The Jailbreak Game


[ACSRT: Strawberry Yakisoba]

After they'd finished at the Cafe, the group of girls, and GV, had moved to Uiharu and Shirai's judgement office to get out of a bit of rain.

Misaki had been annoyed at it all because it broke from her schedule. Academy City's weather reports were normally much better than that. Even so there was a bit more discussion.

"Oh." Saten clapped her hands together "Have you heard of the Jailbreak trial that's happening tomorrow."

Hokaze nodded "Yes actually, some members of the clique are going to be competing."

Misaka yawned and looked over "I haven't heard about it, what is it?"

"There's... actually-" Hokaze paused "Uiharu, could you pull it up on your laptop- there's a video discussing it."

Uiharu quickly searched and turned the laptop round so everyone could watch.

There was a private juvenile hall being constructed to help contain espers, and the director would be holding an event before it opened properly to test the defences.

"So he's making it sound all fancy but it's basically just a jailbreak trial." Misaka pointed out.

"Yep." Saten nodded "Whoever can get in, find the target test prisoner and break them out is the winner." Saten's smile became greedy for a moment "Whoever can do that will be given- get this- 10! Hundred! Million Yen!"

"So a Billion." Misaka pointed out "You could have just said a Billion."

"Oh sure." Saten looked to the side, puffing out her cheeks "That's probably pocket change to you Tokiwadai students."

"No it's pretty incredible to us too." Misaka admitted.

Misaki chuckled "It might be nice true, but I'm not that interested. Money is just a means to an end I can get in another way."

Joule smiled slightly "I would have thought this sort of thing would be easy for you."

Uiharu shook her head "They'll have AIM jammers there so..."

Ah, Misaki would be left powerless and she wasn't too great physically.

"It's way too large a prize for an event like this anyway." Shirai noted.

Uiharu nodded "They probably don't expect to need to pay it. They said this was to find vulnerabilities, but they must be confident that no one can break in or out."

Shirai nodded "So the money is just bait so they can show off their defences."

Saten nodded at them "So, want to try it."

"I will if sis does." Shirai shrugged "But..." she glanced over her shoulder at Misaka "I'm not sure Tokiwadai's ace should be participating in anything as lowly as this."

Misaka looked to the side as Shirai continued "She already breaks curfew enough as it is."

"Yes, yes, I know."

But then the director threw down the gauntlet against Tokiwadai directly.

"Oh that..." Misaka searched for the curse she wanted to use.

Misaki laughed "It's so easy to bait you isn't it?"

"Shut it Shokuhou!" She looked over "I'm going, I'm going to rub his face in it."

There was a cheer from Saten and Uiharu. Uiharu's involvement had been a little surprising but she blushed.

"Well... she's protecting Tokiwadai's honour."

Hokaze threw a glance at Misaki who was calmly drinking some tea.

"Umm, my lady...?"

"If you go, Yuuri will be sad."

"Understood."

Yuuri... Oh, that was the ghost girl, right. Joule had heard she was recovering well but she probably wasn't fit enough for this kind of test so she was likely sitting it out.

"I'll probably have to sit it out too." Joule admitted "I don't like the idea of being around AIM jammers in my condition."

"Don't worry Joule." Saten gave her a smile "We'll give you a cut of the Yen when we win."

Misaki looked out the window.

"The rain's cleaning up. We can head off now. Junko?"

Hokaze nodded and they left, soon followed by everyone else. They split up for the day, Uiharu and Saten apparently going off to chat about urban legends.

GV and Joule ended up going home so Joule could rest more.


The next day, Joule and GV came to visit the school garden, their invites arrived in the morning dropped off by Hokaze before classes had started for the day.

After classes were over they took a different bus than Saten and Uiharu (Who were both going to the trial.)

Scanning their passes at the entrance of the garden of learning, Hokaze met them and led them to a cafe on the south side where Misaki was enjoying a small cake and a cup of tea while waiting for them. She was also talking to someone over the phone but she stopped when she saw Joule and GV had arrived.

This was in some ways the "Jailbreak watch-along party."

Shirai and two people from Misaki's clique were wearing a type of monocle which could transmit sound and images to the phones of the little group, they also each had their phones and earbuds so they could listen to the cheers from the watching "crowd."

Misaka had been going to wear one too, but it shorted out when she tried using her ability so she'd gone without.

Of course, this all assumed the prison lacked EM jammers, but Misaki had apparently set up an in-case-of-emergency mental link to Shirai and some of her clique members. If communication was broken, Any of them could send an SOS.

Joule doubted it would be required but apparently Misaki was taking no chances.

Getting her phone out, Joule opened the link to the small server that was managing this (Uiharu had set up its protection and all-but guarenteed it unhackable). After a moment she joined the feed from Kuroko's camera, a small ping alerting Kuroko.

The video appeared.

"Ah, Joule's here."

From the perspective of the lens, Joule saw Misaka look up from a tablet computer they were all looking at. Apparently they were studying a map.

"Good luck everyone." Joule said.

"Joule's wishing us good luck." Kuroko passed on.

Well then, this would be quite interesting.


End of chapter.

I tried to add more than I normally would since we are now beyond anime stuff. That feels like quite a turning point really.

Originally I thought to include Joule right from the start but she really wouldn't get involved right now so she'll be getting involved later.