"Dammit, we've got the Stiff first thing in the morning?"

"Yeah, so not looking forward to it!"

"The guy acts like it's still the 90s! I'm actually surprised he knows about DNNs,"

"I nearly got a heart-attack the first time I heard that gas-guzzler of his!"

Kristen tried to drown the whispers and snide comments of the other students, as she sat in the half-empty lecture hall.

She had spent the last night researching St. Ignatius Academy, and had been mesmerized by the pictures of the campus, the uniforms, and the ethos surrounding it.

In truth, she didn't have a sister, it was something she had hastily come up with to justify her hanging back and talking to him.

"What do I do now?" she agonized.

"Good morning, class," Ivan's voice cut through her agonizing, and she shook her head to focus on his class.

"Today, we're going to cover queues, another fundamental data structure," he said, pulling up a slide on the projector screen.

Kristen sighed, as Ivan's voice washed over her, grounding her thoughts.

"Queues are ubiquitous in our field of computer science. They form the basic implementation of those fancy message brokers like Kafka and RabbitMQ that you guys prefer to learn about than the boring 1970s stuff that I teach," he said, a twinkle in his eye.

The class let out a few nervous chuckles.

"Now, a queue is a linear data structure that follows the First In First Out or FIFO principle. This means that the first element added to the queue will be the first one to be removed," he explained, pulling up a diagram of a queue on the projector screen.

"Queues are implemented using the linked list data structure that we covered last week. Each element in the queue is represented by a single node in the linked list. And if you want to be fancy, you can even implement a circular queue using a circular linked list," he continued.

"Now since you all seem to be more at home with Python rather than my ancient C, let's look at how to implement a queue in Python," he said, pulling up a code editor on the projector screen.

"The good thing about Python, is that you don't have to worry about memory management, so we just define a simple class for the node, which contains the data and a reference to the next node," he explained, typing out the code.

"And then we define a class for the queue itself, which contains methods for inserting and removing elements, as well as checking if the queue is empty and getting the size of the queue," he continued, typing rapidly.

Kristen watched mesmerized as Ivan typed out the code from memory, ignoring the AI completion suggestions.

"This bot is annoying," he muttered, quickly diving into the editor settings, and disabling the AI code completion.

"All right, any questions so far?" he asked, looking around the room.

"Yo teach, why not use Python's built-in module? You're reinventin' the wheel," challenged a student.

"Why stop there, Mr. Matthews? Let's implement this using RabbitMQ shall we?" countered Ivan, opening a fresh code editor window.

This time, he defined a Dockerfile for a RabbitMQ server, and a Python script that used the Pika library to implement a simple queue.

"Now tell me, does this make you any wiser about how queues work? Oh, and will you look at that? It's slow as molasses," he said, as the underpowered projector computer took several seconds to run the example.

"All that server overhead makes sense when you've got millions of users hitting your app, but that becomes a liability for something like this. Now let's look at the built-in module," he said, pulling up another code editor window.

This time, the code was simple and elegant, and more importantly, it ran instantly.

"Anyone see the difference besides the obvious one of speed?" he asked.

"It's basically doin' the same thing?" ventured Mr. Matthews.

"Exactly, because at the end of the day, all these fancy libraries and frameworks are just abstractions over the basic data structures and algorithms that we cover in this class," said Ivan.

"Professor Zakhrov, are you flexing on us?" asked Kristen, unable to stop herself.

"Not bad for a guy who's called the Stiff, right?" chuckled Ivan.

Most of the students squirmed uncomfortably.

However, Kristen buried her face behind her laptop so that nobody could see her blush and bite her lip.

"Condescending bastard," muttered Mr. Matthews.

"All right. Since you guys like challenges, for your assignment, you are to build a simulation for a city's water supply and sewage system. Use whatever you like, but you'll be graded on both computational efficiency, and simulation accuracy. You should be able to sell it to a town and not have them blow their entire budget on the AWS bill," said Ivan, as the bell rang, signaling the end of the class.

