I Transferred To An Elite Private School Where An AI App Ranked Girls By ‘Beauty’ In Real-Time, And When The ‘Princess’ Sabotaged My Face To Keep Her Spot, I Hacked The Algorithm To Show The World What She Really Was

They didn’t tell me about the “Shining Star” program in the brochure. They showed me the Olympic-sized swimming pool, the equestrian center, and the state-of-the-art STEM labs. They conveniently left out the part where every female student’s social standing—and basic human rights—was dictated by a facial recognition algorithm.

My name is Moon. I’ve always been a drifter, moving from school to school because of my parents’ work, so I know how to blend in. I know how to read a room. But nothing prepared me for the first assembly at this place.

The auditorium was silent, the kind of silence that feels expensive. On stage stood Shelby, a girl so polished she looked like she’d been generated by a computer. She was explaining the rules of the “Shining Star Club” like she was reading the Geneva Convention, but for teenage vanity.

“The top 10 most beautiful girls will be rewarded with renewed membership into The Shining Star Club,” Shelby announced, her voice echoing perfectly. “With the number one girl—me—being named The Shining Star, the school’s highest honor. Because what’s more important than being the most beautiful is making sure that everyone around us knows it.”

I looked around, expecting someone to laugh. No one did. Every girl was gripping her phone, refreshing an app I hadn’t downloaded yet.

“You must be the new girl,” a voice sneered beside me. “I guess you weren’t lucky enough to have a Shining Star Club at your old school.”

I turned to see a girl who looked like she spent more time on her contouring than I did on sleeping. This was my introduction to the hierarchy.

“The girls here are ranked in order of their beauty,” she continued, looking me up and down with clinical detachment. “So the Top 10 are… well, they’re royalty. I’m just wondering why you’re not up there yet. You have potential.”

Before I could answer, a commotion broke out near the double doors. A girl named Meredith—sweet-faced, a little heavier set than the stick-figure standard here—was trying to squeeze through the crowd.

“Meredith, gosh!” someone shouted. It was a girl with platinum blonde hair and eyes that looked like ice chips. “Just because you’re big enough to be a set of double doors doesn’t mean you should block the entry. Move!”

My stomach turned. It wasn’t just the insult; it was the casual cruelty of it.

“I’m so sorry,” I whispered to Meredith as she stumbled past me, her face burning red. “She shouldn’t talk to you that way.”

Meredith looked at me, defeated. “Oh, don’t apologize. She’s my friend. She lets me eat with her in the Tower as her plus one. Besides… she’s right. I’m not as pretty as Lucy, so I kind of deserve to be treated like this.”

Lucy. I looked back at the blonde girl. She was checking her reflection in her phone screen, preening.

“I don’t know about that,” I muttered.

“No, really,” Meredith insisted. “The Top 10 girls are the only ones with access to the Top 10 House. Private chefs, pristine bathrooms, separate lockers. Remember, beauty is determined by how we look, not what we do. Resumés don’t matter. Only the scan matters.”

I downloaded the app later that morning. It was slick, minimalist, and terrifying. You scanned your face, and an AI analyzed your symmetry, skin texture, and features against a “universal beauty standard.” It updated in real-time.

I scanned my face.

Processing…

Rank: 11.

Number 11. One spot away from the “Promised Land.”

That afternoon, I met Lucy properly. Or rather, she decided to assess the threat.

“I don’t think we’ve met,” she said, cornering me near the lockers. “Are you new here? I’m Princess 10. I’ve been in the 10th position for the past few years. You can call me Lucy.”

She was smiling, but her eyes were scanning every inch of my face, looking for flaws.

“I’m Moon,” I said.

“You’re pretty,” she said, the compliment landing like a slap. “Not as pretty as Shelby, obviously. But… pretty. Maybe even prettier than me.”

Her smile faltered for a fraction of a second. I saw the panic there. If I moved up, she moved down. And if she moved down to 11, she lost the Tower. She lost the chef. She became an “Ordinary.”

“You have a cut on your face though,” she pointed out, tapping her own flawless cheek.

“Just a scratch,” I said.

