"There's no such thing as a coincidence."
"Do you think... Serena is the reason we're getting evicted from our luxury suites in the Dormitory Block?"
Isabella paused, pressing her lips together. "Other than Serena, I honestly can't think of anyone else who would stoop so low just to target us."
Bianca's eyes turned bloodshot as they widened in fury. "You're right! It has to be her!"
"She's been jealous of our VIP suites since day one."
"That bitch! She already robbed me of the Apex Research Hub, and now she wants
to strip me of my housing and leave me sleeping in the sand."
"I... I'm going to make her pay!"
Bianca's face twisted with rage as she lunged toward the direction of the Apex Research Hub.
Isabella quickly grabbed her arm. "Bianca, don't do anything rash. Even if you march over there and confront her, she'll never admit to it."
Bianca ground her teeth. "So we're just supposed to swallow this?"
Isabella lowered her voice. "We need to think strategically. Our priority right now isn't tearing Serena apart-it's figuring out how to win this competition."
"If we don't take home the gold, Arthur is going to be absolutely furious when we get back."
"Arthur already said we've been paraded around like fools by The Hope Initiative for ten straight rounds. If we lose again this time... when we go home..."
Isabella purposely trailed off.
The unspoken threat left plenty of room for imagination.
Especially for Bianca, who knew her father's ruthless nature better than anyone.
She shivered, her face draining of color as a wave of genuine terror washed over her eyes.
It was true.
If they lost this competition, there was a very real chance they wouldn't survive the trip back to the Doyle family estate.
But looking at their current situation...
They were guaranteed to lose!
Their experiment's progress had crawled to a halt, and they were down two team members.
How were they supposed to compete with the others?
"Then what are we supposed to do?" Bianca clenched her fists. "That bitch Serena purposefully leaked the core algorithm to all the other competitors just to humiliate us! Now every single team is breezing through their experiments, and we're the only ones left..."
If every other team completed their work...
And she who had started with an open-book advantage and assumed victory was
in the bag-failed to even finish the baseline experiment...
Arthur's wrath would be apocalyptic.
She knew her father had already paid for massive PR campaigns, just waiting for
her to lead The Dreamscape Initiative to a glorious first-place victory.
Then, he would broadcast to the world that the Doyle family bred peerless geniuses, using the
momentum to catapult Doyle
Pharmaceuticals into the international spotlight.
Because Arthur wanted Serena dead on this island.
As long as Serena was dead...
No one would stand in the way of The Dreamscape Initiative claiming the championship.
But now...
Even if Serena died today...
Taking first place would be harder than scaling a cliff with their bare hands!
Seeing the utter panic on Bianca's face, Isabella knew she had successfully stoked the flames.
She lowered her voice, guiding the conversation exactly where she wanted it. "That's why, Bianca, even with just the three of us left, we have to win this final round. We need to brainstorm. How exactly can we guarantee a win?"
She placed deliberate emphasis on the final word.
Bianca was practically vibrating with anxiety, pacing back and forth with clenched fists.
As she paced...
An idea sparked, and she smacked her hands together. "I can just buy off the competitors from the other teams! I'll poach them and make them run the experiments for us!"
"All of them know how to push the data forward now, right? As long as I bribe enough people, who cares if we're behind schedule?!"
Isabella stared at her. "..."
She was a lost cause. Completely and utterly a lost cause!