Editing Toaru Majutsu no Index:GT Volume5 Chapter3 (section)

===Part 9===

Kamijou’s group walked through the city to reach a neighboring district.

This would never end if they failed to rescue Youen before Anti-Skill Negotiator Tessou Tsuzuri reached her.

They arrived in District 10, but unlike in Alice’s world, they had no business with the abandoned leisure spa.

“The garbage incinerator? Oh, that’s ''the place next door'', isn’t it? But why there!?”

“The Carrier wouldn’t get scared and skip town just because the law is after her,” said Shirai Kuroko. “I agree with your assessment there. During Handcuffs, she repeatedly attacked an Anti-Skill station and a forensic investigation facility to keep anyone from investigating further.”

''She wasn’t sure why'', but her teleportation didn’t work on Kamijou Touma. She had tried it herself, so now she was stuck traveling on foot with him.

“So we only need to work backwards from there. The garbage incinerator is not much of a threat itself, but many garbage trucks gather here, those trucks contact the garbage collection areas around the city, and those areas are accessed by the countless cleaning robots. So if a high-density contamination begins here, the microbe or chemical can spread to every part of the city.”

“This late at night? I thought garbage collection was done in the mornings.”

“It’s winter break. And close to New Year’s. The restaurants are packed, which means more garbage. They must have a special schedule in place for this time of year.”

“Damn. Why are the villains always so clever and calculating?”

“But that aside,” continued Shirai Kuroko. “The Carrier specializes in controlling urban pests and vermin. Even more than the garbage collection infrastructure, this place is like her ''home turf''.”

“So what do you think Youen is trying to do? Cause a large enough panic to escape safely, or eliminate all of her enemies?”

“With her twin missing, I have to wonder if she even has a real goal in mind.”

“?”

They could see a boxy concrete building with several smokestacks on top.

Kamijou’s feet nearly stopped moving as soon as it came into view.

“This isn’t good.”

“What isn’t?” innocently asked Alice, wiggling the round fluffball on the back of her apron.

It wasn’t clear if she really didn’t understand. With that otherworldly storybook girl, it was possible she actually understood every little thing that was going on.

The large facility had more than just the one building. And it didn’t seem to just be split between the kinds of garbage. It was clearly linked to the adjacent facility beyond the concrete wall.

“The closed leisure spa. Hasn’t it been overrun by illegal homes? Man, those expand its silhouette more than you would think. Are there really that many people stuck living there?”

“You know an awful lot about this underground area,” noted Shirai. “Did you hear about it on a test of courage video? Anyway, there is definitely a large uncounted population here.”

“Does the Carrier see humans as no more than larger vermin she can convert into infection bombs?”

“I don’t know if she will use the water or air to spread the infection, but it could spread to the leisure facility through the ducts and pipes, leading to victims there. The place appears to be shut down, but the pipes are still connected. And at her small size, she might be able to travel directly through them herself instead of just sending bugs or microbes.”

The front gate was open and there was no sign of any guards.

No, that wasn’t accurate. The concrete wall surrounding the facility was unusually swollen in places due to the thin white threads covering it. The collections of threads took the shape of humans.

“Eek!?”

“That looks like the Carrier’s work all right,” said Shirai. “Uiharu, arrange to have backup and an ambulance sent to District 10’s garbage incinerator. Uiharu!?”

Shirai Kuroko called the name a few more times before giving her phone a puzzled look. She had apparently lost her connection. Was Youen responsible for that?

(Or was it someone else? Youen might not be the only threat here.)

The dark roadside trees rustled unnaturally nearby. They had no idea how many people were here. Kamijou had no real reason to do it, but he made sure to grab smiling Alice’s small hand and pull her forward. More than just let him do it, she innocently pressed against the side of his hip.

“What now? Should we go in on our own?” he asked.

“Yes.” Shirai Kuroko shook her uncooperative phone. “I would normally suggest we wait for backup, but if we are even a second too slow to prevent Hanatsuyu Youen’s distribution plan, Academy City really is doomed. Similarly, there isn’t much we can do if the Anti-Skill Negotiator gets the Carrier on her side.”

Kamijou was afraid to touch the clumps of white threads on the wall, but they had to do something if someone was trapped inside. He wasn’t sure how much it would help, but he covered his mouth and nose with his jacket’s sleeve and peeled away the clumps of threads with a stick he found on the ground nearby. It felt less like breaking through a spiderweb and more like splitting open a cocoon the size of a sleeping bag.

He worked to at least get the faces of the silhouettes open. None of the guards he uncovered were conscious, but he could at least hear them breathing.

“Good, they’re still alive,” he said.

“Are those moth scales?” asked Shirai.

“The girl knows about poisonous moths! They already have their pokey bits as caterpillars, so everyone says not to touch them. They can’t do anything to the girl, though.”

“These aren’t scales,” said Kamijou, staring at the Judgment girl, who shrugged.

“If you can’t tell just by looking, that sounds all the more dangerous to me. I can’t tell you what that ''specialist'' is using, but let’s hope the hospitals have a serum or antidote available.” She placed a handkerchief over her mouth and carefully observed it from a step away. “But laying them down or treating them with our bare hands would be too much of a risk. We can’t say what they were infected with like this and the threat might not be visible like scales. Since they’re unconscious, we can be certain the Carrier used ''something meant to knock them out''. They should have airtight hazmat suits in a specialized garbage incinerator, so it would be best to help them after ensuring our own safety.”

“Are you serious?”

