TMoHS: The Anagram of Suzumiya Kurumi 8
Title: The Anagram of Suzumiya Kurumi
Rating: PG
Length: 3159
Warnings: Time travel, spoilers, book canon, some coarse language and science fiction themes.
Summary: Sometimes a time agent just has to stop worrying and learn to love the time loops. ( Earlier chapters 01| 02| 03| 04| 05| 06| 07)
Disclaimer All publicly recognizable characters, settings, etc. are the property of their respective owners. The author is in no way associated with the owners, creators, or producers of any media franchise. No copyright infringement is intended.
2003, Cafe, Tokyo; 2003, North Senior High School, Tokyo; 2003, Bookshop, Tokyo
Conspiring with Aunt Yuki and the young dejected Koizumi made the whole thing into a bit of a game. It also meant that I got my own back against Kyon, for the crime of incestuous ogling of my breasts. We were playing more than a few tricks on more than a few people. But basically, the way that it broke down was this:
Suzumiya Haruhi thought that the S.O.S Brigade was assembled by her and for her. She had a crush on Kyon that she did not understand, and was highly susceptible to his suggestions.
Kyon thought that the S.O.S Brigade was assembled by Suzumiya, but that it predominantly focused on himself. He was made aware within the week of our first meeting of our individual supernatural identities (Time Traveller, ESPer, Computer and Omnipotent Being) and was under the impression that the antics and crises he was involved in were the extent of the Suzumiya problem.
I thought that the S.O.S Brigade was an inevitable and partly concerted accident derived from Kyon and Suzumiya's confusing capabilities and shared past, along with the needs and designs of the three main interested powers represented in our conspiracy: the agency, the organisation, and the IDSE. Everyone seemed connected back to me in that sense, but since we had started playing those games with Kyon's head I had become suspicious even of that. It was quite possible that Nagato, Aunt Yuki, Koizumi or even my superiors back at the agency were deliberately distracting me by having me create these distractions...
Nevertheless, our objective - once Aunt Yuki had desynchronised and Koizumi and I had explained what Nagato needed to know - was to observe and stabilise the time-plane as best we could. To maintain some sort of statu quo while we all reported to our superiors and tried to make better sense of what was going on. Now that Koizumi had calmed down and accepted his broken heart, we were able to face the greatest problem of all: where did Kyon go? What was going to happen that would remove him from our lives, but not our memories? Was it something we were trying to prevent, or something that we would eventually orchestrate?
The information that Nagato had distributed amongst our circle of three hadn't made us feel any easier inside. There were... others. A rival data-based consciousness and implanted agent. A rival time travel agency. A rival ESPer organisation. Diaphanous and vague, we had never encountered them. We had not been warned or briefed about them, though apparently our superiors knew of their existence. Luckily - perhaps unluckily - Nagato could read the base code of the universe that we lived in, and she had noticed their strange behavioural patterns. Their group was nearly identical to the S.O.S Brigade, right down to a girl with Suzumiya's powers, save for one element. Kyon.
It did not sit well in my stomach, that knowledge. I couldn't contact my superiors unnecessarily, but I sent off a query anyway. I had not received any confirmation that my message had arrived, nor any response. The communications silence alone chilled me to the bone.
So when I was out with Tsuruya for a coffee, bags holding our newly purchased craft kits placed carefully on the seats beside us, I was shocked to discover there was something that I had missed. I had been complaining about the discomfort of Suzumiya's sewing skills, and wishing that Tsuruya could have had a hand in my maid's outfit. My friend had nodded with a laugh and said...
“Yeah. Though at least she's not making you wear the bunny outfit, that'd be really terrible!”
I blinked, confused. That sounded ominous. “Bunny outfit?”
Tsuruya frowned, then put a hand on my forehead. “Nope, no fever. You must have blocked the memories from the trauma of it. Suzumiya dressed you up like a playboy bunny, and made you hand out fliers for the S.O.S Brigade. Don't you remember?”
I didn't. I hadn't been there. There had been a scandal over some sort of fliers, I remembered Suzumiya ranting about it. But nothing about a costume, or myself. I should have been paying better attention to the chronology here, but I had been distracted for the last week and a bit by my new-found confidantes.