----

"Professor Zakhrov, wait up!" called out Kristen, as Ivan opened the door to his BMW M5.

"Something the matter, Ms. Ford?" asked Ivan, pausing.

"Um, yes. I just wanted to thank you for today's class. It was really interesting," she said, blushing slightly.

"Glad you enjoyed it. See you next class," said Ivan.

"Um, a-also, I w-wanted to tell you that I don't have a sister, I-I just w-wanted to tell you that I don't think you're a stiff, b-but I was too nervous last time," she mumbled, her cheeks burning, as she looked down at her feet. Her hands fidgeting together.

"Well, thank you, Ms. Ford. I appreciate that. And you don't have to be so nervous. Am I that scary?" asked Ivan, smiling gently.

Kristen blushed harder, and looked at him through her lashes.

"N-not scary, just h-impressive," she said, catching herself before she could say "handsome".

Ivan chuckled.

"Thank you, Ms. Ford. See you next class," he said, before getting into his BMW and driving off.

Kristen stood there for a few moments, her heart pounding.

"So handsome, so gentle. Why did I get someone like him for a professor?" she sighed, walking to her Tesla.

Inside the car, she slapped her cheeks to clear her head.

"No. I can't keep crushing on him. It's wrong. He's twice my age. I need help," she muttered, starting the car.

----

Ivan drove into the Sirius Software HQ parking lot, got out of his BMW, and walked up to the main entrance.

"This is new," he observed, as he pressed his hand into the hand-print scanner of the new Sirius Software Portal door.

The door hissed open, but Ivan felt a slight tingle on the back of his hand as the infrared laser grid scanned it.

He stepped through, and the door hissed shut behind him.

"I see you've made some changes," he said as he entered Aaron's office.

"That I have. I'm still working out the kinks in the system though," said Aaron, looking up from his computer.

"May I?" asked Ivan, coming around to look at Aaron's code.

"That's what I'm paying you for," chuckled Aaron.

Ivan let out a whistle.

"This dress code compliance system is technically impressive, but dystopian as hell," he said looking over the code.

"That's the idea," said Aaron, smirking.

"Well, as impressive as it is, you'll be looking at a bunch of angry and bankrupt employees if you don't dial it back a notch," said Ivan.

"Figuring that out," said Aaron, his hands flying over the keyboard.

"You know, it feels like you've built a vertically integrated empire, all so that you can play dress-up with your employees," chuckled Ivan as he watched Aaron enthusiastically work out the fault tolerances of the system.

"Well, not quite. I did want to create video games, but I also want to make sure my vision of civilized society is preserved," said Aaron.

"Fair enough. Just remember, not everyone is like you or me," said Ivan.

----

Kristen drove aimlessly around downtown Boston, trying to clear her head.

A display in a shop window caught her eye.

She carefully found a parking spot, and walked up to the shop window.

The faceless mannequin was dressed in a sleek black skirt-suit, with an ivory blouse, black pantyhose, and black leather pumps with 8 cm stiletto heels.

Kristen's heart pounded as she gazed at the outfit.

"Why do I find this so appealing?" she wondered.

Squaring her shoulders, she walked into the shop.

A petite yet voluptuous saleswoman with long auburn hair, green eyes, and wearing the same outfit as the mannequin approached her.

"Welcome to The Feminine Professional, how can I help you?" she asked, her heels clicking smartly on the tiled floor.

"Um, I'm looking for a new look," said Kristen, blushing slightly.

"Well, you've come to the right place. What do you have in mind?" asked the saleswoman.

"Um, actually, I think I'll try some other time," said Kristen, her cheeks burning.

She turned to leave, but the saleswoman blocked her way.

"Now, now. No need to be nervous. At least browse a little," she said, giving Kristen a reassuring smile.

"Well, I guess I can look around," said Kristen, before following the saleswoman deeper into the store.

She looked around at the various outfits hanging on racks and mannequins.

"This place looks expensive," she muttered, as she ran her fingers over a sleek black pencil skirt.

