Zero to One (G/t)

[2] Computer Bug

The supervisor, to the best of his ability, quickened his pace without averting eyes to catch up with his mentee. A joint walk toward their offices – a shared path until an eventual fork – soon followed. As Devin finished his bag search, pleased to find nothing missing or harmed inside it, Prof. Qadir used the brief silence to ponder, considering giving an apology to Devin for him being handsy but brushing it off in the end.

Instead, the professor chose to expand on his prior thought. This observation was going to end up in the thesis eventually, so why not give a name to it now rather than stumble over it later?

“Do you think there’s a proper term for this… anomaly?”

“A word besides ‘anomaly?’” Devin laughed, another of the few times he exposed lightheartedness in an academic setting, before blending it with his usual, low tone. “If I had to give it a label,” he described, irked at the idea, “then I suppose that…” A chuckle escaped him, finding some humor in himself. “…heh, ‘computer bug’ is fitting.”

“Ah, yes, a bug. With your record of detail, such inflamed values of change would have to be a mistake.”

Devin had considered the possibility of an error. However, the elder’s statement quickly going from seemingly complimentary to condescending made the student hypercritical… and all the more driven to elaborate on his research’s and thus his and his statement’s true accuracy.  

“That could be the case,” Devin clarified, hinting at his questionability toward it with tonal inflections, “but my wording was intentional, sir. There’s nothing wrong with the system – the readings would’ve said that – yet, somehow, something inside it, literally inside, has shown its legs.”

Such assertiveness pulled the pair’s pacing to a pause. The professor was intrigued, eyes wide and all. “I was under the impression that you were simply overseeing an overblown Petri dish. If that’s not the case, then you do understand what is being inferred here, right?”

“Yes, sir,” Devin sighed, “but I’m not going to jump to conclusions and just assume…” He looked around for any uninvited ears, happy to have found none. “…that I’m housing some sentient speck.”

An itch behind an ear soon sparked after his declaration and was soon worked at: a previously mundane action that may prove to have more weight than ever expected if the thrown hypotheses were true. Feeling something caught under a nail after a duration of digging, Devin took a glance inside at it… and had to use all of his might to hide his look of fascination toward it before the professor ultimately replied.

“Ugh, there are reasons why my past dabbling in this sort of studies stayed that way: in the past,” Prof. Qadir inquired through a groan, also going hushed, rapidly tapping his chin like a war drum, “but what are you to do about yours?”

“Put mind over matter and see if this bacterium has some bite to its bark, obviously,” Devin replied matter-of-factly, translating his hands from the open air to his pockets. “We wouldn’t want me to blow the entire culture away on accident from getting too close, would we?”

The student’s playful concern brought a laugh out of the professor, but all it did was signal to Devin that he hadn’t conversed with his circumstantial peers on the dissertation committee, let alone anyone in cahoots with them. For him to appear so unconfident was both out of character and implausible, given how much and what types of data Devin had released to them prior.

Meanwhile, the thought of adding an individual or at least singled-out case study to his thesis and life’s work enthused Devin, mostly for reasons he could never say. However, despite their similar backgrounds, the same apparently couldn’t be said for his mentor. But, who was this thirty-something to screen his elder’s emotions? He wasn’t trying to become that kind of doctor, after all. Still, though, the perceived nerves couldn’t be denied. Perhaps, Prof. Qadir was genuinely trying to forget everything as he said, clouding his present intentions with shaky chuckles.

Devin had a right to be annoyed with it all, despite all of these penalties being his fault, but showing that disapproval would do no good. The time wasted easily could’ve been set on other pursuits, particularly getting a closer look at the inconsequential collection wedged in his finger now as practice for later. Thus, he put on a cheery disposition to turn it back around – the usual one for most people with whom he dealt but a surprising one to his close circle of people that knew him.

“Seriously, though, figuring out the source of these signals, mechanical or otherwise, shouldn’t be too hard,” Devin reassured. His confidence expelled out of himself and was absorbed into his interlocutor like a sponge. The bounce back from anxious to excited from his soft smile was worthy of a thesis of its own; it was too easy. It always was. “You’ve seen bits and pieces of what I’ve done, including literal bits and pieces, apparently. But, you have no idea what all I’ve done.

“You don’t know what all I can really do.”