Editing Toaru Majutsu no Index:Railgun Cold Game (section)

===Part 11===

'''(justice)

“This is the work of Fire Bug,” said Uiharu.

The burnt cellphones were evidence for another case, so they could not gain access to them. Instead, Mikoto had taken a lot of photos and Uiharu had compared those to the Bank, Academy City’s database.

“Of course, that’s just what he’s called online. Misaka-san, you said you saw a laptop burst into flames in a café, right? That reminded me of the Fire Bug case where someone used that as camouflage.”

“Cheh. If this had been Loophole’s esper power, we would’ve had him in checkmate.”

“If he did things that straightforwardly, he could not have set up this theatrical crime,” added Shirai with a sigh.

Uiharu rolled her shoulders with her mobile device in hand.

“Fire Bug uses an esper power called Ion Trade that lets him freely manipulate microscopic ion exchange. He apparently used that to heat up batteries and to cause myocardial infarctions or instant aging just by touching the human body.”

“Would that be Level 3 or 4? It sounds pretty dangerous.”

But if he had a decent esper power, he would have received plenty of support from Academy City. Mikoto’s group could not understand why those in the dark side would dive into that bog themselves.

“During the Fireball Case where surveillance drones kept bursting into flames and crashing, the electronics company apparently falsely accused him of doing it. A recall would have cost the company billions, so they invented themselves a criminal to avoid that.”

“…Wouldn’t that be way too obvious?”

“As you can guess from the fact that we know what happened, it was discovered that the company fabricated the charges and they ended up having a rough time with the Civil Rehabilitation Law. But that was not enough to heal the psychological wounds. Fire Bug kept posting dangerous ‘how to’ videos online in order to teach people how to trigger fires and explosions without using an esper power. It seems quite a few people committed crimes based on his instructions.”

It was a miserable story, but it seemed unlikely Fire Bug was innocent now.

He was not just criticizing corporate vulnerabilities; he had started accepting money and doing jobs for people.

“Messing with batteries isn’t as flashy or reliable as using fuel or explosives, but it becomes a lot easier to pass the result off as an accident. While explosives and arson announce the presence of a criminal, this method is more surreptitious and doesn’t cause as much of a stir.” Shirai paused for a beat. “But a lot is unknown about Fire Bug. He was arrested, but he was never actually indicted. Then he managed to slip past Anti-Skill and Judgment’s surveillance and disappeared.”

“Disappeared?”

“He most likely got plastic surgery. But that would leave him without an ID to use, so life in Academy City would be difficult and he could not leave the city either. Honestly, I just don’t understand why someone would drop themselves into the cracks of society like that.”

He already had an inclination toward crime and supporting himself would be difficult. …It was a stereotypical case for a repeat hired criminal.

“So we of course cannot kick down his door and search his home right away.”

“That isn’t how we’re going to investigate this.” Mikoto nearly cut off Shirai as if she had expected to hear that. “Kuroko. The batteries used by Fire Bug aren’t as reliable as normal bombs or Molotov cocktails, right?”

“Y-yes. What about it?”

“Uiharu-san. Since you confirmed that the incident in the café was a criminal case, you’ve gathered the records for that, right? Do you have the security camera footage of when the laptop started burning?”

“Yes. I do have all that.”

“Fire Bug specializes in disguising his crimes as accidents in order to avoid an investigation, but that eliminate any guarantee that he will actually hit his target. In that case, wouldn’t he be dying to know whether or not his setup actually worked? It would be one thing if it was just a hobby, but he would need to confirm it when it was a hired job. …For example, he might need to see it happen with his own eyes.”

“Ah.”

“He will appear at the crime scene,” stated Mikoto. “He will be someone who was at that café and at the courthouse today. …I guess that technically makes me a suspect, huh? Just to be sure, check a few other cases Fire Bug was involved in. If you find someone who was at all of them, then we’ve identified Fire Bug.”