RE: [ic][STORY] February 2017 in Ottawa
03-07-2021, 04:22 PM (This post was last modified: 05-11-2021, 07:57 PM by robkelk.)
03-07-2021, 04:22 PM (This post was last modified: 05-11-2021, 07:57 PM by robkelk.)
And now to drop a few things onto the mantelpiece - including at least one of Chekhov's guns.
Blossom Apartments, Ottawa, ON, Canada
February 9, 2017
8:03 AM
"I have to say, that was a most unusual medical examination that I received yesterday. Would you know the purpose of the device that was placed on my head while I made those odd expressions that the doctor requested?"
"Beats me," Ruiko replied to Mitsuko. "I've never asked Washuu-chan what that thing does. 'Doctor-patient confidentiality', and all that - I don't need to know, not even when it didn't match the expressions that Takitsubo-san was making. But wasn't it funny watching it copy people's moods like that, when it did work?"
Rob looked up from his coffee. "Maybe, maybe not. Are you sure you have time to talk about that now, Rui-chan?"
She looked at her landlord/foster parent. "I'm skipping school today."
He raised one eyebrow, Spock-style, and asked, "Oh, are you?"
"I am," she replied in all seriousness. "I think Kongo-san and I need to talk about what we learned last night. About ITEM."
Rob had a pretty good idea of what they wanted to talk about - neither girl, despite their connections to Mikoto Misaka in Academy City, had previously even heard about the city's darker side. "I'll send an email to your homeroom teacher, then," he replied as he stood up to head to his office. "But I want you back in school tomorrow, Ruiko."
She noticed the lack of honorific. "Yes, sir."
As he left the room, Mitsuko asked Ruiko, "Do you normally address each other by your given names?"
Ruiko grinned. "This is Canada, after all - the entire country is a lot less formal than Japan is. We even walked onto the grounds of Parliament Hill without having to go through a checkpoint, back when we first arrived here! But we usually call each other 'Rob-oji' and 'Rui-chan' - him calling me by just my full given name is very rare."
"I see. Perhaps I should ask that you all call me Mitsuko-san, instead of Kongo-san."
"If you call me Ruiko-san, you've got a deal." She paused for a moment, and added, "But do you really want to be on a first-name basis with Accelerator?"
"It is hardly my place to tell a level 5 esper what to do."
Ruiko nodded in understanding. "But we need to know what they think of us, don't we? Compared to Accelerator, Hedgerow Emperor, Railgun, -"
"Misaka-san."
"I'm using their code names for a reason. Accelerator, Hedgerow Emperor, Railgun, Meltdowner, The Queen, Etsu Aihana, and The Attack Crash, we're all ... well, less than insects if we upset them. Any of them could kill us without even thinking about it. Or they could kill us accidentally - collateral damage in one of their fights. And from what Hamazura-san told us yesterday, Academy City would be just fine with that."
"Misaka-san would never put our lives at risk."
"Not if she could help it. But sometimes she can't help it. Remember when you were kept for observation at that MAR facility?"
Mitsuko grimaced. "The Multi Active Rescue unit that had been usurped by Therestina Kihara Lifeline in her mad experiment."
"Right, that one. Except that she didn't usurp control of it. Academy City put her there so that she could cover up her experiments. Or conduct them. I'm still not sure which."
"But she was imprisoned for her actions."
Re-entering the common room, Rob answered, "As far as I can tell from what I saw in the anime about you two and your friends, from Academy City's point of view, her only crime was getting caught."
Neither of the girls said anything for a moment.
Finally, Ruiko said, "But that comes back to what I wanted to say. While you were keeping the MAR troops off of Mikoto's back, we were fighting Therestina." From the way she said the name, it was obvious that Ruiko was being over-familiar with her as an insult. "She was going on about how everyone in Academy City were her guinea pigs."
Rob muttered, "I wonder what Aleister would have thought of that, even though it was a Kihara saying it." The girls ignored him.
"But she was not sane. She would be expected to think and say things like that."
"Yeah, I know. But then there's ITEM. Meltdowner's team, the way that Kuroko and Kazari and Mii and even you and I are Mikoto's team. Have you read any of the books about us, or watched any of the anime?"
Mitsuko shook her head. "Apart from that partial episode that Mr. Donaldson -" She glanced in his direction, saw his raised eyebrow, and quickly corrected herself. "Rob-san - showed me the day I arrived, I have not."
"They're essentially an organized crime family."
Mitsuko looked shocked. "I cannot believe such a thing exists in Academy City."
