Part 44: The past changes very slightly
(Fun fact: I have received, to date, 42 emails from Shining Finger.)
"I agree. If we have money, I could buy all the computer parts I want, and go to MayQueen for all five meals of the day. It would be stranger if we didn't try it."As expected of Daru. Quick to the punch.
"So it's money, huh, Okarin... That makes Mayushii sad. We should do something that would bring peace to the world, like, if we gave everybody in the whole wide world an Upa cushion--""Hmph! Peace to the world, you say? What's with the hypocrisy? Who do you think I am? I am the mad scientist, Houou--"
"Okabe, that's too low of a motive."Tch, is everyone a hypocrite here?
"This has nothing to do with world peace or motives. This is an experiment to check whether or not we can change the past. The easiest thing to understand is if we can win the lottery or not, right?"
"But your primary goal is the money, right?""If I had the money, I could say goodbye to this rickety old building. Fuhahahaha! I could get an office in Daibiru or UPX!"
"See? Just like I thought.""I won't whitewash it. If we moved, we could experiment as much as we want without the fear of the muscular manager downstairs. If we had money, we could maintain our Future Gadget creation funds. Also, if we had a million yen, we could buy a truckload of Mayuri's favorite bananas."
"Eh, a t-truckload..."
"Mayuri, don't let this miser mislead you!""Shut it, Celeb Seventeen!"
"S-Se...? Serendipity?""Celeb. Seventeen."
"The hell is that supposed to mean?"
Kurisu makes an unabashedly sulky face. She put in a retort like "In the first place, I'm 18 now!" but I gloriously ignored it. It doesn't matter if she's 17 or 18. The feeling of the words is everything!
"Moeka, what do you think?"No reaction from Moeka.
"Umm...?"Heheheh, her distress flare got shot down. What Moeka's thinking is a mystery to me, but I'll treat her lack of opposition as approval.
"Umm... Let's try changing the hotel I'm staying at."Kurisu's voice lacks conviction.
"That's completely unrelated to us. Celeb Seventeen, if you want to stay in Shinagawa or Uguisudani, then just move there."
"...You don't have to say it like that, do you?"
"Also, why Uguisudani?""Because there's a love hotel zone over th--"
"If you're going to spout nonsense like that, I'll perform a lobotomy on you and scrape out your frontal lobe."Hyeeehhhh, a lobotomy?! How mad scientisty...
"Then, how about we change my usual Juicy Karaage Number One for Chicken Bite Karaage?""Mayuri, you always scarf down karaage.
"Ehh..."
Kurisu and Mayuri's eyes wander in thought, but it doesn't look like they have any good ideas. Moeka... I can never tell what she's thinking. Maybe she's not even thinking. She's been staring at her phone without so much as moving her eyebrows, or even her fingers.
Daru declared support for me, so he's browsing moe news sites as if this whole thing doesn't concern him.
"So in the end, even with a time machine before you all, this is all you can think of. You guys sure lack imagination, huh. If you have no alternative plans, we'll use mine."
Though Kurisu still seems displeased, she doesn't raise any more complaints. So, after all, she does want to see if we can change the past, too. She is a pure scientist, after all. She has the characteristics of a mad scientist too, heheheh.
"It's me. We will now more Operation Urd to the second stage.
...Yeah, no problem. I, Hououin Kyouma, shall take all responsibility.
...Hmph, don't be a nuisance.
...Correct. This is my choice, and also Steins;Gate's choice. The crusade is near.
El Psy Congroo."
I put away my phone and look around the lab mems.
"Now, operation start!"
"You tell us to start, but what exactly should we do?""Are you incapable of doing anything without my instructions?"
"First, we need to buy a lottery ticket." "No, we need to get hold of a past winning number.""Exactly Celeb Seventeen. You understand, don't you?"
"Don't call me Celeb Seventeen." "Anyway, there are different types of lotteries, you know? Think we should go with Dream Summer Jumbo?"
"I saw a TV commercial for that the other day!""Did they announce the winners?"
"Should be next week or the week after.""There's no meaning then! We can only send D-mails to the past, you know!"
"Yeah, thats true. Then, we could wait until the Summer Jumbo drawing date.""You've got your priorities backwards. Don't get fixated on the Summer Jumbo. Let's look for the latest lottery to have announced its winners."
"Hmm, I'll go google it."Daru starts searching on his computer. Kurisu's seriously troubled, as Kurisus are wont to do.
"If someone sent me the winning numbers from the future, would I believe it..." "You know, Mayushii doesn’t know how to buy a lottery ticket in the first place..." "That's true. I don't think teenage girls buy lottery tickets.""Moeka, have you bought one?"
Then, she shakes her head a little bit.
"Okarin, have you bought one?""I've tried the LOTO SIX once."
Result, utter failure. Not even a penny.
