Dr. Hasan pulls up a case study on the projector. A corporate data breach from last year. Forty thousand employee records exposed because someone left a default password on an admin portal.
I take notes. Real notes, not the scribbling I do in statistics.
In this room, my handwriting is legible and my brain works the way it's supposed to.
Patterns make sense here. The logic of systems, the way networks are built, the way information moves through channels and leaves traces, whether you want it to or not.
Information always leaves traces.
My pen stops moving. The slide on the projector shows a diagram of a compromised network, arrows indicating where the breach originated and how data flowed outward through unauthorized access points.
Arrows pointing outward. Information flowing from a secure location through a human vulnerability to an outside threat.
For about two seconds, I'm not in a lecture hall. I'm in a hallway at the compound with plaster dust in my hair and Ruger's eyes burning a hole through my skull.
The human vulnerability. The prospect who couldn't tell the difference between pillow talk and an interrogation.
Dr. Hasan advances the slide and the moment passes.
I write the next line of notes and keep my face neutral, because neutral is what I've been practicing for years and I'm better at it than anyone in this room would guess.
Class ends at 9:15 sharp.
Statistics is at 9:30 in Armstrong Hall, which gives me fifteen minutes to cross campus and switch from the version of myself who understands packet analysis to the version who can't parse a regression equation without divine intervention.
The walk takes eight minutes. I stop at the vending machine on the first floor of Armstrong because the Starbucks line is always too long and I don't need a five-dollar coffee to survive a class I'm going to fail anyway.
Dr. Petrov's room is half-full when I get there.
Back row, mostly empty. The usual suspects.
She's already in her seat.
End of the row, closest to the door. Laptop open, notes on screen, head slightly down.
Brown hair pulled back. Flannel over a tank top.
No jewelry, no makeup beyond something on her lips.
She dresses like someone who decided a long time ago to stop being looked at.
I've been watching her since the beginning of the semester if I’m being honest.
Not watching. Noticing.
There's a line between those two verbs and I'm very aware of where it sits, because the last time I didn't respect the distance between observation and obsession, people got hurt.
But noticing her is different. Or I tell myself it is.
She sits the same way every class. Same seat, same posture, same invisible perimeter around her space.
Nobody sits directly next to her and she doesn't invite them to.
She's good at the material.
I've seen her screen once or twice during partner work, and her notes are cleaner and more organized than the textbook.
She almost never speaks. When she does, her voice is low, measured, like every word gets weighed before it leaves her mouth.