“Oh, yes. Please, don't make me remember that!” I faked a shudder, raised my voice, hoped that I sounded as girly and weak as I did when I was traumatised. It was then that I realised that coming across as a whiny scaredy-cat might be a very useful talent for a time traveller. A good cover at a time like this.
There was something a little too keen to Tsuruya's eyes as she nodded. Her smile reminded me of someone I had met in my childhood. Someone involved with the agency... but even if she knew about my identity in the future, she could hardly be aware of it now. I couldn't tell her anything.
My wristwatch beeped. I glanced down at it, shocked to see that I had a mission update waiting for me. I couldn't assess it here, so I excused myself to the bathroom and locked the stall behind myself.
I was very fortunate that I was wearing a school uniform. I was, apparently, about to find out in a few moments what Tsuruya had meant by “playboy bunny”. At least, I assumed so. For on one of the days that I had had a normal recess and lunch with Tsuruya (followed by an evening spent compiling status reports), I was now scheduled to revisit the S.O.S Brigade clubroom and complete a mission that would “become apparent” when I arrived.
I eyed my wristwatch dubiously, but then resigned myself to my duty. I retrieved the TPDD from its hidden holster and set in my co-ordinates. I would have to arrive early, and then hide somewhere until I was certain that my past self would not notice.
I had as a matter of course scouted out all the best hiding places in the school. Cupboards, shadowy areas, locked doors that I could pick with my toolkit. But the best place to hide in any school was a bathroom at recess. Sure, there were exceptions. But not at North Senior High. It did have to be the right bathroom, obviously. One far away from the places that people needed or wanted to end up during their breaks. For a generation that hadn't quite experienced the benefits of ebooks and digital data accessibility just yet, the library was really underused. I had been a little surprised to hear that the Literature Club had died a slow and ignoble death, due to lack of interest. But there was just something about books that my classmates and fellow students just did not like.
So the toilets beside the library were ideal. Unlike the distant bathrooms on the top floors of the school, they weren't seen as a good place to get away with sex, drugs, smoking, or anything untoward. If you were normal, you were eating lunch or talking with friends; you would use a bathroom near your classroom. If you were a deviant, you would not be near the library. So it made sense for me to choose a stall in there.
It would have made sense, that was, if it had not been for Nagato. Though I'd seen her visit the bathroom during my childhood, I had assumed that an alien computer interface wouldn't need to perform anything so... biological. When I found myself back in time, holding my TPDD and staring at Nagato as she was poised over a toilet bowl, I couldn't do much more than gape and splutter and then excuse myself abruptly. I unlocked the stall and pulled the door shut behind myself. As I turned to the sinks and debated whether I should hide the TPDD or wash my hands first, the lock slid into place with a harsh shove.
By the time Nagato had finished, flushed and washed her hands I had gathered myself appropriately. I took a deep breath in, and out, and reminded myself that Aunt Yuki had already been synchronising with Nagato although my past self did not know yet. My identity and role here were not secret.
“Sorry, I didn't mean to make a mistake like that. I was over-confident, and forgot to actually check this time-plane. It's a mistake we're warned about in training. How embarrassing.”
“I do not understand.” Nagato stared at me. So, perhaps she wasn't as aware of the situation as I had hoped.
“Do you forget everything, when you revert? I thought you might retain some data, the relevant parts...”
I trailed off, concerned. Nagato stood and stared blankly at me, no sign of any comprehension on her face. Though it occurred to me that even if she was following me, she probably wouldn't have shown any expression.
“... I mean to say, when you synchronised with the IDSE to confirm my identity and mission as a time traveller...”
Her head snapped backwards with a painful cracking sound, and I witnessed a much harsher and abrupt transfer of data with the IDSE than I had on that night in Koizumi's house. Concerned, I moved forwards and tried to touch her neck, make sure she was all right.
“I am pefectly fine, Ku... Mikuru. Forgive my mistake.”
I shook my head emphatically. “Not at all... Aunt Yuki?”
Aunt Yuki nodded. She looked quite uncomfortable in her young body. “The request for synchronisation came very suddenly. It was... disorienting.”
I laughed, more to relieve the tension in my own chest than anything else. “You... well, you should get the IDSE to make sure the version of you in this time period takes things a little easier. I thought your neck was broken, there.”
Aunt Yuki nodded thoughtfully, and then began looking around the room curiously. “So this is the day that...”
