A heist and a talk

[ACSRS: STUDY]

GV turned off his phone. It had been a mistake to leave it on.

He snuck through the lab he had researched on the city's dark web. Supposedly it was owned by STUDY so it was as good a place as any to check. What worried him was the lack of human staff. Sure it made things easier as he knew how to trick electronic security but it still felt strange.

The security did raise questions of it's own though, the computers that regulated it were electronically shielded. Did they expect and Electromaster Esper to try and make their way through here? Didn't matter much to him, or this theoretical Electromaster, much. He could just tamper with the receivers themselves. A took a small mirror out of his pocket and used it to look around a corner.

A camera, as he had sensed. Below that camera was a door. He felt a motor that would allow the camera to move. Once he had found the motor he took out one of his hair filled throwing daggers and tossed it in the direction of the camera but slightly higher. He felt for it, felt it strike the wall only a centimeter higher.

He focused and let electricity control the motor. He needed to regulate himself so he didn't just break it entirely. Once the camera was turned outside of it's normal angle it created enough blind spots to quietly dash for the door it had been guarding.

He put his hand on the door and made the door think it had got a signal to open. The door did so and he blocked it's feedback to the main system that said it had opened. It wouldn't close until he wanted it to.

Inside the room was a computer, he put his hand on it while powering it on. Each time it tried to throw a problem, he just cancelled it. A message to somewhere that it was booting? Cancelled (But message and frequency memorized). A system that needed authorization to continue the boot up? he just put the signal in himself. A small pouch of explosives next to the hard drive? GV had raised an eyebrow at that but had simply mentally blocked the connection to the explosives.

Once it was booted, it requested a login. GV had no need for that though. He ran a program that would search the hard drive and closed his eyes. It was encrypted obviously but since the drive also carried the unencrypted encryption system that was fairly easy to bypass. It seemed most of the system had been wiped fairly recently. No matter, he just had to look at the imprints that the files had left behind and reconstruct them.

"Let's see..." He murmured softly as he mentally flipped through the deleted files. He even read them out softly "Cloning, Altering Genomes, Biomechanical engineering, Esper Theory." All likely part of creating the girl Febrie that Joule had told him about. He read out a few more "Robotics, Atomic Theory, FIVE_Over ideas" He didn't know what those were for but that last one was an Email. He finished restoring them and did a quick check for virus code in them, finding nothing he transfered them to his laptop that he had brought with him. They likely wouldn't be perfect due to the restoring but it would be better than nothing.

GV left quickly but quietly.

[ACSRS: So, I Decided]

Joule walked with Misaka who was deep in thought, she wanted to ask what she was thinking about but didn't want to ruin her train of thought. Right now, Misaka's EM barrier was even up to her. While she wanted to know she didn't want to distract so instead she talked to Lumen who was sitting in butterfly form in her hair.

"What do you think?" It was a mental whisper. Lumen's beat her wings softly while thinking "Debatably they are worse than Sumeragi. We were never made with that sort of Biological failsafe."

Joule nodded to herself "True, but do you think that was kindness or simply that they never thought we would be able to get away?"

Lumen sighed "It could have been either to be honest, it's not like they cared about our freedom."

"Do you think- no it's a silly question." Joule was about to ask if Lumen thought that GV would be safe. She had confidence in him. The only people who could challenge him were level 5s and Joule was certain that GV could beat them all. Sure he hadn't had the best run against the number one but Joule but that down to the fact he needed to defend the others.

Lumen gave a little overdramatic sigh. She wasn't going to talk down Joule's hero worship of GV. It was cute and it gave her hope, hope that things would always turn out okay because he is there.

As Joule smiled, she felt a tap on her shoulder. Misaka looked at her with a look on her face that made Joule vaguely worried. "Joule, can I ask you something?" Misaka asked politely before gesturing at a bench they could sit on.

Joule nodded and they both sat. Misaka was quiet for a few seconds before she began speaking "I know Genki is a part of the dark side of the city." she paused for a moment looking at Joule, she just waved a hand to say "Go on."

Misaka took a breath "I wanted to know if you were too, are you part of the underworld in any way." Joule smiled at this and shook her head, clarifying "Only so much as I can talk to GV about his jobs. I normally don't though."

Misaka breathed out in relief before looking at Joule seriously and asking "Can I ask you not to tell the others about this, I don't want them worrying."

Joule was slightly surprised but she realised what Misaka was getting at "You can but I want to ask something in return, Why don't you want them getting involved? It can't just be that you don't want to worry about you. If you don't tell them it could make them worry more."

Misaka was silent for a moment before answering "Shinobu, the scientist we discussed. She was a part of the Level 6 Shift project. That project was my fault so..."

Her head dropped slightly as she finished "I just want to fix those sorts of problems on my own."

Joule closed her eyes "I see, well then."

They were silent for a moment before Misaka asked another question "Earlier today, while we were in the hospital..." she trailed off, Joule waited for her.

"You talked like you had seen people like Febrie before. Created humans I guess. Not pure clones. What I want to know is if there are more projects like Febrie's where life is born for a use." Misaka asked her question.

Joule closed her eyes thinking how to answer. It is a question of how she could answer without talking about their world.

"Not anymore. Febrie's is the only case I know of." she said.

Misaka looked away afraid to ask the next question, Joule had asserted that being created still made her human. She had likely encountered people saying the opposite in the past. She didn't want to ask though. It felt like asking would forever change the form their friendship took. So she didn't ask. The two simply stood up and continued walking to meet up with the others.

End of chapter

The place GV was breaking into was a different facility to the one in EP22.

The reveals about Joule are (Finally) begining to poke out.