Chương 22: Round 2 results

"With the advancement of genetic coding, it was inevitable. Many animals possess capabilities we lack, and in order to advance, hybrid beings became a natural next step. This will be the advent of a whole new era. - Newman Farsight, Pioneering Settler" They came out of the indoor stadium into the evening air, wrung out. Four attributes tested back to back left them with nothing left in the tank.

"That was a lot," Glasses commented.

"Sure was," Kara agreed.

"And we still have absolutely no clue what they were trying to test with that." The awkwardness with the girl had not helped. He had been keeping an eye on her and she had apparently been keeping an eye on him, and they had caught each other at it twice. Now both of them knew, and there was no way to raise it that wouldn't make things worse. He was fairly certain he knew what she was.

He was not going to raise this with Glasses, because Glasses would find a completely different explanation for why they kept making eye contact, and would then have a jolly couple of weeks with it. As much as he liked his roommate, he was not going to give him that. They were almost at the cafeteria when a notification arrived that he had missed earlier. Students' Interests' Committee. He stopped walking.

"Glasses."

"What?"

"I made it to the next round of the students' interests' committee." Glasses looked at him, mildly surprised.

"When did that come in?"

"Apparently while I was upside down." Glasses took a beat to absorb that.

"Oh. Well, fair enough. Congratulations."

"Dinner's on me. Excluding the other planets stall."

"Your generosity is genuinely something to behold." Glasses held the door open with elaborate courtesy.

"When's the next round?"

"Tomorrow, after classes. Something tells me it's going to be an interview. Not everyone is as paranoid as the SDC."

"Almost certainly an interview. Four spots, forty-odd applicants I'd guess - they'll want to talk to people, not just read forms." He paused.

"You should prepare tonight."

"Yep."

"Also the SDC results come out tomorrow."

"Uh-huh."

"Also you still have the animal affairs form." Kara sighed.

"Also I have the animal affairs form. Did you really have to do that?" He did not have the animal affairs form under control. It sat unfinished in his interface, its deadline creeping closer while he kept meaning to get to it. Three things were happening tomorrow. And right now he was sitting down to dinner, tired from a day that had tested all four of his attributes. He would deal with it later tonight. He did not deal with it later that night.

He prepared for the interview instead, working through what he knew about the committee, the clubs, the kinds of activities that would need coordination and budgeting, until the preparation felt solid enough to sleep on. The nagging feeling that he had forgotten something accompanied him to bed and stayed there. The Animal Affairs Committee: Application deadline has passed. The first notification the next morning clarified it. He stared at this for a moment. Glasses gave him a sympathetic look.

He had clearly seen this coming.

"I didn't really know what to put for the experience questions anyway," Kara tried.

"All good then."

"I know a lot about animals theoretically."

"Sure."

"The practical care questions were genuinely hard."

"Absolutely." They got ready and went to class. The Students' Interests' Committee held its final round in the Clubhouse, a building just behind and to the right of the Council building that had the quiet energy of a place where things were organised rather than where things happened. About forty candidates were gathered in the main hall when Kara arrived. Four interview rooms led off it. He was assigned to one.

His interviewer wore a wolf mask and had the loose, easy manner of a person who had run these interviews for years and still enjoyed them. This novel is published on a different platform. Support the original author by finding the official source.

"Kara, right? Have a seat, make yourself comfortable. Forget the formality - let's just talk." And he meant it. What followed was less an interview than a conversation. The interviewer covered what the role involved, what the committee did, what the clubs were currently running and what they needed, before moving into questions that were framed as curiosity rather than assessment. Past experiences. What Kara knew about the committee. What drew him to it.

Kara answered honestly and found, to his slight surprise, that the honest answers felt adequate. He had coordinated things before. He was genuinely interested in animals and in the kind of cross-pollination that happened when people with different knowledge bases were in the same room. He wanted to start clubs that had purposes beyond their stated purposes, which came through clearly in how he talked about the animal social and the dungeon preparedness club, even if he never framed it that way.

Then the interviewer leaned in slightly, arriving at the part he actually cared about.

"One last thing. Budgeting. You'd be doing a lot of it. Let's say I've told you about the clubs and events. Help me put together a rough budget." Kara asked the interviewer for a couple of minutes and he built it in his interface while the interviewer waited. He divided it by club, estimated regular operating costs, factored in the events that had been mentioned, checked his reasoning at each line, and shared it when he ran out of things to add. The interviewer looked through it.