"We do have a range from affordable to high-end, and we do volume discounts for uniforms," chuckled the saleswoman.

"You have anything in my size? And in the sub-hundred dollar range?" asked Kristen.

"Of course. Follow me," said the saleswoman, leading Kristen to a section of the store.

"First, let's get you measured," she said, leading Kristen to a pedestal with a strange portal-like frame around it.

"What is that?" asked Kristen, eyeing the frame warily.

"It's a 3D body scanner. It will take your measurements in seconds, and with way more accuracy than a tape measure," explained the saleswoman.

Kristen nervously stepped into the frame.

The frame hummed to life, and it slowly rotated around her.

Her cheeks burned as the monitor spat out her measurements and sizes, for both standard and custom tailoring.

"OK, here's the stuff we have in your size, and within you budget," said the saleswoman, leading Kristen to a rack of clothes.

Kristen nervously eyed the sleek tapered blouses, pencil skirts, and blazers in dark colors.

"Um, maybe I'll try this one," she said, pulling a navy blue pencil skirt, a pale pink blouse, and a navy blue blazer off the rack.

----

Kristen stared at her reflection in the full-length mirror of the fitting room.

The glossy satin finish of pale pink blouse brightened her complexion and brought out the green in her eyes.

The navy blue pencil skirt hit just above her knees, and gave her thighs a sleek and shapely look,

while the black pantyhose made her legs look long and slender.

The navy blue blazer had wide notched lapels, and a single button closure that pulled in her waist, giving her an hourglass figure.

She had thought that her massive breasts would push the style from professional to slutty, but instead, they were contained and supported by the corset Margaret, the saleswoman had suggested, and they actually looked proportional on her slight frame.

Her hair had been brushed and styled into its regular ponytail, making it look much neater and more polished than her usual messy version.

For the first time since she started to fill out during middle school, she felt pretty.

She padded out of the fitting room, and showed herself to Margaret.

"Well? What do you think, Margaret?" she asked.

"You look amazing, but what I think doesn't matter. How do you feel in it?" asked Margaret.

"Pretty, I feel pretty after a long time," said Kristen, tears welling up in her eyes.

----

"There, there. Yes, I know the feeling. Let me tell you a secret. Those girls were all jealous," said Margaret, gently hugging Kristen, after the younger girl had sobbed and poured her heart out to her.

She had been mocked and teased ever since puberty started to change her body, and it had taken a heavy toll on her.

"Let me tell you, girl to girl. Being buxom is not a curse. It is a beautiful thing. You just have to learn to embrace it," said Margaret.

"How?" asked Kristen, wiping her eyes.

"By dressing the part. Clothes that fit you well, and show off your figure, but still look professional. Like what you're wearing now," said Margaret.

"How much is it?" asked Kristen, looking down at her outfit.

"For you, $95, and I'll throw in a pair of shoes that go with it for free," said Margaret, handing Kristen a pair of black leather pumps with 8 cm stiletto heels.

"Um, I've never worn heels before," said Kristen nervously.

"Don't worry, I'll teach you," said Margaret, helping Kristen into the shoes.

Kristen wobbled slightly as she stood up in the heels.

"Here, hold my hand," said Margaret, and Kristen took her hand.

"Now, take small steps, and keep your weight on the balls of your feet," instructed Margaret.

Kristen took a few tentative steps.

The heels clicked tentatively on the tiled floor, as she adjusted to her new center of gravity.

"I thought that these would hurt more," she said, as she slowly walked around the store, with Margaret by her side.

"Those heels use proprietary technology to make them as comfortable as possible. You should be able to wear them all day once you get used to them," explained Margaret.

After a few more laps around the store, Kristen felt more confident, and she was soon prancing around the store, her heels clicking in a smart and steady cadence.

"Damn, this sounds sexy," she said, as she walked up to the counter to pay for her outfit.

"That it does," chuckled Margaret, as she rang up the sale.

"Thank you, Margaret. I'll be back for more, once I get a part-time job," said Kristen, as she left the store, her heels clicking smartly on the sidewalk.