“I have to wear a demeaning costume, I know.”
She held up a hand, and I could see a very welcome Aunt Yuki smile on her lips. “No, this is the day that you buy me a book.”
She began to leave the bathroom, and I followed her, legs trotting to keep up. “No, Aunt... I mean Nagato... Yuki... oh dear! I'm supposed to be incognito, waiting to attend our club, and...”
I followed along, trying to explain and getting very flustered. Aunt Yuki was quickly and matter-of-factly leading me out of the school and down the street.
“There are more important things at risk right now than the time-plane. You must follow me, child.”
I would have objected that she was just as much a child as I was right now, thank you very much, but she was already leaving me behind in her wake as she headed towards the train station. She did not say another word to me as we bought tickets and caught a train - and ignored my frantic appeals to her for more information or any response at all - until we had alighted and left the station onto a street outside a shopping complex. There, in plain sight of the station, was a dingy-looking secondhand bookshop. Yellowing humid rotting manga and pulpy light novels jostled for space on racks and in boxes propped up against the front walls. But when we moved closer and I could peer through the dusty window, I could see a very familiar dust-cover. This was verging on paradox. I had... that exact same book within my bag, hanging from my shoulder.
Aunt Yuki half-frowned for a moment, then she pulled out a blank slip of paper from her pocket and leaning on the dusty window wrote a quick message out.
I am aware of your mission, as is Koizumi. Our purposes are best served collectively. Please proceed to the address listed in your file on Koizumi this evening.
It was my bookmark. As if she was running short of time, Aunt Yuki thrust the bookmark into my hands and spoke emphatically with far more emotion than she usually showed the world, “You must buy that book. Give it to me, and then help me get Koizumi on-side. Nagato, I... my past self, I will resist you. Be strong.”
Her head fell forwards. To a passer-by, we might have looked like nothing more than two schoolgirls skipping class and browsing books. But Aunt Yuki was gone. Nagato kept her head down, but stood stiffly, awkwardly beside me. She appeared to be thinking very deeply. I decided that I had better leave her to it. I stepped inside, and holding my breath against the musty smell of the old books I took the rare and vital one from the display shelf and paid for it.
It wasn't even rare yet; there wouldn't be a film or cult following for years. It cost me all of four-hundred yen, and was wrapped in a brown paper bag that had seen better days. I felt like I was being made party to some sort of joke on the universe, or perhaps some sort of sacred secret concerning the nature of our culture and society.
Or, in the end, maybe it was just a book after all. I joined Nagato outside and handed her the bag. “This is for you.”
She nodded, and spoke in a quiet dull voice. “Nobody buys me books. Rather, nobody has bought me a gift before today. Not outside the circle of my inferiors, at least. Thank you.”
I inclined my head. “You have inferiors, then?”
She looked at me. “I assumed that you had a greater knowledge of my mission than you appear to. Please disregard my previous comment.”
“Do you mean about the inferiors - Mum would call them minions, you know - or the thanks?”
She looked at me, but said nothing. Then she turned away and we headed silently to the station. On the train ride back to school, with the slow thumping of the tracks beneath us, she pulled the book out of the bag and stared at it dumbly.
“It is in the middle of the series,” she said, “and I have not read any of them yet.”
“Oh, that's all right,” I replied, “because I need you to lend it to my past self in... a day or two, I think. I'll check my chronometer when we get to the clubroom.”
The look that Nagato gave me was shocking. Defensive and angry. It left me with no doubts that she indeed felt emotions. It was just that she didn't feel anything for any humans yet - she was jealously protective of her books, and books alone.
I handed her the newly made and improvised bookmark. “You see? I've come back to make sure you can lend it to me, but with this inside it. You'll get it back before the end of the week. In that time, you can locate and read the first book in the series, maybe even get the rest of them too.”
There were a few silent moments between us. The train paused, doors opened, and nobody embarked or disembarked before it moved on.
“I am aware,” she said finally, “that this makes sense. But I should mention that it should not. I had been led to believe that Suzumiya was the focus of my operations and the cause of the data explosion three years ago. Now... I am not certain.”
I frowned and looked down at my hands. They didn't seem to be my own at all, not any more. “You think this has something to do with me? Aside from the obvious, I mean?”
