1999, April 3rd

  William was dressed up in his usual clothing as he walked into the headquarters. He put the keys to his car in his coat pocket. He was, as usual, wearing a black coat with a vest underneath.

  Usually, he worked from home, but the day was different. It would be the launch day of the payment processor, QuantumPay. He had decided to adopt a mixed system. For credit card transactions, he opted for a tiered fee system. He would charge 2% + $0.10 for qualified cards like non-reward consumer credit cards. The rest, like reward cards, keyed-in sales, premium cards, or corporate cards, would be charged higher to make a profit, since they had a higher interchange cost. Of course, the fee would come from the merchants, not the users. For debit card transactions, he would charge around 1% + $0.10 for small transactions below $100, 0.75% + $0.10 for medium transactions below $500, and 0.5% + $0.10 for large transactions. These would maintain a solid margin. What he was aiming for wasn't to undercut but, instead, to provide convenience. Convenience was king. If something was convenient, even if that thing cost a little more, they would still use it. And while he wasn't the first mover like Confinity(PayPal), he was still early to the scene. And he had a better reach than Confinity, as he had connected with both Amazon and eBay, and other small, trusted online merchants.

  He walked into Eve's office. She was sitting on the desk, staring at him.

  William ignored her gaze and sat down in the chair in front of her. He crossed his legs and reached into his coat's inner pocket. He brought out a cookie he bought from a convenience store and slid it across the table towards Eve. He took out another one and started eating.

  She picked hers up and started eating as well.

  They sat in silence for a moment, chewing quietly.

  After eating, he cleaned his mouth with a napkin and moved to stand behind her, looking at her monitor. After watching her work in silence for a minute or two, he leaned down to kiss her on the cheek before leaving to check the other department.

  He walked downstairs, his hands in his pockets. The room for the new department was decorated to make the space feel comfortable, instead of trying to fit as many employees as possible into one room. If possible, he would have preferred them to work from home, as it would increase productivity. But alas, it wasn't possible just yet. He was a firm believer in working from home, as he hated commuting.

  He greeted the employees and observed them for a moment. He could see that they had good synergy. They worked, while not seamlessly, well. Though that may be because William was here.

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  After that, he walked over to the server room. The moment he opened the door, William was hit with a burst of cold air. Thankfully, he was wearing his long coat. It was very loud, with a loud whoosh from dozens of server fans running. He opened the lights. The cable management was perfect. Something he personally did the moment the servers were installed. He could stand messiness in everything else. Hell, he himself was messy. But he couldn't stand the cable management being messy. For some reason, his brain was OCD with just cables.

  The smell of the server room was overwhelming, as if it were ionized. He walked over to the server controller and checked if everything was in order.

  Three hours passed. It was noon. He had double, no, triple checked everything. Everything was in order. He was definitely not nervous. Definitely not.

  He sighed as he plopped down into the chair in front of Eve. If he could, he would have ordered a meal. His eyes lit up. That gave him an idea. But that was for when he had more infrastructure and more capital. He shelved the idea and stared at Eve.

  She really is beautiful. I think I've only met someone as beautiful as her, though for some reason, I can't remember her... He frowned. That was odd. Why wouldn't he remember someone? He had almost eidetic memory. It was improbable for him to forget anybody he had seen. He tried to remember what he remembered her from. It's certainly not from this life. I don't go out much, so I wouldn't have much chance to meet someone like that. That said, I wasn't the type to go out even in my past life. But it is more likely it was in my past life. He deducted. It wouldn't be in my later days. By then, I was busy with creating Pennyworth back then. So I can cross out from 2025 to 2030. Before that, I was in depression and just stayed inside to play games and doom scrolled, plus COVID was a thing, so I stayed inside. That must mean I saw someone like that when I was a teenager or younger.

  Suddenly, his stomach growled. He shook his idle thoughts away. He looked up at Eve, "Wanna eat something?"

  "Sure."

  "What do you want?"

  "Hmm. Just get me some Sushi."

  "So you're not coming?"

  "Nope. Too important today."

  "Alright." He uncrossed his legs and got up. After taking out the car keys from his pocket, he played with the keychain, his idle thoughts returning.

  He drove to a local Japanese place. It was very appropriately Japan-themed. The decorations were very oriental, the paintings were of famous samurais, though he didn't know who they were. After sitting down, he ordered sushi as takeaway and Tonkotsu Ramen to eat. After just five minutes, his meal was ready. The fast time made sense to him. There wasn't a lot of customers after all. But he and Eve frequented here whenever they felt like getting some Japanese food. He had brought Sarah here once, but she wasn't a big fan of Japanese food. It just wasn't to her taste.

  But for him, it was perfect. The meat was tender, the broth was perfectly thick, and the spices were plentiful. William closed his eyes briefly to enjoy the flavor. I would have liked to flex my Japanese a little, but the waiter probably didn't know Japanese. Though I shouldn't discriminate like this, it is very highly likely that the waiter doesn't know. It's logical after all. Why am I even explaining this shit to myself?

  He shook his head and continued eating. He ate the bowl clean and ordered another one. After gobbling it up as well, he gave a few dollars as a tip and left with the sushi.