***** Vol.4 Chap.7 The second encounter *****
At the appointed time, JB went to the downtown Hilton and saw Dr. Schmidtiz waiting for her at the corner of the cafe. After ordering their drinks, she told him about the program and a pattern emerging from the data. Being confident about her model had separated the data into two groups, she proudly presented the results to him.
He smiled and nodded his head. “Yes, you are right that there are two groups of data.” He did not tell her that he deliberately messed up the data to see if she could separate out the two groups.
He continued, “You are good, very good.”
She was visibly flattered.
“But just to be certain, Let me double check with the master list. You are good, Dr. Smith.” Praises continued to dribble out of him.
“I feel I can explain a bit more to you about the data. This first database comprises the genome data for two groups of people, docile and violent ones. We obtained this data based on Dr. Abedulacizi’s presentation.”
Still smiling, “With that said, here is the rest of the money we promised.” He handed JB a thick envelope.
“Now we have another more difficult project for you, if you are interested.”
JB’s ears perked up. Lay it on me. I am up to the challenge. She said to herself, feeling good.
“Of course, please go ahead,” she said politely trying hard not to be too eager.
“In this dataset, there are three groups: docile, slightly agitated, and violent. See if you can separate out the three groups. If you can, this will help our procedure in rooting out aggression tremendously. Are you interested?”
“Of course. This seems like a worthwhile challenge.” JB jumped at the chance.
“Excellent! I am authorized to offer you the same financial arrangement: two thousand dollars in advance and another eighteen thousand upon completion.”
“That would be fine.” JB was visually excited.
At this point in the relationship, she cared about the challenge as much as the money. Of course, the financial remuneration was an enormous incentive as well.
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“Sure, where is the data?” she asked.
He gave her a thumb drive with the advance money in another envelop. With a devious smile, he said, “I hope you can confirm the success of our procedures in producing docile persons from violent ones.”
Of course, JB never heard that. Her mind was already going a hundred miles an hour thinking about how to crack the new database.
“I hope so,” she replied mindlessly.
“Well, best of luck, my friend. Call me when you are done. I am sure you can knock this one out rather quickly.”
He rose from the table, “I have a plane to catch.”
She took the drive and stood up as well. They shook hands. As they parted their individual ways, she saw him took the two cups from the table and carefully put them in his briefcase. He turned to her and smiled. “I like to collect glasses as souvenir.” To make the ruse real, he waved one glass to the bartender, who nodded at him.
After JB left the Hilton, she decided she should be wise about spending the money. Not knowing how long this ‘consulting’ job would last, the safest strategy was to bank the money for now.
Putting so much cash so quickly in one account might arouse suspicion, being devious, she would choose a different bank each time. So, heading to another bank close to her apartment, she opened a new savings account and deposited the money from the first project there. However, as a reward, she kept a small amount to treat herself to a nice expensive dinner.
For the next two weeks, she threw herself into working with the new dataset as one who never backed down from a challenge. This time, the task was not to classify the data as docile or violent, but a prediction problem. She wanted to predict the degree of violent tendencies using the database, technically a much more arduous task than the one before.
Undaunted, she attacked the problem with ferocity, working on the dataset day and night. While she was teaching during the day, the laptop was always working, trying out different scenarios at home.
After three weeks of unceasing labor, she finally felt that she had cracked the problem late one evening. Delighted and satisfied, that was the only night that she went to bed earlier than usual. The next day, before going to the Institute, she ran the program again with a different set of initial conditions just to see if she could repeat the results.
Anxious to see the results, she left the Institute early and was delighted that consistent results were achieved. Immediately, she called Dr. Schmidtiz and was pleasantly surprised that the man answered the phone directly.
“Dr. Schmidtiz? JB here.”
“Yes, JB. Do you have good news for me?”
“Very good news.” JB blurted out. She could not contain her excitement.
“Super, I will see you tomorrow at the usual place and time?”
“I will be there.”
“Please bring your program and the results?”
“Of course.”
The next day, JB was there with her laptop at the appointed time. Dr. Schmidtiz was there already as always waiting for her.
After a few words of pleasantry, she went over the program and showed him the results, to his delight.
He patted JB on the back and told her she had helped the organization tremendously and he would never forget her dedication to the project. He further told her they were perfecting a second procedure and were looking forward to having her analyzed the results for them again. With that, another thick envelop changed hands.