The Lost Prince

Finals

For the rest of the semester Eric worked his ass off to finish the rest of the coding for the factory, setting them up to be extremely successful as he began training their new IT hire how to properly manage and debug the systems himself so this wouldn't happen again. What he hadn't expected was the IT guy telling them they had some other machinery they had quit using because it was just too inefficient anymore, and he wanted Eric to look at the coding and see if there was anything he could do to resurrect those machines, gladly giving him the coding for every machine they had ever used. Some of which he learned were still being used by multiple companies.

Class however was interesting as the entire program had heard about his monumental success of achieving a 65 percent efficiency increase in the factory without doing anything but mess with the coding. His teacher was wondering how he did it as he presented his work to the entire class, showing how he obtained the first 22 percent by debugging the machinery code and realizing that the code itself was hamstringing the production ability of them for absolutely no reason. Then he went into his detailed decision to completely rewrite the controller code for all of the machines, updating it to current standards after 30 years of neglect.

They were all amazed that he showed them how to do it, getting an additional 45 percent base efficiency to the machinery to bring the total to 62 percent across the entire factory. Not just one machine, but all 12 models of machinery they used. It had gone so well they actually offered him a job that he informed them he wouldn't be able to take because of his current job.

Professor Chun was stunned when he read the reports from the factory, especially the part of it where they wanted him assigned to them again for the next series of projects they had happening the next semester. Summer was first however, and he was confused as to why Eric had refused to take a job with them as it was being offered. So he had Eric stay after class when he was finished and sat down next to him.

"How can I help you professor?" Eric asked.

"I am trying to understand something Mr. Knight, as Mr. White informed me he offered you a job and you declined." he said confused.

"Ah." Eric answered as he looked at the Professor. "Professor Chun, the reason I refused is simple actually. Working for them as a school project is perfectly acceptable, as I have absolutely no control over the assignments or who you assign me too. Directly working for someone however would be a violation of my non compete clause." he explained casually.

Professor Chun was a little confused, as he believed he knew the locations everyone was working. "I wasn't made aware you had an internship already, where?" he asked as he felt he needed to know.

"Actually it isn't an internship. You see I am the majority partner and head coder and Programmer for Apex Technological Solutions. The restaurant management system that was shown when we began the projects, is what I had spent the better part of a year coding and designing." Eric told him as his jaw dropped as he pulled up the documentation of it and sure enough, his name was there in black and white as Head Programmer and Coder for the project.

"Oh s**t, how come you never said anything?" Chun asked as Eric shrugged.

"Didn't know you needed to be aware of my entire life, if it matters I am also the Front of House Manager at Dimitry's as well." he told the professor who recognized that it was the restaurant where they conducted the initial testing and launch of the management software.

"Holy shit." Chun said looking at him stunned. "Full time student, full time manager and full time coder for your own tech company. What else do you do?" he asked amazed.

"Actually not full time coder, that is only like 25 hours a week so it would be part time." Eric corrected him as he shook his head knowing it wasn't any better.

"Wait, you are going to use that as a stepping stone to other program creations for your tech solutions company, aren't you?" he asked as Eric shrugged.

"We might have 15 or 20 companies that we are preparing to approach that use one or more of the machines I reprogrammed this semester. Once word starts spreading we should have a few customers willing to pay for it, as well as to begin setting up a database of other open source machines that we can start working on." he explained as if it was just normal business. Except it was something no company before had conceived of, as most of those older machines the customers could barely afford to keep operating.

"Your class mates are going to be pissed when they realize that you are their boss for their summer internships." Professor Chun said making Eric laugh.

"I won't be their boss. That would be our Operations Manager and Lead Programmer Peter Black that oversees them. I am essentially my own department at the moment, as it is my company but being managed and operated by my business partner Hellen Swann. My focus right now is school and my job as Front of House Manager. This project was actually done in my homework time and at night, just exactly as if I were coding during break. Oh wait, maybe I have the perfect project that they can help with." Eric said with a smile as Chun shook his head and stood up.

"Well Mr. Knight, you seem to be one of my more promising students in a long time. Hopefully the summer is good for you, now that I know which company to watch. Have some fun at some point." he said before walking out of the classroom amazed at what he had already accomplished.

Finals week arrived, Eric realizing that despite his workload all semester he was more than ready for it. Without fail he felt like he aced each one of them, somehow his studying of the materials searing the information into his brain the first time he read it or was told. He felt lucky as he had all of his finals the first two days that week, so he went to the Apex Office just to begin putting the wheels onto his next project that his class mates had no idea they would likely be assisting with once they started.

As soon as he walked in though, he knew that significant changes had been made in the last few months, as the receptionist was guarding several security doors.