“Well,” she hooked her arm through mine, her grip surprisingly tight. “Come have lunch with us. In the Tower. Shelby invited you. Since you’re new, we can make an exception. Plus, I can bring a plus one.”

We walked past the cafeteria where the “Ordinaries” were eating unidentifiable grey slop. The Tower was a glass-walled sanctuary overlooking the campus. Inside, it smelled like expensive perfume and fresh-baked croissants.

“Wait,” a security guard stopped us. “She doesn’t have a headband.”

Top 10 girls wore diamond-encrusted headbands.

“She’s my plus one,” Lucy announced loudly. “She’s with me.” She leaned in to whisper to me, “If you weren’t my guest, you’d be out there with the losers. Be grateful.”

I wasn’t grateful. I was observant. I watched how they interacted. Shelby sat on a literal throne at the head of the table. The other girls were terrified of her. And Lucy? Lucy was terrified of everyone.

“Please, take some,” Lucy pushed a plate of artisan chocolates toward me. “These are my favorite. The chocolate is to die for.”

I hesitated. “I really shouldn’t.”

“Come on,” she pressed, her voice taking on a hard edge. “Don’t be rude. Just a little bite.”

I didn’t want to make a scene on my first day. I took a truffle. It was delicious. Rich, dark, creamy.

Ten minutes later, my face felt like it was on fire.

“Are you okay?” Meredith asked me later in the hallway. I had rushed out of the Tower, feeling the heat rising under my skin.

“I don’t know,” I gasped, looking in a hallway mirror.

Angry, red welts were erupting across my cheeks and forehead. It wasn’t just a rash; it was a full-blown breakout, angry and inflamed.

“Whoa,” a guy walking past laughed. “That is a massive eruption on your face. Try washing it sometime?”

I pulled out my phone. My notifications were blowing up.

Your Beauty Rank has dropped.

Current Rank: 84.

I looked up and saw Lucy standing at the end of the hall. She was smiling. Not the fake smile from before, but a genuine, predatory grin.

“I didn’t know you were allergic to certain cocoa butters,” she said, walking up to me with mock sympathy. “Some of us break out when we eat the cheap stuff. Or maybe you just have bad skin.”

“You knew,” I said, my voice shaking. “You pressed me to eat it.”

“Prove it,” she whispered. Then, louder, for the crowd gathering around us: “Ew, Moon! You can’t be in the Top 10 looking like a pepperoni pizza. You’re violating the aesthetic of the hallway.”

I ran. I hid in the nurse’s office until the swelling went down, but the damage to the algorithm was done. The AI saw the blemishes. It didn’t care about context. It only cared about pixels.

For the next week, I was an Ordinary. I ate the grey slop. I was ignored by teachers. I was invisible. But invisibility gave me something else: access.

I’m not just a pretty face. My dad is a software engineer. I’ve been coding since I was six. I’ve built apps that streamline logistics for small businesses. I know how backends work.

And I knew that Shelby, the “Shining Star,” was a trust fund baby who funded the program. She didn’t code it herself. She hired a third-party developer. And third-party developers leave backdoors.

I started watching Lucy closely. With me out of the way, she was safe at number 10. But she was paranoid. There was another girl, a sophomore named Sarah, who was climbing the ranks. Sarah was at number 11 now.

During P.E., we were playing dodgeball. I was on the bench, icing my face, watching.

Lucy held the ball. She wasn’t looking at the opposing team. She was looking at Sarah, who was on her own team, tying her shoe.

“Heads up!” Lucy screamed.

She hurled the ball. Not at the enemy. At Sarah.

It hit Sarah square in the face with a sickening crunch. Sarah’s head snapped back, and she hit the gym floor hard. Blood gushed from her nose.

“Oh my god!” Lucy shrieked, acting terrified. “I slipped! The ball slipped! Are you okay?”

Sarah was wailing. Her nose was clearly broken.

I pulled out my phone.

Sarah’s Rank: Dropping… Dropping… Rank 15… Rank 20…

Lucy checked her phone. She let out a sigh of relief so quiet only I could have noticed it from where I was sitting. She had secured her spot. Again.

It wasn’t just vanity. It was warfare.