"Believe it," Rob stated with all seriousness. "Do you remember when Kuroko was in a wheelchair for a while?"
"I do, yes. She never revealed what had happened to her."
"The short version is that she went up against another teleporter - one with more power and fewer scruples than Kuroko has. Kuroko tried to arrest her, and was almost killed for her efforts."
"Oh, dear."
"She's never told me anything about that," Ruiko replied. "How did she survive?"
Rob smiled. "With a lot of help from her friends - Mikoto and Touma."
Before he could continue, One of the Misaka clones walked into the common room. Mitsuko turned to her, smiled, and said, "Good morning, Niiko-san."
"Good morning, Kongo-san and Ruiko-san, Niiko replies."
"How did you know that Niiko-san is Niiko-san?" Rob asked. "You've been here for less than a week."
"Isn't it obvious?" All three of the others shook their heads in reply. "You don't walk the same way that Mikoto-san does. Only Nana-san copies Mikoto-san's walk exactly. You aren't wearing eyeliner, so you aren't Rei-san. But the most obvious sign was that you paused briefly before walking into the room, as if you were looking for traps or ambushes."
"My clone-sisters never had to fight, Niiko points out. They aren't as paranoid as I am by learned reflex."
Ruiko smiled at that. "I've never thought of you as paranoid, Niiko-san."
"Thank you, Niiko replies. It means a lot to me that I'm able to conceal that from people, Niiko continues in explanation." She headed toward the common room's kitchen, and asked, "Does anyone else want anything while I'm getting some juice?"
Nobody else did, so she nodded and headed for the fridge.
While Niiko was in the kitchen, Mitsuko said to Ruiko, "The experiments that Lifeline-san were running have to have been the worst that Academy City has to offer. How could anything worse than what she did remain hidden from the public?"
While the question wasn't addressed to him, Rob answered it anyway. "All a government needs to do is classify something as being secret, and it's a very brave person who's willing to blow the metaphorical whistle and draw attention to the secret. Most people would rather see a government that occasionally overreaches itself than live in an anarchy."
Both of the girls thought about that for a short moment. Finally, Ruiko asked, "But what about doing what's right?"
Niiko walked back into the common room as Rob answered. "Is it right to tell somebody else's secrets?"
"When they affect other people like that? Yes!"
"You mentioned doctor-patient confidentiality earlier. That affects other people."
"That isn't the same."
Rob nodded. "You're right. The only way you can tell whether somebody needs to know a dark secret is to know it yourself - and a lot of people like keeping secrets. That's why things like Therestina's experiments could remain hidden for so long."
Mitsuko frowned. "Surely there weren't any other experiments as bad as hers in Academy City."
Niiko stood up from the corner table she had sat at, walked over, and sat down at the same table as Ruiko and Mitsuko. "Let me tell you about the Level 6 Shift Project, Misaka 10032 states using her serial number for subtle emphasis. It is the biggest secret that I am aware of from Academy City. The project treated my clone sisters and me as things, not people. They told us that so many times that we believed it, Misaka 10032 admits. I have memories of meeting Accelerator for the first time in the project's headquarters. We were set against each other. I shot him using a pistol provided to me by the project. His ability reflected the bullet back to me, and I died. Or, rather, Misaka 2 died, Misaka 10032 explains quickly."
"You have memories of dying?"
"You have memories of being killed?"
"That is correct, Misaka 10032 replies to both questions simultaneously. I also have memories of cleaning up my dead bodies before going out to be killed myself, Misaka 10032 adds in order to make her earlier situation more clear."
"How long did this go on?" Ruiko asked, unable to hide the horror in her voice.
"The time blurred into a perpetual 'now' for the first 9980 deaths, Misaka 10032 replies. Perhaps it took a few years, Misaka 10032 guesses."
"Is death painful?" asked Mitsuko.
"That depends on the method of dying, Misaka 10032 answers. Misaka 9982 was crushed to death, after having her leg torn off by Accelerator. Misaka 10032 thinks that that was one of the less physically painful deaths, but we will always remember it because Misaka 9982 was the first clone to meet our Original." She continued speaking a litany of ways to die - having her neck snapped, being hit with an anti-tank rifle round, having her arms pinned to her torso with a steel bar and being thrown into the harbour, being hit by a car that was dropped on her from twenty feet up, and many, many more. After ten minutes, Rob realized that the only way one of her clone sisters hadn't been killed was by electrocution. Finally, she finished with "The worst death that Misaka 10032 remembers is that of Misaka 10031, whose blood flow was instantly reversed by Accelerator's power, causing my heart to explode. No, causing Misaka 10031's heart to explode, Misaka 10032 corrects herself."
