Professor Robert complained that I never spoke up in class, unlike Bella from the other group who was so charming and well-liked. To force me, he set a rule: every group meeting presentation had to exceed eighty decibels, or he wouldn't sign off on my thesis. At the first group meeting, I read my report loudly. He complained my voice was shaking and gave my data to Bella. At the second group meeting, I ate throat lozenges beforehand. I raised my voice to debate with Bella and even slammed the table. After finally outshining Bella, Robert threw my paper in the trash. "No manners at all, like a shrew," he said coldly, looking at me. "Delayed graduation by one year. Go reflect on yourself." I survived by applying phone screen protectors under the overpass to make a living. At the third group meeting, I said nothing. I just played a silent surveillance video on the projector. The room fell completely silent, because the footage showed Robert and Bella having sex. "Turn it off." Robert's voice was quieter than the hum of the air conditioner. Nobody moved. On the projection screen, he had Bella pressed against the office desk edge, his right hand reaching under her lab coat. Bella's neck was tilted back, her mouth half open as if panting, but the footage had no sound. Twelve people sat in the meeting room, twelve pairs of eyes fixed on the screen. "I said, turn it off." His leather shoes hit the floor, one step at a time, slow and steady. I didn't move. He walked to the projector and unplugged the data cable. My senior Wood kept his head down. My senior Sophie was looking at her phone. Bella sat in the first row, her fingers twisting her skirt hem. Robert turned around. "AI-generated," he said. "You all should be able to tell." Nobody responded. He looked at me. "Fiona, where did you get this?" "Library Building B corridor surveillance, October 17th, 9:13 PM." "Who authorized you to access surveillance footage?" I didn't answer. He smiled. "Unauthorized access, fabricating videos, publicly showing them in an academic setting," he said. "Fiona, that's called defamation." He took out his phone and dialed in front of everyone. "Yusuf? A student played an AI-generated pornographic video at a group meeting, defaming a faculty member." Bella started crying then. "Robert," she said, "if this video gets out, how can I show my face again?" "Don't worry." Robert patted her shoulder. "Fake things can't stand up to investigation." Two security guards arrived. Robert pointed at the items on my desk: "Take the USB drive and laptop. They're evidence." "Those are mine." "These are your tools of crime." He pocketed the USB drive. The guard came over and reached for my laptop. I took one last look at those students with their heads down. "Wood." His shoulders twitched, but he didn't look up. "Sophie." She pretended to organize her notes. The guard tugged my arm: "Student, let's go." I stood up. As I reached the door, Bella's voice drifted over. "Fiona, I don't know why you hate me so much. But doing this only hurts yourself." I looked back at her, then left. First floor of the administration building, an office without windows. The guard told me to sit and wait. I waited four hours. I went to the bathroom once—the female guard followed me in. At eleven PM, the door opened. A man sat down, his badge reading "Student Affairs Yusuf." He opened a folder. "Fiona, do you understand what your actions today mean?" "What do they mean?" "Illegally obtaining surveillance footage, publicly showing a suspected fabricated indecent video, defaming your advisor. Any one of these is enough for disciplinary action." "That video is real." "The technical department has completed a preliminary assessment." He flipped through the file. "Conclusion: shows signs of AI synthesis, deep fake cannot be ruled out." "They finished the assessment in ten hours?" "Professional team. High efficiency." I stared at him: "Have you personally watched that video?" He didn't engage. "Sign a statement." He pushed a paper toward me. "Admit to an operational error, that you played the wrong file. The school will handle it leniently—a reprimand on record, but not in your permanent file." I looked down at the paper. The main text was already typed out for me—admitting that due to emotional distress, I mistakenly played an AI-generated video at the group meeting, causing damage to Professor Robert's and Bella's reputations, and expressing deep apology. A blank space at the bottom awaited my signature. "What if I don't sign?" "We'll go through formal procedures. The Academic Committee will get involved. As for the outcome—I can't control that." I stood up and walked to the door. "Fiona." He called out to me, seeming to hesitate. "Do you have any other backups?"
