Chapter 1

With grad school entrance exams (GRE) looming, everyone was stressed out of their minds when Preston Lewis, the class heartthrob, announced that he'd secured a spot that let him skip the written exam entirely. He even promised he could get the same deal for everyone else.

The whole class erupted in cheers and immediately launched into an excited debate over which universities they should choose.

But something didn't seem right to me. I moved closer for a look and saw that the screen Preston was showing everyone was just an AI chatbot, Novi.

I tried to warn them that Novi was only a chatbot, but my girlfriend, Carly Monroe, shoved me before I could finish.

"Anders, you're just mad because you've been studying from morning till night while the rest of us haven't worked as hard. You think we don't deserve to get into grad school with you.

"Wouldn't it be great if we could go to grad school together? Or are you seriously the kind of boyfriend who can't stand seeing his girlfriend succeed?"

Kendra Walsh, our class president, immediately chimed in, "You're just jealous Preston has connections. It makes all those days and nights you spent studying look like a joke. There's no place in this class for someone as bitter as you!"

Their words set the entire class off. Everyone started demanding that I be kicked out of the class group chat and that they didn't want me around anymore.

They sneered that if I thought I was so capable, I could take the entrance exams on my own instead of relying on them.

I could only shake my head.

I was capable. I'd already been admitted to grad school.

What the hell did I need them for?

Chapter 1

Looking at Carly Monroe's face, flushed with excitement, I rolled my eyes inwardly.

What none of them knew was that I'd ranked first in my major for three years straight and won every national scholarship available to me. Back in September, I'd already made it through multiple rounds of selection for a competitive summer program and received direct admission to graduate school at Hawthorne University, one of the country's top schools.

The only reason I still spent every day at the library was to help my advisor review research from leading academic journals ahead of time—and, while I was there, help Carly study when she hadn't even managed to make sense of the GRE syllabus.

"Fine. I can't stand seeing any of you succeed." I looked calmly at Carly, completely unfazed. "If you really think AI can get you guaranteed admission to a top university, then take your time discussing it. I'll leave you to it."

I turned toward my seat and began leisurely packing my bag.

"Stop! Who said you could leave?" Preston strutted over and slapped a hand down on my book.

His expensive cologne hit me before his condescending expression did. "Anders Dawson, if you apologize to me in front of the whole class right now and admit you're just bitter because you're jealous, I'll be generous and let this go. When I secure everyone's spots, I'll even get you one at Hawthorne University. How does that sound?"

"Yeah! Hurry up and apologize to Preston!"

"Preston's way too nice. Even after all this, he's still willing to help Anders!"

"Anders, don't push your luck! You won't get another chance like this!"

Carly came over too and grabbed my arm. She lowered her voice, speaking as though she were doing me a huge favor.

"Anders, stop being so stubborn. Preston has this once-in-a-lifetime access to such an amazing opportunity. Just apologize and back down a little. Then the two of us can go to grad school together at the same university. Isn't that a thousand times better than staying up every night studying?"

I shook Carly's hand off in disgust and looked at her like she was trash.

"No, thanks. Your miraculous shortcut is way out of my league. I hope everyone in the class gets accepted without a hitch."

With that, I zipped up my backpack and headed for the study room door without looking back.

Behind me, Kendra, the class president, shouted furiously, "Girls! Someone as toxic as Anders doesn't deserve to be in our class! I say we kick him out of the class group chat right now!"

"Agreed! Kick him out!"

"Let him take the exams all by himself! Next year, when we're all holding acceptance letters from top universities, we'll see how hard he cries!"

I'd barely stepped through the door when my phone vibrated several times in a row.

[You have been removed by the group admin from "Class of 2027 – Group 3".]

For a second, I was so speechless I actually laughed.

Chapter 2

From that day on, the entire class started shutting me out.

Honestly, being ostracized by all of them made my life more peaceful than ever.

Carly no longer pestered me every day to help her with calculus, and I didn't have to deal with all the pointless check-in chains flooding the class group chat.

I went to the lab every day as usual to help my advisor with his research projects. Whenever I had free time, I'd head downtown to an upscale cafe for afternoon coffee. Life couldn't have been more relaxing.

Even though I'd been kicked out of the class group chat, my best friend, Finn Varley, was still in the loop and sent me screenshots of their ridiculous antics every day so we could laugh about them.

[Finn: Anders, look at this! The class has completely lost it! Preston used Novi to get GRE waivers for all 45 of them and supposedly guaranteed everyone an interview at Hawthorne. Now they're planning to go there for grad school as one big happy class. I'm dying!]

I opened the screenshot Finn had sent me.

It was a photo dump Preston had shared on social media. There was a screenshot of his conversation with Novi.

