NaNoWriMo 2010, Part Nineteen

“Is this really going to work?” Asked Emiray. She felt that she was looking kind of silly in the black and blue uniform that the student council wore. The entire uniform made her uncomfortable, plus the silly armband which showed her supposed low rank in the student council made it all worse. What if somebody realized that she wasn’t an Esper, that could ruin everything.

“How should I know, it was Rose’s plan and she is the one who should be certain that it will work.” Lynn wore a disgusted look of her face. She was wearing the same style of uniform that Emiray was and she liked it even less then Emiray did. “I’ve spent more then a year trying to avoid wearing one of these and now here I am wearing one. Do you realize how hard it is for a level 8 Esper to avoid joining the Student council? They practically break down my door trying to get me to join and once they actually did break it down.

Lynn adjusted her hat, making sure that all of her hair was correctly underneath it. Nobody should be able to recognize Emiray but it was a different matter for Lynn, all the members of the Student council would certainly know her on sight and so would a great many of the guards. So she wore a hat to hide her hair and the makeup that Rose had provided in the bad had done wonders to make her look like a completely different person.

Sure the hat was against Student council regulations but the dress code was very laxly enforced when most of the members were high level Espers who generally liked to show their own unique style. The only part of the uniform which was always required was the armband that signified she was a member of the student council. The really ironic part was the if she had really been a member of the Student Council she would have a higher rank then her current armband indicated. An Esper’s strength meant a lot in the Student Council and Lynn would have had an easy track to becoming a Vice President if she had join. She might even have been able to become President if she had any talent at manipulation and politics.

Still even the lowly generally affairs officer armband irked her. She had always felt that the Student Council was too manipulative and secretive. They might have had too be with the highly political atmosphere that hung around importance in the University District. It was the sort of atmosphere that only really appeared when even the lowest ranking officials could wield enormous power. There was certainly more intrigue inside the Student Council then there was outside of it.

Lynn looked like a different person with the makeup and uniform but Emiray wasn’t even recognizable. The radically different clothes and the haircut seemed to change her into someone completely different. Without the work torn clothes and grease smears she seemed even younger. That wasn’t an issue, age didn’t matter to the Student Council only Esper power did. Emiray’s rank was only lower then Lynn’s rank, it was the rank that really amounted to no more then a servant.

The only thing that made them looked like their normal selves was that there were two of them. That might be an issue if they dealt with a real member of the Student Council, especially if there was one from General Affairs here. Two lowly members of the Council wouldn’t attract very much attention and they should be able to sneak in without arousing suspicion. Then the objective was to get as close to the Euclidian Key as they would get without alerting anyone. If they got discovered then the difficult part began. They would need to get close enough to the Euclidean Key for Lynn to touch to before they could make their escape.

Unlike most things Lynn knew it would be more difficult to teleport the Key, it’s construction had to make it especially spatially stable to that it could handle the teleportation powers. That had the side effect of making it difficult to teleport while it had any sort of charge.

R08 however wouldn’t be able to enter the reactor with them. It would be too difficult to explain the presence of a robot and why a couple of lowly members of the Student Council would need to bring one around with them. Instead R08 had been set up in a hidden location with all of the maps and plan information. Through the small transponders that they had they could keep in touch with R08 and each other if things when bad. They would need to remain silent on the channel until it was important though. There was no knowing if somebody would be listening and discover them.

“Is there anything else that still needs to be done before we are ready for the plan to begin?” Asked Lynn.

Emiray looked over the plans on the computer one more time. “No, we have anything we need. There is still three more hours until the estimated theft time. Rose’s plans say that the Euclidian Key should be ready to activate for until at least an hour before the announced time. Still I think we should hurry, they might have found a way to speed up the process.

Lynn nodded, “I agree. I guess it is time to go then.”

The two of them left R08 in the hiding spot and began walking toward the entrance to the Ark Tunnel Reactor. They were stopped by the guard who glanced at their arm bands and asked, “More Student Council huh? What is it that you need?”

The rehearsed lines stumbled for a second in Lynn’s mind before she finally managed to pull them out, “We are members of General Affairs sections three. We have been sent to make sure that the full report of today’s activities gets filed correctly.” One of the main duties of General Affairs was to take care of mundane affairs like reports.

The guard nodded, “Alright then.” The officer opened the gate for them and let them in. “You should go see Enforcer Wade. He should be near the security room. I’ll call you in so that he will be expecting you.”

