would never compromise our integrity for a single student. Especially when…” The voice on the other end took on a mocking tone. “Your university isn’t exactly Ivy League; you don’t have the clout to bribe top scientists.” “If you lack the skills, work harder. Don’t resort to baseless accusations.” With that, he hung up. They wouldn't take my calls after that. “Austin! It’s getting worse online,” Walt said, his face pale as he handed me his phone. The screen was a wall of vitriol from Cole’s fanbase. SHAMELESS! Openly plagiarizing and still trying to play the victim! Get out of the competition! Someone on Cole’s team must have been bought off! How else could this copycat steal the latest design so fast? Amidst the hate, Cole posted a calm, reasonable message: “The minds of geniuses often run in parallel. Perhaps Austin and I simply had the same idea. It’s okay. He can have this design. I’ll compete with one of my other robots.” Beneath his post, his fans praised his generosity. That’s our Cole! So gracious, even to a thief! LOL, even if you give him the stolen goods, does he even know how to use them? This is disgusting. Someone should call the cops on this vampire before he gets any more ambitious! I stared at the screen, feeling the blood in my veins turn to ice. Why was this happening? Was I supposed to just give up? Let history repeat itself? No. I refuse. There has to be something I’m missing. In the crucible of my rage, my mind became unnaturally clear. Memories of Cole flashed through my mind like a sped-up film. Before I met him, people had called me a genius, too. But since he arrived, my light had been dimmed. He was always smarter, always one step ahead. Suddenly, an idea ignited in my brain. “Walt,” I asked, my voice low and intense. “Do you believe it’s possible for two people to have identical brainwaves?” Walt looked at me, bewildered. “No way. That’s impossible. Not even identical twins.” “Okay,” I said, pressing on. “If I gave you a robot you were completely familiar with, what’s the absolute minimum time it would take you to assemble a new one from scratch?” Walt considered this carefully. “Austin, I’m not on your level, but I’m no slouch either. With all the parts ready, assembly and debugging… minimum, half a day. At least.” “A robot has too many precision components,” he continued. “It’s not like you can just copy and paste the finished product.” As he spoke, my eyes grew brighter. A grin spread across my face, growing into a wild, unrestrained laugh. “You’re right,” I said, the laughter catching in my throat. “It takes at least half a day. So how could two identical, complex machines appear within a minute of each other?” “It’s not scientifically possible!” I stared at the two robots before me, my eyes gleaming with a terrifying, feverish light. I dragged the arachnid robot over to the industrial gravity hammer in the corner of the lab. My finger hovered over the activation button. “I’ve found your flaw,” I whispered.
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