"Pretty detailed for someone without much budget experience. Now - I'm the faculty in charge. Justify the IT club line." Kara tried. He explained his estimates, how he had arrived at the figures, what assumptions he had made. It was honest and it was insufficient and he knew it was insufficient as he was saying it. The interviewer nodded.

"Here's what I'd do. I'd anchor it to the previous year. Either the budget was too low and the club missed events because of it, or it was too high and they saved some, or it was about right. Any of those gives you a reference point that isn't just your own estimate. That's how you make a number defensible." Kara wrote this down. The interview ended shortly after.

He left feeling that he had learned something regardless of the result, which was either a sign that it had gone well or that he was rationalising, and he was not sure which but decided the distinction didn't matter much. On his way back to the residential block, someone fell into step beside him.

"Hey - Kara, right? Glad I bump into you, I was just heading the same way." Beamer. Kara placed him immediately - the Scal classroom, the upside-down exit, the cafeteria pitch, the SDC first round. He had not particularly expected to see him again, and here he was.

"Hey Beamer. How are you?"

"Good, good. I heard you made the SDC second round. That's really impressive, not a lot of people got through. How'd it go?" He asked like he actually wanted to know, which Kara had not expected, so he described it. The attribute rooms, the upside-down IQ test, the VR scenario, the general confusion about what was being measured and why. Beamer listened without interrupting. Kara appreciated it more than the small thing it was, mostly because so few people managed it.

By the time he finished they had reached the entrance to L block. Beamer gestured toward the building beside it.

"M block for me. Anyway - sounds like you've got a real shot at it. Good luck." He raised a hand in farewell and headed off. Kara watched him go for a moment. He was, surprisingly, a much easier person to talk to one-on-one than he had been working a crowd in the cafeteria. He went upstairs. Glasses was in the room, as expected, waiting. He wanted to hear about the interview and had decided that asking straight away would be the wrong move, so he said nothing and let Kara get there on his own.

Kara freshened up, sat down, and recounted the interview. Glasses listened, and when Kara finished he went quiet for a moment, fitting the pieces into whatever came next.

"I like that they told you the answers. What they were looking for, how to defend a budget. Transparent about the standards." He paused.

"Far cry from SDC."

"True. Speaking of which, you know Beamer, that guy who started off the Disciplinary Committee speeches at the cafeteria?

""Yeah, what about him?

""I bumped into him on the way back, and yeah, I know what you're thinking, another pitch for the elections, but surprisingly we just talked mostly about the SDC second round." Glasses looked at him.

"He wasn't in the second round."

"No."

"So he came up to you specifically to ask about the SDC tests?"

"Um... Yes?" Kara thought about this. Beamer had seemed genuinely curious. The conversation had been easy, natural, the kind that happened when two people had something to talk about. He could not identify a moment that had felt like anything other than that.

"I think he was just making conversation," Kara said.

"We had that in common. It was fine." Glasses said nothing, which was its own kind of commentary.

"The voting's already done anyway," Kara added.

"No reason to be angling for anything at this point."

"Mm-hmm." They ordered food from the cafeteria and found something to watch. The day's business was done, the results were pending, and there was nothing left to do but wait, so the evening passed easily. The SDC results were due tonight, along with the Disciplinary Committee announcement. They stayed up past their usual bedtime, debating which would come first, until the University-wide notification arrived. The Disciplinary Committee results. Kara read the list. Beamer's name was not on it. Glasses laughed.

"Think Scal had something to do with that?"

"That is uncharitable."

"He walked into Scal's class late on the first day, talked back, got carried out upside down, and then ran for the disciplinary committee. I am simply observing a pattern."

"He's a nice enough chap when you really talk to him." Glasses gave him the look he reserved for statements he considered technically defensible and practically wrong. They bickered about it without any heat in it, until the second notification arrived. Kara opened it. SDC finalists. His name was there. Glasses was reading at the same time, and the slight change in his expression told Kara the result before he said it.

"You're in. I'm not. Congratulations."

"Sorry, mate."

"Don't be. I got the data I needed." But there was something underneath the pragmatism. Followed by confusion.

"Wait, did you read the whole list?" Kara read it. He went back to the top and read it again. Beamer's name was on it. He and Glasses looked at each other in the quiet of the room, and neither of them said anything for a moment, and this time Glasses did not need to give him a look.