The Data Trap

When I opened my eyes again, I found myself back in my first year of grad school.

Before me, Eddie was standing in the stairwell, his eyes red-rimmed, clutching the overdue tuition notice that made him so distraught. He was crouched in the corner of the landing, his shoulders shaking uncontrollably, the notice crumpled and smoothed out repeatedly in his hand.

I stood before him, two hundred dollars in cash fresh from the bank in my pocket, as memories from my previous life flooded back. Back then, I'd shoved the money into his hand without a second thought. But he later stole my experimental data, published a paper identical to my own research with himself as the primary author, and even married my advisor.

When I confronted him, he, holding my advisor's hand, claimed I was suffering from paranoid delusions. That's how I ended up dragged into a psychiatric hospital, injected with tranquilizers for three years, and eventually died in a hospital bed. The white ceiling, the myriad needle marks on my arm, and the internal numbness when the tranquilizers were administered still send shivers down my spine.

Eddie looked up at me, tears clinging to his face, his lips trembling slightly: "Ethan, I really don't have any money left. My dad's sick, and my family truly can't afford this"

"If I can't pay my tuition, I'll have to drop out," he added, his voice choked.

I squatted down, pulled fifty dollars from my pocket, and placed it on his knee. Eddie clearly froze for a moment, looking at me with disbelief.

"Take this for now," I said. "I'll ask the department about the remaining shortfall. There should be work-study positions available; you can apply for one. That way, you won't have to pay me back so much all at once."

Eddie looked down at the fifty dollars, unmoving for a long time. After a while, he quietly asked, "Is that all?"

Fifty dollars is a good amount. I only make a hundred and fifty from tutoring each month. I rummaged through my backpack for a piece of paper and handed him a pen. "Write a loan agreement. It's not that I don't trust you, it's just a habit."

Eddie took the pen, his fingers hesitating. He smiled, a smile I knew all too well C lips curved upward, eyes devoid of warmth. "Alright, that's fair." He finished writing and handed me the note. I folded it neatly and tucked it into a hidden compartment inside my backpack.

On the way back to the dorm, Eddie followed behind me, his voice still tearful. "Ethan, thank you, really. I'll remember your kindness for the rest of my life." I hummed, not responding. You said the same thing last time. Then you sent me to a mental institution.

I didn't sleep that night. Once Eddie's breathing became even, I got up, opened my laptop, and exported all the experimental data from my hard drive. One copy to Google Drive. One copy to Dropbox. One encrypted and compressed, sent to my personal email. After sending that, I sent another to a different email address, titled "Grad School Experiment Progress Backup - Oct 17." Three locations, three different passwords. I stared at the "sent successfully" notification on the screen, then closed my laptop.

The hallway light was broken, flickering erratically. Eddie turned over, mumbled something, and fell back asleep.

The next day at the lab meeting, Professor Thorne called on everyone to report their progress. Professor Thorne was forty-one, unmarried, wore gold-rimmed glasses, and exuded a gentle, intellectual aura. In my previous life, I thought she was a good advisor. Now I knew she was a fool easily sweet-talked by a pretty boy.

When it was Eddie's turn to report, he stood up, his voice soft, stumbled over a couple of sentences, and then his eyes reddened. "I'm sorry, Professor, something came up with my family recently, and my progress has been slow" Professor Thorne pushed up her glasses, her tone gentle. "It's alright. If you have difficulties, tell me. Don't carry it alone." Eddie nodded, secretly wiping away tears as he sat down. Several senior students in the lab looked at him, their eyes full of sympathy.

Then it was my turn. I turned my presentation to the third slide and began to present the data I had run that week. Professor Thorne interrupted me halfway through. "What is the basis for setting this variable? Which paper did you reference?"

"Dr. Peterson's 2019 paper, and the one from the MIT group last year"

"Are you sure? I recall the conclusion of that article was inconsistent with your direction."

I recited the literature ID, and Professor Thorne scrolled through her computer, then said nothing. "Alright, keep running your experiments."

After the meeting, Eddie approached, quietly saying, "Ethan, that experimental design you just presented was pretty good. Could you send me the PPT? I'd like to study it." I unplugged my USB drive and slipped it into my pants pocket. "I'll send it to you after I organize it." I didn't send it.

