Keynote

Miyori slid her paper off the table and stood up, ignoring the eyes that flashed to her as she walked to the front of the room. There was a wicker basket at the front, already about a third of the way full. 

Miyori let her test paper drop into the box and returned to her seat. 

The test had been difficult. It started with things she'd definitely known, and she was fairly sure she'd gotten the first few questions correct. But then it had gotten more difficult…and then it had gotten strange. 

If you don't know how to solve this problem, write 1~3 ideas for what to try first. 

She'd never seen that instruction on a test before, but she'd done her best. 

Now she looked around, trying to avoid catching the eye of any of the other people who'd finished. 

The room looked like the inside of city hall, or how she imagined many office buildings looked. Everything had a dry, impersonal edge—the tables white and shining, the folding chairs just old enough to squeak every time someone moved. There were a few posters on the walls, but they showed bland, abstract designs. 

This didn't look like a place for studying magic. It might as well have been a doctor's office, or a hotel boardroom. 

Miyori waited impatiently, wondering if she should have triple-checked her answers, until time was called. A man in another of those pin-striped suits stepped into the room, took the basket, and left. 

With the silence of test-taking over, people began to congregate and chat. Miyori listened idly to a few conversations, wondering how she was going to do what Noa had asked of her. He'd wanted more information about what Iseki was up to, but if Miyori didn't pass this test, she wasn't sure she'd be any help to him at all. 

Eventually, another suited employee stepped into the room. "Thank you very much for waiting," he said. "Your tests are still being processed, but please join us in the auditorium for the keynote speech." 

Miyori stood with the others, suddenly hopeful. She left the room to see that the other rooms had let out as well, and she moved as slowly as she could in the procession of bodies until she spotted Shizuka. 

"Miyo-chan," she said when Miyori made her way over. She sounded relieved. "Did you take a test too?" 

"Yeah," Miyori said. "How'd it go?" 

"It was like a cram school exam, but worse," Shizuka complained. "I have no idea what they wanted with some of those questions!"

"What did they ask you about?" Miyori asked. 

"Oh, all sorts of things. Basic magical theory to start, but then there were essay questions. It said we'd get 'points for imagination' on one of them! How do you score for imagination?" 

"However they want, I guess?" Miyori said. "My test didn't say anything like that. But I guess for a program like spell design they want people who have new ideas?" 

"Maybe." They stepped through the door to an auditorium, filing into seats near the middle of the row. "How was your test?" 

"Well, there were a couple of really weird questions, too." Miyori shrugged. "And for some of them, I'm not sure they wanted correct answers. They didn't say anything about imagination on mine, but they did have some open-ended…"

She trailed off as the lights abruptly dimmed and the room went silent. She and Shizuka turned to look towards the stage, which was suddenly brightly illuminated. 

A voice rang out. "Good afternoon, everyone. Thank you ever so much for joining us. It's a joy and a privilege to meet you all." 

A woman stepped up on stage. She had the appearance of someone who was either an authentic thirty-five, or sixty and working hard to hide it; Shizuka's mother looked similarly, and Miyori wouldn't dare guess her age either. 

In the bright lights, her face shone with sincerity so warm it could only be fake, faced with a room full of strangers. 

"My name is Murasaki Iseki. I'm the CFO of the Iseki Conglomerate and the acting head of Project Wisteria, and it's my pleasure to welcome you here today. Our selection committee is currently hard at work grading your tests, so I'd like to use this time to explain a little more about the program." 

She stepped to the center of the stage and gestured in midair.

Above her head, lights exploded. Miyori thought for a moment that they were fireworks like at the festival, but no—they were images of flowers, three-dimensional and preternaturally bright, extending from Iseki's fingertips and blossoming over nearly the entirety of the stage. 

Miyori stared. Beside her, Shizuka gasped. 

"This," Iseki said, gesturing at the flowers blooming over her head, "is my dream for our grand city of Kikyo—to make it bloom like never before." 

The flowers lingered over her head as she stepped to the back of the stage, touching the wall. A large rectangle lit up, the words Project Wisteria written across it. 

"As a society," she said, "magic is at the core of almost everything we do. It runs through our homes, schools, and places of business; it gives us light and comfort throughout the year; it helps to feed and clothe us and keep us safe. And yet, there is so much about it that we have yet to fully understand. I believe that we have yet to discover the full extent of what Kikyo's magic can do…" 

She continued on like that for a while, with the display behind her showing numbers that she didn't fully explain and Miyori didn't fully understand. 

She was hinting at something, but never actually saying it. Miyori wished she'd dug out her notebook before the talk began—she kept thinking she had a hint of what Iseki was getting at, only for it to slip through her fingers again. 

"And so," she said at last, "if we can only find ways to innovate and improve the efficiency of our systems, I think we can make miracles. It is my sincere hope that those of you chosen today can come together with us to make the stuff of dreams into reality." 

There was a round of applause, but many heads were already turning to the men jogging up to the stage with clipboards.
Iseki conferred with them briefly before turning back to the audience with a smile. 

"I'd like to call our successful applicants to the front, please. Gather around your program liaison." Her smile grew regretful. "If you have not been selected, please accept my sincerest thanks for participating, and my hopes that you will consider trying again in the future. You can check your name badges for your results." 

Miyori looked down at her chest, heart pounding. As she watched, her name tag began to glow a gentle green, and the word prospective faded from in front of the words networking program member.

She glanced over at Shizuka to see she was beaming. "We did it!" she said. "We both did it! Oh, I'm so glad! We should hurry." 

They split up again, Miyori finding a place at the edge of the Networking group. 

Whatever happened next, she'd at least cleared the first hurdle.