Mitsuko had long since passed being horrified and had reached being numb. "From what you've been saying, surely that was one of the less painful deaths of one of your clones."
"Less painful, perhaps, Misaka 10032 answers Mitsuko. But Misaka 10031 was the Misaka clone who first met Touma Kamijo, Misaka 10032 explains. Her death hurt his soul, Misaka 10032 adds for clarification."
Nobody said anything for a long moment. Finally, Misaka turned to Rob. "The energy accumulator devices that Washuu-chan installed last night are functioning correctly, Niiko Misaka reports. We were able to discharge our accumulated electricity into the receptor grids without any issues, Niiko continues."
Ruiko finally snapped. "How can you be so calm about remembering having died so many times!?"
Niiko turned back to Ruiko. "Our emotional growth was deliberately stunted, Niiko replies. Last Order - Mimi Misaka - is the only clone with a full set of emotions, Niiko adds."
"Rob-oji..."
"Yes, Rui-chan?"
"Can I live with you even after the megami send everyone else home, please? I never want to go back to Academy City again. Ever."
Before Rob could answer, Mitsuko said, "I would prefer to return to Academy City, but only to rescue my friends from it."
Ruiko looked at her lap, ashamed to have thought otherwise.
Rob stood up, walked over, and gently placed his hand on Ruiko's shoulder, causing her to look up at him. "Rui-chan, there's nothing wrong in feeling how you feel. It's fine to worry about yourself. It's natural. But..."
"But?"
"Well, Mii, Ami, and I have already had this conversation. When it's time to go home, we're all planning on going to Ami's world; Mii and I can live anywhere, but Ami's needed there. I think you'd be welcome to join us, though."
Yggdrasil
Same time
"I hope we can accommodate you there, Mr. Donaldson," Urd muttered.
"Ma'am?"
She looked over at her assistant for the day. "Oh, nothing, Ere. Just thinking out loud. Let's get back to work, stabilizing these glitches."
Blossom Apartments, Ottawa, ON, Canada
Same time
To take her mind off the subject of over ten thousand deaths, Ruiko asked, "Rob-oji... That teleporter who almost killed Kuroko-san. Who was she?" As soon as ske asked, she realized that this topic wouldn't take her mind off death.
Rob sighed. "A girl about Mii's age, if I recall correctly. Her name is Awaki Musujime."
Toronto, ON, Canada
February 9, 2017
9:41 AM
"It's done." Musujime dropped a few pieces of metal into Leonard's outstretched hand - without the gears that she had teleported out of the mechanism, a large freight door wasn't going to open any time soon. "I don't see how this is going to help things, though."
He smiled at her comment. "The owners will make a fuss, just when this 'Meltdowner' person should be walking past. Assuming she helps them, they're the type to reward her for her services, which will give her enough money for both her and her companion to reach Ottawa."
She studied his face for a moment, then gave up - as usual, he was unreadable. "Why do you want them getting together with Railgun and her friends?"
"Because her friends are friends with the people near Detroit who are enemies of MANAGEMENT."
"Ah," Musujime said in understanding. "The enemy of our enemy, and all that. And that explains why we emailed those photos of her teammates to her so she could track them down. So why did you send goons to try to capture them in Chicago?"
"To spur them into action, my dear."
She hated when he called her that.
Blossom Apartments, Ottawa, ON, Canada
February 9, 2017
2:21 PM
The building's residents who weren't in school had congregated in the common room, listening to - and in some cases, telling - stories about the dark underbelly of Academy City. Needless to say, there wasn't very much work being done that day.
"My first mission in GROUP," Accelerator told the assembled residents after a lot of coaxing, "was a simple little bit of killing - a guy named Komaba Ritoku."
"Komaba-san was a friend of mine," Frenda said quietly. "He took care of my little sister whenever I was working."
Shiage ignored his teammate. "So you're the bastard that killed him," he snarled at Accelerator.
"Shut up and let me talk. He fought me, and came damned close to putting me in the hospital again. The only reason he died was because he shot me. And it wasn't an accident - he knew damn well that my Reflection was on." Accelerator turned to look at Shiage. "So, no, I didn't kill him. He killed himself."
"Would you have let him go if he hadn't shot you?"
Accelerator shrugged. "Maybe. But GROUP had me on a tight leash - they only slacked off after I showed them I was willing to do dirty work for them."
"A convenient excuse."
