A Certain Systemic Error

Finally, after hours and hours of waiting, you spot a familiar face step out from behind the set up curtains.



It's Doctor Kihara Kori, the scientist who discovered you those two and a half years ago when you first entered into Academy City. She's the one who helped you get into the Powers Curriculum Program. If it wasn't for her, you'd probably be one of those scary Skill Out gangsters or living on the streets begging for food.

"Hanako." She says simply, and you quickly hop up, hurrying over to the scientist. The petite woman (though she still towers over you) gives you a small smile, one hand affectionately ruffling your hair, "Good Morning Hanako. Are you ready for your exams?"

"Yes ma'am." You say politely, as the scientist turns to lead you behind the curtain. As always, there is something about the way that Doctor Kori acts that just... To be honest, you don't know. Just something about the way she acts feels strange to you.

Entering into one of the small curtained off sections, you spot a familiar looking machine. "Now, this isn't your first time using one of Kreskin's Precognition Tests," Doctor Kori begins with a sigh, "But you know how these tests go." Yes. You do. You don't know the specific reasons why, but the Doctors are required to explain the tests being given before each one, something about reinforcing the concept of the exams is supposed to help bring out latent abilities or something like that.

"This is one of Kreskin's Precognition Machines, however it is a far cry from the primitive devices created in the 1960's for this purpose. Atop the machine," The woman motions to the black box in the center of the testing area, "are four symbols - a Triangle, a Heart, an Arrow, and a Circle. For each round of testing you shall be given 15 seconds to press one of the symbols. Once those sixty seconds are up, the Quantum Network in the machine will collapse, setting the mechanism into a particular setup. When that occurs, all but one of the symbols shall go dark." The doctor sighed, shaking her head. "Due to your position as a Level 0, we must repeat this experiment 250 times."

You want to groan, because even if you couldn't do the math, this isn't your first system scan, and so you know that this stage alone is going to take over an hour.

Press - wrong
Press - Right
Press - wrong
Press - wrong
Press - Right

Again and again you press the buttons, your mind slowly collapsing in on itself until there you can see nothing but the buttons. Finally, after an hour of sitting still and pressing buttons, all four of the little lights go dim. "Hmmm... Interesting..." Somehow, just those two words send a chill down your spine. You look over to the doctor, who is staring at one of the many machines pointed in your direction, as she jots down notes on a small pad. Hoepfully, whatever it is that the woman finds so interesting is a good thing.

The Doctor pulls a small remote out of a pocket, quickly clicking a small button. A few moments later, a trio of other scientists enter into the enclosure, two of them taking the cart with the machine on it away, and the third carrying a chair in. A few moments pass, before a different woman enters, sitting down in front of you. Of all the tests that you keep having to do, this is the one that you hate the most...

The Telepathy testing.

Primarily because it always make you feel particularly stupid.

"This is a Telepathy test." Doctor Kori drones on, sounding just as bored as you are. "The Proctor of this exam is going to think of a number between one and one hundred. You will be given one hundred seconds to acquire the information from her mind. At the end of that time, you will give the number that she is thinking. This examination will take approximately twenty minutes." The woman sitting in the chair pulls out a pocket watch, glancing back over to the doctor. "Begin." And with a Click, the test starts.

You stare at the woman. The woman stares at you. You stare at the woman. The woman stares at you.

You focus, harder and harder and harder.

You focus so hard that you feel a soft twinge in the back of your head.





Wait. No.

That's just the start of a headache. The pain slowly blooms through your mind like roots burrowing through the loamy soil.

The pain grows.

The pain grows.

More and more and more pain grows through your head.

Until - the pain peaks, higher and stronger and more than any pain you've ever felt before, which is actually saying something given the events that happened before you came to the city. "And... time." Doctor Kori says, as you blink, looking up at the woman. Has... has it already been... The woman gives you a bit of an odd look as she stands up, but there is a bright smile on the Doctor's face. "Thank you for your assistance with today's testing. You may go and collect your payment, however-" The Doctor's eyes and voice go hard and sharp as steel. "Do not speak of what happened here today. Understood?"

It's moments like these that you don't understand. The Doctor is normally so nice and sweet and almost saccharine, but occasionally something happens and you see something else... you would almost say Someone else.

You've never brought it up with the Doctor, more than a little worried about seeing this side of her pointed at you, but there is a part of you that wonders which side of her is the real side? The kind hearted Doctor who practically raised you over the two years and change that you have lived in Academy City, or this terrifying presence that seems to instantly dwarf everyone in the room.

None the less, the terrified girl nods quickly, before almost running out of the makeshift room. The pressure is suddenly gone, and the Doctor gives you an affectionate look, "Come here for a moment," Hoping up, you feel something wet on your lips. A flick of the tongue gives you a start at the coppery taste. "The data that that last test gave was truly fascinating, Hanako. I wish you hadn't pushed yourself so hard though."

Stepping close the woman pulls a handkerchief out of a pocket and quickly runs it along the bottom of your face. The cloth comes back red and bloody. She quickly cleans your face, before handing you a couple small candies. "Those will handle the copper taste. Please, while I am happy with the data you have gotten me, do not injure yourself again." You nod, not really sure what she is actually talking about, but agreeing with the woman is the easiest way to handle things.

Pressing another button on the remote, yet another person enters the room, this one a young looking man with a folded desk in one hand. The other hand has a pack of cards. He starts to set up, even as you continue to try and ignore the soft twinges in the back of your mind. "This next exam is yet another that you are familiar with," Kori says, "The assistant here has a set of Zenner cards. Each of the cards is marked with one of five symbols each drawn in one of five colors. The Deck is going to be shuffled," As she speaks the Assistant is doing just that. "And then he is going to pull each card. You will be given ten seconds to determine the shape, and or the color on the card. You shall not be informed if you are correct or not until all cards have been drawn."

