Ruiko/The Other Side
BEEP BEEP BEEP BEEP BEEP.
"Whu...huh?" I blink, slowly, and realize that the morning sun is peeking through the blinds. My cellphone's alarm clock is also blaring right into my ears and holy
shit it's loud. I fumble for my cellphone—my earphone cord got tangled all around me while I was sleeping, and the phone itself ended up directly beneath my stomach somehow. When I finally manage to retrieve it, the flashing timer on it says
8:01. Right on time. Why do I feel so weird, then?
It's obvious after I disentangle myself from the earphones and slip out from under the covers: I'm still fully dressed, wearing the same school uniform I left the house in yesterday—now horrifically wrinkled, of course. I must have been exhausted yesterday, after—all that happened.
Wait. What
did happen? I try to remember—the broad details like meeting Misaka, going to the mall, the bombings, Kazari being a total badass, I more-or-less remember, but it all seems...kinda foggy somehow. I guess I
was tired; I couldn't have gotten home any later than 16, but I guess I slept right up 'till now? Jeez. I must have missed yoga too for some reason.
Whatever. I check my schedule on my phone; looks like...ah, I've got power development class at 10. Right, the IPD dynamics exam is today; I should get some last-minute studying in. After I've, y'know, changed out of this mess of a uniform and have gotten myself looking halfway decent again. There's also an e-mail from Kazari—ah, she had to pull an all-nighter at the Judgement office after the bombings, that's why she's not here. Damn, if
I was that tired after that whole mess, I can't imagine how she's feeling.
* * * * * * * *
I take a quick shower, find a clean uniform, down a quick rice-and-miso breakfast, and pop my pills. Then I hit the books.
Well, such as they are; everything's obviously digital these days. I fire up my e-reader at my desk and take a look at some of the bits I've highlighted. I've gone over most of this stuff four or five times now; most of it's pretty clear at this point, but it can't hurt to review.
IPD dynamics is actually really fascinating, even if I only got really interested because of my specific situation. Basically, IPD comes from subatomic particles emitted,
somehow, as a byproduct of conscious thought. Yeah, conscious thought
specifically; only humans, great apes, and a couple of species of dolphin produce IPD in detectable amounts, and humans produce, like, an order of magnitude more on the low end than the absolute highest measured value in any other species. (Chimps, if you're wondering.) The books sort of carefully dance around the fact that nobody has any idea
why this happens, or what the mechanism that creates the particles is, or really how
anything about IPD works on the physics side, though a few of the more cynical professors will be more than happy to admit it. Especially if they've done any serious work in the field. IPD production almost
definitely violates mass/energy conservation, for starters, and it just gets weirder the farther down the rabbit hole you go. Like how IPD particles don't have a consistent electrical charge or spin; the only way they can be identified at all is by their mass, which is approximately 'way bigger than an electron but way smaller than a proton'.
The neurological side of it is a bit less headache-inducing; basically, what the Kihara Process does is cause your brain to produce more connections between the chunks of your brain that produce the most IPD and the parts that handle muscle control, basically putting IPD production—theoretically—under your conscious control.
Theoretically.
Yeah.
There's more to it all, of course, but honestly, I'm already pretty far ahead of the class on some of the physics stuff, and the stuff I want to read about isn't gonna be on the test today. To be honest, I'm still a bit confused about
why these classes spend so much time on the theory of IPD, and what that has to do with actually helping the students get their powers to work better. But hey, apparently something like one out of every four Level 4s in Academy City has been through the program I'm attending (and boy does whoever sets their tuition know it), so they're clearly doing
something right. I pack my e-reader up and head out to the bus stop.
The power-dev class isn't
too far away, but—like Kazari's Judgement office—it's kind of right on the border between the really nice, really high-class private school district where the schools like Shidarezakura and Tokiwadai are and the, uh, less-high-class part of town I live in. Funny thing about the building it's in—since such a huge percentage of Academy City's population are students, there's actually a whole bunch of classroom buildings that don't belong to any school in particular; they're rented out room-by-room or floor-by-floor, whenever a school needs a little extra classroom space. Or when a so-called Special Educational Organization—like the huge number of private power-development schools that have sprung up—needs somewhere to go.