Preston: [Please enter all 45 students in my cohort into Hawthorne University's graduate admissions system and waive our GRE requirement so we can go straight to admissions interviews next spring.]

Novi: [Dear user, your request has been accepted. This system has successfully accessed Hawthorne University's internal graduate admissions system. GRE waivers have been approved for all 45 students, and your interview spots are guaranteed. Please wait for your interview invitations next March. In the event of any problems, our company promises to compensate each student $1.4 million for emotional distress.]

I burst out laughing.

There was no need to wait until they were old and gullible. They were already the perfect customers for every miracle supplement scam out there.

A chatbot promised them $1.4 million, and they actually believed it? Why didn't they just ask Novi to wire them the money while they were at it?

Under Preston's post, comments from our classmates had already formed a long thread.

Carly: [Thank you, Preston! You're the best! I already tore up all my GRE prep books! Finally, no more waking up early!]

Kendra: [With $1.4 million guaranteed if anything goes wrong, we literally can't lose! Girls, we're pulling an all-nighter at the gaming cafe tonight to celebrate getting into grad school early!]

Preston replied to Carly: [Hey, we're all classmates. It's no big deal. By the way, Carly, your boyfriend Anders seriously doesn't know what's good for him. Don't let him drag you down.]

Carly replied to Preston: [Don't even mention him. He ruins my mood. I'm already planning to break up with him. All he knows how to do is bury his head in books. Someone like him doesn't deserve a girl who's about to attend Hawthorne University for grad school.]

Reading Carly's reply made my stomach turn. How blind had I been to ever fall for someone so stupid, nasty, and ridiculously full of herself?

Sure enough, Carly texted me that very night.

[Anders, we should break up.]

[Everyone in the class has already secured GRE waivers and guaranteed interviews. You're the only one still stupidly studying.]

[We're not in the same world anymore. Once I start grad school at Hawthorne University next year, I'll be surrounded by people in elite academic circles, while you'll probably fail to get into even a decent school. It's better if we end things now instead of holding each other back.]

I stared at those smug messages and couldn't even summon the desire to type out an insult.

I replied simply: [Get lost.]

Then I blocked her and deleted her contact without a second thought.

Chapter 3

The next day, my classmates' insane behavior shocked the entire college.

Led by Kendra, they hauled mountains of GRE prep books, practice exams, and even textbooks from all four years of college down to the dumpsters outside the dorms.

Dozens of them crowded around a dumpster, set the books on fire, and burned every last one.

"Burn them! Burn all of it! We're practically grad students already. What do we need this garbage for?"

"Hahaha! Let the idiots still suffering in the library keep studying! This is what it's like to be part of the privileged class!"

Carly stood right at the front, holding up a thick GRE prep book before hurling it into the flames. "Starting today, I'm never reading this crap again! Hawthorne University, here I come!"

I stood beneath the trees a short distance away, silently watching the absurd spectacle.

Then I took out my phone, switched to high-resolution video, and recorded every second of them burning their books, celebrating, and shouting. I saved the footage in a folder called "People Being Idiots."

As the deadline for submitting GRE scores drew closer, the class's bullying and ostracism of me reached their peak.

To them, the fact that I still carried my backpack to the library every day and showed up early to claim a study spot was practically an insult to their newfound privileged status.

Because I hadn't bought into their AI admissions scheme, they saw me as a ticking time bomb who might report them to the academic advisor at any moment.

So they stepped up their harassment.

Whenever I ate at the cafeteria, the moment I sat down, Kendra would swagger over with a few other girls and deliberately splash sauce from their food onto my plate.

"Well, look who it is. Anders Dawson, the only genius in our class who still has to take the GRE." Kendra's voice dripped with sarcasm. "What, still studying those practice tests? What's the point? You could study all you want, and it still wouldn't beat Preston getting our requirements waived with a few words."

Carly came over too, her arm linked through Preston's as she looked down at me. In just a few short months, she'd completely turned into Preston's little follower.

"It's too late for regrets now, Anders. Preston said all our GRE waivers have already been approved. Even if you got down on your knees and begged him, he wouldn't add your name."

Preston gave a smug laugh. "Come on, Carly, don't say that. Anders wants to get in the old-fashioned way. If he gets lucky and manages to get into some no-name school, then as future grad students at Hawthorne University, we should be gracious enough to congratulate him."

The students around them immediately burst into laughter.

I looked at them coldly and quietly switched on the voice recorder in my pocket.

"Kendra, Carly, what you're doing is harassment. I suggest you stop while you're ahead." My voice remained calm, without a trace of the anger or breakdown they were hoping to see.

