A Certain Systemic Error

Lunaryon said:

"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.

Click to expand...

Click to shrink...

You slowly start to spin the box about in your hands, getting a feel for the whole of the object - holding it close and stretching out your arm to look the thing over from a distance. Something about the box niggles at the back of your brain.

It's similar, and yet different, and yet the same as the pressure that has been in the back of your mind even since you sat across from the girl during your telepathy exam, that same pressure that has been in the back of your mind ever since your nose spontaneously began to bleed all over your face.

...There is a little bit of you that wonders if that might be the results of you using the Level Upper.

Placing the box down, you reach out, fingers sliding across a number of other boxes as you try and trust in your instincts to find the one that you want. It's silly to try and trust in your instincts, you know that, after all you are just a level zero...

But...

Slowly your hands wrap around one of the boxes, and pulling it back you stare down at it. This...

Everything siezes - Your brain and your body and your mind all stutter to a crashing halt as your brain is slammed with information burrowing itself into your thoughts. The box, and the screwdriver hidden within it drop from your fingers, "No." You say with a giddy smile, almost laughing as the next words come out of your mouth. "Not that one."

The flashing images burned into your thoughts are a little hard to make out, but you know that you are very lucky that these boxes were made just a few hours ago - you surmise that it might even be specifically for this test here.

...The only problem is that just doing that was exhausting. However, you know that you can open up any of these boxes now. Stumbling up to your feet, you walk around the table, trying to get a better look at the boxes... You don't know if you'll be able to do that again, not... not without at the very least getting something to eat. "You've done well, Hanako." Kori speaks up, drawing your attention to the scientist for the first time since you started looking at the boxes. "Don't push yourself too hard. We can stop this whenever you are ready. You have gotten me a lot of data today."

"N-no." You barely get out as you try to get your breath back. "I can still do this."

Especially since you did that, pressed at the weight in the back of your mind and you felt it move - but even more, you felt that there was something else you can do.

Taking the few last steps back to the seat, you sit down, letting your head loll backwards as you focus entirely inwards.
There's a sound almost like a record skip, and for the briefest of moments it feels like you can't breath.

"Good Job. 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." Your head rolls down, opening your mouth to ask Doctor Kori what she means, but the words fall short, when the first thing that you see when you open your eyes is your own back. Or really, rather your hair. Slowly standing, you look around. Everything in the exam room looks almost identical to how it looks now, but as you carefully stand, you can tell that what is around you and what you are seeing are not the same things.

You watch again as the Scientist presses the button on her remote, and one of the many assistants helping with the exams comes through, taking the first table away. Carefully, keeping in mind where the table is going to be in the present, you carefully walk around to where the table was brought in. You have no idea if this is going to work, but it might, and really, that's enough because you do want that candy.

The second assistant starts to enter, bringing the table, and you lean down, flinching a little as your head passes through what looked to be a solid object.

Luckily for you, it seems that either your strange past viewing power allows you to see in the dark, or the boxes somehow let light in, because you can see the insides of the boxes as your head passes through them. You bob and you weave, trying to ignore both the feeling of your own eyes on your back, and the fact that the Doctor is looking in this direction, since they aren't really there, just images of the past.

...Of course the doctor is still there, but you can't focus on that right now. Instead, you carefully move your head back and forth as you try to see into the interior of each of the boxes. It takes you a few moments of slowly stepping backwards as you weave back and forth to catch each of the boxes in your line of sight, but as you bump into the table in the present, you can't help the smile on your face. You saw what you needed to see.

It takes but a single blink for the past to fade from your vision, and you turn, picking up a single of the boxes. A twist and a spin and a turn and with a soft click the box unfolds open, before sliding together into a flat plate. You deposit the bit of metal onto the table, grinning as you take hold of your beloved prize.

"Extraordinary. Truly, truly extraordinary." The Doctor says as she watches you, a soft smile on her face, before she pulls out the remote a last time and summons forth a final assistant. The man enters, but as he moves for the chair, the doctor shakes her head. "No, leave it." Pausing, the man turns and takes the table and the boxes. Once he is gone, the doctor turns to you, motioning over next to her. "Bring the chair."

Grabbing the chair, you quickly come to sit next to the doctor. "I don't have the words to try and explain the data that you have provided for me today." She says, pausing for a moment and bringing a finger to her lips. "Or, perhaps, it would be more accurate to say that the data that you have showed me here today goes against so much of what we thought that we understood about the nature of Espers and their abilities." Turning the screen so that you can see it, she first shows you a short video of you sitting there, staring intently at the girl brought in for the Telepathy exam, before your nose suddenly started bleeding.