When Nagato paused for thought, you could hardly tell that she had a fully functioning biological interface. Skin did not twitch, hairs did not shift, her chest barely rose at all and it was hard to believe she was breathing.
“I extrapolate from the data-dump received after de-synchronisation,” Nagato said, “that you did not accidentally miss this afternoon's coming incident with the costumes.”
I let that thought of hers sit in my head for a while, searched some of my internal databases on the agency idly. I wondered about it. If I hadn't noticed my own meddling on this day - or Nagato's absence, or Koizumi's battles in closed space in the past - what else I was missing, every day. What was being wrought in this time-plane not only by our rivals but by our own superiors.
It sent a cold shiver down my spine. “That doesn't make me feel very comfortable.” I said.
I didn't expect Nagato to be Aunt Yuki, but I swear it could have been either of them looking sternly at the floor of the carriage and saying dully, “It is not supposed to. Accurate data is rarely pleasant. I have theorised this is why humanity behaves so irrationally; to avoid accurate data at any cost.”
I thought about my Mum's job in my natural time-plane, the tabloid supernatural journalism and the entertainment world in general. Then I realised that Nagato had, in a way, made the sort of joke that only a computer could. She had distracted me from the blood-chilling thought that I had very little control over my own mission updates; that Suzumiya or perhaps the entire world was being manipulated not because of her own powers, but because of me.
Because if Suzumiya could alter reality, create data-bombs and closed spaces and rewrite history; if Kyon was possibly capable of similar things.. what was I, their genetic descendant, capable of? Who might realise or notice our biological relationship? What was I not seeing?
“I'm not arrogant enough to think that I'm in the middle of this.” I said as sternly as I could. I prayed that I was right. Nagato said nothing at all.
After all that, I had worried that I'd be too preoccupied with thoughts of temporal intrigue and my hardened resolve to start demanding better information from the agency once I'd returned to the right time and place at the end of my day. But, as it turns out, suddenly worrying that I'd either destroy the planet or get kidnapped by strange unknown forces for devious ends was actually a good thng. It meant that every single word that was spoken; every shift of trees in the courtyard scared me half to death. As demeaning as it is to admit it, I maintained my meek and distraught persona as I was forced to parade around in that leotard outfit, though exploitation and personal degradation were pretty far from my mind.
( part nine)
Rating: PG
Length: 3159
Warnings: Time travel, spoilers, book canon, some coarse language and science fiction themes.
Summary: Sometimes a time agent just has to stop worrying and learn to love the time loops. ( Earlier chapters 01| 02| 03| 04| 05| 06| 07)
Disclaimer All publicly recognizable characters, settings, etc. are the property of their respective owners. The author is in no way associated with the owners, creators, or producers of any media franchise. No copyright infringement is intended.
2003, Cafe, Tokyo; 2003, North Senior High School, Tokyo; 2003, Bookshop, Tokyo
Conspiring with Aunt Yuki and the young dejected Koizumi made the whole thing into a bit of a game. It also meant that I got my own back against Kyon, for the crime of incestuous ogling of my breasts. We were playing more than a few tricks on more than a few people. But basically, the way that it broke down was this:
Suzumiya Haruhi thought that the S.O.S Brigade was assembled by her and for her. She had a crush on Kyon that she did not understand, and was highly susceptible to his suggestions.
Kyon thought that the S.O.S Brigade was assembled by Suzumiya, but that it predominantly focused on himself. He was made aware within the week of our first meeting of our individual supernatural identities (Time Traveller, ESPer, Computer and Omnipotent Being) and was under the impression that the antics and crises he was involved in were the extent of the Suzumiya problem.
I thought that the S.O.S Brigade was an inevitable and partly concerted accident derived from Kyon and Suzumiya's confusing capabilities and shared past, along with the needs and designs of the three main interested powers represented in our conspiracy: the agency, the organisation, and the IDSE. Everyone seemed connected back to me in that sense, but since we had started playing those games with Kyon's head I had become suspicious even of that. It was quite possible that Nagato, Aunt Yuki, Koizumi or even my superiors back at the agency were deliberately distracting me by having me create these distractions...
Nevertheless, our objective - once Aunt Yuki had desynchronised and Koizumi and I had explained what Nagato needed to know - was to observe and stabilise the time-plane as best we could. To maintain some sort of statu quo while we all reported to our superiors and tried to make better sense of what was going on. Now that Koizumi had calmed down and accepted his broken heart, we were able to face the greatest problem of all: where did Kyon go? What was going to happen that would remove him from our lives, but not our memories? Was it something we were trying to prevent, or something that we would eventually orchestrate?
