Day 3: Colleen (Labs and Presentations)

You don’t expect to find Colleen today. It just… happens.

You’re walking past the Engineering Annex when you remember her offhand comment about shared lab space. On a whim, you check. The door’s unlocked. Inside, you spot her right away—second desk from the back, two monitors lit, wearing a tee-shirt that even your coding-ignorant ass can work out says SOMETHING in binary. Her fingers fly across the keyboard with focused intensity.

You pause. Then knock—gently—on the doorframe.

She glances up, blinks once. “Oh. It’s you.”

“Yeah,” you say, stepping in. “I was hoping to ask something about the COMPAS model. If you’re not too busy.”

She shrugs, gesturing at the chair beside her. “I’m always busy. Doesn’t mean it’s more important than watching someone try to understand statistical corruption without crying.”

You sit. For the next hour, she breaks it down—feedback loops, dataset poisoning, proxy variables and judicial discretion. Her voice is crisp, dry, and never once condescending. You ask questions. She challenges your wording. You ask more. It feels like a mother teaching her infant how to count. Gradually, she stops correcting and starts expanding. She even lets you sketch a node diagram, which she erases halfway through with a dry:

“You’re making it harder than it is. Like using a katana to butter toast.”

It’s... nice. In a way. It's calm at least, which is a difference you appreciate after recent weeks.

Then, halfway through a comparison of risk assessments to broken vending machines, she says, “You lean in when you’re concentrating.”

You glance up. “I do?”

“Yeah. Like you’re afraid the answer’s going to run off the screen.”

“Sorry.”

“I didn’t say stop.”

You look at her. She looks at the code. The moment stretches, thin and brittle.

A minute later she adds, “You’re not what I expected.”

“How’s that?”

“You keep showing up. But you’re not in comp sci. You’re not even trying to fake it well.”

You shrug. “Guess I just like the way you explain things.”

She’s silent for a beat. Then says, “You’re not the worst lab partner. For a normie.”

You take that as a compliment. It might even be one.

That afternoon, you're back on your tablet. You check the old thread again—the one you replied to, the one Freya last posted in months ago. There’s a response. From her.

“You conflate silence with resistance, but forget it can also signify disengagement. I’ll assume you meant your comment sincerely. If not, don’t follow up.”

No salutation. No warmth. You read the rest of it carefully. It's a page of text of focused, surgical analysis. But she responded. Your heart jumps like you’ve just been graded by a ghost.

You search the university calendar and find something that might matter: Ethics and the Archive: Surveillance on Screen. A film screening and panel talk hosted by the Philosophy Department. Public. Tonight.

You go.

You don’t expect her to be there—but she is. Third row from the back, hood up, notebook open, pen scribbling in tight, fast lines.

When they open the floor for questions, your hand goes up.

Your voice wavers, but you manage a half-decent point: something about the ethics of voyeurism in curated narratives, the erasure of consent in archival footage, the performativity of passive observation. You cite a sociology paper you referenced in an assignment you're working on. The panel nods politely.

You glance across the aisle—and catch her watching you. Only for a second. Then she looks away.

When the session ends, you wait near the side door. She walks past you without a word. But this time, her eyes flick toward you as she does. It’s not a smile. Not a frown. Just... acknowledgement.

She's noticed. She's watching.

And for now, that’s enough.