[centre][img]https://i.imgur.com/jM9AWVG.png[/img]
[h1][colour=orange]Pretoria Qualified: Best of a Kind.[/colour][/h1][/centre]

Kelly Eze lounged in her oversized chair, sipping a fizzy, sugary, beverage through a straw as her eyes darted between three different holographic screens lighting up the dark bedroom around her. A vaguely spherical controller of some kind was grasped in her left hand, with which she seemed to be manipulating the finer details of the various displayed projections. With her right arm she made gestures to signal broader strokes, switching between pages or scrolling through new tools in her program. She'd only recently woken up, despite it being well past noon in Nairobi, though she wouldn't have been able to tell from the sunlight. Even if she hadn't had her blinds shut, the city sky outside her apartment was usually dark grey even on the clearest days—denied the sun's rays by persistent smog from massive urban and industrial over-development. Kelly was barely dressed, as well, black and blue polka dot pajamas and a sock from two different pairs, one solid red and the other a tiger pattern, her only clothes. Her head was shaved to a buzz cut so she wouldn't have to keep her hair out of her eyes, and she had little reason to care about the rest of her appearance (or hygiene); she probably wouldn't see any other human beings today, certainly not in person.

Despite being totally unkempt, though, Kelly was not some lazy do-nothing 20-something idly wasting her time surfing the internet. No, she was a highly skilled professional, and lucky enough to be making a few thousand dollars an hour right now. The eminently talented Miss Eze was one of the leading software developers of NVIGORATE, the cybersecurity branch of Pretoria Qualified. She and a team of other hotshot devs from across the world were working on a project together, with Kelly—the closest among them to PQ's headquarters in Pretoria—tasked with coordinating their efforts. Their project was called 'NVISION', NVIGORATE's first foray into the world of consumer software. NVISION was to be an entirely new operating system, built from the ground up with a separate architecture from the systems NVIGORATE developed for in-house use by the execs at PQ—the Van der Sandts had been insistent that NVISION's proliferation not compromise PQ's own cybersecurity. The project was in the earlier phases still, but was coming along well. Kelly and her team were competent, and even if the specifications for NVISION were for a basic, affordable, easy-to-use operating system alternative, each of the developers wanted it to be something they could be proud to add to their resumes.

PQ had hired Kelly years ago, back before the company's supremely elderly CEO had celebrated his 100th birthday. She'd defied the trope of the blackhat gone good, finding honest work assisting in cyberspace solutions for smaller companies from her teenage years. When she did sign on with Pretoria, it had been entirely about the money: their cheques were simply larger and had more zeros than the ones she'd been earning before. PQ quickly found her to be a useful asset, and it only took a few years for her to climb the ranks and find herself assisting in developing NVIGORATE's big, breakout mass-market project. She knew better than to cock it up. If she got this right, it could be her ticket to the big leagues. If she was lucky, maybe she'd be boarding a flight to HQ in Pretoria before the year was out.

But, then she'd probably have to get dressed in the morning. Maybe be expected to grow her hair out. Still: worth it for the pay.

[i]((Backdated to Q3))[/i]