[62] The Unseen (2)
"Do you have something in mind?"
"Let's set a psychological trap. Something like this."
Shirone gathered his friends and laid out the plan. Nade and Iruki listened without comment. Shirone, his confidence a little shaken, added more.
"It doesn't have to be exactly this, but wouldn't doing something like this improve our odds? Like using a keyword or—"
Iruki shook his head.
"No, Shirone, I think it'll be fine. Not just fine—this will definitely work. It's subtle. With this method we can use the presentation as foreshadowing."
Once the broad idea was in place, Shirone's group began working out the details.
"The remaining problem is this: how do we make a ghost?"
The technical side was Nade's specialty. He rose from the sofa and cast Lightning Shadow; an electrical afterimage formed, and another Nade—made of electric residue—appeared.
"If you cast Lightning Shadow like this, you can create a realistic ghostly shape. But at this level no one will be fooled. For one thing, it can't move."
"Then we start from there. How do we make the ghostly form move?"
"One immediate idea is this: make the magic cast at extremely high speed so the Lightning Shadow appears to animate."
Nade cast Lightning Shadow repeatedly while taking a step. The afterimage was choppy, but it looked like someone walking.
"I see. Use an illusion to make it seem real, right?"
"Right. But magic alone has limits. And at my level I can't increase the number of entities."
"What about using mechanical devices?" Shirone asked.
"That's not simple. Even if we build a device, there are a mountain of things to consider. The biggest problem is that mere movement won't fool people. To look like a real ghost, it has to respond to external stimuli."
For Nade, who'd made hologram devices before, producing a ghostly image wasn't the issue. But if it couldn't react to people, they'd quickly realize it was fake.
Iruki, who had been thinking hard, spoke up.
"What if we predict people's reactions in advance?"
"Predict their reactions?"
"Introduce complex systems theory. Analyze and program the crowd's behavior patterns. Make it seem like they're getting feedback—induce the illusion of interaction. But it would require an enormous amount of data. We'd need a carrier to transmit the information and a control device."
"Hmm. Information transmission. My electric power has limits. Then… ah!"
Nade turned to Shirone.
"Photon output! Shirone's photon output!"
"Ah. Use photon output to—"
Shirone saw the possibility too. He'd learned the spell for the targeting test, and he'd heard that cutting-edge research in the mage community used photon output to transmit data.
"Now it's coming together. Nade makes the hologram devices. I'll write the program for them. Shirone's photon output will send my program to the devices. You'll need tremendous output—can you do it?"
"I'll do it. It's a chance we've been given."
It was a ray of light in the dark. The thought that something once thought impossible might be possible moved Nade.
"I can do it. We can protect the research club. Assuming, of course, no major accidents happen."
"If it succeeds, the school will flip out, right?"
"More than that. It'll be chaos. I'm betting on this. Besides, it'll be fun. Heh heh— I'm already looking forward to the teachers' reactions."
Shirone's group exchanged knowing smiles. They were wagering the fate of the Paranormal Psychoscience Research Club on what would be an unprecedented event in the history of the Magic Academy.
* * *
Shirone spent his time raising the power of his photon output. The key was not only increasing intensity but lengthening the sustain time. Photons, having no mass, couldn't exert physical force and so were useless for offensive magic—but that trait was an advantage here. He could train in any of Istas's warehouses.
Shirone steadied himself with a two-handed magical action and cast photon output. A beam spread in a circular patch on the wall. Time was the primary concern. If he couldn't hold this for ten minutes, boosting the output would remain a dream.
Sustaining photon output for ten minutes was beyond Class Five, but then so were Nade's hologram devices and Iruki's complex-system equations.
'I have to do it. I have to—'
Shirone gritted his teeth and endured. After three minutes his consciousness began to blur. During the Speed Gun test he'd only managed about a minute with a single burst of photon output. Compared to that, this was dramatic growth, but it still fell far short of the goal.
"Ugh! Huff!"
He squeezed out a final reserve and reached 3 minutes 20 seconds. He had to bring that up into the ten-minute range within fifteen days. After each run he always rested for a full twenty minutes; skimping on recovery could be life-threatening.
Collapsing, Shirone tuned into noise from the next room. Nade seemed to have started welding. Taking advantage of the break, he checked on the other side. When he opened the door, Nade was buried in a tangle of parts.
"Hey, you back? How's your sustained time?"
"So-so. I added twenty seconds. You?"
"As you can see, still working on the engine."
"Will you make the deadline?"
"I have to. Don't worry. Prototype work takes time. Once you go into production, it's hard to fix bugs quickly. That's why we take the time to do it properly."
"Right. By the way, what about what Iruki mentioned?"
"Oh, that? I got it yesterday. Here."