"Hey, looking at what kind of fuck-up took over for him and got himself arrested on the very first job he took from somebody he didn't even bother checking the credentials of, maybe I should have let him live."
Rob cleared his throat meaningfully. Everybody in the room (save for Ruiko and Mitsuko) knew full well - if only from watching the anime in Rob's collection - that Shiage was the "fuck-up" that Accelerator had referred to. "Perhaps we should change the subject. Now."
After a pause that went on for far too long, Rikou asked, "Does anybody know anything about the 'Dark May Project'?"
Accelerator turned to look directly into her eyes. "Where the hell did you hear that name!?" he all-but-shouted.
Cowering under his anger, she quietly answered, "My teammate Saiai mentioned it once."
"Nothing good came out of that project. It ruined other espers. Made them think crazy things."
"How crazy?" Ruiko asked quietly, dreading the answer.
"Little girl, it made them think like me." Before Ruiko could respond, he added, "Literally. They took my dreams, my beliefs, my hopes, my thoughts, and forced them into other espers."
"Why?"
He snorted. "You of all people here ask me that? To make them higher level espers." Then he smiled his slasher-villain smile. "Want to give it a try?"
Ruiko shook her head, quickly and fearfully.
"Smart girl."
"Where did they find volunteers to take part in such a project?" Mitsuko asked.
Accelerator laughed. "Volunteers? Nobody would volunteer to become me! Look at me! Look at my life! No, they found their test subjects the same place everybody else in Academy City finds their test subjects. In the Child Error facilities."
Ruiko went pale. She had volunteered to help out in one of those facilities, once. All those orphans, being used as guinea pigs?
Accelerator didn't seem to notice. "Hey, maybe it wasn't a complete waste of time. I hear the project got shut down because one of the subjects went wild the way I usually do, and killed all the researchers. Serves 'em right."
At this point, Mitsuko turned to Ruiko and said, "I must apologize to you for something I said earlier today, Ruiko-san."
"What did you say, Mitsuko-san?" asked Rikou.
"I said that I would prefer to return to Academy City in order to rescue my friends from it. I see now that simply setting foot in that place again, at my current level of ability, would be foolhardy in the extreme."
"You're, what Level 3? 4?"
"I am a level 4 esper, Frenda-san."
"Then you're a lot more powerful than me," the blonde girl replied. "But I can see why you'd want to run away from the darkness. Not everybody's cut out for it, basically."
As most of the others in the room nodded in agreement, Rob, Ruiko, and Mitsuko couldn't help but think that they lived in a completely different world than their next-door neighbours.
Blossom Apartments, Ottawa, ON, Canada
February 9, 2017
6:02 PM
Dinner was a strangely subdued affair that night, with so many of the residents eating alone in their apartments.
When Usagi and Kazari expressed a desire to go find out what was wrong, Rob flat-out forbade them from bothering the others, without giving any explanation... before retiring to his own apartment.
Toronto, ON, Canada
February 9, 2017
9:41 PM
The first thing they'd picked up with their reward money for getting that door open was lunch.
The second thing they'd picked up was some silicon cards, a straightedge ruled in millimeters, a protractor, and a sharp knife at a hobbyist's store.
Now, Meltdowner had decided to stay in Toronto for a couple of days - the hostel they were staying at wasn't particularly comfortable, but at least they had a room to themselves, with two beds and a private bath. They could afford to stay another day as long as they were careful about where they ate - but this country's "Tim Horton's" chain could keep them fed cheaply for that amount of time. And she needed to prepare these cards for use. It wasn't as if she could buy them ready-made anywhere outside of Academy City, after all.
Her traveling companion sat on the smaller bed, watching as Meltdowner scored the cards in a very precise pattern.
Elsewhere, Leonard seethed inwardly. Those two were supposed to be halfway to Ottawa by now...
Blossom Apartments, Ottawa, ON, Canada
February 9, 2017
9:53 pm
Mimi Hanyu reached the top of the stairs and was about to head toward her own apartment and some much-needed rest, when she heard somebody crying. It took her a moment to figure out where the sounds were coming from, but as soon as she was sure, she turned away from her apartment and knocked on Mitsuko Kongo's front door. "Kongo-san? Are you all right?"
The crying slowed, then stopped. After a moment, the door opened to show Mitsuko's tear-stained face. "I'm sorry to have disturbed you, Hanyu-san."
"Whatever it is, do you want to talk about it?"
Mitsuko started crying again, just from knowing that, despite her best efforts to avoid troubling anyone else with her sorrow over what she'd learned that day, somebody still wanted to help her. "Oh, yes, please. Please come in."
