KABIR
Usually, I don’t replay lectures in my head. I don’t replay arguments either, but something felt annoying about the fact that Aris deserved space in my mind. Maybe she was the only one who ever disagreed with me, and maybe I felt this way because I needed to win.
I thought about it, and somewhere I knew that wasn’t it.
Her reactions are different from most people’s. No apparent emotional outbursts. No defensive humor. Only accuracy and regulated opposition. That is why I was wondering about her. My brain kept asking whether I needed to decode her or whether she had become an experiment I was conducting without realizing it.
The other students gave excellent responses. Some made me think in a different direction about my own module, but in all that chaos, the only thing I noticed was how she reacted. The way she tightened her jaw. The way she folded her papers. The way she paused before responding. The stare in her eyes after my question. Suddenly, my brain flashed: ERROR 404.
I have everything in my career, and I don’t have to chase projects. And obviously, she isn’t one. But winning against her felt different from winning against others. Why?
I’m quite curious about what she will do with her model paper. She is calculative and intelligent. I certainly hope she doesn’t let it go without a defense.
I called my assistant.
“Please arrange lab testing for student modules. I will look after it personally.”
ARIS
I opened my laptop, looked at my model, and thought about the system. After staring at the screen for a few moments, I decided to change one tiny parameter.
I added a deviation tolerance of 3.2%.
For research integrity.
I reran my model and obviously wasn’t ready for the results. There was no clean outcome. Instead, it gave me three more projections.
While looking at the screen, one sentence echoed in my head.
“Prediction creates pressure.”
Mr. Mehta was right.
Output divergence detected.
Prediction branch count: 3.
Confidence score reduced by 11%.
I pulled myself back to reality and got dressed for the lab. Little did I know there were changes there too. It turned out Kabir had volunteered to look after the modules himself.
The class started, and since there were over twenty students, not all of us presented our modules that day. We were enhancing our codes, and I became so absorbed in my work that I didn’t realize when the students left or when the lecture ended.
“Do you plan on working until midnight?” a voice commented.
I looked around the room and realized only a few students remained, and I was the last one still working. He walked in casually and looked over my laptop.
ARIS
“I adjusted my tolerance window. Allowance for minor deviations,” I said.
KABIR
“And?”
ARIS
“The results expanded. However, precision remained intact.”
KABIR
“So your system survives uncertainty.”
ARIS
“Uncertainty isn’t the same as freedom.”
He leaned in subtly and looked at the model. He didn’t even touch my laptop, just observed what I had worked on. His muscles almost popped out of that maroon shirt, and the sleek glasses over his luscious lashes distracted me for just a moment.
KABIR
“You’re not testing the model.” He paused, looked at me, and said, “You, ma’am, are testing whether control is necessary.”
That comment shifted the air between us. The eye contact was strong. I couldn’t answer him. We both knew that in that moment there was a complexity between us that we could not crack. My heart raced, and I snapped out of it with a subtle shift in tone.
“The module is still stable.” I closed the laptop before he could read more.
“For now,” he said.
He turned away and left the lab. I packed my things and headed home. I was annoyed, challenged, and unsettled by something I couldn’t quite identify. I replayed the conversation again and again, and for a split second I thought:
What if I’m not being true to my work just because I want to win a challenge?
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