Sci-Fi Part 6

~ Several Months Later ~

"... and that summarizes our work for the past year."  Carl concluded the presentation and adjusted his tie nervously.

I glanced at Soyo and his two colleagues who had come to watch our presentation, hoping that I'd find some sign of whether they liked our results.  The three of them had flown out from Korea to watch our presentation, and to determine if they would continue our funding for another year.   It was hard to tell what they had thought. Soyo was giving his usual, terse, plastic smile.  The man to his right was leaning forward, frowning, as if in deep concentration.  And the man to his left was fast asleep, snoring, with his head lolling from side to side.

"Any questions?" I asked.  The man leaning forward asked, "You had a slide indicating you had 90% success rate with the sample test data?"

"Yes, Carl - would you pull up the slide with the ROC curve?" I said, turning to Carl.  He was kneeling on the floor, tying his shoe lace.  "Oh nevermind..." I said under my breath, and leaned over him to reach the laptop and do it myself.   But just as I did, he said "Oh! Sure." and suddenly stood up, knocking the top of his head against my chin.

"Oof - Carl!" I said angrily.

"Sorry!" He quickly grabbed the mouse and scrolled to the slide.  The sleeping man was now awake, looking puzzled about where he was.

"As you can see from this ROC curve," I explained, "We get only 8% false negatives and 2% false positives."

"Those are quite good results," the man who had asked the question said.  "Please give me and my co-workers a few minutes to consult."  He turned to Soyo and the sleeping man, and began to talk to them in half-whispered Korean. 

I looked at Carl.  He was looking at his cell phone. I knew he was trying out the Android application he had written to translate spoken Korean into English.  

"Well?" I whispered.

He shook his head, frustrated, and showed me the translated text on the screen:
               The kitten has read about green cabbage.

"The app isn't working quite yet," he whispered back.

"Ehem," the man said.  We turned back to him, nervous about what he would say.  "Your results look good.  I think we are ready to proceed with phase two of our project, given your good results.  I don't think we will need to continue to fund this project - the results look quite good already."

I watched as Carl's face fell.  I'm sure mine must have looked the same.

The man continued, "It would be advantageous for you to publish your results.  However, our data is of strict confidentiality, and thus you will not be able to refer to the data in whatever you publish.  Also, we are pleased with your work and would like to fund you in a new project for the next year." 

"Really?" Carl asked.

The man said  "So, I am going to propose the following.  I would like to invite you to spend a month in Bangladesh with our larger research group there.  We are based near the Government University in Coxs Bazar.  Here, you can present your findings to a group that is well-versed with our data and work.  Second, you can begin training for your second project, which will require a higher degree of confidentially than the first.  What do you think?"  He glanced back and forth at both of us.

The idea sounded pretty good to me.  Carl was gaping. "Er, we may need a few days to decide." I said. 

"Very well," he said.  "Let Soyo know by this Friday at the latest.  He will convey your answer to me."  He stood up to go.  The other two rose as well.  "I hope you will say yes," he told us, bowed briefly, and walked out the door.  Soyo and the other man followed him.