Undercover

Dean's List

Another semester, another examination period, and of course another proud announcement of the almost-regular excels.

You might already guess Bina ensured her appearance of the Dean's list, only that it wasn't entirely of her interest, so she made sure to attend the ceremonies only to gather her certificates and praises and head back home as soon as possible.

Less crowd - less troubles.

Most people would probably pat themselves on their backs and place a photo on social media for show, but Bina wasn't interested in that kind of attention. In fact, she wasn't interested in attention at all since she knew she had issues with its providers.

Even though, trying to maintain as normal life as possible, Bina had still maintained a couple of active accounts on social media. Low profile, neutral activity, never sharing content about herself or her surroundings. Most of the times it would be a book recommendation or a movie review, new scientific researches' abstracts or articles about health and lifestyle, but her creativity could wander to music and gags as well.

Nevertheless, openly speaking, Bina has not lacked creativity, and would arrange carefully her time to spend as much as she could with her hobbies.

Heading back home immediately after the ceremony followed the same ritual: Dinner, going over class notes, homework and sketch.

She had a pile of organized sketch books filled with fine art of her creation, placed next to a tower of folders sorted by size and color, guarding her more effort invested art.

Bina's room wasn't big at all, but it was arranged carefully and always clean and tiny. All furniture and tools stood with an abnormal discipline of a soldier in theirs places and nothing dared to mess up the harmony.

Sometimes, after sketch time, Bina would go out on a jog or just a calm walk to freshen her breath, especially when autumn starts and the fragrances of cleansing rains and young grasses could fill the air with atmosphere of new beginnings.

Her time spent outside at nights was treasurous. No people, plenty of stray cats show up to host her a company, and sounds of natural engines finally become noticeable and relax her mind. Bina's head is never empty: If it's not the studies to occupy her mind, it's definitely a scene of a self produced film of her brain of a world she would be glad to visit.

When she's done with fantasizing, she often turns back straight home, waiting for the next day to emerge with a well planned schedule awaiting the tomorrow.

Seven o'clock in the morning, and Bina's smartphone is ringing with an alarm set to the precise round time. This lady is none of a morning type, but having extra bed time is out of question. One more minute in bed might result in one more hour, and five more minutes might devour half of the productive day. A couple of minutes might be enough to just sit and reset herself towards the new day, but it's never conceivable if it's not a five or a ten. So, sparing her the waste of time, she jumps out of the bed as fast as she's able to, staring back at her clock just after making her bed, washing her face, brushing teeth and arranging her hair.

Seven and fifteen minutes.

Breakfast of a warm cup of coffee, toasted bread, white cheese and sliced vegetables is a strict tradition that costs exactly another quarter of an hour, and by seven-forty-five she's ready to go, dressed up and organized for the day.

Bina takes a bus to reach subway, from which she arrives directly to the campus.

Speaking of the campus, it's about time to mention she's majoring computer science and software engineering, third year out of four. It's the beginning of the academic year, new opportunities and new possibilities, yet for Bina it's still the same goal.

She's been keeping the same place in her lectures for a while now, first row in the middle. Usually, at the beginning of the semester, the first rows are full and hard to find a place, but Bina makes sure to arrive earlier to take her perfect place. Further into the semester most of the students give up on the lectures - some out of despair, others out of laziness - and it becomes much easier to fortify the throne.

When lectures are over for a window of free time during the day, Bina usually eats her packed lunch prepared occasionally during the week and packed each night before, and spends the time left reading a book or a comic.

This day, however, she had some engagements in her new yearly project's supervisor's office. It would be the first time for Bina to work on an industrial project, and she's gotten the opportunity thanks to her extraordinary performances.

Heading straight to the office, she noticed the halfway-closed door that usually stays widely open, and sounds of arguing escaping the gap. Although her meeting was appointed precisely at 13:00, she was generous to arrive ten minutes earlier and wait patiently outside, listening to the inevitable conversation inside.

"I can simply make it up with another set of courses. Why do I have to stick to the faculty's system requirements?" A young manly voice exclaimed.

"This are our standards which all students must equally follow, and you're no exception." This was clearly the voice of Mr. Fischer, the supervisor.

"Some students receive better terms. More relevant and more interesting stuff", the young voice continued, "While I am forced to work on calculus and theoretical math all day. How will that make me a a good programmer?"

"You know every average student in your class does the same. You should try harder if you want to widen your opportunities."

"How can I if I'm not even given the chance to improve my achievements?"

"Do your best and don't skip classes", Mr. Fischer announced decisively and continued, "And here is your timetable for the semester. Please maintain average grades and above this time". Just as the young man was about to utter a word, Mr. Fischer exclaimed, "This is you last chance. Next time you will be facing the academic committee."

Harsh, Bina thought to herself. Thirteen-OO' arrives and Bina makes her appearance in the small gap between the the door and its frame.

"Come on, Nate, I have an appointment and my visitor is here", said Mr. Fischer.

Nate turned his head around and faced the intruder. Not saying a word, he glared at her examining her looks and coming to a conclusion that the girl in front of him is probably the type her looks fit perfectly.

The people who grab him by his balls, he thought.

No wonder, though, that no other thought came to his mind: A girl of an average height with frizzy hair that cannot properly fit the bun, a pair of eyeglasses and very casual wear of a long sweater and jeans, carrying a full backpack on her back and a laptop in her hands.

"Come in, Bina. Take a sit", Mr. Fischer invited her to take her place, and raised his eyebrows at Nate, implying him he should vacate himself from the room.

Nate stood up unwillingly, stepping outside in defeat. Bina quickly closed the door after him, positioning herself politely next to Mr. Fischer's desk.

The appointment began with a tense silence, which was surprisingly cut off by Bina. "I've wanted to thank you for the opportunity you gave me. It is a great honor to work on this project under your supervision, Mr. Fischer, and I hope to meet your expectations."

Mr. Fischer giggled quietly and answered, "It's my pleasure having an excellent student who grows such an interest in our lab's works."

Mr. Fischer was the academic consultant of the faculty and the head of AI Lab of the university, leading a team of very skilled researchers in the field. The recent work of research he conducted was of combining neural networks and learning systems in the process of finding genetic mutations in the human DNA, and came to a breakthrough in detection of abnormalities in chromosomes classification with image processing.

Astonishing as it sounds, such breakthroughs are still far from enabling the assembling of the whole picture, and still a lot of work has to be done. Such work require great minds with a lot of creativity, and this is exactly where Bina could fit.

The meeting was short, all about goals and motivation, initial assumptions of the tools and sequence of operations that might be used and has to be accomplished at each stage, and best wishes regards exchanged between the two.

As soon as the conversation came to an end, Bina gathered her notes and laptop into her backpack, and left the office towards her next lecture.

It was clear to her that the project is ready to fire, but what wasn't very apparent to her is that the conversation actually had a third pair of ears.