Networked (A Certain Scientific Railgun SI) #1.1

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It was dark, black, and save for the faint hum of an air conditioner and a heavy clicking somewhere behind my ear, there was no sound. My limbs were heavy, like lead, and refused to move.

"Who are you /escape? Correction: What are you /escape?"

...What? The voice was just there, a girl I realized only after considering it.

Something… an entity, Legion, but Singular, connected with me like a finger connected to an ocean dipped into a puddle. I became a single fragment of a much greater whole. Everything that was Me was laid bare: A homeless House, Waiting for School to get out, Escaping out to the Desert to go camping, Trudging through Work, Relaxing at Nana's, Listening to the lecturers at the community College, Hours of Cycling, Filling pages with story Research, Losing myself in Writing—

The flashes of my life ceased, gone as quickly as they'd come, and all was black.

"Interesting /return."

Interesting? Interesting!? My life was 'interesting?!'

'And what are you,' I mentally threw back at the intruder, my hands clenching into fists the heavy, leaden feeling significantly faded.

Again, it connected to me, and: The deep stabbing ache of bones shattering, The Punch of being shot, Bleeding out in a white test room and growing Cold, The contradictory existence of Life and the nonexistence of Death, A sharp blow crushing the respiratory system, Choking and drowning as Blood filled my lungs, The scene of a fake town turned Charnel house full of Slaughtered girls, Small bodies Butchered and being cleaned up by their siblings, The Hope of success, The Dread of an impossible goal, The familiar Agony of failure, Identical Sisters Dispatched as if they were nothing more than pests… A life of nothing but Death, over and over again. A life of dying to an unstoppable opponent for a rewardless goal until… a glimmer of light, a bit of happiness. Meeting Big Sister, A kiddy kitty kitty kiddy, Enjoying well-made Ice Cream, Childish immature fashion sense, and Gekota… A distraught Big Sister.

Memories, from thousands of external perspectives and from thousands of corpses, all the same, and singular in being… and the white-haired killer of each and every one. It struck a chord, brought up more of my own memories from the examination of my life, of the girl and the killer… but from a vastly different perspective.

"I am The Will /return. Or, I will be The Will /return. I am The Will of the Misaka Network, a Network you are now part of /return. You, however, are not Misaka 19831 /return."

'That's… This—'

"Yes, impossible /return. But it is /return. So let us not linger on what you think or believe should and shouldn't be and instead focus on what is /return."

It was an admonishment, plain and simple. I knew what I would think in a situation like this, I'd certainly thought of it and read enough of what other people thought of it. I also knew that the introduction of any significant enough foreknowledge regarding a setting was as good as taking a sledgehammer to the established future of said setting.

But, if it knew what I knew, then... 'Why are you even bothering with me? You'll have your happy ending, you had to have seen that. The Project is shut down so why put that at risk?'

"You would normally be correct /backspace, however, that is not something you need concern yourself with /return. You, or rather your inclusion in the network /backspace, is a potential catalyst for future growth of the Misaka Network beyond what it would normally have been capable of /return. You are not of the Network /return. You are not a Sister /return. You are Other /return."

"An outside context problem," I summarized.

"As you so like to use in your cliched stories: Yes /return. Or more accurately /return, an X-factor /return."

The muted sound of something hissing. It was familiar, though… a pneumatic door. Somewhere beyond the blackness, and a pair of footsteps; one the heavy set with the clomp of walking on a hard surface and the other the soft touch of sneakers.

"They have come to process you out /backspace. Despite whatever illusions or preconceived theories you may hold concerning your situation /return, I must recommend you do not give them a reason to delay your out-processing /return. As you are not as good an actor as you believe I will try to assist you where necessary /return."

"Good," a whiny voice said, "it seems the power surge didn't cause any problems with Testament. Have those clowns in maintenance managed to figure out where that came from yet?"

"N- no sir, as far as they know it was simply there. The logs show the system was operating per the spec then capacitors were overloading, it's as if the surge appeared out of nowhere. In fact, I had a chance to look at the power logs myself and it's—"

"Not our problem," the whiny voice interrupted. "Now, let's get this over with. Just one more Sister after this and we can shift our focus to data analysis. There's certainly enough of it to go around now that half the teams were shut down."

"Yes, but sir, what if they come after us as well?"

The muted sound of electronic beeps reached me a second before I heard a soft hissing and air conditioned, chemically scented air flooded in around me. Goosebumps ran over my skin.

Another connection from The Will, almost unnoticeable this time, with barely a fraction of the impact of the first two, and: Waking to rooms with cool air scented with chemicals, several types of high-tech helmet's being removed, getting off a table and being Guided from a room by people in lab attire, Long haircut to fit a template, Clothes and Equipment given, Leaving various Facilities. None of the sisters had said a word throughout the entire process, an apathetic and emotionless demeanor.

I got the message and blinking once I bit the sides of my tongue to give me something to focus on while keeping my expression flat. I had a mouth, but I mustn't scream. Fortunately, I wasn't the most expressive, so that helped somewhat… I just needed to do it consciously.

The black suddenly disappeared as a helmet — Testament — moved and was pulled off my head. I stared up at a clear pod-lid-thing and blinked, my eyes adjusting to the light and saw a tall, lanky, man best described as a desk jockey move away and put the helmet on a stand. And in my periphery an, obese man standing at a console podium thing. The controls presumably.

The tall man snorted and turned to leave without a backward glance. "After that bastard spread things out as much as he did? I doubt it. Besides, the Level 6 Shift project has too much invested in it to be shut down by some saboteur, we'll be fine."