That night, I didn’t sleep. I pulled out my laptop. I accessed the school’s localized network. The security was laughable—they spent millions on the cafeteria chef and zero on cybersecurity.

I found the host server for “The Shining Star.”

The algorithm was simple, brutally so.

if (symmetry > 90 && skin_clarity > 95 && feature_ratio == ideal) { rank++ }

It was a digital eugenics program wrapped in pink code.

I cracked the admin password in three hours. (Pro tip: Don’t make your password “ShiningStar1”.)

I looked at the variables. I could have just deleted the app. I could have crashed the server. But that wouldn’t teach them anything. They’d just reboot it. They’d just build a new one.

I needed to change the definition of beauty.

I started typing.

I sat back. The sun was rising. My skin was clearing up, but I didn’t care about my reflection anymore.

The next morning was the End of Year Assembly. The “Crowning of the Queen.”

Shelby was on stage again, looking radiant. Lucy was standing in the line of Top 10 girls, wearing her diamond headband, looking smug. She had “survived” the year. She was safe.

“Ladies,” the Principal announced. “It is my privilege to announce this year’s Shining Star. The top of the Top 10. The Number One.”

The giant screen behind the stage flickered. The app was syncing.

Every girl in the audience held their breath. Phones were out.

Lucy was preening, expecting to see her face at number 10, or maybe even 9.

The screen refreshed.

Rank 1: MEREDITH.

The silence was deafening.

Meredith, sitting in the back row, dropped her book.

Rank 2: SARAH (The girl with the broken nose).

Rank 3: MOON.

Lucy gasped. She looked at the screen. She scanned down.

10…

20…

50…

100…

Rank 412: LUCY.

Reason: Toxic Behavior Detected. Sabotage Event Logged.

Rank 413: SHELBY.

Reason: System Manipulation. Narcissism Index Critical.

“What is this?” Shelby screamed into the microphone. “The app is broken! It’s glitching!”

I stood up. “It’s not glitching,” I said, my voice carrying across the silent hall. “It updated.”

Everyone turned to look at me.

“I made a few changes to the algorithm,” I said, walking down the aisle. “Since the Shining Star gets to make the rules, and I technically had the skills to access the rulebook, I decided we needed a patch. The old version had a bug. It couldn’t detect ugliness on the inside.”

I looked at Lucy. “You can’t wear makeup to cover up your personality, Lucy.”

“You hacked it!” Lucy shrieked. “That’s illegal!”

“You know what else is illegal?” I asked, pulling out a USB drive and handing it to the Principal who had walked off the stage to intercept me. “Assault.”

“What are you talking about?” Lucy stepped back.

“The gym cameras,” I said. “I downloaded the footage of the ‘accident’ with Sarah. You didn’t slip, Lucy. You aimed. And I also have the chat logs where you bragged about slipping allergens into my food.”

The Principal looked at the drive, then at Lucy. Her face went pale.

“Lucy,” the Principal said, her voice stern. “I’d like to ask you some questions. Please come with me.”

“No!” Lucy looked around for support. “She’s lying! Look at her! She’s an 11! She’s jealous!”

“Check your phone, Lucy,” I said calmly. “You’re not a 10 anymore. You’re barely on the chart.”

Two security guards stepped forward. The same guards who had kept me out of the Tower.

“Come with us, miss,” one of them said.

As they escorted a sobbing Lucy out of the auditorium, the screen behind Shelby changed again. It showed a live feed of the rankings. Meredith’s picture—smiling, kind, genuine—was massive.

“Meredith is kind,” I told the crowd. “She helps everyone. She never thinks of herself. That is what a Number One looks like.”

Slowly, one person started clapping. Then another. It was the Ordinaries first. Then the former Top 10s, the ones who lived in fear of Shelby and Lucy.

Shelby stood frozen on stage, her crown looking ridiculous on her head. She looked at the screen, then at me. She took the crown off and set it on the podium.

“I guess beauty is pain,” I whispered to myself.

I didn’t stay at that school for long after that. I transferred out the next semester. But I heard they kept the new algorithm.

Last I checked, Meredith is still Queen. And Lucy? She’s at a new school. I wonder if they have an app for that.