The evaluation hall had a gallery, and the gallery was full, and Soren gave it the same attention he gave weather.
Five board members at the table. Three stages posted. Doctrine, control, and open assessment, which was the polite name for the stage where the board got to design a problem and watch the candidate drown in it.
A year ago he'd have walked in here with a script in the back of his skull, every examiner's habit pre-read, every stage's ending known before it started.
The script was long dead. What he had instead was the year.
He'd take the year.
◆◆◆◆
Doctrine went first and doctrine was paper.
They gave him a primordial containment scenario, because of course they did, the board wanted the famous thing, and he wrote them a response plan and then, in the margin, a second plan for when the first one failed.