The information that Nagato had distributed amongst our circle of three hadn't made us feel any easier inside. There were... others. A rival data-based consciousness and implanted agent. A rival time travel agency. A rival ESPer organisation. Diaphanous and vague, we had never encountered them. We had not been warned or briefed about them, though apparently our superiors knew of their existence. Luckily - perhaps unluckily - Nagato could read the base code of the universe that we lived in, and she had noticed their strange behavioural patterns. Their group was nearly identical to the S.O.S Brigade, right down to a girl with Suzumiya's powers, save for one element. Kyon.
It did not sit well in my stomach, that knowledge. I couldn't contact my superiors unnecessarily, but I sent off a query anyway. I had not received any confirmation that my message had arrived, nor any response. The communications silence alone chilled me to the bone.
So when I was out with Tsuruya for a coffee, bags holding our newly purchased craft kits placed carefully on the seats beside us, I was shocked to discover there was something that I had missed. I had been complaining about the discomfort of Suzumiya's sewing skills, and wishing that Tsuruya could have had a hand in my maid's outfit. My friend had nodded with a laugh and said...
“Yeah. Though at least she's not making you wear the bunny outfit, that'd be really terrible!”
I blinked, confused. That sounded ominous. “Bunny outfit?”
Tsuruya frowned, then put a hand on my forehead. “Nope, no fever. You must have blocked the memories from the trauma of it. Suzumiya dressed you up like a playboy bunny, and made you hand out fliers for the S.O.S Brigade. Don't you remember?”
I didn't. I hadn't been there. There had been a scandal over some sort of fliers, I remembered Suzumiya ranting about it. But nothing about a costume, or myself. I should have been paying better attention to the chronology here, but I had been distracted for the last week and a bit by my new-found confidantes.
“Oh, yes. Please, don't make me remember that!” I faked a shudder, raised my voice, hoped that I sounded as girly and weak as I did when I was traumatised. It was then that I realised that coming across as a whiny scaredy-cat might be a very useful talent for a time traveller. A good cover at a time like this.
There was something a little too keen to Tsuruya's eyes as she nodded. Her smile reminded me of someone I had met in my childhood. Someone involved with the agency... but even if she knew about my identity in the future, she could hardly be aware of it now. I couldn't tell her anything.
My wristwatch beeped. I glanced down at it, shocked to see that I had a mission update waiting for me. I couldn't assess it here, so I excused myself to the bathroom and locked the stall behind myself.
I was very fortunate that I was wearing a school uniform. I was, apparently, about to find out in a few moments what Tsuruya had meant by “playboy bunny”. At least, I assumed so. For on one of the days that I had had a normal recess and lunch with Tsuruya (followed by an evening spent compiling status reports), I was now scheduled to revisit the S.O.S Brigade clubroom and complete a mission that would “become apparent” when I arrived.
I eyed my wristwatch dubiously, but then resigned myself to my duty. I retrieved the TPDD from its hidden holster and set in my co-ordinates. I would have to arrive early, and then hide somewhere until I was certain that my past self would not notice.
I had as a matter of course scouted out all the best hiding places in the school. Cupboards, shadowy areas, locked doors that I could pick with my toolkit. But the best place to hide in any school was a bathroom at recess. Sure, there were exceptions. But not at North Senior High. It did have to be the right bathroom, obviously. One far away from the places that people needed or wanted to end up during their breaks. For a generation that hadn't quite experienced the benefits of ebooks and digital data accessibility just yet, the library was really underused. I had been a little surprised to hear that the Literature Club had died a slow and ignoble death, due to lack of interest. But there was just something about books that my classmates and fellow students just did not like.
So the toilets beside the library were ideal. Unlike the distant bathrooms on the top floors of the school, they weren't seen as a good place to get away with sex, drugs, smoking, or anything untoward. If you were normal, you were eating lunch or talking with friends; you would use a bathroom near your classroom. If you were a deviant, you would not be near the library. So it made sense for me to choose a stall in there.