"Umm..." You start to say, unsure of what it is that you are looking at.

"Seems a bit strange that you simply started bleeding like that, doesn't it?" She asks, and you nod. "Now..." She presses a couple of buttons, and the video starts again, but there is a strange filter over everything.

You sit there, looking almost dull and dim in the darker light, while the girl across from you sit there, wrapped in what almost looks like a pulsing ball of light. "This is an AIM field Camera." The Doctor explains, "We only have about a half dozen of them across the city so far, based off the studies of some girl's esper ability... AIM stalker or something of the like. Regardless, it interprets AIM fields into a visible medium onscreen." The video starts to play, and you watch as you stare at the girl, staring harder and harder, then - a flicker of light right at the level of your head. Something begins to bubble outwards, wavering and flickering almost like it wasn't really there at all.

There sphere starting to form up around you struggles for a few moments, flickering in and out of view, expanding and contracting before it settles down, it's changes stopping at the exact moment that your nose starts to bleed. The sphere around you is a paler color than the other girl's yellowish green, but is roughly the same size as hers. That... that must have been the moment that your powers awakene-

Suddenly, the sphere around you contracts down, almost like a coiling snake, before it snaps out, something almost like a phantom limb reaching out and encompassing the other girl's AIM field like some kind of amoeba. Inside the balls of light, you continue to stare at the girl, and after a few long moments your AIM field retracts, settling back down into a sphere around you. Here, the doctor stops the video and pulls it over to one side as she pulls up a second.

The second video is of you sitting in front of the table covered in the black boxes. You still have the almost whitish sphere of light around you, but as you stare at the cubes, slowly reaching out and picking one up, you watch as the sphere around you starts to shift, sliding in color and changing it's... changing the way that the pulses run across it's surface, shifting and changing, and as you pick up the third of the boxes, the settling on the same yellowish green color of the girl who had been sitting in front of you.

It doesn't stop there either, you watch as you examine the third cube, the one that you had first used... Your power? That other girl's power? That past viewing power on. Then, when you got up and started to move around the room, the sphere was shifting a little then too. Nothing as major as when your sphere first appeared, or when it changed to match her own, but it still changed. Thankfully, Doctor Kori stops the video before you started trying to see into the boxes in the past, which you know would have looked particularly silly.

"In all of our studies on the Nature of the AIM field that Espers create, I have never seen such a thing. Never heard of such a thing outside of idle speculation - and even that was more on the concept of Dual Skill." You have heard of Dual Skill before, it was an old experiment where some researchers tried to give Espers multiple powers, but it never worked. It was impossible.

Just as impossible as it is to copy the abilities of others.

"There is still a lot of study that I will require of you in the future. Many questions that are going to be asked, and that need to be answer of your... hmmm... A.I.M Roulette. Yes, that is what I shall call your ability." The Doctor says with a smile far too large for her face. It is a downright terrifying look on the woman. The moment quickly passes however, as she turns to you. "ah, yes. Hanako, you may go." She says with a soft wave of a hand. "You have most certainly reached Level 1 today, even if that is only in the borrowed usage of Psychometry. I will have your updated System Scan card sent to your dorm this evening along with this six month's stipend, increased now that you are a Level1."

By now, most of the day's classes are over, and even if they weren't you are exempted for the day thanks to the System Scan, but that leaves the question of what else to do today.

You do need to stop by the Judgement office at some point, if for no other reason that because you've risen to Level 1, and you want to brag about it, especially to your Senpai, since all members of Judgement under the age of 11 are assigned an older member of the Branch to watch over them.

Due to going to Sakugawa Middle School, that puts you in Branch 177. Your Senpai is-
[ ][Senpai] Konori Mii, the Chief of Branch 177. She's a Clairvoyant.
[ ][Senpai] Yanagisako Aomi, Konori's best friend. She has the ability to create walls of pressure around her.
[ ][Senpai] Shirai Kuroko, the branch's hyperactive Teleporter
[ ][Senpai] Uiharu Kazari, the branch's tech support, she also goes to your school!

The other option that you can think of is to either just head home and take a nap, or head to the Arcade.

[ ][Afternoon] Go to the Judgement Office
[ ][Afternoon] Go the Arcade
[ ][Afternoon] Go home