After leaving the lab, I opened Felicity's Facebook, eagerly awaiting her updates. Sure enough, her coded images revealed that her data mirrored mine, including the inaccuracies I had introduced. I was left speechless. How could this be happening? Was my computer compromised? The only explanation seemed to be that she had implanted a virus to access my work.
Without a moment’s hesitation, I rushed to a repair shop to fix my computer and stocked up on a hefty stack of paper. This time, I decided to go old school—no electronics. I meticulously transcribed all my experimental data and results by hand. Even if Felicity somehow found a way to track my work, she wouldn’t be able to replicate my handwritten notes.
Over the next three days and nights, I poured every ounce of energy into perfecting my paper, accelerating my experiments and correcting any errors. I was almost at the finish line; the only thing left to do was run a plagiarism check.