"Are you here to see someone? Do you have an appointment?" she asked as he stepped up to her as he looked around before he focused on her.

"I bet if I actually checked my emails I would know what happened and what I need to do, but the last few months have been hectic for me. So to answer your questions, no. I am not here to see someone not do I have an appointment. My name is Eric Knight and I need to get into my office." he told her honestly as she laughed.

"Hellen told me you would likely be coming in in the next few days. For the security purposes, I need to see your ID card, and we can print your company security access card. My name is Melanie Strong by the way." she said as he looked into her ice blue eyes before they widened with surprise for a moment before he handed her the card and she went back to professional mode instantly.

"How do you like working here?" he asked casually as she smiled and entered his information into the security system so he could access what he needed to.

"I love it." Melanie said enthusiastic. "Haven't ever been able to say that I have the freedom to do my job the way I want." she said as he looked slightly confused. "Head of HR, my assistant usually does the front desk." she explained.

"Ohhh, that explains it." he said strangely feeling a connection to her he had never experienced before. "As you can imagine I am not as aware of what is happening here as I probably should be."

She smiled as the card began printing. "Actually Hellen has made all of management aware that you are in school currently for computer science and that you are quite young. But we also know without your contribution none of us would even have a job, so thanks." she said genuinely pleased as she had been with the company now for 7 months. As soon as the card printed she scanned it into the system to finalize his access permissions and handed him his new access card along with his ID card. "Security protocol says it needs to be displayed whenever you are in the premises." she said as he clipped it to the bottom of his shirt which made her smile.

For 5 days he worked in his office, working his way to improve the new controller interface he had decided to work on when the new interns were touring the facility as part of their welcoming process. Hellen was leading it when she saw his door was open and knocked on it.

"Mind saying something to the new interns?" she asked as he nodded and walked to his door.

"You are an intern here to?" Heather Turnbull asked surprised as she was in several of his classes.

"Actually, Mr. Knight is the founder of Apex Technological Solutions and the Head Programmer for the program most of you will be working on. The 6 he decides that will work with him for the summer, will work with him on the new project he hasn't told us about yet." Hellen teased him.

"The meeting is in three hours, and those in my class already know the new program I am working on. But, we aren't here for that at the moment, so I shall say welcome to all of you. Many of you probably think this is a great stepping stone for your resume after you graduate. That it will show other companies how valuable an asset you could be." he told them as most of the. laughed while agreeing with him. "You should know however, that if you show your skills and value here during this internship, there could potentially be a full time job offer at the end of it. As you can tell, the degree most of you are working towards isn't the only qualification we are looking for." Just as he said it his phone began ringing, which made him enter his office and answer it.

"Mr. Knight, glad I was able to reach you. Henry White, I think you and I need to talk." he said firmly.

"Mr. White, as I told your HR, I cannot come work for you directly. It would be a-" he began before he was cut off.

"Oh, it will be in your official capacity with Alex Tech. If we had known that was the case, we would have brought your bosses in sooner." Henry replied.

"Mr. White, it isn't so much as a boss as it is a partner. Any meeting we have would be to hire my company, with my business partner fully involved in the meetings." Eric told him bluntly.

"That is exactly what we wish to discuss, especially after the improvements you made in our factory this semester and what we learned about your role in your company. We want you and your company to replicate your results in that factory across our entire network of manufacturing plants." he said surprising Eric.

"How about dinner this evening, Dimitry's at 7:30?"

"I will be there." Henry answered before hanging up as Hellen came back after escorting them to the training room the interns would spend the first week in.

"What was that about?" she asked closing the door as he sighed.

"So I told you about the factory project for our coding class, about improving the efficiency of a machine in a factory. Well, I went a tad bit further and managed to do it to the entire factory, improving efficiency by 62 percent overall." he explained as she nodded. "The owner wants to discuss doing it with all his factories with a nice fat contract for us."

Hellen gasped as she instantly grasped the importance. "Please tell me you scheduled a meeting to discuss it and didn't turn him down flat?" she asked making him chuckle for a second.

"We have dinner with him at 7:30 at the restaurant." he said making her relax a bit. "This is actually my idea for our next product, because legacy machines that many factories use, we can just copy the coding and make a database of it as it is no longer protected work product. The more of the coding we can get and improve, the more factories we should be able to just reflash everything and make bookoo bucks off of it." he told her making her smile.

"So those 12 machines?" she asked as he showed her the new interface he had been working on during his down time over the semester.

It was a slightly upgraded version from what he launched in the factory, as it was limited to just the machines they had inside of it. It didn't need the functionality this new one would have, as it would be made to attract customers who had multiple factories that they needed to have real time info for.