District 3 of Academy City contained a number of international exhibition halls.
There was a direct railroad line leading there from the city's entrance from other countries, District 23. There were plenty of facilities for foreigners in the district and the grade of the hotels there was the highest in all of Academy City. The guest facilities were placed so far from the airport-centric District 23 so the guests would not have to worry about the noise of the planes.
There were always multiple events being held in District 3.
There was a motor show containing the best of automobile tech, a robot show showing off pieces of pure mechanical engineering, and many others. These exhibitions were not just for fun; their main purpose was to promote the latest tech from Academy City, technology that the board of directors had deemed of an acceptable level to be used outside the city. These were placed on display and the outside company that gave the best deal was chosen (Academy City did not "look for" them, they merely "chose"), and that company would pay them vast quantities for the tech.
And on that day, there was one specific show being held.
The various technologies on display were unmanned attack helicopters, the latest powered suits, an ultra-violet ray sniping device that was a high-output optical weapon that used a certain type of light wave to injure, kill and even be used for aerial bombings. The event was being called the "Interceptor Show", so nothing too dangerous could be on display.
"Phhaa."
A deep breath was heard.
It belonged to Yomikawa Aiho, who was removing the helmet of the powered suit that she was in, around the corner of the dome-shaped international exhibition hall. She usually wore an unfashionable jersey over her body that made her stand out and bother young men, but she looked oddly humorous wearing the bulky powered suit.
"It's so hot… Why is demonstrating a powered suit so exhausting?"
Yomikawa looked fed up with what she was doing as she held the helmet in her arms and glanced at the woman in work clothes next to her. That woman was part of the powered suit development team, so she normally wore a white lab coat. Because of this, the work clothes looked as out of place on her as the clothes on children at the Shichi-Go-San festival.
"Don't worry. It isn't just you. The entire exhibition hall is oddly hot."
On her lap, the woman engineer had a laptop with a card that looked like a thin cell phone stuck in the side. The screen of the laptop showed the details of the powered suit.
"That doesn't really make me feel any better."
"I didn't say it to make you feel better."
"By the way, why are there so many damn people at a show like this on a weekday? Isn't this exhibition hall over capacity?"
"Today's a business day, so there really aren't that many people here. Tomorrow, it's open to the public, so it'll be complete hell."
"That really doesn't make me feel any better!"
"I didn't say it to make you feel better."
Yomikawa was disheartened by the engineer's words and placed the helmet on the ground.
The helmet was almost 50cm (20in) wide. It looked like you could put it over the top of the drum-shaped robots that wandered around Academy City. The rest of the powered suit looked more like a slightly thicker version of a Western suit of armor, which led to the head looking huge.
"Ahh. I think I'm just going to take the whole thing off."
As she said this, Yomikawa began to slide out through the now-helmetless neck of the suit. Inside the powered suit, she was wearing a black outfit similar to what special forces wear.
She sat down leaning against the motionless powered suit and fanned her face with her hand.
"Really, why do we have to wear an armored outfit inside of these things? Can't you people make a special outfit for operating a powered suit that's a bit more breathable?"
"Well, you should have gone along with the project head's suggestion that you come out of the powered suit in a sexy bikini. You would have gotten quite a round of applause from the press then."
The monotonous voice the engineer said this in made it sound like she really didn't care.
Yomikawa wiped the sweat off of her face with a towel.
"By the way, why did that project head seem so excited while talking about having a woman present the suit?"
"He has a thing for women doing things like that. The poor thing."
"And why did he think someone like me would do that? I'm about the most unrefined woman in Japan. Someone made a huge mistake choosing me."
"It must be tough being in Anti-Skill. You get stuck with more odd jobs than a member of the JSDF."
"We only get stuck with doing things like this when there's nothing else to do. So doing something like this really shows how peaceful things are."
Yomikawa stopped speaking and looked around.
All of the booths around her were displaying various tools used to kill people.
Previously, all of the weapons displayed at these shows had a hint of having been created to stop a rampaging esper while doing as little damage as possible. But this time there was a tank and, next to it, a powerful weapon that could shoot straight through said tank and kill someone behind it.