A week later, he asked again. I said I forgot. He didn't ask a third time. But that night in the dorm, he lay on the top bunk and suddenly said, "Ethan, do you have a problem with me lately?"

"No, why?"

"It's just I feel like you're not quite the same as before."

I pulled my blanket up to my chin. "Maybe I've just been too busy with experiments lately. Don't overthink it."

A few seconds of silence. "Oh, alright then. Goodnight."

"Goodnight." I closed my eyes, hearing him toss and turn in the bunk above.

Different? Of course, different. The Ethan from my past life was dead, dead on the 1087th day in the mental institution. This Ethan, he was a different beast entirely.

Days passed quickly. I was immersed in the lab daily, backing up my data as soon as it came out. Every week, I sent myself an email, logging the week's experimental progress. My lab notebook was never out of my sight; I even carried it in my backpack to the cafeteria.

Eddie began to get close to the other people in the lab. He would bring coffee, one for each person, but never for me. It wasn't that he forgothe would count heads right in front of me. "One, two, three enough." Then he'd turn and walk away.

Liam, a senior lab member, brought me a coffee and whispered, "Ethan, did you and Eddie have a falling out?"

"No."

"Then why is he"

"Maybe he forgot." Liam looked at me, said no more.

In mid-November, I was washing my hands in the restroom when I heard someone talking in the adjacent stall. It was Eddie's voice. "Ethan is just like that, extremely suspicious. He locks everything up, carries his lab notebook everywhere. I mean, what normal person does that?"

Another voice, a junior lab member named Dave, responded, "Huh? Really? That's a bit much, isn't it?"

"I live in the same dorm as him, why would I lie? Last time, he wouldn't even show me his PPT, and I just asked once, and he gave me that attitude."

"That's a bit extreme"

"Sigh, I don't want to badmouth him, but I just feel that, in academia, it's good for everyone to communicate. For him to act like he's guarding against thieves, it's pretty hurtful."

The sound of running water from the faucet masked my footsteps. I turned off the water, dried my hands, and pushed the door open. Dave was just coming out of the stall; seeing me, his face flushed. "Et-Ethan"

"The paper in the restroom is finished. You should tell Facilities." I walked away.

From then on, the atmosphere in the lab changed. When I spoke at group meetings, no one responded. At noon, when everyone went to the cafeteria together, they didn't call me. Once, I walked past the pantry, and a few people were chatting. When they saw me come in, the conversation suddenly stopped. Dave walked out with his cup, whispering to another junior student, "See, he's got his notebook with him. Carries it everywhere. Isn't that a bit much?" I filled my water bottle and walked away.

In early December, Professor Thorne called me in for a private talk. When the office door closed, she sat behind her desk, fingers intertwined on the table. "Ethan, some students have expressed that your teamwork spirit in the lab isn't very good lately."

"What exactly do you mean?"

"For example, data sharing, literature discussionyou don't seem to participate much."

"My data is in a critical phase. I can share it with everyone after the paper is published."

Professor Thorne pushed up her glasses. "To do academia, you need an open mind. Working in isolation won't lead to good results."

"Professor Thorne, you've seen my project's progress; the data trend is very good right now"

"I know," she interrupted. "But good project progress doesn't mean you're faultless as a person. The lab is a team, do you understand?" I gripped the lab notebook on my lap, saying nothing.

"Alright, you can go back. Think carefully." I stood up and walked to the door. Outside, Eddie was walking towards the office with a cup of coffee. He saw me coming out of the office, froze for a moment, then smiled at me. "Ethan, did the professor call you in?"

I ignored him and left. Behind me, I heard Eddie knocking on the door. "Professor Thorne, I bought you an Americano. I saw your office light was still on and figured you must be working late again." Professor Thorne's voice leaked through the door crack, ten times softer than when she'd spoken to me. "You're too kind, dear. Come in and sit." I quickened my pace.

Back in the dorm, I sat at my desk and opened my laptop. My inbox held thirty-two backup emails, each with a clear timestamp. I opened the most recent one; the attachment contained the data I had run last week. Three control experiments, perfect results. This project would be finalized in another six months. In my previous life, when the results were published, the primary author was Eddie. Not this time.

I closed my inbox and opened a new document. Title: Eddie's Loan Record and Repayment Status. He hadn't paid back a single penny to this day. I saved the document, synchronized it to three cloud drives. Then I turned off the light and lay in bed.