To be continued concluded ...
Blossom Apartments, Ottawa, ON, Canada
February 9, 2017
8:03 AM
"I have to say, that was a most unusual medical examination that I received yesterday. Would you know the purpose of the device that was placed on my head while I made those odd expressions that the doctor requested?"
"Beats me," Ruiko replied to Mitsuko. "I've never asked Washuu-chan what that thing does. 'Doctor-patient confidentiality', and all that - I don't need to know, not even when it didn't match the expressions that Takitsubo-san was making. But wasn't it funny watching it copy people's moods like that, when it did work?"
Rob looked up from his coffee. "Maybe, maybe not. Are you sure you have time to talk about that now, Rui-chan?"
She looked at her landlord/foster parent. "I'm skipping school today."
He raised one eyebrow, Spock-style, and asked, "Oh, are you?"
"I am," she replied in all seriousness. "I think Kongo-san and I need to talk about what we learned last night. About ITEM."
Rob had a pretty good idea of what they wanted to talk about - neither girl, despite their connections to Mikoto Misaka in Academy City, had previously even heard about the city's darker side. "I'll send an email to your homeroom teacher, then," he replied as he stood up to head to his office. "But I want you back in school tomorrow, Ruiko."
She noticed the lack of honorific. "Yes, sir."
As he left the room, Mitsuko asked Ruiko, "Do you normally address each other by your given names?"
Ruiko grinned. "This is Canada, after all - the entire country is a lot less formal than Japan is. We even walked onto the grounds of Parliament Hill without having to go through a checkpoint, back when we first arrived here! But we usually call each other 'Rob-oji' and 'Rui-chan' - him calling me by just my full given name is very rare."
"I see. Perhaps I should ask that you all call me Mitsuko-san, instead of Kongo-san."
"If you call me Ruiko-san, you've got a deal." She paused for a moment, and added, "But do you really want to be on a first-name basis with Accelerator?"
"It is hardly my place to tell a level 5 esper what to do."
Ruiko nodded in understanding. "But we need to know what they think of us, don't we? Compared to Accelerator, Hedgerow Emperor, Railgun, -"
"Misaka-san."
"I'm using their code names for a reason. Accelerator, Hedgerow Emperor, Railgun, Meltdowner, The Queen, Etsu Aihana, and The Attack Crash, we're all ... well, less than insects if we upset them. Any of them could kill us without even thinking about it. Or they could kill us accidentally - collateral damage in one of their fights. And from what Hamazura-san told us yesterday, Academy City would be just fine with that."
"Misaka-san would never put our lives at risk."
"Not if she could help it. But sometimes she can't help it. Remember when you were kept for observation at that MAR facility?"
Mitsuko grimaced. "The Multi Active Rescue unit that had been usurped by Therestina Kihara Lifeline in her mad experiment."
"Right, that one. Except that she didn't usurp control of it. Academy City put her there so that she could cover up her experiments. Or conduct them. I'm still not sure which."
"But she was imprisoned for her actions."
Re-entering the common room, Rob answered, "As far as I can tell from what I saw in the anime about you two and your friends, from Academy City's point of view, her only crime was getting caught."
Neither of the girls said anything for a moment.
Finally, Ruiko said, "But that comes back to what I wanted to say. While you were keeping the MAR troops off of Mikoto's back, we were fighting Therestina." From the way she said the name, it was obvious that Ruiko was being over-familiar with her as an insult. "She was going on about how everyone in Academy City were her guinea pigs."
Rob muttered, "I wonder what Aleister would have thought of that, even though it was a Kihara saying it." The girls ignored him.
"But she was not sane. She would be expected to think and say things like that."
"Yeah, I know. But then there's ITEM. Meltdowner's team, the way that Kuroko and Kazari and Mii and even you and I are Mikoto's team. Have you read any of the books about us, or watched any of the anime?"
Mitsuko shook her head. "Apart from that partial episode that Mr. Donaldson -" She glanced in his direction, saw his raised eyebrow, and quickly corrected herself. "Rob-san - showed me the day I arrived, I have not."
"They're essentially an organized crime family."
Mitsuko looked shocked. "I cannot believe such a thing exists in Academy City."
"Believe it," Rob stated with all seriousness. "Do you remember when Kuroko was in a wheelchair for a while?"
"I do, yes. She never revealed what had happened to her."
"The short version is that she went up against another teleporter - one with more power and fewer scruples than Kuroko has. Kuroko tried to arrest her, and was almost killed for her efforts."
