1999, March 16th

  Josh Johnson looked in the mirror. He kept on practicing his lines, his hands trembling.

  "Hi, I'm Josh. I graduated from MIT with a degree in Computer Science..." He trailed off. No, that sounded too stiff.

  "Hello, I'm Josh, and I'm really excited about the opportunity to-" He cut himself off. No, it sounds too eager.

  He sighed as he kneaded his temple. I can't mess this up. This is my third interview this month. Who knows when I'll find another opportunity like this again?

  A knock came on the door. His roommate, Jackie, spoke, "Dude, you're gonna be late if you keep procrastinating in there."

  He looked down at his left waist. It was 8:47 am. The interview was in Tampa. It would take at least 45 minutes to drive from his apartment in Clearwater to Tampa, and the interview was at 10. And he wasn't very optimistic about Tampa's infamous traffic.

  "Fuck," he muttered as he put on a coat and ran out of the bathroom, high-fiving Jackie for good luck as he left the apartment.

  25 minutes later, he was stuck in traffic on I-275, drumming his fingers on the steering wheel. The company he was interviewing for was Quantum Innovation. It was a recent startup, so he almost ignored it, but he couldn't contain his curiosity, so he started researching. The more he read, the more unbelievable it seemed. They were the developers of QuantumOS, which, in hindsight, should have been obvious. QuantumOS was extremely popular in their tech circle for virtualization tech and how optimized they were. Despite having features that seemed decades ahead of its time, it wasn't bloated at all and was quite modest in terms of OS capacity. Their university had already started using QuantumOS a few years back, though, according to their professor at the time, Dr. Amanda Chen, it was just a demo. And, apparently, it was created by just one guy, an 18-year-old homeschooled genius..

  At first, he had assumed it was just an internet exaggeration. Nobody could build an entire OS alone, let alone an OS that was actually good. And by a teenager who had never gone to school? He'd tell anyone who says that to him to get out.

  But the more he read, the more he realized that it could be true. PC Magazine said that it was 'the most significant Windows competitor in a decade' and that 'they haven't posted any job posting for any developers until now.' And after doing some more research, he realized that QuantumOS had cornered 28% of the US market share in just four months. Their browser, QuantumFlux, had already surpassed 20% and was still growing. And they were about to release some kind of digital payment platform.

  So when he saw a job posting for "Software Engineer - System Development", he applied immediately. And they were terribly efficient. Within just two hours, he had already gotten an email back, telling him to come in for an interview in 2 days.

  Josh's thoughts were cut off as his phone rang. He looked at it and looked at the traffic in front of him. It was an unknown number. We're in heavy traffic anyway. It shouldn't matter too much. He answered the call, "Hello?"

  "Hi, is this Josh Johnson?" A young woman's voice came from the other side.

  "Yes, that's me."

  "I'm from Quantum Innovation. I'm calling to confirm you're still coming in for your 10 AM interview?"

  Josh glanced at the dashboard clock. It was 9:14 AM. The traffic hadn't moved in five minutes. "Yes, absolutely. I'm on my way now, but I'm stuck in traffic on I-275. I should still make it by 10, maybe a few minutes late."

  "That's perfectly fine. Tampa traffic can be unpredictable. If you're running late, just let us know. We understand."

  "Thank you. I really appreciate it."

  "No problem."

  After hanging up, Josh felt marginally less stressed. At least, they are understanding. The traffic finally started moving again, and he made it to the building at 9:58 AM.

  Stolen from its original source, this story is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings.

  The building was modest, a two-story office structure that looked recently renovated. Not the flashy startup headquarters he'd half-expected, but clean and professional. He parked in a visitor spot, grabbed his portfolio bag, and took a deep breath.

  You've got this. You're qualified. You know your stuff. Just don't screw it up.

  The lobby was simple and modest. The middle-aged receptionist looked up, "Hi, sir. Name, please."

  "Josh Johnson."

  She nodded, "Somebody will be with you shortly."

  Josh sat, his portfolio bag clutched in his lap. The waiting area had copies of PC Magazine, Wired, and various tech journals. He picked up a Wired issue with an article about operating systems.

  Three minutes later, a young woman came out of the back. "Josh Johnson?" She had the same voice as the one who called him.

  "That's me." He stood up and raised his hand.