"After investigation, graduate student Fiona, during the group meeting on October 23, 2024, obtained campus surveillance footage without authorization and publicly displayed a suspected AI-fabricated indecent video in an academic setting, severely damaging the reputations of Professor Robert and Bella—effective immediately, her enrollment is suspended pending further action." The hearing lasted less than forty minutes. I sat at one end of the long table, facing five people—two department administrators, two Academic Committee professors, plus Yusuf. Robert didn't come. Bella did. "Starting in September, Fiona kept sending me Twitter messages." Her voice was small. "At first it was just about the research project, but later it got more and more..." She handed her phone to Yusuf. On the screen, a string of chat messages: "Why did you take my data?" "Do you think Robert really values you?" "I have dirt on you. You'd better know your place." "I never sent those." "The records are all here." Yusuf passed the phone to the committee for review. "Chat records can be faked." "You also said the surveillance was real." Bella lowered her head to wipe tears. "But the technical assessment says it's fake." Dean Fisher, sitting in the middle, took off his glasses. "Fiona, I understand you have grievances with Robert, but no matter how big the grievances, you shouldn't use this method. Professor Robert is a specially-appointed backbone of the department. His academic reputation relates to the development of the entire discipline." "So whatever he did doesn't matter?" "If you have concerns, you can report them through proper channels." He put his glasses back on. "Rather than using this... extreme method." After the hearing ended, Yusuf handed over a stack of documents. Enrollment suspended. Lab access revoked. Email frozen. Move out of dorms within three days. "What about my experimental data? The stuff on the server." "Research outputs produced using lab resources belong to the project team. Your access has been terminated." "I did that work." "We go by the rules." I went back to the dorm to pack. When I was moving the last load, Sophie was leaning against the hallway wall. "Robert held a group meeting after you left." She said quietly. "He made us sign a joint statement—everyone present confirmed unanimously that when the video played, the image was blurry and the content was unidentifiable." "Did you sign?" She wouldn't look at me. "Everyone signed." I carried my suitcase out. "Fiona." She called from behind. "Yeah." "Why didn't you sign that statement? If you'd signed, at least you could have stayed." "Because it was real." She was silent for a few seconds. "But nobody cares whether it's real or not." That night I dragged my luggage to the underpass. The screen protector stall was still there, the folding table and plastic stools stacked in the corner. I set them up and arranged my tools. My phone lit up. Mom's number. "Fiona, the school called home. Are you causing trouble at school?" "It's not causing trouble—" "They said you defamed a teacher! Are you crazy? That's your advisor!" "Mom, just listen to me first—" "You talk! Your father and I supported you through graduate school, and this is how you repay us?" "That Robert, he—" "What Robert! If your teacher has issues with you, just improve! You pick fights with people! What if you get expelled? How will we show our faces?" "I haven't been expelled." "The way you're going, it's only a matter of time! Apologize to your teacher right now, you hear? Apologize, write a self-criticism, whatever—just settle this!" "Mom, in that video—" "I don't care about any video! Apologize!" The call ended. I crouched under the overpass, watching the car lights stretch into long streaks of light on the road surface. My first customer was a middle-aged man wearing a safety helmet. His phone screen had a crack. "How much for a screen protector?" "Ten bucks." "Cheap. I'll take one."
