Chapter 2

The spotlights swung toward the entrance. Julian Mercer walked in, dressed in a sharp, tailored suit.

He held a USB drive in his hand, stepping onto the stage with a calm, steady stride.

My breath hitched for a second.

Only two months ago, this was the man who had looked at me with warmth in his eyes, asking me to give him a chance.

He had said he adored my mind. He had said we were a match made in heaven.

Now, his eyes swept over me as if I were a complete stranger.

"Julian,"

Serena ran to him, grabbing his arm, her voice shaking. "You're finally here... tell them. Tell them the truth!"

Julian gently patted her arm, then plugged his USB drive into the console.

A folder popped up on the giant screen, labeled Brain-Computer Interface Algorithm - Draft 1.

"This is Dr. Vance's original draft from three months ago."

He double-clicked the file, and rows of dense code scrolled down the screen. "And this..."

He opened a second folder. The metadata showed it was created two and a half months ago, under the author name Chloe Sterling.

A collective gasp echoed through the room.

The timestamps seemed to tell a clear story—my version was created after Serena’s draft.

"Furthermore," Julian’s voice echoed clearly through the speakers, "Dr. Sterling's methods of obtaining this data were highly unethical."

He brought up the chat logs. It was the exact same fake conversation I had seen earlier.

The uproar in the hall reached a fever pitch.

I gripped the edge of the podium so hard my knuckles turned white. "These logs are fabricated. My actual chat history with Julian can prove—"

"Of course it can prove it,"

Julian interrupted me, finally looking at me. His eyes held a complex, unreadable emotion. "Because I brought the complete, unedited history."

A new set of chat logs filled the screen.

Those were indeed real conversations between Julian and me—but they had been meticulously edited, cut, and pasted together out of context to paint a completely different picture.

How long had he been planning this? From the very moment we started dating?

"Just last night,"

Julian’s voice took on a tone of deep disappointment, "Dr. Sterling begged me to help her patch a critical bug in the algorithm. I refused her, because I realized this was a case of stolen intellectual property..."

Lies. All of it.

We hadn't even met last night.

The last message he had sent me was "Good luck at the awards tomorrow, babe," followed by a heart emoji.

I took a sharp step forward, grabbing the master mouse from the podium. "Since you brought up the algorithm's bug, why don't we run a live demo right now?"

Serena’s expression faltered. "What kind of trick are you trying to play?"

I ignored her, pulling up the code compiler on the screen. "This is Dr. Vance's supposed 'original draft,' correct?"

Under the watchful eyes of hundreds of scholars, I inputted a standard set of test data.

An error popped up instantly.

"A classic memory leak error,"

I commented calmly, highlighting the line of code. "This issue has existed in her version since three and a half months ago."

Then, I pulled up my own code and ran the exact same dataset.

It compiled flawlessly in seconds.

"The way I solved this leak," I pointed to a specific module, "utilizes an entirely different architectural logic from Dr. Vance’s."

The hall gradually quieted down. The scholars in the audience began leaning forward, studying the technical details on the screen.

"That doesn't prove anything!"

Serena said quickly, panic creeping into her voice. "You could have easily optimized the code after you stole it from me!"

"Then explain this."

With a swift click, I brought up the Git version control repository.

"My very first commit was uploaded four months ago. Dr. Vance's first commit, however, was registered three months ago."

A dead silence fell over the room.

The timestamp on a secure, decentralized Git repository could not be forged.

Serena’s face drained of all color.

Julian finally spoke, his voice dropping. "Chloe, don't do this..."

I turned to look at him, letting my voice shake just a fraction.

"Don't do what, Julian? Don't expose the fact that you tried to hack and manipulate the Git logs?"

Under the harsh stage lights, sweat began to bead on Julian’s forehead.

Right then, my phone vibrated in my pocket.

Seeing the name on the screen, I paused. Then, I took a deep breath and routed the call directly through the stage’s audio system.

A deep, authoritative voice boomed through the speakers:

"This is Professor Kaufman from MIT.”

“ I apologize for interrupting the summit in this manner, but I must state on the record—Dr. Chloe Sterling shared the core architecture of this algorithm with my lab over six months ago."

You could have heard a pin drop.

Professor Kaufman continued, "As for Associate Professor Julian Mercer... the 'original algorithm' you tried to license to me a month ago had a 98% similarity to the draft Chloe shared with me. Care to explain that?"

The live-stream camera whipped around, locking onto Julian's face.

On the massive broadcast screen, every ounce of blood drained from his features.

Looking at this man whom I had once cared for, I felt nothing but a profound, exhausting emptiness.