"Oh, dear."
"She's never told me anything about that," Ruiko replied. "How did she survive?"
Rob smiled. "With a lot of help from her friends - Mikoto and Touma."
Before he could continue, One of the Misaka clones walked into the common room. Mitsuko turned to her, smiled, and said, "Good morning, Niiko-san."
"Good morning, Kongo-san and Ruiko-san, Niiko replies."
"How did you know that Niiko-san is Niiko-san?" Rob asked. "You've been here for less than a week."
"Isn't it obvious?" All three of the others shook their heads in reply. "You don't walk the same way that Mikoto-san does. Only Nana-san copies Mikoto-san's walk exactly. You aren't wearing eyeliner, so you aren't Rei-san. But the most obvious sign was that you paused briefly before walking into the room, as if you were looking for traps or ambushes."
"My clone-sisters never had to fight, Niiko points out. They aren't as paranoid as I am by learned reflex."
Ruiko smiled at that. "I've never thought of you as paranoid, Niiko-san."
"Thank you, Niiko replies. It means a lot to me that I'm able to conceal that from people, Niiko continues in explanation." She headed toward the common room's kitchen, and asked, "Does anyone else want anything while I'm getting some juice?"
Nobody else did, so she nodded and headed for the fridge.
While Niiko was in the kitchen, Mitsuko said to Ruiko, "The experiments that Lifeline-san were running have to have been the worst that Academy City has to offer. How could anything worse than what she did remain hidden from the public?"
While the question wasn't addressed to him, Rob answered it anyway. "All a government needs to do is classify something as being secret, and it's a very brave person who's willing to blow the metaphorical whistle and draw attention to the secret. Most people would rather see a government that occasionally overreaches itself than live in an anarchy."
Both of the girls thought about that for a short moment. Finally, Ruiko asked, "But what about doing what's right?"
Niiko walked back into the common room as Rob answered. "Is it right to tell somebody else's secrets?"
"When they affect other people like that? Yes!"
"You mentioned doctor-patient confidentiality earlier. That affects other people."
"That isn't the same."
Rob nodded. "You're right. The only way you can tell whether somebody needs to know a dark secret is to know it yourself - and a lot of people like keeping secrets. That's why things like Therestina's experiments could remain hidden for so long."
Mitsuko frowned. "Surely there weren't any other experiments as bad as hers in Academy City."
Niiko stood up from the corner table she had sat at, walked over, and sat down at the same table as Ruiko and Mitsuko. "Let me tell you about the Level 6 Shift Project, Misaka 10032 states using her serial number for subtle emphasis. It is the biggest secret that I am aware of from Academy City. The project treated my clone sisters and me as things, not people. They told us that so many times that we believed it, Misaka 10032 admits. I have memories of meeting Accelerator for the first time in the project's headquarters. We were set against each other. I shot him using a pistol provided to me by the project. His ability reflected the bullet back to me, and I died. Or, rather, Misaka 2 died, Misaka 10032 explains quickly."
"You have memories of dying?"
"You have memories of being killed?"
"That is correct, Misaka 10032 replies to both questions simultaneously. I also have memories of cleaning up my dead bodies before going out to be killed myself, Misaka 10032 adds in order to make her earlier situation more clear."
"How long did this go on?" Ruiko asked, unable to hide the horror in her voice.
"The time blurred into a perpetual 'now' for the first 9980 deaths, Misaka 10032 replies. Perhaps it took a few years, Misaka 10032 guesses."
"Is death painful?" asked Mitsuko.
"That depends on the method of dying, Misaka 10032 answers. Misaka 9982 was crushed to death, after having her leg torn off by Accelerator. Misaka 10032 thinks that that was one of the less physically painful deaths, but we will always remember it because Misaka 9982 was the first clone to meet our Original." She continued speaking a litany of ways to die - having her neck snapped, being hit with an anti-tank rifle round, having her arms pinned to her torso with a steel bar and being thrown into the harbour, being hit by a car that was dropped on her from twenty feet up, and many, many more. After ten minutes, Rob realized that the only way one of her clone sisters hadn't been killed was by electrocution. Finally, she finished with "The worst death that Misaka 10032 remembers is that of Misaka 10031, whose blood flow was instantly reversed by Accelerator's power, causing my heart to explode. No, causing Misaka 10031's heart to explode, Misaka 10032 corrects herself."
Mitsuko had long since passed being horrified and had reached being numb. "From what you've been saying, surely that was one of the less painful deaths of one of your clones."
