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“Only a few more corners,” Tohru promised as he wheeled his cousin through the Border HQ’s sterile corridors.
“How can you tell?” she asked, glancing about for distinguishing features. The hallways were all long and featureless, broken up only by the occasional doorway - as likely to be unlabeled as not. The result was disorienting; although they had only been walking for a handful of minutes, Rei had clearly already lost track of where she was.
Before he could answer, they rounded the last corner and found themselves face-to-face with a tall, well-dressed man. “You get used to it after a while,” he said with a grin. “The corridors are designed to be confusing, to slow down any intruders. You must be Nasu Rei,” he said, extending his hand to her.
“Quite so,” she said, politely accepting the handshake. “And you are…?”
“Shinoda Masafumi, Border’s general manager. Mr. Kinuta had a family emergency crop up at the last moment, and asked me to take his place in supervising your test.” He glanced at her wheelchair as he withdrew his hand. “I must apologize; if we’d realized from Narasaka’s report that your condition was so serious, we would have arranged for a driver for you.”
Rei shook her head, holding up a hand to dismiss his concerns. “No, no need. I’m quite capable of walking, Mr. Shinoda. It’s simply tiring. Given the distances involved, Tohru and I agreed that using my wheelchair would be…prudent.”
“I understand. Again, I'm sorry for making you come all this way, but Border has a strict policy against unauthorized personnel using trigger technology off-base. Please, come inside. We’re ready to begin at any time.”
“Thank you,” she said, and signaled for Tohru to push her inside. He and Shinoda expressed brief greetings as they passed one another.
Inside the nameless door was a featureless white training room, with a few technicians bustling about and setting up equipment. One of them, seeing the test subject enter the room, called for her to come over and get some preliminary tests done, and she took off, wheeling herself into the center of the room. Tohru was left behind with Shinoda.
“Narasaka," Shinoda said, "I understand you were the one who recommended the program to her?”
“Yes, sir,” he responded. “The doctors don’t know what’s wrong with her, so there’s no hope of a cure. We used to play together all the time when we were kids, and now she barely leaves her room. If this works, it could do her a lot of good.”
Shinoda nodded solemnly. “You’re aware, I hope, that the purpose of this experiment is to determine whether or not we need to test for physical fitness as part of the agent screening process? It’s not a medical trial. We can’t issue triggers to sick civilians - we simply don’t have enough of them.”
“Yes, sir." Narasaka continued staring ahead. "But at least it would be something to hope for.”
“That’s the spirit, " Shinoda said, clapping him on the back. "I hope that one day, we’ll be able to spread our technology far and wide, wherever people need it. Some day, when this damn war is over. Now, let’s see how they’re getting along.”
They crossed the room to where the where the others were working, and Shinoda took a clipboard from one of the technicians, looking over the test results.
“Everything seems to be in order, Miss Nasu. In fact, you seem to have quite respectable trion levels. Have you ever considered enlisting as a Border agent yourself?”
“I can’t say that I’ve ever considered myself fit for combat duties,” she said wryly gesturing at the wheelchair. “But I’ll admit, when I was younger…well, I had a young child’s taste in television.”
He laughed, filling the empty space around them with warmth. “Say no more. If you're interested, and this test goes as I hope it will, I’d be happy to process your application personally. Now, let’s begin.”
He reached into his pocket and produced a short black device with a rubber grip. “This is a trigger, not unlike those we issue to new trainees. Just hold it in your hand and say the activation phrase, and it will swap out your physical body for a trion body ready for combat. Don’t worry; our agents safely use this technology every day, and if anything were to go wrong during the test, we can shut it down immediately.” He paused a moment before speaking again. “Not that we expect that anything will go wrong, of course.”
“Naturally,” she said, taking the trigger from him. She held it in her hand, hesitating for a moment. Then she closed her eyes and said the words: “Trigger on.”
Trion sparks flew from the trigger, and a wave of light cascaded over her body, wiping it out and replacing it with a new one. She held out her hand before her eyes, wiggling the fingers experimentally. Then, gripping the arms of her wheelchair, she pushed herself up - her face registering surprise at just how easy it was. She took a step forward, nearly overbalancing for a moment, unused to her own body’s strength. Then she took another, and another, bolder with each stride, until she had reached the other side of the room.
“How do you feel?” a technician asked her.
“I feel…fine,” she said, turning to face them again. “Just fine.”
She started walking back towards them, gaining a little speed with each step, until finally she was sprinting across the last stretch of ground. Unable to quite stop herself, she slammed into her cousin who, despite his surprise, caught her before she hit the ground. It wasn’t until he got her steady that he realized that she was crying.
“Hey!” he called out to the others, panic rising in him. “Terminate the test, something’s wrong—”
“No!” Rei said with unexpected force. The technicians, who had started moving at the sound of Narasaka’s voice, froze. “Nothing’s wrong, really!” She stood up straight again, wiping her eyes. “It’s just...been so very long since I was fine, that’s all.”
The technicians looked helplessly to Shinoda, who gave them a nod. Tohru stepped forward and embraced his cousin, who returned the gesture; finally, there was something to be hopeful about.