It would have made sense, that was, if it had not been for Nagato. Though I'd seen her visit the bathroom during my childhood, I had assumed that an alien computer interface wouldn't need to perform anything so... biological. When I found myself back in time, holding my TPDD and staring at Nagato as she was poised over a toilet bowl, I couldn't do much more than gape and splutter and then excuse myself abruptly. I unlocked the stall and pulled the door shut behind myself. As I turned to the sinks and debated whether I should hide the TPDD or wash my hands first, the lock slid into place with a harsh shove.
By the time Nagato had finished, flushed and washed her hands I had gathered myself appropriately. I took a deep breath in, and out, and reminded myself that Aunt Yuki had already been synchronising with Nagato although my past self did not know yet. My identity and role here were not secret.
“Sorry, I didn't mean to make a mistake like that. I was over-confident, and forgot to actually check this time-plane. It's a mistake we're warned about in training. How embarrassing.”
“I do not understand.” Nagato stared at me. So, perhaps she wasn't as aware of the situation as I had hoped.
“Do you forget everything, when you revert? I thought you might retain some data, the relevant parts...”
I trailed off, concerned. Nagato stood and stared blankly at me, no sign of any comprehension on her face. Though it occurred to me that even if she was following me, she probably wouldn't have shown any expression.
“... I mean to say, when you synchronised with the IDSE to confirm my identity and mission as a time traveller...”
Her head snapped backwards with a painful cracking sound, and I witnessed a much harsher and abrupt transfer of data with the IDSE than I had on that night in Koizumi's house. Concerned, I moved forwards and tried to touch her neck, make sure she was all right.
“I am pefectly fine, Ku... Mikuru. Forgive my mistake.”
I shook my head emphatically. “Not at all... Aunt Yuki?”
Aunt Yuki nodded. She looked quite uncomfortable in her young body. “The request for synchronisation came very suddenly. It was... disorienting.”
I laughed, more to relieve the tension in my own chest than anything else. “You... well, you should get the IDSE to make sure the version of you in this time period takes things a little easier. I thought your neck was broken, there.”
Aunt Yuki nodded thoughtfully, and then began looking around the room curiously. “So this is the day that...”
“I have to wear a demeaning costume, I know.”
She held up a hand, and I could see a very welcome Aunt Yuki smile on her lips. “No, this is the day that you buy me a book.”
She began to leave the bathroom, and I followed her, legs trotting to keep up. “No, Aunt... I mean Nagato... Yuki... oh dear! I'm supposed to be incognito, waiting to attend our club, and...”
I followed along, trying to explain and getting very flustered. Aunt Yuki was quickly and matter-of-factly leading me out of the school and down the street.
“There are more important things at risk right now than the time-plane. You must follow me, child.”
I would have objected that she was just as much a child as I was right now, thank you very much, but she was already leaving me behind in her wake as she headed towards the train station. She did not say another word to me as we bought tickets and caught a train - and ignored my frantic appeals to her for more information or any response at all - until we had alighted and left the station onto a street outside a shopping complex. There, in plain sight of the station, was a dingy-looking secondhand bookshop. Yellowing humid rotting manga and pulpy light novels jostled for space on racks and in boxes propped up against the front walls. But when we moved closer and I could peer through the dusty window, I could see a very familiar dust-cover. This was verging on paradox. I had... that exact same book within my bag, hanging from my shoulder.
Aunt Yuki half-frowned for a moment, then she pulled out a blank slip of paper from her pocket and leaning on the dusty window wrote a quick message out.
I am aware of your mission, as is Koizumi. Our purposes are best served collectively. Please proceed to the address listed in your file on Koizumi this evening.
It was my bookmark. As if she was running short of time, Aunt Yuki thrust the bookmark into my hands and spoke emphatically with far more emotion than she usually showed the world, “You must buy that book. Give it to me, and then help me get Koizumi on-side. Nagato, I... my past self, I will resist you. Be strong.”
Her head fell forwards. To a passer-by, we might have looked like nothing more than two schoolgirls skipping class and browsing books. But Aunt Yuki was gone. Nagato kept her head down, but stood stiffly, awkwardly beside me. She appeared to be thinking very deeply. I decided that I had better leave her to it. I stepped inside, and holding my breath against the musty smell of the old books I took the rare and vital one from the display shelf and paid for it.
