The Next Generation
Steins;Gate
Chapter Six
2052.05.10 - 9:47 AM JST
Friday
I got barely any sleep the night after the time machine, my brain just kept running in circles. I spent a good five hours tossing and turning in bed until a passed out of pure exhaustion. I talked to Hibiki the next morning and he didn't fare much better. In fact, we both slept right through our alarm clocks. Only Suzuha's pounding on the door finally woke us up. It was 9 AM when she did this. Needless to say, we were mindless zombies for about half an hour. Once we got to the lab, I immediately splashed some hot water in my face to wake me up. I then took my place in front of my fellow lab members.
"What are we doing today, Asuka? I felt like I didn't do much yesterday." Kagari said this with a small pout. Did she feel bad about her lack of input? I tried to cheer her up.
"Haha. Don't worry, Kagari." I told her. "We're gonna be doing some groundbreaking work and your help will be much appreciated."
"What exactly are you thinking about trying, Asuka? More time travel?" Suzuha asked me this almost sarcastically. I ignored her disbelief and nodded.
"Yes. One last experiment." I said this with a hint of regret. This made Suzuha and Kagari looked at me with blank faces. Oh right, I had that discussion with Hibiki in private. I didn't feel like going over the morals of time travel again, so I jumped past this and continued the conversation.
"This will be our second message sent back in time." I announced to the group. "This experiment is intended to make another person's life better. Any suggestions?"
Everyone was in deep thought. Hibiki then raised his hand. I swear if this was about Jason…
"Why don't we try to improve Mama's childhood? From what I've heard she had it pretty rough."
"Yeah." Kagari said with widened eyes. "Didn't your Grandpa go crazy or something when she was young?"
"I heard that too." Suzuha commented. "His mental health deteriorated until he slipped into insanity."
I remembered overhearing Mama and Papa talking about this. It truly was a horrible thing for her to go through. Those mental scars still remained visible even today. Could I really help relieve that pain? I liked that idea thought a lot. Mother's Day was on Sunday too. It was perfect.
"Brilliant, assistant. Just brilliant. Let's start working on a message right away."
Hibiki then started working on an email for us to send. We were hoping Grampa would see this and get diagnosed before he went entirely off the deep end. If he got diagnosed, there was a chance he would recover and be the father Mama always wanted. If not, at least we tried. While Hibiki was writing, I looked over Suzuha's spreadsheet again and found something I had missed the first time. There was an entry about this thing called "Read Steiner" and it was mostly intact. Didn't Papa say this term when he trailed off yesterday? I clicked on a link Suzuha set up, which went straight to a slice of the video had saved from obliteration. A younger Papa filled the screen again.
"...Reading Steiner is my special ability. It allows me to remember the events of one worldline when I switch over to another. It's a handy tool, but it's really painful. I'm certain that everyone has Reading Steiner to some capacity. Given time, other people might what happened remember too. The only reason I believe Reading Steiner is so strong in me is because of a really severe cold I got in the winter of '99. I have to tell you, if it wasn't for Mayu…"
The video then cut out at that point. So that's why Papa called yesterday? He was worried that something happened to us after the timeline changed? Interesting…
"Hey, assistant." I called Hibiki over. "I think I found out what that headache was about."
Hibiki walked over and I showed him the video. His reaction was similar to mine.
"Okay, that makes sense. We must've inherited this too. That's why Kagari and Suzuha don't remember what happened yesterday."
"Exactly." I told him. "We're gonna have to do something about this though. Things could get messy if Papa remembered everything after the timeline changed."
"So we send an email to stop him from getting that cold? That sounds like a lot of work…"
"Yes, assistant. Won't this make them both happy in the end?"
"We'd also be erasing our own memories too, you know. We wouldn't be able to tell Mama and Papa what we had done."
"Who said we needed to take credit?" I scoffed at Hibiki. "I'm fine with everyone believing it was the choice of fate. As long as Mama has a proper childhood."
"This really is about her, isn't it? Not another of your egotistical fantasies?"
"Of course it's about Mom." I told him, slightly offended. "My ego isn't that big, you know. Anyway, how's the email coming?"
"Yeah about that…" Hibiki trailed off. "Suzuha and I did some research and public email as we know it didn't really become a thing until about 1995. Also we have no way of determining what email address Grandpa had at that time, assuming he even had one."
That was true. This Grandpa, our Mom's Dad, was long dead. It was unlikely that Mama would know this information either. We were sort of stuck.
"There might be a work around though." Suzuha called out from across the room. She walked over to us with her laptop. "Dial up internet may have been in its infancy, but it did exist. We could hack into an old dial up connection. Then a computer could print the message and sent it to your grandfather through the post."
I look at Suzuha in disbelief. This was a very well thought out plan. I was sure she thought that Hibiki and I were bluffing about the time travel stuff. I guess my assistant convinced Suzuha to at least help us. That must've taken some work. Maybe I should consider giving him a 20% raise. Afterall, 20% of 0 is still 0.