"Ahh, LOTO SIX might be just perfect. I'm pretty sure they announce winning numbers every week."Promptly searching on the net, we find out that LOTO SIX announces winning numbers every thursday. They've also uploaded last week's 1st through 7th place numbers on the homepage.
"Exactly. Though, of course, we have to mention that it's a winning LOTO SIX number."
"Last week's 1st prize was... woah, 200 million!"What, 200 million?! That was more money than I had expected, so my heart skipped a beat.
(200 million yen in Aug 2010 = $2,339,400.)
"N-No, wait! 1st is too much..."
"Why?" "200 million... that really is surprising, isn't it? Hahahah...""No, not that. 1st would be... too conspicuous."
"Huh?"
"It won't."
"Then why not just have Mayushii win?""No good. Stage 2 of Operation Urd does have its risks, just like Celeb Sev over there said."
"Celeb Sev... don't abbreviate it.""In order to take responsibility, I'll be winner."
"You're not just going to take all the money for yourself, right?"I ignore Celeb Sev's straight man attack. The prospect of hogging 200 million yen certainly is appetizing. That amount of money is too big a change to the past. Just like Celeb Sev said, we can't ignore the Butterfly Effect. We should flap our butterfly wings as small as possible.
I-I'm not nervous at all.
"Umm, last time the dividend was... 23 million yen."($269,031.)
"...L-Let's try aiming for 3rd prize."
"That decreases it to 700,000 yen, though."($8,187.9.)
"Ah, yeah, that's good. That should be about right."
"So Okabe's a chicken, huh.""Heh, heheheh...! That's not something you should say after worrying so much about the risk of time paradoxes, don'tcha think, Celeb Sev?!"
"I'm begging you, please stop calling me that... I'll settle for Assistant. Besides, I don't get your line of thought.""You're considering risks, and deciding if it's too much or too little money. You're the stubborn one."
"Uhmmm, with 700,000 yen, could we fill a truckload of bananas?"
"For 3rd prize, you need to get five matching numbers."Last week's six winning numbers are 02 12 19 34 35 and 40. The bonus number is 08.
1st prize is matching all six numbers.
2nd prize is matching 5 numbers plus the bonus number.
3rd prize is matching only 5 numbers.
"Moeka. I assign to you your first duty as a new lab mem."
"Eh...?"Moeka stares in wonder. Seems she didn't expect her name to be called.
"Think of what to send in the D-mail. Think of something that would convince an unknowing me one week ago to buy into the LOTO SIX."
"Me...?""You are the mail demon, so this should be your strong point, right?"
She doesn't seem that interested, but Moeka nods.
We register the forwarding mail address into the X68000 attached to the microwave. That address is my phone's, of course.
"Thursday last week, so about five days ago, right? Sending your D-mail there?"Putting on the white coat, Kurisu double checks the dedicated phone attached to the Microwave Ophone (Temp).
"The drawing was five days ago, so we have to send it to before then, don't we?" "In that case, one week ago. 7 days is 168 hours, so let's round a bit and set it to 170#." "Ummm, 1,7,0,#..."Moeka finished writing the mail. She already punched in the text on my phone.
For the number, we replaced the 40 with 37. This way, we should eliminate the possibility of a 1st and 2nd prize.
"Well, this should be it."
We know that we can only send 36 bytes.
"This kinda looks suspicious, doesn't it? Eheheh..."
"...I'll redo it."I hurriedly stop Moeka from erasing the mail.
"This is fine. I don't think there's any other way. Though, it certainly is suspicious."
"It'll be fine! Actually, Okarin loves suspicious things, so I think it's perfect♪"That's not entirely incorrect, but it feels like she's making fun of me.
We're sending a mail across space-time, but preparing for that is surprisingly simple.
"Now... it's time to open Steins;Gate."
"It's been bugging me, but what is that stain's gait thing?" "It's Okarin's catch phrase♪""Steins;Gate is Steins;Gate. Nothing more, nothing less."
"That doesn't explain anything.""Don't complain about every single thing. That's not what we should be thinking about now."
I desperately try to stop that finger from trembling.
"Welp, starting up the microwave..."I gulp. The turntable begins to resolve in the microwave without a door. With a thunderous roar, discharge begins to fire off into empty space.
The timer ticks down. 163... 162... 161...
Change the past. It seems very simple to do. But just like Kurisu said, our foundation might collapse. I said I'd take responsibility, but that was just talk in the end. If a time paradox occurs, the world might take irreparable damage.
150... 149... 148...
Damage the likes of me can't even begin to compensate for.
All is well. Now I just need to press the send button.
136... 135... 134...
Can't stop now. I'm looking ahead. Curiosity pushes me from behind. There's no way this will destroy the world. That's what I tell myself.
122... 121... 120...
I put strength into my button finger.
My phone displays a flying mail animation and the word "Sending".
116... 115....
Finally, that word changes to "Sent", and--
Video: D-mail Sent
