The software’s inner brain is made of literally millions of words written by the nation’s high-school and college students, and Samuel sometimes jokes to his colleagues that if the software ever achieved sci-fi artificial intelligence and consciousness, it would immediately go to Cancún for spring break.

Samuel knows this because of the software-the truly exceptional soft-ware package subscribed to by the university that analyzes every essay completed by his students and compares them to every other essay in its massive archive of every paper ever analyzed anywhere.

Paper ,” Laura Pottsdam says of the paper that was almost entirely plagiarized. It’s like revenge for having to teach them. Inside, he secretly likes when he gets to fail a student. This hurts me more than it hurts you ,is the expression he’s trying to produce, even if he does not sincerely feel it. He’s trying to look sad about this whole situation, like when a parent has to punish a child. “You think I plagiarized that paper? Me?” “You think I cheated?” says Laura Pottsdam, college sophomore and habitual, perpetual cheater.

A native Iowan, he lives with his wife in Naples, Florida. Hill’s short fiction has appeared in many literary journals, including The Iowa Review, AGNI, The Gettysburg Review, and Fiction, which awarded him its annual Fiction Prize. The following is from Nathan Hill’s novel, The Nix.

The Nix by Nathan Hill