Lynn tried her best to smile thankfully. Inside she was cursing. Informing the other members of the Student Council was the last thing that she wanted to happen. The longer it took for them to find out Lynn and Emiray were here the better. When two Student Council members failed to show up for a meeting it would sound alarm bell, probably literally in this case. “Thank you. We will make sure to go see him immediately.”

The officer nodded and the two of them walked through the gates and toward the reactor building. Once they had left the guard’s earshot Lynn said, “Already something is weird. I know of Enforcer Wade, he is a fire type Esper. His firepower is impressive but basically useless against me. Somebody higher up in the Council must be interfering if Wade in the one in charge. A rogue level 8 Esper like me should be dealt with by somebody more powerful then Wade. Also there is at least one other strong Esper here. Somebody is keeping a very complex spacial disturbance web across the entire place.”
“Is that a type of teleportation? I thought teleportation should only move things.” Asked Emiray.

“Only a little bit. It is like teleporting your senses elsewhere with the sole intention of detecting teleportation. It is a rather complex and tiring activity. Most teleports wouldn’t be able to accomplish it, especially one this wide. The weird thing is that is doesn’t feel like a teleporter is doing it. The web is unstable and rough, normally someone good enough to make one this large would have the skill refined. It is more like several Espers are maintaining it together, though that is no small feat by itself.”

“Are you sure teleportation is all you are capable? This spacial sensing thing doesn’t sound like teleportation at all.” Said Emiray.

Lynn was about to answer that it was just a differently applied method of teleportation when she actually stopped to think about it. She remembered that Rose had said that to get better she would need to cease being just a teleport and become an impossible multitalent. Sure, forming the web was a form of teleportation, the ability to detect other teleports was something all teleporters learned and the web was just expanding the range using spacial tunnels. However was her refined ability to detect the web really teleportation. It had been one of the tricks she had been unable to teach people. What if those tricks she that she had been unable to teach weren’t teleportation but were a separate talent entirely. Grudgingly Lynn said, “Who knows. Sometimes it can be difficult to tell what is one talent and what is another, especially for high level Espers.”

Then Lynn though of something. If other teleporters were unable to detect a web then she could set up her own without being detected. If she traced the spacial tunnels of the current web she would be able to locate the Esper or espers that were forming it, all without being detected herself. The question was how to trace the origin of a spacial tunnel. That was when Lynn really smiled, she had found her chink in her mental block, something a more powerful Esper could accomplish. “Come on Emiray, we had a little bit of extra time. I have something interesting that needs to be done.”

“That sounds dangerous.” Commented Emiray.

Lynn ignored that comment. There was no sensible path that a spacial tunnel followed so she would need to invade the returning tunnel which brought the information back to the teleporter. She connected her own razor thin spacial tunnels, connecting and leeching off the small tunnels all around. Suddenly her she could feel the tunnels through the air connection her location to other places.

Emiray walked silently beside Lynn watching the blank face young woman. Eventually Lynn furrowed her brow and commented, “There are three minor teleporters keeping this web up, however they are in completely different places. Somehow they are connected so that they can synchronize the web. I’m trying to feel out how but there seems to be no spacial connection between them like they are all individually doing it but somehow managing to avoid missing areas or overlap.”

“On another important note,” continued Lynn, “It seems this method is capable of location the Euclidian Key. The Key has a very strong resonance and I am able to detect it. If the maps are correct then it is where we expect it to be, in the main reactor room.”

“Good, that is one thing we don’t have to worry about. But how do you think the minor teleporters are communicating? Cell phones?”

Lynn shook her head at Emiray’s question. “No, to be able to accurately maintain a web like this with three people you would need to be able to sense the tunnels that the other Espers are generating. These sorts of spacial tunnels are not detectable except at their origin, myself excluding, so they should be unable to do this from different locations.”

“What if there is a fourth Esper helping them? One capable of coordinating the efforts at a long distance.”

“Possible, given the situation. Although advanced planning and exact partitioning of where each Esper is in charge of could manage this. That would require practice though. Another possibility, although just as unlikely as the first. Either way we need to be careful.” Lynn paused and considered an idea, “I could cut off the warp tunnels by creating reverse flows at the same location. Although that would show that we are here.” And possible injure the people creating the web, reverse tunnels placed over current tunnels caused things to explode. She had learned that when first trying to figure out ways to get distance teleportation to work.