It wasn't even rare yet; there wouldn't be a film or cult following for years. It cost me all of four-hundred yen, and was wrapped in a brown paper bag that had seen better days. I felt like I was being made party to some sort of joke on the universe, or perhaps some sort of sacred secret concerning the nature of our culture and society.
Or, in the end, maybe it was just a book after all. I joined Nagato outside and handed her the bag. “This is for you.”
She nodded, and spoke in a quiet dull voice. “Nobody buys me books. Rather, nobody has bought me a gift before today. Not outside the circle of my inferiors, at least. Thank you.”
I inclined my head. “You have inferiors, then?”
She looked at me. “I assumed that you had a greater knowledge of my mission than you appear to. Please disregard my previous comment.”
“Do you mean about the inferiors - Mum would call them minions, you know - or the thanks?”
She looked at me, but said nothing. Then she turned away and we headed silently to the station. On the train ride back to school, with the slow thumping of the tracks beneath us, she pulled the book out of the bag and stared at it dumbly.
“It is in the middle of the series,” she said, “and I have not read any of them yet.”
“Oh, that's all right,” I replied, “because I need you to lend it to my past self in... a day or two, I think. I'll check my chronometer when we get to the clubroom.”
The look that Nagato gave me was shocking. Defensive and angry. It left me with no doubts that she indeed felt emotions. It was just that she didn't feel anything for any humans yet - she was jealously protective of her books, and books alone.
I handed her the newly made and improvised bookmark. “You see? I've come back to make sure you can lend it to me, but with this inside it. You'll get it back before the end of the week. In that time, you can locate and read the first book in the series, maybe even get the rest of them too.”
There were a few silent moments between us. The train paused, doors opened, and nobody embarked or disembarked before it moved on.
“I am aware,” she said finally, “that this makes sense. But I should mention that it should not. I had been led to believe that Suzumiya was the focus of my operations and the cause of the data explosion three years ago. Now... I am not certain.”
I frowned and looked down at my hands. They didn't seem to be my own at all, not any more. “You think this has something to do with me? Aside from the obvious, I mean?”
When Nagato paused for thought, you could hardly tell that she had a fully functioning biological interface. Skin did not twitch, hairs did not shift, her chest barely rose at all and it was hard to believe she was breathing.
“I extrapolate from the data-dump received after de-synchronisation,” Nagato said, “that you did not accidentally miss this afternoon's coming incident with the costumes.”
I let that thought of hers sit in my head for a while, searched some of my internal databases on the agency idly. I wondered about it. If I hadn't noticed my own meddling on this day - or Nagato's absence, or Koizumi's battles in closed space in the past - what else I was missing, every day. What was being wrought in this time-plane not only by our rivals but by our own superiors.
It sent a cold shiver down my spine. “That doesn't make me feel very comfortable.” I said.
I didn't expect Nagato to be Aunt Yuki, but I swear it could have been either of them looking sternly at the floor of the carriage and saying dully, “It is not supposed to. Accurate data is rarely pleasant. I have theorised this is why humanity behaves so irrationally; to avoid accurate data at any cost.”
I thought about my Mum's job in my natural time-plane, the tabloid supernatural journalism and the entertainment world in general. Then I realised that Nagato had, in a way, made the sort of joke that only a computer could. She had distracted me from the blood-chilling thought that I had very little control over my own mission updates; that Suzumiya or perhaps the entire world was being manipulated not because of her own powers, but because of me.
Because if Suzumiya could alter reality, create data-bombs and closed spaces and rewrite history; if Kyon was possibly capable of similar things.. what was I, their genetic descendant, capable of? Who might realise or notice our biological relationship? What was I not seeing?
“I'm not arrogant enough to think that I'm in the middle of this.” I said as sternly as I could. I prayed that I was right. Nagato said nothing at all.
After all that, I had worried that I'd be too preoccupied with thoughts of temporal intrigue and my hardened resolve to start demanding better information from the agency once I'd returned to the right time and place at the end of my day. But, as it turns out, suddenly worrying that I'd either destroy the planet or get kidnapped by strange unknown forces for devious ends was actually a good thng. It meant that every single word that was spoken; every shift of trees in the courtyard scared me half to death. As demeaning as it is to admit it, I maintained my meek and distraught persona as I was forced to parade around in that leotard outfit, though exploitation and personal degradation were pretty far from my mind.
( part nine)