Chapter Text
On a certain day of each month, Academy City’s Board of Directors would assemble for a general meeting, discussing business both routine and urgent. Turnout varied between meetings, and anyone in the know when it came to Academy City’s internal politics was aware that it wasn’t just education and public order that was discussed at these meetings. In a sense, the board of directors was where the dark side of Academy City both began and ended, it existed so long as they found it in their interest for it to do so. Despite being open enough to the point that most students knew the name of at least one director, it still managed to be opaque. However, the pressing issue at this month’s general meeting wasn’t an unethical experiment or a serious, confidential security breach. The issue was…
“The number of students enrolling in Judgment has fallen drastically.” One of the male directors reported, adjusting his glasses.
“Yes, the projections so far show that if the situation goes unchallenged, we will start to lose Judgment members faster than we can recruit them.”
“Judgment will end up shrinking?”
“Indeed.”
The atmosphere in the room was heavy. This sort of concern for Academy City’s peacekeeping functions was incredibly rare at meetings such as these. After all, the system was set up in the board’s favor. Talented but hotheaded espers would lash out and commit crimes, Judgment would take them into custody, Anti-Skill would arrest them, they would be transferred to Reformatory One and then finally they would die or go missing.
But of course, they never really died. Or went missing. At least, not at that moment in time.
Some more cynical observers might call such a thing ‘human trafficking of child soldiers’.
The city of science was more inclined to see it as the prudent redirection of human resources.
In such a scenario, it wasn’t important that Judgment keep growing. At least for appearances sake, Judgment far punched above its weight.
But they couldn’t allow it to decline any further.
“We received a request for use of Tree Diagram. The Judgment board wishes to assess the effectiveness of several strategies to boost recruitment numbers.”
“Hah! Are we still claiming Tree Diagram is working? Even when an elementary schooler could tell you that the weather forecast is nowhere near as accurate as before?”
“It’s important to our position as an independent city.”
“Indeed, to admit it was destroyed is to take away a good amount of the awe the outside world feels at our technology. The outside world has gotten the impression that we can solve any problem with it, and it would be best to keep it that way.”
“Well, how should we deal with the request?”
The room fell silent.
Suddenly, at the other end of the table, someone who had remained quiet so far spoke up without even turning their head to face the other directors.
“Accept the request.”
“Eh?”
“We’ll do the calculations. We can’t have the board of Judgment thinking we don’t care about our capacity to maintain public order.”
That statement was met with bemusement by some.
“Strictly speaking, we can let them think whatever they want. It’s not like replacing one of us. I would hesitate to say that even 10% of Judgment's own members know who its director is.”
Someone spoke up to disagree.
“It’s a pain to replace the entire board though. It isn’t easy to come by people you can trust to run a student discipline body. After all, what if a student dies? You need someone ready to take the fall.”
Then someone else asked the prudent question.
“Tree Diagram has been destroyed, so how are we going to do the calculations?”
There was a murmur around the room. Some suggested that the other supercomputers at the board’s disposal would be fine on their own. Some even proposed that no simulations were needed at all, just a new recruitment strategy.
The commanding voice spoke up once again.
“It’s simple. We use the Radio Noise project. The Sisters.”
“For something as trivial as this?”
“Seriously?”
“I doubt we truly need to resort to computer guidance; we just need someone capable to be temporarily assigned there.”
The lone figure at the end of the table held up a hand, and all of the dissenting voices faded out.
“They’re the single most powerful parallel computing network ever devised. Surely you recognize their value? What's become of your pride as people of science, that you would prefer to leave such a thing up to chance?”
This time, no one spoke up.
“In that case, tell them their request has been approved, and get the request into the network as soon as possible.”
The matter was settled, and the board moved onto the next urgent order of business.