“With that Carrier, I find it odd she didn’t just kill them when they were in her way. That makes me suspect they are meant as infection mines.”

Kamijou couldn’t rely on what he knew from Alice’s world. The real villain named Hanatsuyu Youen wouldn’t open up to you so easily.

He had thought he understood that, but seeing the harm she caused still came as a shock.

“Damn, that’s one more reason we can’t die here.”

“Agreed. We need to stop Hanatsuyu Youen, acquire a hazmat suit, and get them medical care. We must not be taken out of the fight before then.”

They passed through the open front gate and entered the grounds.

It was a large place, probably because so many garbage trucks had to come and go. As they approached the service entrance to the large boxy building, they found the doorknob melted. That would be Hanatsuyu Youen the Carrier’s handiwork. Kamijou and Shirai exchanged a nod before pushing open the stainless steel door with their foot to avoid touching the melted portion.

There was no one inside.

But once they stepped into the building, the air felt so much more tense.

It was like they had crossed a line with that step over the threshold.

“This is pretty big for a garbage incinerator. Where would Youen have gone?” asked Kamijou.

“Probably not the actual incinerator at the very core. She wants to infect the entire city by sending it back through the garbage collection route – from here to the trucks, to the garbage collection areas, and finally to the cleaning robots. I don’t know if she’s using a microbe or a chemical or what specific pest or vermin will be carrying it, but she doesn’t need to expose any of it to those temperatures above 1300 degrees for extended periods of time.”

“Then where?”

“Where the garbage trucks gather. She only has to infect the pit where the trucks dump their garbage. Then every truck that stops by will be infected.”

According to Shirai, most of the garbage was sent to be recycled, so there wasn’t really very much “fuel”. That meant most of the garbage gathered around the city was sent to sorting facilities.

The unnatural lack of people suggested the place was almost entirely automated. Or maybe everyone else had been neutralized like the guards out front.

“Anyway, I wonder where the hazmat suits are,” said Shirai. “Whether she is using microbes or a chemical, I want to be protected from the microscopic threat as soon as possible.”

On the way, Kamijou found an open door, checked inside, and looked puzzled.

Youen wasn’t there.

“Hey, Shirai. What’s this?”

“?”

The twintails girl gave him a curious look, so he tossed her what he had found in the small room. It was a cardboard box about half the size of a chocolate bar.

She caught it and checked the front and back.

“It is an ethanolamine drug.”

“Which is?”

In this case, his ignorance wasn’t due to being a failing student. That term wasn’t found in any high school textbooks. He initially wondered if it was used in esper development, but apparently not.

Shirai actually seemed surprised he didn’t know.

“Oh? Do you live a happy life free of seasonal allergies? It’s just an allergy medication. It works on pollen as well as some inflammation and bug bites, so it makes sense that they stock a stronger version at a garbage processing facility. The only problem is that the histamines involved in allergies exist within the body, so suppressing them too much makes you drowsy. What about it?”

Kamijou pointed toward a corner of the small room.

There was a clear gap there.

“At least two or three of the cardboard boxes of the stuff is missing. Maybe more.”

“There’s our answer then. Damn!! The over-the-counter stuff wouldn’t be a problem, but this is much stronger!!”

Shirai clicked her tongue and walked down the corridor. At a rapid pace.

Kamijou was afraid she would teleport away if he didn’t follow and call out to her.

“Hey! If the real Carrier is as bad as you say, then why is she sticking to something that only ''knocks people out''? Just like striking with the back of the blade, safely knocking someone out is a lot harder than killing them!”

“The real Carrier? If you only look at its effects, this drug is no more than an allergy medicine. Even if this one is stronger than you can buy over the counter. So unlike dioxin and PCB, this won’t trip the cleaning robots’ toxin sensors. Can you think of an option more efficient than using the very drug they already have stockpiled here?”

“By any chance, do you have a non-efficiency-related reason in mind too?”

“It’s an irregular side effect and won’t happen to everyone, but even a small percentage collapsing is a problem. You should never take a drug you don’t need. And remember that the Carrier is an expert at using urban pests and vermin. I’m sure you can imagine what will happen to any victims who end up collapsed helplessly in their rooms or around the city. The creatures they usually crush underfoot without even noticing will swarm them while they can’t move a finger.”

“…”

Was Hanatsuyu Youen the Carrier really ''that bad a person''?

“Wait, Shirai! Look!!”

“?”

A plastic board hung on the wall. It displayed a simple map of the facility. The garbage dumping pit Shirai had mentioned was on the west end of the building. The map showed the entire outer wall as a metal shutter. With so many garbage trucks lining up to dump their trash in that pit, it made sense.

“So we take a left at the next intersection to reach the western outer wall. This means Youen wouldn’t have had difficulty reaching the goal either.”

“It isn’t that far, but just to be safe…”

Kamijou pulled out his old folk’s phone and took a photo of the map. Then a few more in case the first was blurry from his unsteady hand. He had to hold Alice back so she didn’t photobomb him with her smiling face.

At the same time, something dripped from the ceiling and the map started to grow dark. He initially thought the roof was leaking, but this was different. The board was made of plastic. Simple rainwater wouldn’t discolor it like this.

Plus, the dark stain was moving.

This wasn’t a liquid at all.

“Cr-”

He tried and failed to force his dried throat to operate.

Alice’s cheerful voice spoke for him.

“Crickets!”

They all looked up. A glistening light moved in waves along the corridor ceiling. As soon as they noticed, tens of thousands of crickets began vibrating their wings at once, creating an explosion of sound.