My class's teacher, Yoshizaki-sensei, is a fairly young guy, mid 20s, wearing big, thick glasses and a poorly-fit business suit. He's one of the oldest espers around, apparently; he's a level 3 telekinetic. He looks surprised when I arrive ten minutes early, as usual. "Ah, Saten-san," he says. "Good morning! I, er, didn't realize you were coming in today."
Huh? "Well...yeah, of course I am. Why wouldn't I be? What with the test and everything."
"Well...you know, with everything that happened yesterday...a lot of people are staying home from their jobs and summer classes, apparently. And, well, can't really blame them. Unbelievable, really, that something like that could happen
here. Just goes to show that degenerates like those can pop up
anywhere. But nonetheless, I'm glad you're here."
"Oh, uh, thanks. So is the test still on for today, then? I mean, with so many people skipping out?"
"Naturally. I'm preparing a makeup test for next week if anyone misses this session, but I wouldn't want to waste the time of the students who did show up."
A couple of people actually don't come in, but the vast majority of the class shows up. With the exam taking up most of the two hours of class, there's no time for the usual power-focus lab, which I gotta say is a little bit of a relief—out of the 20 or so students in the class, I'm one of the only two Level 0s, and it's a just a
little vexing to stare at a spoon for an hour trying to bend it while the rest of the class is showing off. So, yeah, as soon as I'm done with the test (which I'm pretty sure I aced), I'm off. Next stop: part-time job waitressing at a little Italian family restaurant near the international airport.
* * * * * * * *
My boss at Luigi no Pasta (whose name is actually Ryuuji, not Luigi, but
shhh, don't tell anyone—he likes people to think he's actually Italian) is almost as surprised as Yoshizaki-sensei when I show up. It's kind of funny, all told—people seem to think they should be scared, or paranoid, or whatever over this, but, I mean—I was
there. I saw it happen. I should be more scared than anyone, but...I'm not, not really. Maybe it's
because I was there, because I saw Misaka and Shirai and Kazari—and the Anti-Skill cops, I guess—taking out the people who did it. Whatever it is, I just kind of want to get back to my ordinary life.
That's about what I'm thinking when it happens. I'm taking away a teenage couple's bowls of minestrone soup, and I'm not sure what I slip or trip on, but before I know it the ground's coming up at me, the (thankfully mostly empty) bowls are slipping away, and—
thud—ow.
Nothing breaks, thankfully. Only a little bit of spilled broth and vegetables needs to be cleaned up. Except—as I pull myself to my feet, and start simultaneously apologizing profusely to everyone in my general area and trying to account for all of the stuff I just dropped—I notice something odd. The spoons didn't hit the ground with everything else.
In fact, despite the fact that I wasn't holding onto them at all, they somehow ended up in the palm of my hand.
Weird.
I start picking up the dropped tableware, and then things get
really strange.
When I try to drop the spoons into one of the recovered bowls, they
stick. I shake my hand over the bowl a couple times, and the spoons jiggle a bit—clearly they're not fused to my hand in some weird way, so what gives? I try and pull them off with my other hand.
They aren't stuck
too hard, thankfully; they give way without too much trouble.
But when they do, for the tiniest instant, so quickly I almost miss it,
there's a spark.
Holy crap. Holy—oh.
Oh.
I remember what I did after I got home last night.
* * * * * * * *
It's
easy. It's easy as
hell. I take a 'bathroom break' the moment I'm done cleaning up the mess, and as soon as I've gotten some privacy—
It really is as simple as every successful esper ever says it is. Just envision the result you want, and
push. I hold the tips of my pointer fingers about half a centimeter apart in front of me, and within
seconds there's a tiny little arc of electricity between them, snapping and crackling like a bowl of Rice Krispies.
