Editing Toaru Majutsu no Index:Crossover Chapter 1 (section)

===Part 6===

There were no windows.

All four walls were filled with monitors and control consoles. Transparent partitions cut across near the center of the room. They looked something like transparent white boards and they displayed countless white dots of unknown meaning.

There was a single table in the center.

Something like a map was spread out, but they had never seen the writing system used on it.

“Wait, are we really having the language barrier thrown at us now? <strike>I mean, we don’t even know what language we’re using to speak to each other. </strike>”

“Eh? What was that? There was some weird static and I couldn’t hear you at all.”

Lots of metal pipes moved from the ceiling and to the wall, but they did not seem to carry water or steam. The Zashiki Warashi opened and closed the round covers attached to parts resembling the bell of a trumpet.

“Speaking tubes? I’m not sure if this place is high-tech or low-tech.”

A speaking tube was a device that let people in separate locations speak to each other using the same principle as a stethoscope. It was a lot like the grandfather of internal phone lines.

The ends of speaking tubes were packed in along the wall, so it all looked like a single giant device such as a pipe organ.

“Is this room the core of the entire underground space?” speculated Mikoto.

The countless rooms filled with traps may have been a failed attempt to keep them from reaching here.

But…

“What is this?” muttered Kamijou Touma.

They all must have felt the same. All of the devices in the room were very specialized. Or rather, they were a mixture of high-tech and low-tech that did not seem like a natural evolution of machinery, so it was hard to tell what it was all for. However, one thing among it all was a dead giveaway.

It was located right next to the central table that had a map spread out on it.

A square pedestal rose to a height between Kamijou’s waist and chest. It looked perfect for holding the bust of a school headmaster or for some ugly sculpture, but it did not seem to have been made for that purpose.

It contained something else.

Attached near the top of the front side was a metal wheel measuring about fifty centimeters across. Straight bars were placed around it at a set interval much like bicycle spokes or the lines between pizza slices.

Even if they had never touched one before, anyone would have seen one in photographs or on TV.

The Zashiki Warashi in a red yukata named the device.

“A ship’s wheel?”

“Wait a second.”

Heivia looked around again.

Unsatisfied with the many monitors and consoles, the room expanded its data displays with the transparent partitions dividing up the room. He looked across the countless flashing dots of light and spoke.

“Come to think of it, this is a lot like a warship’s battle command center.”

If there was a control room with a ship’s wheel, there had to be a rudder it was connected to.

“Does that mean we aren’t underground?” muttered Kamijou in shock. “''We’re on a ridiculously huge ship?''”