IRIS is born
“Yo, Camilla! We going to the party or what?”
It was the second week of college and Sheryl was getting tired of begging her new friend to leave the dorms. It wasn’t that Camilla wasn’t a party girl or that she hated socializing, in fact, she loved it. However, she had recently taken up a huge personal project, which consumed whatever little free time she had.
“Yeah, I’m going” Camilla yelled from her desk.
She quickly shoved her notes into a drawer, closed her laptop, and grabbed her heels. The sequins on her dress reflected in the mirror as she opened the door.
“Woah! C, that dress is so cute. I knew you could rock something other than those sweats” Sheryl teased.
“What are you even working on?”
“I’ve been trying to create a new system” Camilla said, hoping that Sheryl wouldn’t ask anymore questions.
“Okay okay, smart stuff, I get it. But this is college. Best time of our lives, we need to live a little. That means having fun, going to parties, meeting boys, ya know?”
Maybe Sheryl did have a point. After all, they say that if you’re stuck on a problem, your mind keeps working on it even when you’re distracted. Perhaps all Camilla needed was to cut loose a bit.
———————————————————————
Red cups were up in the air and the room smelled of beer. Camilla was busy getting another drink when a blond girl approached her.
“Hey, you’re Camilla, right” she asked
“That’s me, you want one?” Camilla said while pouring herself a drink and adding soda.
“I’m okay” the blonde responded “you wanna dance?”
“Sure, why not?” It wasn’t like she was busy and she seemed nice enough.
Party Rock blasted through the speakers as she danced from side to side and let go. After about two more songs she had it. OF COURSE. How could she not have thought of it earlier? A smile crept onto her face as she turned to leave.
“I have to go! Thanks for the dancing!” She yelled at the blonde while trying to part the crowd.
Camilla took off her heels and ran across campus to the undergraduate library, the only one open at this hour. She managed to sneak in and headed to a small room in the basement. Then, she got to work.
Instead of trying to create a data base of information for her new program, why not use an existing pool of information. If she inverted the sequence, she could filter specific searches through the internet and avoid an overload of data since only relevant content would be processed through. She popped her flash drive into a school computer and ran the revised program. She held her breath as the computer loaded. 3...2...1
“Hello Camilla, this is IRIS, your intelligence system. Please put on a projection device to continue running diagnostics.”
She couldn’t believe it. It worked. She fumbled around her bag and found a case. Inside was a prototype for projective glasses. They allowed the wearer to use IRIS on the move. She put them on and couldn’t believe her eyes. Screens appeared everywhere and she couldn’t help but smile in awe. She began to laugh and twirl around the room to see endless screens displaying copious amounts of information.
“Camilla? You okay?” A familiar voice cut through the room.
Oh no. It was that blonde, what could she want?
Camilla was dizzy from spinning and tried her best to turn around, hide her glasses and quietly unplug her flash drive. She quickly placed it in her pocket.
“You don’t look too good. Think you’ve had too much to drink.”
“Yeeeaahhh” Camilla faked.
“My unicorn is here!!!” She continued.
“Uh alright Camilla, I’ll take you back to the party and maybe get one of your friends to take you back to your dorm room” the blonde said with confusion and concern.
“No! I know the way!” Camilla yelled while trying to act clumsy and walk out of the door.
“I don’t know...it’s pretty dangerous and like I said you don’t look too good.” Her dance partner said, getting more creeped out than before.
“I live across the patio i-“ she fake stuttered “in the Hamilton buildingsss” she said.
“Okay, lets walk over then just to make sure you make it safe”
They walked in silence and finally reached the entrance of Hamilton hall. She entered while waving good-bye.
That was close. Once Camilla saw that the blonde was gone she began walking to her actual dorm building when she felt a pinch in her shoulder and fell to the ground, unconscious.