  "Follow me, please."

  Ana led him to a conference room. Inside, two people sat at the table. A young woman and a young man. The young woman had striking short white hair that made her stand out immediately, and the young man wore a simple blue tank top.

  The white-haired woman stood and extended her hand. Her grip was firm and confident, "Josh? I'm Eve Maxi, COO of Quantum Innovation. This is William... Winter, CEO of Quantum Innovation."

  The CEO? He was shocked. Josh didn't expect the CEO himself to come and interview them. The CEO looked as young as the rumors suggested. He was definitely around eighteen.

  "Nice to meet both of you," Josh said as he sat on the chair they indicated.

  William leaned back in his chair, studying Josh with an intensity that was slightly unnerving. "Josh Johnson. MIT. Systems programming focus. You've been doing contract work for the past year." He didn't even look at any notes or files.

  "That's right."

  "Why not full-time employment, and what made you change your mind now?"

  He thought of saying the lines he had practiced, but he had been saying that in the last three interviews, and it hadn't worked out well for him. So he decided to speak the truth, "It was just that I couldn't find a company to hire me."

  William nodded, unfazed, "Alright. In your resume, it says you tested our system?"

  Josh nodded, "Yes." Josh pulled the folder from his bag and handed them the folder. "I've been following QuantumOS since the university demos. I set up a dual-boot system to test it myself. Your virtualization implementation is remarkable. And I ran benchmarks on QFS comparing it to FAT32 and NTFS."

  William looked through them, and after about thirty seconds, he looked back up. "You ran these yourself?"

  "Yes."

  "Why?"

  "I was curious about how they would perform and wanted to learn how it worked."

  "Your methodology is solid. Sample sizes are appropriate. You controlled for variables." He closed the folder. "What did you think of the QFS implementation?"

  Josh felt himself relaxing as they entered technical territory. "It's brilliant. The way you handle fragmentation is elegant. Dynamic allocation with predictive clustering is a genius move. From what I've seen, most file systems treat fragmentation as an inevitable problem to manage. You designed around it from the start."

  "How would you improve it?"

  The question caught Josh off guard. "Improve it?"

  "Nothing's perfect. If you were designing QFS 2.0, what would you change?"

  Josh found himself tensing up again, "Small file performance could be better. Your allocation strategy is optimized for larger files, which makes sense for most use cases, but there's overhead for very small files."

  William nodded. "We're working on that for version 2.0. What else?"

  They went back and forth for another ten minutes, William asking increasingly technical questions about kernel architecture, memory management, and interrupt handling. Josh answered most correctly, admitted when he wasn't sure, and asked clarifying questions when needed.

  Finally, William sat back. "You know your stuff."

  "Thank you."

  Eve cut in, "We'll call you back within a day if you got the job."

  "Thank you." He said as he grabbed the bag and walked out. His heart was pounding. He hoped he did fine. He would want to work in a company that was as straightforward as this one.

  William watched the young man walk out. Well, he's technically older than him, but still. Eve looked at him, "You sound impressed."

  William raised one of his eyebrows, "Really? I sounded as cold as possible. You can still pick out my mood?"

  She snorted, "Who do you think I am? If I can't figure you out after living with you for fifteen years, I might as well be brain-dead."

  He muttered to himself, "How egotistical."

  "Says you, bitch."

  They almost fought right there and then, but restrained themselves after Ana walked in with their coffee.

  William smiled at her and took the coffee, "Thank you."

  He took a sip. "Well, he was pretty good. Definitely above average for an MIT student."

  She, too, took a sip. Then, she remembered, "You fuck. I told you this morning we weren't done. Why did you change your last name?"

  "I didn't like it."

  "Do you know how much work this put on me?"

  He shook his head, "No need. I did all the necessary paperwork all night."

  "Fine. You'll get away with it this time. Simply because you did all of it. What do you like about the last name Winter anyway?"

  "Well, I like Winter."

  She rolled her eyes, "Figured."

  He shrugged, "I just put whatever came to my mind first. I almost put in Quantum, you know? That would've been awkward."

  "I would've actually kill you if you did that."

  He was confused, "Why?"

  She paused, "You know what, never mind. We still have to go through ten more interviews. Think you can handle this?"

  He pumped himself up, "I was born ready."