Holy crap. I'm an esper. I really, actually am. Hell, I've even got the same powers as the Railgun! This is the greatest—oh, oh man. I've got to tell Kazari...No. No, I can't tell Kazari. She'll
know. She'll know I didn't get these powers the legit way, by spending hours and hours staring at a spoon trying to bend it with my mind after taking about five thousand yen worth of nootropic pills. Oh my god I've wasted so much time, and, and
money, and
worried so much. And Level Plus just solved all of it in a minute. It
fixed me, fixed whatever was broken, or, or fucked-up in my brain that stopped me from doing the one thing I came to Academy City to do.
But still, I've got to tell
someone. Okay...okay. Mako, Akemi, and Muu. Three friends from school, not really long-time friends but they're all pretty cool. And they're all Level 0s like I am. Like I
was. I pull out my cellphone and type up an e-mail to all of them: "
Level Plus is real, I used it, this is it. Make sure to follow the instructions!" I attach the sound file, and...wait. Wait. What am I doing? Kazari's
shown me the kind of ludicrous computer surveillance ACPD and Judgement can do. Hell, she set up some of those systems. I delete the e-mail draft, and find the web address for the download I'd found in my phone's history. Then I find one of those web-address-shortener thingies, and enter the address into that. Then—hell, why not? I enter
that address into another shortener thingy, and paste the final link into a new e-mail: "
Check it out!It's real.
Make sure to follow the instructions!"
...Actually, that kind of looks like spam. I add "
Also I'm not a spambot." to the end.
...But that's exactly what a spambot would say, isn't it? I add another bit onto the end: "
...because I know which one of you wears the ones with the teddy bear." There. I send the message, grinning.
Work seems to drag on
forever after that. I try and pass the time by occasionally trying out my powers. Whenever I get a chance, I test how far away I can get forks and spoons to suddenly jump into my hand, and at one point when nobody's looking, I grab a spare light bulb from the utility closet behind the kitchen and try and see how bright I can get it to light up. The answers turn out to be "only a couple centimeters" and "not very bright at all", respectively. I guess I'm probably still just a Level 1, but hey, it passes the time. And it's still really freaking cool.
Three hours later, I get a response from Muu. "
holy shit it did work! we should totally meet up & show off the powers we got!" Similar replies from Mako and Akemi come in within a few minutes.
It's two hours 'till the end of my shift. Grinning, I suggest a place.
* * * * * * * *
The summer sun has just finished setting by the time I get to the Old Park. (Officially it's Memorial Park, dedicated to the Japanese (and specifically Academian) soldiers who died in the Second Korean War, but everyone just calls it the Old Park—it's one of the few pieces of landscaping left over from before Academy City was incorporated.) I make my way through the lamp-lit park until I find the spot we agreed upon. The other three are already waiting for me—a short girl with slightly wild-looking brown hair runs over and hugs me the moment she spots me. "Holy crap
thank you so much Saten-chan!"
"Uh, heh, thanks, Muu-chan."
"Hi, Saten-chan!" Another girl bounces up and down as she waves to me, setting her pigtails to swaying. I guess Mako's greeting isn't as, uh, physical, but it's almost as excited.
"Hey, Saten-chan." The last of the trio, a tall, narrow-faced girl with hair done up a lot like Misaka's, gives me a short wave. She's also
grinning. I can't remember the last time I saw Akemi get this excited about, well, anything.
When the greetings are all over, I ask the obvious question: "So...it worked for all of you, too?"
"Hell yeah it did! I mean I slept through half the day, but check it out, watch this—" Muu screws up her face in concentration, but Akemi stops her with a hand on her shoulder.
"Easy there, Muu-chan. You remember how we decided we were all gonna do this?"
"Right, right, okay. So Saten-chan, here's what we're gonna do. Think of something you can do real quick to show off your power, all right? I mean, if it is something you can show off quickly like that."
"Oh, it is," I reply, grinning.
"Awesome! Same for you two?" Mako and Akemi both say yes. "All right, so we're all gonna stand in a circle, close our eyes, start doing whatever we can do, and on the count of three we're gonna open them. Sound good?"
