Chapter 3

03

I stared at my phone screen. Gabriel's fans were coming for me like a pack of wolves.

"Look at this loser. Can't even copy properly anymore, can you?"

"Leo has been obsessed with Gabriel for years. But a rat will always be a rat. You'll never catch up to a god."

I took a deep breath, trying to stay calm. "It's fine. I have another robot. I'll use that one for the entry."

I prepared to lock myself in the lab again. Just then, my phone buzzed. It was Ivy.

I had told her specifically not to call me before the competition.

I stared at her name on the screen with cold eyes and blocked her number immediately.

"I don't believe he can read my mind for this one too," I told Wyatt.

With nothing left to lose, I dragged a heavy crate from the back of the room.

I cut all network connections to the lab. I made sure no hacker could see what I was doing.

I carefully pulled out a spider-like drone. This model was actually more advanced than the humanoid one.

It was designed for search and rescue in extreme environments. It was a prototype I had never shown a soul.

Three hours later, the assembly was complete. I tuned the sensors and checked the legs.

It was a beautiful, terrifying piece of machinery. It could shift into eighteen different forms to navigate any terrain.

There was no way Gabriel Thorne knew about this.

I took a deep breath and started the local upload. Suddenly, the computer lagged. The loading icon spun slowly.

A terrible premonition gripped my chest.

As soon as my upload finished, I checked Gabriel's profile. His entry had changed. It was now a spider-shaped robot.

I scrolled through the specs. Every joint, every sensor, every motor was identical to mine.

And his timestamp was exactly one minute before mine.

"Hey everyone! I realized there are too many humanoids this year. I decided to go with my Hex-Spider design instead. If you guys like it, I might release a hobbyist model soon..."

I watched his video and felt a roar of fury. I swept everything off my desk in a blind rage.

"How? How is this happening?" I screamed.

I was on the verge of a total mental breakdown. Wyatt ran back in and saw the spider-bot on the floor. He understood instantly.

"Is it the committee? Are they giving him your files in real-time?" he asked.

I stood there, surrounded by a dark, suffocating energy.

There were only two hours left until the final submission deadline. It was impossible to build a third robot.

"I'm calling the organizers," I hissed.

I reached for my phone and saw a hundred missed calls from Ivy. Since I blocked her, she had used someone else's phone to send a text:

"Leo, I love you. My love for you is like a shadow."

"Where you go, I go. If you vanish, I cease to exist."

Something clicked in my brain. A memory flashed by, but I couldn't quite catch it.

I shook my head and dialed the competition hotline. I demanded an explanation.