"Less painful, perhaps, Misaka 10032 answers Mitsuko. But Misaka 10031 was the Misaka clone who first met Touma Kamijo, Misaka 10032 explains. Her death hurt his soul, Misaka 10032 adds for clarification."
Nobody said anything for a long moment. Finally, Misaka turned to Rob. "The energy accumulator devices that Washuu-chan installed last night are functioning correctly, Niiko Misaka reports. We were able to discharge our accumulated electricity into the receptor grids without any issues, Niiko continues."
Ruiko finally snapped. "How can you be so calm about remembering having died so many times!?"
Niiko turned back to Ruiko. "Our emotional growth was deliberately stunted, Niiko replies. Last Order - Mimi Misaka - is the only clone with a full set of emotions, Niiko adds."
"Rob-oji..."
"Yes, Rui-chan?"
"Can I live with you even after the megami send everyone else home, please? I never want to go back to Academy City again. Ever."
Before Rob could answer, Mitsuko said, "I would prefer to return to Academy City, but only to rescue my friends from it."
Ruiko looked at her lap, ashamed to have thought otherwise.
Rob stood up, walked over, and gently placed his hand on Ruiko's shoulder, causing her to look up at him. "Rui-chan, there's nothing wrong in feeling how you feel. It's fine to worry about yourself. It's natural. But..."
"But?"
"Well, Mii, Ami, and I have already had this conversation. When it's time to go home, we're all planning on going to Ami's world; Mii and I can live anywhere, but Ami's needed there. I think you'd be welcome to join us, though."
Yggdrasil
Same time
"I hope we can accommodate you there, Mr. Donaldson," Urd muttered.
"Ma'am?"
She looked over at her assistant for the day. "Oh, nothing, Ere. Just thinking out loud. Let's get back to work, stabilizing these glitches."
Blossom Apartments, Ottawa, ON, Canada
Same time
To take her mind off the subject of over ten thousand deaths, Ruiko asked, "Rob-oji... That teleporter who almost killed Kuroko-san. Who was she?" As soon as ske asked, she realized that this topic wouldn't take her mind off death.
Rob sighed. "A girl about Mii's age, if I recall correctly. Her name is Awaki Musujime."
Toronto, ON, Canada
February 9, 2017
9:41 AM
"It's done." Musujime dropped a few pieces of metal into Leonard's outstretched hand - without the gears that she had teleported out of the mechanism, a large freight door wasn't going to open any time soon. "I don't see how this is going to help things, though."
He smiled at her comment. "The owners will make a fuss, just when this 'Meltdowner' person should be walking past. Assuming she helps them, they're the type to reward her for her services, which will give her enough money for both her and her companion to reach Ottawa."
She studied his face for a moment, then gave up - as usual, he was unreadable. "Why do you want them getting together with Railgun and her friends?"
"Because her friends are friends with the people near Detroit who are enemies of MANAGEMENT."
"Ah," Musujime said in understanding. "The enemy of our enemy, and all that. And that explains why we emailed those photos of her teammates to her so she could track them down. So why did you send goons to try to capture them in Chicago?"
"To spur them into action, my dear."
She hated when he called her that.
Blossom Apartments, Ottawa, ON, Canada
February 9, 2017
2:21 PM
The building's residents who weren't in school had congregated in the common room, listening to - and in some cases, telling - stories about the dark underbelly of Academy City. Needless to say, there wasn't very much work being done that day.
"My first mission in GROUP," Accelerator told the assembled residents after a lot of coaxing, "was a simple little bit of killing - a guy named Komaba Ritoku."
"Komaba-san was a friend of mine," Frenda said quietly. "He took care of my little sister whenever I was working."
Shiage ignored his teammate. "So you're the bastard that killed him," he snarled at Accelerator.
"Shut up and let me talk. He fought me, and came damned close to putting me in the hospital again. The only reason he died was because he shot me. And it wasn't an accident - he knew damn well that my Reflection was on." Accelerator turned to look at Shiage. "So, no, I didn't kill him. He killed himself."
"Would you have let him go if he hadn't shot you?"
Accelerator shrugged. "Maybe. But GROUP had me on a tight leash - they only slacked off after I showed them I was willing to do dirty work for them."
"A convenient excuse."
"Hey, looking at what kind of fuck-up took over for him and got himself arrested on the very first job he took from somebody he didn't even bother checking the credentials of, maybe I should have let him live."
Rob cleared his throat meaningfully. Everybody in the room (save for Ruiko and Mitsuko) knew full well - if only from watching the anime in Rob's collection - that Shiage was the "fuck-up" that Accelerator had referred to. "Perhaps we should change the subject. Now."
