Today was his last interview. And if he didn’t get in today, by the night he would be homeless.
He had an interview in a private aerospace start-up, SkyNovaTech, one of the rare firms still managed by humans. He had suited up, hope clenched like a burning ember in his chest.
The SkyNovaTech HQ resembled a luxury spacecraft. Clean metal halls, voice-controlled elevators, and white marble floors polished to perfection. Owen adjusted his collar, clutching his resume; the same resume he'd sent to 134 companies.
You're absolutely right. I apologize. Here's the corrected version with proper quotation marks for dialogue:
In a circular, glass-walled room, he sat across from Ms. Adira Wen, the lead recruiter. Her movements were crisp, her voice filtered through a frequency modulator to reduce emotional bias. Her eyes were silver with smart-vision implants that scanned micro expressions, cataloging every blink, every twitch, every involuntary tell of his nervous system.
Owen adjusted his collar. The suit felt too tight suddenly, the fabric pressing against his throat like a noose of false confidence.
"We reviewed your resume. Top of your class. Multiple awards. MIT credentials," she said, more to the screen than to him. Her gaze didn't lift from the holographic display floating between them, dense with data, graphs, performance metrics. "Your thesis on adaptive propulsion systems was cited in three peer-reviewed journals."
"Yes," Owen nodded, his voice steadier than his hands. "I'm passionate about propulsion physics. Human-led spaceflight. I believe that innovation comes from asking the right questions, not just executing the most efficient answer. I believe we need people who can think beyond the parameters."
She finally looked at him. Her augmented eyes flickered, analyzing his face like a scanner reading a barcode.
"So, Mr. Anderson," she said, voice clipped and precise, "Why should we hire someone organic when our AI systems design, simulate, and launch prototypes five times faster than a human team?"
She paused, letting the words settle. "Three times faster than our last generation of AI. And that was six months ago."
Owen took a breath. The question hung in the air like a blade. He knew what they wanted to hear: efficiency, measurable output, profit margins. But that wasn't why he was here.
"Because I can question what an AI can't," he said carefully. "I can improvise when the parameters break down. I can imagine solutions that don't exist yet. I can create, not just optimize."
Adira didn't blink. Literally. Her augmented eyes held steady, recording, processing.
"Emotions are not always a strength in aerospace engineering," she replied. "In fact, they're often liabilities. Hesitation. Second-guessing. Moral complications where none should exist."
"They are when you're trying to understand the why, not just the how," Owen countered, and he heard the edge creeping into his voice.
He forced it down, modulated. "When you're building something that could carry humanity forward, you need someone who understands not just the mechanics, but the purpose. The stakes. You can't automate that kind of thinking."
She tilted her head slightly, a gesture that might have been curiosity or might have been data collection. Her implants flickered again, faster this time.
"Then what about risk assessment? Intuition? The decisions you have to make when your data runs out and you're looking into the void?" Owen pressed, the words coming faster now, the weight of desperation lending them urgency.
"You need someone who can feel the weight of those decisions. Someone who understands that some problems don't have algorithmic solutions."
Adira leaned back in her chair. For the first time, something shifted in her expression. Not quite interest. More like recognition of a pattern she hadn't anticipated.
"We have algorithms for intuition," she said quietly. "Machine learning models trained on billions of decision-making scenarios. Our systems can predict outcomes with ninety-seven point three percent accuracy."
Owen met her gaze directly. "Do your algorithms dream? Do they wake up in the dark wondering if they're solving the right problem? Do they care if they fail?"
Adira blinked. Once. Slowly. As if recalibrating.
"That's not a requirement," she said finally.
"Then you're not ready for what comes next," Owen replied. His voice was steady now, certain. "Because the next frontier isn't about speed or accuracy. It's about asking the questions that haven't been asked yet. And those questions come from human imagination, not human computation."
Silence stretched between them. Adira's fingers moved across the holographic display, and Owen watched her face, trying to read the outcome in the micro-movements of her jaw, the dilation of her pupils behind the augmented lenses.
"I see," she said at last. She tapped a glowing panel, her movements deliberate and final. "We'll get back to you." Adira blinked; once, slowly. "We'll let you know."
Owen nodded, already knowing what that meant. There was no optimism in her tone, no hope hiding in the politeness. He stood, extending his hand. She didn't take it. She was already looking back at her screen, her attention already shifting to the next candidate, the next interview, the next human who would inevitably fall short of the machines she'd learned to trust more than people.
He was already walking out when the rejection was uploaded to his pad's inbox. The notification came before he even reached the elevator. A soft chime. A single line of text. "SkyNovaTech regrets to inform you that your application has not been selected at this time. We encourage you to apply again in the future."
He didn't read past that. Didn't need to. The future they were offering him didn't exist anymore.
He came back to his old apartment that had been his only home after MIT. Four small rooms above a grocery warehouse on the edge of the city, now half-dilapidated.
He stood in the living room, his few belongings packed in a duffle bag. The silence was heavy. The walls still held shadows of the past; his late-night study sessions, the posters of space missions, the quiet hours watching the moon through the cracked window.
As he folded the last of his clothes, he muttered to himself, “Four years at the best institute in the world… and I’m being evicted.”
He wandered aimlessly into the corner where he’d once stored books. Something about the ceiling caught his eye; an uneven seam near the light fixture. Curious, he fetched a stool and pushed at the panel.
With a faint creak, a secret roof hatch revealed itself.
The attic smelled of old wood and forgotten things. Dust swirled around him in lazy spirals. Broken crates, old wires, a cracked photo frame, and dead silence.
Nothing interesting.
Disappointed, he unscrewed the cap of his water bottle and poured a glass. He sat on a thick beam, head bowed, lost in his thoughts.
SQUEAK!
A large rat skittered across the beam, its tail brushing Owen’s shoe. He startled, knocking the glass out of his hand.
It fell; shattering.
Water spilled across the dusty floorboards and spread oddly, almost purposefully. Instead of forming a random puddle, the water followed cracks and indentations, creating a pattern.
Owen crouched, heart thudding.
Something the universe; or fate; was finally revealing.
And maybe, just maybe… this was the beginning of something far greater than a job.