Eddie's voice came from the top bunk. "Ethan."

"Yeah."

"What do you think of Professor Thorne?"

"What do you mean, 'what do I think'?"

"Like do you think she's easy to get along with?"

"She's an advisor. What does being easy to get along with have to do with anything?"

Eddie chuckled. "True. Goodnight." I didn't say goodnight. Staring at the ceiling, I counted to three hundred until Eddie's breathing evened out. I turned over, tucking my lab notebook under my pillow.

After spring arrived, Eddie's attentiveness to Professor Thorne visibly escalated. Mondays, he'd help her organize her desk. Wednesdays, he'd pick up her packages. Fridays, he'd deliver documents to the administrative building for her. On weekendshe started going to Professor Thorne's house to "help clean." Everyone in the lab saw it, but no one said anything. Only Liam once said to me in the pantry, "Eddie seems a bit much lately?" I shook my head. "It's got nothing to do with me." "But he" "Liam, just focus on your own project." Liam looked at me for a few seconds, sighed, and left.

In late March, I submitted my experimental funding application. I waited two weeks, no news. Waited another two weeks, still no news. I went to ask Professor Thorne. "Professor Thorne, my funding application was submitted almost a month ago"

"I'm still considering the direction of your project, no rush."

"But the experimental reagents will soon be"

"I said, no rush." She didn't even look up.

When I walked out of the office, I happened to see Eddie's funding approval form pinned to the notice board. Submission date: March twenty-eighth. Approval date: March thirty-first. Three days. My application had been sitting in her drawer for a month; Eddie's was approved in three days. I stood in front of the notice board, staring at that form for a long time. A junior student walked past, muttering, "Senior Ethan, you're still looking at that? Eddie's project direction is indeed very promising." I turned and left.

In April, my funding finally came through. It was one-third less than what I requested. I didn't argue with Professor Thorne, just paid the remaining two hundred dollars myself to cover the shortfall. The experiment couldn't stop.

In May, my core data started showing results. All three experiments ran perfectly, yielding surprisingly beautiful data. I immediately synchronized it to three cloud drives, and sent myself two emails. One with an attachment, one only with the experimental results and date. Then I opened my lab notebook and neatly copied all the data. After writing, I hesitated. I flipped to the last few pages and, using a pencil, copied a new set of data. This data was almost identical to the original, with just one differencethe p-value for the third control experiment, I changed 0.003 to 0.03. A difference of an order of magnitude. This error wasn't obvious; it was barely noticeable without careful inspection. But anyone who had done research in this field knew that a p-value of 0.03 meant the results weren't significant enough, and the conclusion wouldn't hold. I placed these pages in the latter half of the notebook, inserting a sticky note labeled "To be verified." Then I closed the notebook and left it on the table.

Before, I carried it everywhere. Today, I left it on my lab desk. Before heading to the cafeteria, I adjusted the angle of the desk lamp. A strand of hair was pressed beneath the lamp base. My hair.

After dinner, I returned. The lamp's angle was off by two centimeters. The strand of hair was gone. The position of the lab notebook hadn't changed, but the sticky note inside had shifted a page. I sat down, said nothing, and opened my laptop to start writing my paper.

Late that night, as I left the lab, I passed the surveillance room. The security guard at the door was looking at his phone. "Excuse me, sir, I think I left my campus ID in the lab building last time. Could you check if anyone found it tonight?"

"Which floor?"

"Third floor."

"Let me check the footage for you." He opened the surveillance playback.

18:32, I left the lab for the cafeteria.

18:41, Eddie pushed open the lab door and walked in. He stood at my desk, looked left and right, then opened my lab notebook. He flipped to the latter halfthe pages where I'd placed the bait data. He pulled out his phone and took photos, page by page. He took four photos, closed the notebook, and put it back in its original place. Then he left. The entire process took less than three minutes.

The security guard looked up at me. "Did you find your campus ID?"

"Oh, no, maybe it's not on this floor. Thanks, sir."

"No problem." I walked out of the surveillance room and stood in the stairwell for a while. The corridor light was sound-activated; if I didn't move, it wouldn't light up. In the darkness, I put my hands in my pockets.

Alright, Eddie. The fish has taken the bait.