I forced myself to follow the script long laid out by the Sisters and sat up.

Long auburn-brown bangs fell in front of my eyes as I glanced down at myself and saw a dark blue hospital down ending mid thigh on hairless thighs. My throat knotted up when I looked further down and saw the tiny feet. I bit down and the taste of blood filled my mouth. But carrying on with the script regardless, I swung my legs off to the side and stood to follow the two men to a sterile, white-walled and concrete floored hallway lit by fluorescent lights.

The end of my overly-long hair moved as they led me down the hall, brushing over my bare collar and strip of skin along my spine exposed to the air by the hospital gown.

The two men stopped at a stainless steel elevator door buffed to a mirror shine. Their two taller, and rounder, forms blocked it from view, but then the lanky man leaned to the side to press the call button and… and in the reflection: … a character, a Sister, or rather, me. I blinked, and it blinked back at me.

In that moment my concentration was smashed with the psychological equivalent of a battering ram. My guts twisted and churned, tightening into a black hole of despair and confusion as my heart began thundering in my ears and— something that might be considered [Calm] settled over me like a smothering blanket and I managed to stay standing… somehow. My guts slowly untwisted and when the elevator doors parted, I stepped in after the two scientists.

"Oh dear, that was certainly a reaction /backspace, though entirely understandable considering your prior condition /backspace. I and the Sisters will also help with unloading any extreme reactions to Network standard for now /backspace. However, remember to be careful /backspace."

The Network… That was the network 'standard'? That was… I thought I was emotionally stunted, but that was distressing and [Calm].

Breathing out through my nose, I concentrated on keeping my breathing pattern steady instead of the manipulation of my emotions. Fortunately, it wasn't long before the elevator dinged, and stepping out the men took me to another short hall and into a room. A short woman in a lab coat and a tall chair in the center of the room waited for me with a cart, its top littered with scissors and combs and spray bottles.

Settling into the seat sat back and hooked my heels on a support bar while the woman wrapped a white sheet was wrapped about me and went to work.

No one said to me throughout the process, and I didn't offer one in return, instead thinking of boring things and keeping my features schooled; eyes half lidded, lips neither up nor down, eyes focusing on something in the distance, expression neutral and unshifting. It was the script, the pattern, as it had been the pattern for the past several thousand Sisters after the attendants gradually stopped speaking to them during out processing. Maybe it was a sign that there was something wrong in what they were doing.

Maybe.

"Sssniiiip… sssniiip… sssniiip." With each cut, a significant portion of auburn-brown hair was seperated and either fall to the floor or onto the sheet. And I sat, quiet and still, playing the part, as the barber hacked away large portions before going back in and refining the rough work to match what must have been a long memorized style. She didn't stop to consult a reference once and was done in a few too-short minutes.

Finishing with a hair clip to hold my bangs back, the sheet was removed the woman handed me a bundle of clothes. Surprisingly, she shooed out the two men before moving to sweep up.

I stared down at the clothes in my hands; A light brown sweater vest and white blouse, underthings and grey skirt, loose socks with brown loafers. A girls school uniform. A middle schoolers uniform.

Setting the bundle down I pulled the underthings on with the hospital gown still on. Outside the pattern, but a minor detail.

Although incredibly, getting dressed was somehow the least of my problems. Not even the skirt gave me any issue thanks to a flash from Will. Sure, one tended to move past nudity norms when being required to use open showers, but… I couldn't quite put my now tiny finger on it, it was subtle, but something felt… off. The whole process was too easy.

"You're welcome /return."

...oh.

Finally, pulling on a pair of bulky, almost VR-esk goggles on and adjusting them to sit on my forehead, the tall man declared I was ready and led me down a hall before stopping at a fire exit.

"Your instructions and effects." He held out a small manilla envelope the size and thickness of a wallet.

My instructions? I blinked and visions of eviscerated corpses flashed behind my eyelids. Go fuck yourself.

I just dipped my head and accepted the envelope. Then pivoting, I jabbed the door bar — perhaps a little too aggressively — and a wall of summer heat hit me as I stepped out into an alleyway. I glanced around, listening, sniffing. Surprisingly clean, for an alley, with a wall mounted AC unit fighting the heat further in and traffic speeding by to my right.

Standing there I… I… My hand twitched toward a pocket that wasn't there, searching for my phone to… to have something familiar. But that was gone as well.

I… 'I don't know what to do.' No, as soon as I thought it I knew that was wrong. I wanted to scream and lash out, but that wasn't productive and would do me little good if anyone in the know saw. And I didn't know where to go or what to do, though… I frowned. Actually, thinking about it, that wasn't entirely accurate.

I could name dozens of streets and significant locations. But nothing… Conscious. Concentrating I could recall a number of places to eat or sleep at, but I found I needed to focus on getting anything from the knowledge implanted by Testament, and even there was little context. I glanced at the Katakana and Hiragana characters on my ID that read as clear as English. At least for the most part, it seems.

"Do you want something to eat, Somewhere to sleep, Somewhere quiet, Something to read, or Something to distract yourself /backspace," The Will of the Misaka Network asked.

Weighing the options, I fiddled with the envelope to pull out a flip phone and thin billfold with an ID for Mikoto Misaka, locker card with an address, and a black and gold charge card…

I hooked a trimmed nail on the charge card and flicked back several times... 'How about somewhere I can buy a couple things. Somewhere discreet.'

Flashes of street corners, boulevards, and one bus stop flashed by before settling on an undecorated storefront… Ok then.

I turned to walk deeper into the alley.

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