Three days later, he submitted his thesis: a machine learning model for early detection of neurodegenerative diseases. His advisor called it “a leap forward.” His department nominated it for a national award. Marcus felt the glow of recognition warm his chest.

He reached for the power button. But his fingers, without his permission, were already typing Y .

Marcus finally understood. The crack wasn’t a patch. It was a backdoor—not into Visual Studio, but into him . Every line of code he had written since the installation had been copied, analyzed, and repurposed. His neural network architecture was no longer his. Somewhere, a shadow version of his thesis was being submitted under another name, in another time zone, by a user who had never written a line of C++ in their life.

Not compilation errors— existence errors. His code ran perfectly, but his reflection in the bathroom mirror arrived half a second late. His coffee mug would be beside his keyboard, then on the floor, then back in his hand, as if time had hiccupped. At night, he heard keystrokes coming from his laptop after he had closed the lid.