Transport Problems

[ACMI: Heat Island]

Transport turned out to be harder than expected.

A set of hot springs had been chosen in district 22. Misaka actually knew them, apparently she'd been going there a couple times over the last week. That was convenient, but it made figuring out transport harder.

Getting to there would be the trick though. Itsuwa had suggested renting a vehicle as there was apparently a place for that nearby but it had been a place to rent motorbikes and there was no way all five of them could fit. GV pointed out he could run alongside but Misaka wasn't as practiced at that sort of thing so that plan had been out.

They couldn't take a bus as the last one of the day had already gone and they couldn't catch it now. Some of the trains did run this late though, it would mean timing their travel carefully though.

Touma floated the idea of Index not coming as she had been at fault for breaking the bath, that would mean three people on a bike plus GV running alongside could work. Index bit him for that though. She was very much like her cat.

Eventually, Misaka had sighed and agreed to call Kuroko to teleport her (As she'd done during her last few visits) but she suspected Kuroko wouldn't agree to transport all of them just to the bath house. She waved to them as she headed to a place to meet up with her friend.

With that sorted everyone except her headed to the bike rental place. When Itsuwa had rented the motorcycle witha sidecar, she headed down the street and GV ran alongside. Not too close though as he didn't want to risk the magnatism having adverse effects on the driving of the motorcycle. Because of that, he was only able to catch bits of the conversation on the bike.

Touma was apologising for making Itsuwa take the rental fee and Itsuwa was saying it wasn't a problem.

As they drove, Itsuwa sped up. There wasn't really anyone else on the road and GV was already doing something vaguely illegal in running alongside them down a road so one more minor violation wouldn't be that much of a problem.

"You okay Genki?" Touma asked loudly.

"Fine." GV called back. He really was okay keeping up this speed, while he did need to stop dead every so often to build up a charge, he could maintain a velocity faster than the bike if he really had to.

As they turned towards district 22, Index commented on a giant structure that looked like a climbing frame.

"It's a power station." Itsuwa explained "District 22 is underground so they can't rely on wind or solar like most of the rest of the city."

They all headed into a tunnel, or rather a spiral ramp, they headed down into the underground district.

The bath house they were going down to was on the third level. The massive spiral took them down and down to reach that depth.

As they emerged onto the third level, GV blinked. He would have thought he was on the surface again from the starfield above them.

"What...?"

Itsuwa smiled as she drove "The ceiling of this level is a giant screen, like you might find at a planetarium. It's said to display the night sky in real time, even during the day."

It made sense in a way, if you lived or worked underground, it would be nice to still see a sky above you. Though that comment about it always showing the night sky might throw off your internal clock a bit.

As Index commented on, there was even a river and a forest down here, it was hard to tell you were underground if you didn't know what to look for. As he took glances up at the sky, he could see the power with his ability. Electricity flowed through this place in massive amounts. Hmm, if he could channel it...

Itsuwa pointed out their destination and they parked and headed in. In the remarkably grand entrance hall, they found Misaka leaning against a wall. She waved as they all came in and headed over.

"Here, let's all sign in together." She held a card up as they grew closer "I'm collecting loyalty stamps."

Those stamps looked vaguely familiar but GV didn't know what that frog mascot was exactly.

The building had two big halls filled with baths, one hall for each gender. Even so they were able to sign in together and Misaka grinned as she got a full five stamps out of all of them coming together. They then split up into the two changing rooms.

Well, this was useful. GV would have some time to ask Touma while no one else should be paying attention.

...Of course, it also meant that GV would need to get wet. How did Misaka deal with it? She was here regulaly after all so she must not really have to worry about zapping herself.

Right, her Esper power didn't need to make her skin oil non-conductive. She could just will herself not to get shocked.

Just another thing she had that he needed to work hard at.

Ah well, he had questions to ask.

End of chapter.

I'm not going to be talking about this chapter but another. I made a mistake before and claimed the Celestaquarium was in district 22. it isn't. I'm going back to fix those chapters now (It's in 15 for context.)