“It’s not like I’ll never be able to see it again…” She laughed at herself for getting a bit sentimental, climbed onto the scooter, and pressed the ignition switch.
In the orphanage, ten children waited for Washu’s return. “Washu-oneechan, welcome back!”
“What did you get us, Washu-oneechan?”
“Washu-oneechan, did you get us the candy you promised?”
The children thronged and clung to Washu, calling her name in turn. Washu used the shopkeeper’s bag of sweets as bait to distract them and ran inside with the rest of the bags.
“Just like a mother bird tending to her chicks, Washu-chan?” said the director of the orphanage, who was like a mother to all of them.
“I think of them as fish in a fish farm, Mother.” Like carp, swarming and gaping near the surface. A precise, unemotional way to put it, typical of Washu.
The ladies in the kitchen, a little ways away, burst out laughing. But the director continued to address Washu coolly. “I suppose we won’t get to see this sight for much longer…”
Fifteen years ago, Washu had been found in front of that orphanage. She had been standing there without expression, neither searching for her parents nor crying. “Bathed in light that streamed between the clouds as they parted after the rain, you were like a child sent from heaven. It was like a dream,” the director reminisced.
Young Washu had actually been levitating when found. Despite this, the ESP test conducted before she was taken in by the orphanage was inconclusive. It had been raining, but she was not wet. The director who found her wondered if her parents were still nearby and gathered information from the networks throughout the town, but could not find any clues. Even more strangely, nobody had even seen Washu arrive or make her way through town. Since then, the director had tried every possible recourse but had never uncovered Washu’s background. The only thing Washu had carried were three red spheres. However, these were determined to be plain crystal spheres with nothing unusual about them, unrelated to Washu’s parentage.
“If that had been reported to Jurai’s Central Lab through the network, things might’ve turned out differently,” Washu muttered under her breath.
A few years after Washu was taken in by the orphanage, people began to report sightings of girls who looked like her, but of all different ages. A child listening to some adults discussing it had to tell them that they were all Washu. Her friends had already known: Washu had the ability to transform her body. The Kanamitsu government, when it found out, made her undergo another ESP test, and she was rated C: not very powerful.
Some people were suspicious of her ability, but that was not a major problem. What everyone called attention to was her superior intellect. She completed the basic curriculum, which normally took a decade, in just four years. By fifteen, she had completed the basic requirements for the Academy and received a special scholarship to attend the Jurai Imperial Academy without taking the entrance exam. As a result of aptitude tests, she decided to join the Department of Philosophy.
Washu’s admission was deferred until she reached age eighteen to allow her psychological maturation. In the meantime, she exchanged private communications with Academy professors and even published several papers.
Her eighteenth birthday was in one week. That was the day she would receive permission to attend the Imperial Academy.
In one corner of the astronomical observatory which was built on the orphanage’s roof, there was a space divided by a simple partition. This was Washu’s room. Of course, the entire observatory was basically her room. It was crammed with specimens, experimental instruments, and books that were now antique props. It was as disorganized as an attic in an old mansion; she had not tidied up, even though she was moving out soon. She did not need to: the books and specimens had been converted to data files, and she was leaving everything other than the few items of clothing she would need immediately. Now that she was a special scholarship student, the Academy would cover the cost of her necessities and luxuries.
Washu rolled over in bed, watching the sky beyond the window. “The highest seat of learning… I better keep my cover up.”
She opened her hand and looked at the three jewels she held. “I’m going to do research, not be researched.” Her final goal was to investigate her own origins and that of these three jewels.
A C-class psychic and ordinary crystal spheres, so why…? The answer was simple: the methods used so far were unable to uncover the truth.
A large bottle, discreetly placed in a corner of the room, held darkness and small points of light. Upon closer inspection, each point of light was clearly a galaxy. It was not a hologram but a real universe. Washu had created it with knowledge she gained from the basic curriculum. At the time, given her young age, she could not understand the momentous significance of the act. Later, she understood the true depths of her abilities and perceived that the three jewels concealed even stronger power. But despite her current knowledge, she could not figure out the jewels’ true nature.
“Knowledge won’t give me the answer. But…” If she released her latent abilities, she knew it would be possible to find out immediately. She would also find out who she was. But she nixed that idea.
Something within Washu spoke to her: That would only repeat the same thing all over again.
“Repeat what…?” She asked herself. “What am I?” Ever since she had discovered the meaning of her power, she had been seeking further knowledge. She wanted to find out more about herself through knowledge, not by using her powers. As if that was her goal…
She jumped at the “Ping!” from the terminal on top of her desk, which heralded an e-mail’s arrival. The pop-up in the corner of her monitor displayed an odd icon. It was from Professor Ikuma, the chairman of the Imperial Academy Philosophy Department. What looked like a child’s doodle was Prof. Ikuma’s personal icon, drawn, in fact, by his own young daughter.
“A program is like a picture…” The e-mail contained his boilerplate signature, along with a compressed file. When she extracted the file, data poured in.
“Wh-what is this…? It’s huge.” Washu stared, astounded, at the data scrolling through her monitor. Fragments of information stimulated her mind. One piece of information was a single color. Through combining, mixing, and spreading, it took shape. She could see it: the light. Suddenly, her expression became grim. “What’s this…?!”
“Washu-chan, you should come down soon.” The sun had long set by the time the director called up from the floor below to Washu, who was still looking over Ikuma’s data file.
“Coming!” Looking away, Washu went downstairs with an airy gait.
“We’re going to be busy, starting tomorrow.”
“Urk…” Washu paused at the director’s words. She followed him with a heavy sigh, as if the wind had left her sails. She was fine with being busy getting ready to depart for the Academy. But the director was talking about farewell parties. Now that she had been admitted to the Department of Philosophy, her calendar was scheduled down to the minute with press conferences, interviews, and meetings, many spawning from ulterior motives.
“Mother…I…” she called reproachfully, and the director returned a gentle smile.
“Everyone wants to say goodbye to you.” The director was sincere. She had the patience of a saint. Of course, everyone around her had to suffer for it as well. “You are my pride and joy, Washu.” Her smile robbed Washu of the willpower to object but also gave her unaccountable strength. Without that strength, Washu might not have been able to reach this point.
“I guess it can’t be helped…” Washu straightened up and headed to the dining hall, where her dear fish farm awaited.
A week later, Washu departed for the Jurai Imperial Academy amid a grand send-off from Kanamitsu senior government officials and financial organizations. After boarding, Washu was introduced to the shuttle’s captain and crew, and the bodyguards she would have until she reached the Academy. She found the officer she knew among the guards, raised her hand, and smiled. Seeing a familiar face, she felt more at ease.
A private, first-class suite had been prepared for her. She was led by her designated flight attendant to a room used only by heads of state and upper-class society. There, they had prepared everything she might need.
“I feel like I could open a general store in here,” she mused, looking at the numerous items, and closed the closet door. She sat down on the luxurious sofa and gently placed her hand on her single suitcase. “What a day. The fish started to cry, and Mother launched into her old stories again…”
Washu stared at the gift from the children: glow-in-the-dark origami flowers within a 30-centimeter cube tektite case.
This planet had a custom similar to Earth’s thousand origami cranes. They stuffed small flowers made of paper or cloth into a bottle or case as a get-well wish or farewell present. The gift had a bit of a gimmick; at a touch, the tektite case tapped into the human skin’s tiny electrical charge, stimulating the special luminescent paper and causing it to float and faintly glow. There were flowers of various sizes, some folded cleanly, some folded clumsily. It was clear that the fish—or, rather, the children—had worked very hard on them.