Slap the Chairman’s Son Chapter 1

I was the star recruit, the prodigy the university had paid a fortune to poach.

In my last life, during the final round of the National AI Championship, the son of the university’s Chairman of the Board submitted an algorithm identical to mine.

My own teammate, my supposed best friend, testified that he personally saw me plagiarize it from the chairman’s son.

I was publicly shamed, dragged through the mud. My girlfriend was my only solace, her comfort the only thing that kept me going.

The scandal was just starting to die down when compromising photos of me surfaced online.

The story spun was that I’d only been accepted into this prestigious university because I was a sugar baby for some rich old man. The university, citing damage to its reputation, sued me for an exorbitant amount in damages.

I had no way to pay. In the end, I turned on the gas and let the darkness take me.

When I opened my eyes, I was back. One week before the competition deadline. This time, I decided to just quit. Let them have it. But then my girlfriend told me she had a kidney disease and desperately needed money for a transplant.

* * *

“Joey, you’re exhausted. Don’t sleep at your desk, you’ll catch a cold.”

My best friend’s voice woke me. For a disoriented moment, I saw him—Bob, the snake who’d sold me out.

I rubbed my eyes. It was really him.

I swung my arm in a wide arc and slapped him across the face. A sharp crack echoed in the lab, followed by a high-pitched yelp.

“Agh!”

Bob stared at me, his eyes wide with disbelief. I was just as shocked. In my nightmares, I’d done this a thousand times, but my hand had always passed right through him. This time, it connected.

I slowly became aware that the low hum of the lab had fallen silent. I looked around. Everyone was staring at us.

What was going on? “Where am I?”

Bob clutched his cheek, looking utterly bewildered. “Joey, are you still asleep or something? We’re in the lab!”

My eyes shot to the calendar on the wall. September 1st. One week until the competition deadline.

Of course. No wonder Bob was so surprised. He hadn’t stolen my code for Jack Thorne, the chairman’s son, yet.

I scrambled to apologize. “Bob, man, I’m so sorry. I was out of it, must have been a bad dream.”

Bob patted my shoulder, forcing a smile. “It’s fine, dude. I know you’ve been under a lot of pressure. It’ll all be over after the competition. I’m counting on you to win so you can buy me dinner!”

I nodded along. “Yeah, the pressure’s been getting to me. Headaches all the time. I think I’m just going to go home and get some real sleep.”

Ignoring Bob’s stunned expression, I packed my things and walked out.

Without the betrayal of my past life, I never would have realized he wasn’t my friend. He was my warden. He wasn't waking me up out of concern; he was waking me up to make sure I kept working, to make sure Jack Thorne would have a winning project to steal.

In my previous life, the university had poached me with a ten-million-dollar scholarship, personally offered by Chairman Thorne. At first, I thought they just wanted a poster boy to attract more students. I never imagined I was being drawn into a massive conspiracy.

To justify that scholarship, I entered every competition I could. And in every single one, my scores were identical to Jack Thorne’s.

Slowly, Jack’s popularity eclipsed mine. He was hailed as the handsome, charming genius, the full package. I was just the book-smart scholarship kid who was trying too hard. The poor can’t produce real genius, they’d whisper.

I became obsessed with proving myself. I entered more competitions, worked harder, but no matter what I did, Jack’s results always matched mine perfectly.

The other students started to mock me. "He looks so ugly when he's trying so hard to win," they'd say. "Jack doesn't even have to try." Some even started a rumor that Jack was intentionally matching my scores out of pity.

Jack would then put on a show of magnanimity. "Hey, don't talk about Joey like that," he'd say with a pained look. "He's not as gifted, maybe, but he really does try his best."

This only made them praise Jack’s generosity and mock my supposed lack of talent even more.

As graduation neared, I taught myself AI, figuring it was a field so new that Jack couldn't possibly follow me into it.

He signed up for the same championship. I remember Bob sighing dramatically, "It's like there's only room for one genius in this town."

Before the competition even began, the whispers started again. "Think you can beat our golden boy by taking a different path? Looks like you walked right into his territory."

"I don't get why Chairman Thorne wasted so much money on that guy. He's so desperate to win. He should’ve just given the ten million to his own son."

Their words were like fuel. I pushed myself harder, pulling all-nighters, fueled by coffee and spite.

The competition had multiple tracks. I chose iris recognition, a niche and difficult field of biometric security. I never, ever imagined Jack would choose the exact same one.

He submitted his code the day before I did. After I uploaded mine, I went home and slept for a full day and night.

I woke up to find my world had ended. I was being crucified online. I was an ungrateful leech, they said, who took the Chairman's money and then stole his son's work.

Bob and I had been inseparable during the entire development process. He was the one person who could prove my innocence.

Instead, he went to the media, his face a mask of righteous indignation. "I told him not to do it," he said, shaking his head sadly. "I warned him, but he was just so obsessed with beating Jack for once. I tried to stop him!"

The truth hit me like a physical blow. He had been my shadow for months, watching every line of code I wrote. He was the leak.

The baseless accusations from strangers were one thing, but the betrayal from my closest friend broke me.

I fell into a deep depression. My girlfriend, Nina, was my rock, patiently pulling me back from the edge.

But just as I was starting to recover, Jack’s fanatical supporters released the final blow: doctored photos of me in a compromising position with a bald, older man. I tried to explain that they were AI-generated deepfakes, but no one believed me.

The narrative was set. I had slept my way into the university. The school sued me for twenty million dollars for defamation. I had nothing. My only way out was the gas stove.

But now, fate has given me a second chance. And I refuse to be Jack Thorne's stepping stone ever again. My plan is simple: tomorrow, I'm quitting the competition and just coasting until graduation.