(I can only think of one thing that could explain this sudden change in focus…)
Yomikawa glanced over at the laptop the engineer was using. Not only did it show the powered suit data from when Yomikawa had been doing the demonstration, but there was a small window showing a television broadcast.
It was a news program and the announcer was reading the current news.
"It is currently just before dawn in southern France, where a large-scale religious protest has broken out in the industrial city of Toulouse. People have filled up several kilometers of a road running alongside the River Garonne, which runs through the center of the city. The currently blocked traffic is having a major effect on the infrastructure of the city."
The recorded footage showed the dark city lit by the fires of torches as a great number of people were marching around. Men and women could be seen holding banners with angry statements written in French and youths were setting fire to Academy City posters.
They were taking part in a protest; they weren't an out-of-control mob. Even so, the sight of tens of thousands of angry people marching was an intimidating one.
"Their actions are centered on an area where many Japanese car companies are located. This is presumably a demonstration against Academy City. About 80% of the French are said to be Roman Catholic, so the same thing is being seen in cities across the country."
Even so, it could easily be worse.
As Yomikawa watched the screen, the news from that morning played again.
"In the central German city of Dortmund, a bulldozer thought to have been stolen was plowed into a Roman Catholic Church and 9 priests inside were wounded. It is thought to have been in response to the series of protests being held, but so far no one has come forward claiming to be behind the crime. Fears that the conflicts between the Roman Catholic Church and Academy City will worsen are spreading."
She had already seen this news, but it still bothered her.
It was like a small spark spreading to a pile of straw. The movement of the world had greatly changed in the last few days. The demonstrations being carried out by the Roman Catholic Church around the world and the various overreactions to them were picking up pace.
And, almost as if it were in response to all this, Academy City was now holding this show full of weaponry.
At first glance, it could be taken as the board of directors officially saying that they wouldn't be giving in to the demonstrations.
(But it's all being carried out a bit too efficiently.)
Developing weapons was not the same thing as making plastic models. You had to apply for the job, calculate an estimated budget again and again, have it examined, create a test model, build each part, and go through simulations tens of thousands of times. It was only after you found good results, that you could finally release a "product".
The demonstrations had only begun to worsen a few days ago.
That wasn't enough time to go through a development process that was usually counted in years.
Which meant…
(Academy City was already prepared. They had predicted this would happen and decided to prepare to take control of the aftermath instead of stopping it from happening in the first place.)
"Damn it," Yomikawa muttered.
It may not have been Academy City that pulled the trigger that led to war. But they were clearly making the absolute best of the situation.
The woman engineer whom the laptop belonged to wiped the sweat from her brow using her shirt sleeve and looked uninterestedly towards the news on the screen.
"It's the same thing on every channel. It's times like this that I wish I'd subscribed to some channels that only aired variety shows."
"…What do you think about this situation?"
"Well…"
The weapons development researcher engineer took a deep breath.
"I don't like having more work. And having to put in unpaid overtime is even worse."
"Is this exhibition really that different than usual?"
"Yeah, the project head is really enthusiastic about this one. He said something about needing to overthrow the idea that being a military contractor is horrible so that we can have a whole new market to work in. He also went on about how it's a great time to be a weapons developer. The project head was getting so worked up that I chucked some ice at him to try and cool him down."
"The tech on display here is clearly not here to sell to outside companies. So this must really be a kind of military exercise. We're really just showing off our destructive weapons to the 'enemy' as a diplomatic tool."
"The companies we're trying to work out a deal with aren't going to get the things here as is. Just like how rifles are sold in stores with the full-auto function taken out, these will be sold after reduced by 3 or 4 tiers. The weapons end up just barely creatable by the technology outside Academy City ."
Yomikawa glanced at some men in business suits chatting a bit ways away next to a stage.
"Also, licenses to create the core parts of the weapons are being sold to organizations that work with Academy City in various countries. They just have to inform us of how many they're making and where they're being deployed. Honestly, why is Academy City going this far to gather money?"
"With enough funds, we could mass produce some pretty ridiculous weapons. The project head was saying something about a giant robot that could fly through space. He'll probably choose a teenage boy to pilot it."
"…You don't sound all that motivated."
"Not at all."