Nade tossed a finger-thick cable to Shirone's feet. The outer sheath was rubbery and inside ran a transparent filament like quartz. Iruki had specially requested it from his father—the head of the Yongrae—and had it procured.
Three hundred hologram devices were to be installed throughout the school; Shirone alone couldn't transmit photon output to all of them.
At first Nade thought of mirrors. If Shirone cast photon output, they could use total internal reflection to guide the light into the devices. But in practice the light would have to bend through too many segments to be feasible.
Nade then had an idea: attach mirrors along a small hose to make a tunnel for the light, producing a bending effect like differentiating a straight line.
He announced this proudly, saying if they could build it they'd be sitting on a fortune.
Iruki ruined his enthusiasm. In the letters he received monthly, Iruki's father had written about developments in the mage society, and a few months ago he'd described exactly the same device—called "optical fiber."
Nade's disappointment was immense. Even Iruki felt a pang; optical fiber was a field only just entering development in the ivory tower of magic.
But when he inspected the actual item, Nade shook his head. It was engineered with a delicacy far beyond his current ability.
'Still, we came up with the same idea as the ivory tower. Nade's pretty impressive,' Shirone thought as he examined the optical fiber more closely, though nothing about it looked remarkable to the eye.
"Lucky you got it."
Nade finished welding, rubbed his reddened eyes and stood.
"The ivory tower's tech is probably in a very early stage—don't expect much performance. Let's run a demo. I made a tester."
Nade handed Shirone a modified optical fiber. Unlike the one he'd shown earlier, this one had a transparent bead fitted at the end.
"How do I use this?"
"Just hold it and cast photon output. I'll calculate the efficiency, so try it now. But you have to give it everything. We need the maximum measurement."
Shirone gripped the crystal bead and cast photon output. His rest period had ended anyway; there was nothing holding him back. Light gathered in his hand and the bead glowed faintly. The needle on Nade's device connected to the fiber began to move. Watching the panel until the three-minute output limit, Nade spoke in a flat voice.
"Sigh—Iruki was right. This is totally an early-stage prototype. Well, maybe we should be grateful we have even this."
"It's that bad?"
"It's only eighteen percent efficient. That means only eighteen percent of the light you send will reach the destination."
"Eighteen percent…"
Shirone felt hollow at the figure. If sustaining photon output for ten minutes was already a distant prospect, an 18 percent transmission efficiency meant he'd need to raise his output roughly fivefold to deliver the full amount.
"Shirone, can you do it? If you can't increase your output, we'll never succeed. High-output magical energy can't be implemented by machines alone."
Shirone nodded as if preparing for a desperate stand.
"I'll try. With practice I can manage."
"You really will do it?"
"Yeah. Don't worry. I'll figure it out. I'm going back to practice now."
"You mean it? Really?"
Shirone glanced back at the doorway and shouted, "I said I will!"
* * *
Shirone lay flat on the warehouse floor, gasping. Half a day of casting photon output had taken his body as well as his mind.
"Hah! Hah!"
His final record for photon output was 3 minutes 20 seconds—the same as that morning. But since he'd reached it in a depleted state, it still counted as progress. An hour earlier he'd dropped as low as 2 minutes 34 seconds; his final desperate push had paid off.
'Even so, it's woefully short. How can I ever get to ten minutes at this rate?'
Maybe it had been impossible from the start. Because photon output is a discharge-type spell, it drains mental stamina far faster than a single-cast active spell. Holding that kind of magic for ten minutes was something only professionals could do.
"Ugh, I don't know. I'll try again tomorrow when I'm fresh."
Nade opened the warehouse door and came in.
"Done for today?"
"Yeah. I can't do any more. I need a break."
"I'm dead tired of watching sparks. It's past midnight. Let's head back to Iruki."
Had that much time passed? Counting it up, Shirone realized he'd been casting photon output for over seven hours. It was a regimen that could endanger life. If the school found out, they'd surely ban his magic practice.
Shirone forced himself up. Nade didn't look much better—hollow-eyed and flushed from long exposure to intense light.
Back at the research club, Iruki had spread the school's layout map and was scribbling rapidly. He was translating the variables that could occur on operation day into equations of behavioral patterns.
Nade watched with concern. It looked like neither Shirone nor he had moved since they'd sat down, and Iruki was the same.
"How's it going, Iruki? Are your calculations coming together?"
Iruki didn't lift his eyes from the notebook.
"So-so. Don't worry—they'll fit the timing."
Nade felt a pang in his chest; his overambition felt like it was hurting his friends.
"Was I asking too much? Honestly, trying to compute every student's behavior pattern is—"
"We can do it. We can. Don't say that. I'm busy right now."
With that, Iruki fell silent. Formulas were being written on the page at a terrifying speed.