The three of us discussed this plan in more detail. Apparently, cyber security in the 1990s was a joke when compared to today. Suzuha told me there were tools out there that could break into a Winddex 98 computer in ten seconds. Data compression has also improved a lot in the past sixty years. We could probably send over 200 words now. This was great news, but we needed to upgrade the Phone Wave (name subject to change) Mark II even more. The timer on the microwave could only go to 99 minutes and 99 seconds. That was only 6039 seconds on the timer or 251 days back in time. That was nowhere near the 528,768 seconds required to go back over sixty years.
Suzuha suggested buying hardware to interface with the microwave's computer. She said she could change the code so the timer counted high enough to get our message this far into the past. We had to order it in from Korea though, so it would take about a day to get here. I decided we should use this time to get as much done as we could.
I assigned Suzuha to work on the computer and get as much done as she could. Hibiki and Kagari worked on other upgrades Phone Wave (name subject to change) Mark II, like the ability to send two messages at one time. We were going to attach another cell phone connector to it, among other things. I had the job of research. I look dig into old websites found out the information we needed to make this work. That included the postal address Grandpa had in 1992 and the dial up number we were going to hack into. I even had to have a dragged out phone call with my other grandfather to get his old email address. That was not easy. By the time I hung with him, it was 8 PM. Time to go pack up again.
The walk to back the hotel was uneventful. Hibiki commented on how surprisingly good Kagari was at soldering. I guess she got a good steady hand from all the sewing she does with her Mom. Hibiki and I went to sleep and the next day was uneventful too. We met up at the lab again and resumed our designated tasks. We worked through the day and left at about six this time. Before I knew it, Sunday had arrived. Hibiki and I arrived in front of the CRT workshop and we were called over by Tennouji. At first, I was afraid he was terminating our rent, but he just wanted to hand over our package. We thanked him and headed upstairs, where Kagari and Suzuha were waiting for us.
"Suzuha, Kagari, assistant." I called out. "Get ready. It's time about we executed the final phase of Operation Mobiltelefon."
Hibiki groaned after my statement. He knew that last part was more German. He didn't like me randomly throwing in foreign words for no reason. I then pointed my finger at him.
"Okay then, assistant. Why don't you volunteer and write the letter we're gonna send to send to Grandpa Makise. Try to make it clear he has a problem." I then turned away from Hibiki to face the Phone Wave (name subject to change) Mark II. "Meanwhile Suzuha, finish the final preparations to the technological side of things. I'll write the email for our grandfather."
"What… about me, Asuka?" Kagari asked me. Was there anything she could do today? "You can assist Suzuha with any required soldering." I told her. We all start working for the third day in a row. It took about three hours, but we were finished. Suzuha and Kargari installed the new hardware for the microwave. Hibiki and I were done writing a while ago. We exchanged our results. First I showed him my email draft.
To: okabe_grocery
From: Hououin Kyouma II
Subject: Important Info
N250 Lottery: 892451885977188.
Time for a family vacation?
I hoped Grandpa would use some of this lottery money to go on a family trip. This way Papa would never acquire Reading Steiner. Hibiki agreed this was probably the best course of action. I then took a look at what Hibiki had written.
Dear Dr. Makise,
There is something urgent I need to tell you. I understand you are planning to have a child in the coming months. Yes. I know this. I have access to information you can't even begin to imagine. I am also aware of your passion for your work, especially time travel research. I respect your efforts in this field, but what you don't realize is that it's eating away at your mental health. You're going to have some serious mental problems ten years down the line. Trust me when I say this. If you continue down this path, you're going to hurt the relationships you hold the most dear. Think of the future of your unborn daughter. Regardless of whether or not you believe me, I beg you to ask people about your behaviour. Maybe even get yourself examined by a specialist. You'll be glad you did.
Sincerely,
Concerned Citizen
"Sounds good. That should spook him enough to at least look into it." I told Hibiki. I turned to check on the other group. "How are you two doing?"
"We're ready when you are, Asuka." Suzuha answered. My evil smile formed again.
"Splendid. Let's get started then."
I connected my phone on the left side and Hibiki connected his phone on the right. Suzuha then copied a bunch of files over to Hibiki's phone. I didn't fully understand what they were all for, but I decided not to pick a fight with our tech expert. Within twenty minutes, we were prepared for launch. Hibiki and I grabbed the send buttons on our phones and Suzuha started the machine. About twenty seconds in, I turned to Kagari.
"Could you open the microwave door, please?" I asked her nicely. She nodded.
"Sure."
Kagari pulled open the microwave and the electricity flowed out just like before. This time it was even more intense. The lights were even flickering. Were we on the verge of flipping a breaker? The flickering start geting worse, maybe we turn everything else off first. Before I could complete that thought, turned to me at yelled so I could hear his voice over the buzzing of the electricity.
"On my count! Three! Two! One! Go!"
That this exact moment, both Hibiki and I pressed send. I was expecting our memory wipe to be painless, but that horrible headache returned. My vision became filled with that grey haze once more. Then everything stopped and started again. It was a repeat of Thursday afternoon, but somehow even more painful.
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Did it work?
Find out more in my other story: Trapped in a Strange New World
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(Chapter Seven: Out Now!)