"Yes! Oh, this is
so exciting!" Mako's beaming.
We all get lined up like Muu said, and close our eyes. "One…" I hear her say. I put my fingers just a tiny bit apart like I did at work.
"Two…" I focus in, mentally envisioning the electrical current flowing through my arms.
"Three!" I
push, and open my eyes just as the snapping and popping starts, easy as can be. The tiny little arc of current is even more brilliant in the dimly lit park. I look around: Mako's holding her hands out in front of her, fingers spread wide. Each of her fingertips is shining like a flashlight. Muu's holding up something that catches the light and sparkles beautifully even as it gives off a bit of steam; it looks like a chunk of ice. And Akemi—
Akemi's nowhere to be seen. The rest of us look around in confusion momentarily, before the air where she was standing shimmers a bit, and she suddenly reappears, laughing. "Wow," she says. "This is
so cool. All of you—all of us are. We've got powers. We
did it."
"And Saten-chan, you're even an electrokinetic, just like the Railgun! It's amazing how things work out like that, isn't it? I've just got these...flashlight thingies." Mako waves her hands a bit, and the lights seem to dance through the park.
"Hey, the flashlight thingies are
badass!" Muu says."You know, most of the people who can focus light like that end up shooting lasers? You'll be able to shoot
lasers out of your fingers! Pew pew pew! And me, I'm a whatchacallit, an ice-o-kinetic!"
"Cryokinetic," Akemi corrects her.
"Negative thermokinetic," I put in. "I don't think they really say 'cryokinetic' any more, same as you're not supposed to say 'pyrokinetic'."
"Man, that sounds
weak," Muu says. "I'm fine with cryokinetic. Hey, check it out, lookit how this is steaming!" She holds out the chunk of ice in her hand. "I think this is freaking
dry ice! Like, I got the air cold enough to freeze all the CO2! Damn, I'm cool." She pauses. "Get it? Cool?"
Okay, I laugh a bit at that one. We all do. "And Akemi, what did you do there?" I ask. "Did you teleport or something?" I frown. "Wait, don't tell me you time-st—"
"Nah. Just turned invisible. Pretty sweet, huh? I'm like a ninja." She vanishes again, and there's a thumping noise for a second before she reappears, crouched down on a nearby bench. "Wah
-cha," she stage-whispers; we all have a good laugh at that.
That's the last time we laugh for a long while, because soon after that I hear a voice saying, "Ah, h-hello there!"
A really, really familiar voice.
We all turn to look to see where it came from, and find Kazari and Shirai walking towards us. Shirai's expression seems oddly set, great big shadows under her eyes, and Kazari...she looks like a wreck. She's got the same exhausted look as Shirai, and her eyes seem extra red. As I watch, she sniffs a bit, like she's got a cold.
...Or like she's been crying.
She gets about ten paces away, opens her mouth once like she's about to say something, then stops. Then she tries again: "I…" Stops again. Then she just runs over to me and hugs me, holding on to me like she's never going to see me again.
"Uh, h-hey, Kazari," I stammer out. "What's going on? What's wrong?"
"D-damn it…" She's trying her hardest to hold back tears, I can tell. "If I had just
known, if
they had just known already, I could have just ignored the damn gag order and
told you. I could have told you, and then you wouldn't have..." She tries to take a deep breath, can't stop it sounding like a wheeze. "I c-can't. I can't. Oh God."
Shirai walks up to us, puts a hand on her shoulder. "It's all right, Uiharu-san. I'll say it." She turns, slowly, looking all four of us in the eye, then takes a deep breath of her own, lets it out in a long sigh. "First off. We know you four have used Level Plus. You are
not under arrest; you have done nothing wrong or illegal. That said, you four require
immediate medical attention, and we've been tasked with escorting you to the hospital."
"Wh-what?" Mako's question echoes my own thoughts.
Shirai continues. "Listen. The reason there has been no official acknowledgement of Level Plus's existence by the Academy City government is because its possible side effects were completely unknown, and publicly banning it without clear evidence of it causing harm could lead to a worse backlash than simply trying to keep it quiet.