"That semantic segmentation paper of yours—Robert published it." Wood sent a Twitter message with a link attached. I clicked it. "Research on Semantic Segmentation Algorithms Based on Multimodal Feature Fusion." First author: Bella. Second author: Robert. Corresponding author: Robert. My name wasn't on it. My phone vibrated again. Wood's message: "What are you going to do?" I didn't reply. After applying the protector, I collected ten dollars. That evening I opened the school's Academic Integrity Committee reporting portal, attached all my original code records and local version logs, and spent two hours writing a complete report. Three days later, an auto-reply: Your report has been received and will be forwarded to the relevant department for processing. Five more days passed. No news. I called the Academic Integrity Committee. "Case number JB20241028-007." "Please hold—this case has been transferred to the department for handling." "Which department?" "Your department. School of Information Engineering. The department Academic Committee is responsible." Academic Committee Chair: Fisher. I closed the webpage. After nine PM, business slowed down. Bella appeared in front of me: "Long time no see. You here to get a screen protector?" She smiled slightly, took an envelope from her bag and placed it on the folding table. "Robert asked me to deliver this." A settlement agreement. Party A: Robert. Party B: Fiona. Content: Party B admits to playing an AI-generated fake video due to emotional distress, causing serious reputational damage to Party A and Bella. Party B voluntarily withdraws all complaints and will apologize publicly. Compensation: Party A will pay Party B $50,000 in emotional distress compensation and assist in connecting with advisors at other schools. "Fifty thousand?" "Not bad." She tilted her head. "How much do you make applying screen protectors in a day? A hundred? Two hundred? Fifty thousand is enough for half a year's work." "You're listed as first author." She blinked. "Project team results—Robert has the right to assign authorship." "I wrote the code. I ran the data." "You used the project team's resources. The output belongs to the project team." She stood up and brushed dust off her knees. "You don't have enrollment status anymore. Even if your name were on the paper, what use would it be to you?" She pulled out her phone from her bag, found a photo and held it in front of me. A lawyer's letter. "Pursue criminal liability" was written clearly. "Fiona, what have you gained from all this fighting?" She bent down, her voice as soft as if comforting someone. "Disciplinary action, suspension, sleeping under an overpass. What's the point?" I looked at her face. "What's the point for you?" Her smile froze for a moment. "You and him—what did you get? Authorship? Publication opportunities? Something else?" "You—" "You know you're not the first, right." This was a bluff. But her pupils contracted slightly, clearly visible under the streetlight. Her lips moved, but she finally retracted all expression. "Sign within three days, or the lawyer's letter goes to your family." Her high heels clicked away. I folded the agreement and stuffed it in the bottom of my toolbox. My phone lit up. An unsaved number. "Are you the one who played surveillance footage at a group meeting?" "Who are you?" The other side typed for a long time. "My name is Chloe. Five years ago, Robert was my advisor too."
"I shouldn't have come to find you." Chloe sat on the plastic stool, holding a cup of Coke without drinking. Short hair, a gray hoodie washed until faded, six or seven years older than me. "How did you find me?" "It spread on the school forum. The posts got deleted several times, but screenshots are still circulating. Someone posted your screen protector location in the comments." "Why did you come?" "Because when I saw your name—I just knew." She finally took a sip of Coke. "Exactly like what happened to me." "Exactly like what?" "That video is real, isn't it?" I didn't say anything. "You don't need to answer." She smiled bitterly. "Five years ago he did the same thing to me. I was in my third year of grad school, halfway through my thesis, when he brought in a female student. Very obedient, very compliant. Later my data was given to her. I went to confront him, and he said I wasn't capable enough." "Then what?" "Delayed graduation for two years. The second year he made me switch to an unpopular research direction nobody wanted, starting from scratch. I couldn't hold out anymore. I dropped out." "Did you report him?" "Went through all the school channels—nothing. Wrote to the Department of Education—not even a response." "Why?" "No evidence." She put down the cup. "No surveillance, no recordings, just empty words." I pulled out my phone and checked the cloud drive. The folder was empty. The operation log showed—last Friday at 3:17 AM, someone logged into my account remotely and deleted all backups. The login device was a desktop computer. The lab computer. "They've blocked all your escape routes." Chloe's voice was soft. "Why did you come find me?" "Because I've regretted it for five years." She said. "If someone had stood with me back then, maybe the outcome would have been different." She stood up and placed the unfinished Coke on the table. "If you still want to fight this battle, contact me anytime." She left. Traffic on the overpass gradually thinned. I sat on the stool and started packing up my tools. I found an old phone at the very bottom of the toolbox. A beam of headlights swept over. A black Ford stopped across the street, engine still running. The driver's window rolled down. He got out, crossed the street, and asked me: "How's business?" "How did you know I was here?" "One of your customers is my student." He sat with his legs crossed. "That thing Bella gave you—did you sign it?" "No." "Fiona, I've taught for twenty years. Smart students take the money and leave. The not-so-smart ones—" His gaze swept over the old phone by my hand. "You be careful." He stood up and brushed off his pants. "The lawyer's letter goes out the day after tomorrow. Defamation charge plus civil compensation—guess the amount?" He bent down, his face coming close, the streetlight casting his shadow over me from behind. Then he drove away. I looked down at the old phone. Found Chloe's number and sent a message. "You said you regretted it for five years. If you could do it over, would you dare?" Two minutes later she replied. "You have a plan?" "I do."
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