This is my code to spawn a random topic:

public TextMeshProUGUI topicText;
private string[] allTopics = new string[9];
public int topicIndex;


// Start is called before the first frame update
void Start()
{
    allTopics[0] = "Food";
    allTopics[1] = "Habitats";
    allTopics[2] = "Personality";
    allTopics[3] = "Toxic Objects";
    allTopics[4] = "Exercise";
    allTopics[5] = "Hygiene";
    allTopics[6] = "Enrichment";
    allTopics[7] = "Health Screening";
    allTopics[8] = "Materials";
    topicIndex = Random.Range(0, 8);
    topicText.text = allTopics[topicIndex];

}  

I am trying to access topicIndex from another script. I tried:

1. topicIndex = GameObject.FindGameObjectWithTag("Topic").GetComponent<TopicSpawn>().topicIndex;
   2.public GameObject topic; topicIndex=topic.GetComponent<TopicSpawn>().topicIndex;
   3.Edit the topicIndex statement in the script topicSpawn, by changing to public static int topicIndex;then access it with TopicSpawn.topicIndex;

Nothing has worked so far, with topicIndex=0 on my new script even though topicIndex on my original script, TopicSpawn is not zero…

How can I fix it? Thank you.