After a pause that went on for far too long, Rikou asked, "Does anybody know anything about the 'Dark May Project'?"
Accelerator turned to look directly into her eyes. "Where the hell did you hear that name!?" he all-but-shouted.
Cowering under his anger, she quietly answered, "My teammate Saiai mentioned it once."
"Nothing good came out of that project. It ruined other espers. Made them think crazy things."
"How crazy?" Ruiko asked quietly, dreading the answer.
"Little girl, it made them think like me." Before Ruiko could respond, he added, "Literally. They took my dreams, my beliefs, my hopes, my thoughts, and forced them into other espers."
"Why?"
He snorted. "You of all people here ask me that? To make them higher level espers." Then he smiled his slasher-villain smile. "Want to give it a try?"
Ruiko shook her head, quickly and fearfully.
"Smart girl."
"Where did they find volunteers to take part in such a project?" Mitsuko asked.
Accelerator laughed. "Volunteers? Nobody would volunteer to become me! Look at me! Look at my life! No, they found their test subjects the same place everybody else in Academy City finds their test subjects. In the Child Error facilities."
Ruiko went pale. She had volunteered to help out in one of those facilities, once. All those orphans, being used as guinea pigs?
Accelerator didn't seem to notice. "Hey, maybe it wasn't a complete waste of time. I hear the project got shut down because one of the subjects went wild the way I usually do, and killed all the researchers. Serves 'em right."
At this point, Mitsuko turned to Ruiko and said, "I must apologize to you for something I said earlier today, Ruiko-san."
"What did you say, Mitsuko-san?" asked Rikou.
"I said that I would prefer to return to Academy City in order to rescue my friends from it. I see now that simply setting foot in that place again, at my current level of ability, would be foolhardy in the extreme."
"You're, what Level 3? 4?"
"I am a level 4 esper, Frenda-san."
"Then you're a lot more powerful than me," the blonde girl replied. "But I can see why you'd want to run away from the darkness. Not everybody's cut out for it, basically."
As most of the others in the room nodded in agreement, Rob, Ruiko, and Mitsuko couldn't help but think that they lived in a completely different world than their next-door neighbours.
Blossom Apartments, Ottawa, ON, Canada
February 9, 2017
6:02 PM
Dinner was a strangely subdued affair that night, with so many of the residents eating alone in their apartments.
When Usagi and Kazari expressed a desire to go find out what was wrong, Rob flat-out forbade them from bothering the others, without giving any explanation... before retiring to his own apartment.
Toronto, ON, Canada
February 9, 2017
9:41 PM
The first thing they'd picked up with their reward money for getting that door open was lunch.
The second thing they'd picked up was some silicon cards, a straightedge ruled in millimeters, a protractor, and a sharp knife at a hobbyist's store.
Now, Meltdowner had decided to stay in Toronto for a couple of days - the hostel they were staying at wasn't particularly comfortable, but at least they had a room to themselves, with two beds and a private bath. They could afford to stay another day as long as they were careful about where they ate - but this country's "Tim Horton's" chain could keep them fed cheaply for that amount of time. And she needed to prepare these cards for use. It wasn't as if she could buy them ready-made anywhere outside of Academy City, after all.
Her traveling companion sat on the smaller bed, watching as Meltdowner scored the cards in a very precise pattern.
Elsewhere, Leonard seethed inwardly. Those two were supposed to be halfway to Ottawa by now...
Blossom Apartments, Ottawa, ON, Canada
February 9, 2017
9:53 pm
Mimi Hanyu reached the top of the stairs and was about to head toward her own apartment and some much-needed rest, when she heard somebody crying. It took her a moment to figure out where the sounds were coming from, but as soon as she was sure, she turned away from her apartment and knocked on Mitsuko Kongo's front door. "Kongo-san? Are you all right?"
The crying slowed, then stopped. After a moment, the door opened to show Mitsuko's tear-stained face. "I'm sorry to have disturbed you, Hanyu-san."
"Whatever it is, do you want to talk about it?"
Mitsuko started crying again, just from knowing that, despite her best efforts to avoid troubling anyone else with her sorrow over what she'd learned that day, somebody still wanted to help her. "Oh, yes, please. Please come in."
To be continued concluded ...
--
Rob Kelk
Sticks and stones can break your bones,
But words can break your heart.
- unknown
Rob Kelk
Sticks and stones can break your bones,
But words can break your heart.
- unknown