"As of tomorrow morning, that will no longer be the case. One of the perpetrators of the Seventh Mist bombings yesterday showed distressing neurological symptoms soon after being detained, and was hospitalized soon after as a result. After his MRI scan was processed and examined, all known Level Plus users were also admitted, and their MRIs are showing similar results. " She closes her eyes slowly, takes another breath. "I'm sorry. There is no easy way to say this, but...every known Level Plus user that's been scanned has noticeable brain damage."
I freeze. My heart's pounding in my chest all of a sudden, even as I wonder if I heard something wrong. "
What?" This time it's my turn to ask a bewildered question. "What do you mean, brain damage?"
Shirai nods slowly. "From what they're telling us, it's slow, and relatively gradual, so much so that the symptoms aren't even noticeable for weeks. 'Like several tiny silent strokes in a row', the doctor said."
"I-I've seen the MRIs, Ruiko," Kazari says, still not letting go of me. "The w-worst ones, the ones that have been using Level Plus since it first showed up...There's little
s-spots on their brains, just whole chunks of their brains that just
b-burnt out—" She pulls back a bit, looks me straight in the eye, and there's definitely no mistaking it, there are tears streaming down her face now. "Please, you just have to come with us now, they said they can slow it down, maybe long enough to find a cure before anything—anything
p-permanent—" Her last word breaks into a sob.
"Hey. Hey, wait a minute here," Akemi says, all of a sudden. "Look, Twintails, I don't know who you are, and I only sorta know Uiharu-san there 'cause of Saten-chan, but doesn't it sound
awfully convenient that the minute someone finds a way to give people esper powers that actually
works, suddenly it's 'oh no, it causes massive brain damage'? And then you two show up, all 'we're Judgement, and we're here to take you away now that you've used this thing! You know, to the hospital. For your own good!'"
Okay, what the
fuck. I shoot her a glare immediately, but then Muu speaks up.
"Yeah! You know what I think? I think all you Judgement people, and the people you guys take orders from, I think you're all just afraid of
everyone having powers. Because a Level 0 can't do something like
this!" There's a sudden chill in the air, and suddenly there's some kind of ice blade—well, a crude approximation of a blade, anyway—in Muu's hand, and she's charging forward at Shirai—
Who vanishes, appearing behind her. Then Shirai does some kind of weird judo trip-grab-throw thing, teleports away the ice blade with a touch, and has Muu on her knees in high-tech-looking handcuffs in the space of about three seconds. "That will be
quite enough of that," she says. Then she sighs and jabs her elbow backwards; Akemi suddenly appears, stumbling back from her and holding her stomach. Shirai has
her cuffed within a couple more seconds, too. "I
could bring you two in for that," she continues, shaking her head, "but frankly, given the circumstances I would rather overlook it." She gives Mako and I a pleading look. "At least tell me that you two will trust me on this."
It
does sound convenient, the way Akemi phrased it. But on the other hand, Kazari is actually
crying, something I haven't seen her do in years, and hanging on to me like I'm gonna be lost forever if she lets go. Hell, even if she wasn't, I'd take Uiharu Kazari's word over tinfoil-hattery any day of the week. I nod, and after a moment, Mako says, "Y-yes. I trust you."
"It's so f-funny," Kazari manages to choke out. "All the time we thought
that was the problem, that it made people v-violent or crazy or something. But it's just—just a symptom, sometimes not even that, people are just
angry—and there are
so many. I've seen the IP logs, the e-mails—
thousands, just in Academy City. So many people who don't even realize it's
k-killing them—" The sobs start again, and I try to hold her closer, feeling my own eyes start to well up.
We just stand like that for a moment, her holding me tight, leaning on me. She hasn't even brought up the promise, I realize. There's no anger or disappointment or anything, she just wants me to be okay. I look up at Shirai. "Okay," I say. "The earlier we get our heads looked at, the better, right? Let's...let's go."
