Silent Party

[ACSRS: Quiet Stratagem]

Aritomi paused a moment before he continued "The last time I was part of the Reach Assembly I made a speech, To help explain the project to you two I am going to paraphrase it." He took a breath and went on "The Idealist will say that no man has inherent superiority, that we are all of us beings of equal worth. The Spiritualist will argue that no effort goes unrewarded, so endeavour we must for it is the process itself that is important." Aritomi paused before looking at Shinobu "Of course, all of that is a lie. Every child learns one thing quickly living in this city; It doesn't matter how much you study or how great a thesis you produce. In this city you are either an esper, or your neglected. A person's ability determines their worth, their standing. It is the one and only benchmark. However abilities are such unpredictable things. They are effected by one's innate qualities and only in the rares instances is a high level esper produced yet they are the most important part of our social structure. So you see I could not help thinking to myself; What if I could create my own esper? I could use an approach that differs completely from the existing methods. I could design an esper that was both stable and consistent but because it was artificially produced it would not be too valuable to be quickly used up."

Up to this point GV had been getting bored of his speech. His body had worked properly for the last minute but he didn't want to give that away. Yet the man's assertion that cloned meant replaceable infuriated him. He continued to watch the speech, mentally beging for him to drop important information.

Aritomi continued "So I collaborated with a few like minded individuals and together we bent our minds towards developing a certain project, one that would allow us to create an esper with absolute certainty. Project Chemicaloid was born."

Misaka struggled to speak "So that project, it produced Febrie and her sister? They exist because of your petty ambitions"

A slight frown appeared on Aritomi's face "Ah, you would say that. Like most people in this city you are entrenched in ability-levelism. I've dealt with your kind."

"So," GV started "You are just a slightly smarter Skill-Out?"

Aritomi's face became annoyed "Not even close, those idiots would remove all abilities to make themselves more special by comparison. We however still want to research these powers, we just don't think something so random should be placed at the top of the totem pole."

He closed his eyes, composing himself, before turning back to Misaka "You see I have presented this project to people with skills like yours before, skills that would be necessary for a Chemicaloid. However I overheard them describe the project to someone else as 'The one where they wanted to grow espers like sea monkeys' From that I learned a valuable lesson; Even famous intellectual minds can be clouded by an outdated obsession with esper levelism. Revolutionary ideas are always initially suspect after all. to be recognized we would need to prove ourself on intellect alone and so we produced what we said we would all along; Chemicaloids. Products that would prove our worth, our true superiority to this city, indeed to the whole world."

Misaka groaned before speaking "So what is it about these Chemicaloids that proves your superiority? What ability do your 'products' have?"

Aritomi smiled "Trying to draw information out of me? Now, now, I have already given you a good number of clues."

Misaka paused for a moment before speaking "Remote operation, with a strand of hair as the medium?"

Aritomi's smile became a smirk "Well that's part of it, but certainly not all. Nice effort though railgun. Want to know more? Well, you will. After much waiting, at daybreak tomorrow, we will begin our large-scale Chemicaloid experiment."

"Experiment?" Misaka asked.

"No, that word really isn't big enough" Aritomi's hand came up from his pocket and seemed to grasp the air "Revolution, STUDY will turn Academy city on it's head! We will teach this wretched city, no, we will teach the whole world a lesson. Ultimately progress is not brought about by abilities but by intelligence!"

GV watched as Misaka fell unconscious after that but before he did too he muttered "As if they would let you, you'll be stopped."

Aritomi's smirk continued "Who will stop us, the only people who are aware of the plan and would tell are in this room. You will be held until after our plan is complete."

GV smirked on his own "Oh, I don't know. I trust in their ability to figure it out." He then let his head slip down and played unconscious.

[ASG: The Muse's Tears]

Elsewhere a few girls sat together. One took the phone she had been pretending to use to listen to a bug she had told the others she had planted.

Joule released the telepathy and the others sat in silence as GV's final message was present in their thoughts.

"So," Kuroko started "When shall we get them?"

Joule shook her head "I think we should stick to the original plan, we just need to warn everyone to be ready at daybreak."

Saten looked annoyed "So after that we just go home and try to sleep? That's silly."

Joule shook her head "I think GV is still awake, he'll keep Misaka safe."

Uiharu looked over "How? He was injected by the same formula right?"

Joule nodded "Yes but that message at the end still sounded fine. Compared to Misaka at least, she was groaning and barely able to speak but GV spoke clearly."

The group thought about that for a moment before Kuroko spoke "Well, if we are going on time then we are waiting for over an hour yet. Any plans?"

End of chapter.

Wow, Aritomi speaks way too much.

The exposition really is a bit crazy.

To explain the part at the end, Joule told the others she had given Misaka a bug and that she could listen to it on her phone. She had put the phone to her ear and asked if the others wanted to listen in through telepathy. She then sent the info that Lumen had sent her to all of them. Audio only of course