This is all things that you have gone through on more than one occasion, so it is nothing new.

"Now, under normal circumstances, once the testing ends when all cards have been drawn. However, due to the data that I have been gathering today, I am going to have you go through this test a second time."

You don't know whether to think it frustrating or lucky, but unlike the other two tests you have done this morning, nothing out of the ordinary happens while you try and see the true nature of the cards.

Of course, the entire point of the cards is to find things that are out of the ordinary, so that is bad.

But you aren't bleeding out the nose anymore. So that is good.

And admittedly, it may just seem to you that nothing out of the ordinary is happening, because the Doctor is almost glued to the machines that she has set up. You go through the cards pretty quickly, both times getting about 33% of the cards right.

The Doctor is a lot more polite to this assistant as he gathers up his cards and table to leave, which means that you have just two tests left for the morning. Telekinesis and Psychometry. You watch the Doctor go over her notes and the device for a few minutes before she nods to herself and clicks the button on the remote again.

Another assistant rolls in a large table, with a metal arm sticking up out of the center, and a protractor at the top. You've actually never done this exam, but you know a little bit about it from a couple of your classmates. After nodding to the assistant as he leaves, the Doctor steps forward. "Now, this is not a test that you've done before, but I wouldn't be surprised if you haven't heard about it from some of your classmates." The Kori says, "This exam is more a measurement of power in comparison to the more skill focused Columbus Egg test. I shall state a measurement in degrees, and you are to use whichever means you can to move the protractor to match the stated degrees. You shall have ninety seconds per stated measurement. We shall repeat this five times."

The first is 30 degrees, and you spend the ninety seconds focusing all of your thoughts on the protractor. Trying to force it to shift and to move and just... do...

something.

Anything.

The second measurement is 187 degrees. Taking a moment, you roll your neck, eyes closed as you try and clear your thoughts. But there is that... pressure, that weight in the back of your head. Locking eyes back on the protractor, you try and focus on that pressure instead, seeing if...

If the pressure in the back of your mind is the result of the Level Upper.

If that might be your powers starting to appear.

Nothing.

The third is 45 degrees. Still you push and prod at the thing in the back of your head, and you do feel... something, but you don't know what it is or... You have only 5 seconds left...

Nothing. Still.

Two more tries. Two more failures...

Was it all for naught? Was spending your money on that MP3 file a waste? You... Don't know. You do know that everything that you have tried today has been a failu-"Good job." what. It takes a moment for your mind to parse the words that the Doctor said. "You may not have succeeded at moving the Protractor today, however you have given me truly fascinating data. I'm proud of you. Don't let yourself get too down, either. There is still one more test."

Pressing the button one last time, an assistant comes through, taking the table with the protractor away, and another comes with a table, covered in eight inch long black cubes.

"What you see before you is a number of boxes. Twenty Four of them to be precise." The scientist gave you a smile, "Inside of one of them is a bar of Ghirardelli Chocolate. The Dark Chocolate Raspberry ones love so much." Your head snaps up to her, an almost hopeful look on your face. "You may open one box. You may take as long as you desire with this test."

Slowly picking up one of the boxes, you turn it over in your hands. Everything about the box is exactly the same as any of the other boxes. The same color, the same size, the same weight. Even shaking the box, you can't feel what is inside of it. You test with another, nope - exactly the same. Picking up a third box, you stare at it, trying to...

Trying to do...

But like a sudden shift in the current of a river, you feel something in your head change. Eyes close as your hands come up to the box - fingers tracing it's edges and planes.

Choose 2:

[ ][Stunt] Rewind
- You see the box, from every side, but everything is moving, happening backwards. You watch as you put down the box, as you pick up other boxes, before putting them down, before the cart is rolled back out of the makeshift room to a small room at the side of the gym, where people pick up the boxes, open them up and remove various things from the boxes - or rather, given that you are watching things backwards, you see them place the things in, just in reverse.
- View the path that an object took backwards along the timeline, as it watching a video in reverse
- Cost: 1 Energy per 2 minutes look back
[ ][Stunt] Snapshot
- You see the box, sixty seconds ago. Perfectly held still in time, every inch and bit of it in perfect understanding. A moment held solid in time, but only the box and what is inside of it.
- See the whole of an object, and only the object, within a single frozen moment of time
- Cost: 1 Energy per 5 minutes looked back
[ ][Stunt] Fly on the Wall
- You see sixty seconds of a roughly 12 foot sphere area around the box, getting blurrier and blurrier the further from the box you get.
- See a large area around an object, but it becomes harder to see information the further out the info is, however it does see through walls and other obstructions
- 3 Energy per 2 minutes looked back
[ ][Stunt] Summation
- You see a sort of vague... blur of everything that has happened to the box, thankfully it was only created today, so that ins't a whole lot of information
- See the whole of the objects history, all overlapping in a brief moment. Itt's hard to get any solid details, but will probably be enough to get a general understanding of how the basics of the objects use are
- 10 Energy
[ ][Stunt] Dawn
- See the creation of the box as it is now
- See the 'creation' of the Object in it's current state, how it reached the status that it is currently in. For instance, you would see how a broken object was 'created' in the moment of it being broken
- 7 Energy
[ ][Stunt] Recreation
- See the room you are in, just nearly an hour ago.
- Instead of seeing the past of an object, you see the past as it you were standing in the same spot where you are currently at that time.
- 3 energy per 5min looked back
[ ][Stunt] Pass Along
- You see the box, but as things move back, the box bumps into a man walking the other direction of the cart, and now the vision is following him, and it continues to move backwards, passing from person to person as they touch
- See the past of an object, but the focus changes as interactions happen
- 1 energy per 2 min back, plus 1 energy per transfer