"Harassment? Hahahaha! Go ahead and report us!" Kendra slapped the table arrogantly. "All 45 of us are future grad students at Hawthorne University. We're going to be elites in every field! The school will be bending over backward to protect us. You really think they're going to care about some loser who can't even get into grad school?"

And they didn't stop at verbal abuse. They even started spreading disgusting rumors about me on the campus forum.

A post titled [Exposing the Truth About a Certain Senior Applying to Grad School] shot to the top of the campus forum.

It didn't name me outright, but every detail pointed directly to me.

The poster fabricated an entire story claiming I'd shown up at my advisor's house in the middle of the night to beg him to pull strings and get me into Hawthorne, only to be thrown out.

They also claimed I'd become so twisted with jealousy over everyone else's supposed guaranteed admission that I spent every day in my dorm obsessively cursing them.

The comments underneath were full of anonymous posts from my classmates, piling on with insults and calling me a desperate suck-up, a jealous loser, and a psycho.

Finn was so furious he was trembling. He grabbed me, insisting we go straight to the academic advisor or report them to the university.

"Anders, they've gone way too far! They're trying to destroy your reputation! How can you just sit there?" Finn's eyes were red with anger.

I leisurely took a sip of my latte and opened my laptop. Then I saved every defamatory comment from the post, the poster's IP address, and all the audio and video recordings I'd collected over the past few months of them mocking and insulting me. I carefully sorted everything into an encrypted folder titled "My Classmates Digging Their Own Graves."

"Don't worry, Finn."

I looked at the vicious insults on the screen, a cold smile tugging at the corner of my mouth.

"If we report them now, the worst they'll have to do is delete the post and apologize. That's barely a punishment at all. And something that minor hardly seems worthy of the 'bright future' they have waiting for them, does it?"

Chapter 4

Soon enough, the GRE score deadline arrived. Applicants were scrambling to get their scores in before the deadline.

Meanwhile, everyone else in my class was completely unconcerned. Not one of the other 45 students had even taken the GRE.

Instead, they celebrated in the class group chat.

Kendra: [People are seriously freaking out over GRE scores right now. Meanwhile, I'm lying in bed gaming. This is the life!]

Preston: [Everyone, relax and get some sleep. Novi just confirmed again that our GRE waivers are approved and our spots are secured. All we have to do is wait for our interview invitations in March!]

Carly: [Preston is the best! I just saw Anders leave with his backpack. Guess he's still wasting his time studying. I'm dying.]

I had indeed left with my backpack.

But I wasn't studying for the GRE. I was going to my advisor's office to help organize materials for a federally funded research project I'd be working on the following semester.

I looked over the screenshots I'd taken from their class group chat using an alternate account and shook my head.

Time flew as the entire class partied their lives away, and before long, March of the following year arrived. Spring was in the air.

By March, graduate programs across the country were deep into admissions season. Applicants who'd made it through the initial screening were receiving invitations for interviews and other final-round assessments.

That spring, the 45 self-proclaimed future grad students in my class reached the height of their excitement.

To prepare for the admissions interviews they were convinced had been guaranteed, Preston organized a group trip downtown, where everyone ordered cheap, poorly made black suits.

The guys wore crooked ties, while the girls paired tight skirts with high heels. Every day, the whole group gathered outside the dorms, taking endless selfies and posting them online, showing off as if they were already part of the academic elite.

Kendra: [Hawthorne interview tomorrow! The second I put on this suit, I feel like I'm already some Wall Street executive making seven figures a year. [Sunglasses]]

Preston: [Novi has already taken care of everything for us. Tomorrow's interview is just a formality, so everyone can relax and chat. Don't be nervous!]

Carly: [Thank you, Preston, for taking me to the next level! After our interviews tomorrow, our whole class is booking out a five-star hotel to celebrate!]

Everyone else in our year stared at them like they'd lost their minds. They all knew none of the 45 had even taken the GRE, yet somehow they were convinced they had interviews waiting for them.

Our academic advisor had tried talking to Kendra and Preston once, asking what exactly they thought they were doing. Kendra had simply shot back, "You wouldn't understand. These are connections way above your level."

The advisor stormed out, furious, and refused to have anything to do with the entire group.

As for me, that same afternoon, while they were frantically trying on their suits, I calmly signed for the formal acceptance package from Hawthorne University's graduate program. Hawthorne's distinguished crest was embossed in gold on the cover.

I took a photo of the letter and sent it to my parents back home, then carefully locked it away in my drawer.

Early the next morning, all 45 of my classmates piled onto a chartered bus in their cheap suits that made them look like a bunch of real estate agents and headed straight for Hawthorne University.

I asked Emily Wren, someone I knew who was already in grad school at Hawthorne, to video call me. I wasn't about to miss the show.