Editing Toaru Majutsu no Index:Railgun Chapter4 (section)

===Part 14===

That extreme battle was shaking the ground and blasting the air.

While everyone was focused on that and directing their main fighting force there, Shokuhou Misaki walked down the European street unharassed. She was still leading the 12-year-old girl by the hand, but the girl had a blank look in her eyes and her mind had been altered so she did nothing more than obediently walk in the direction she was led by the hand.

“Everyone seems to be overlooking it because of how chilly it is, but the UV rays are strong up here. Far worse even than on Mount Fuji, so I’m glad I secured some suntan lotion as my top priority☆”

Her Mental Out was practically a cheat code when it came to other people, but it left her extremely vulnerable to nonhuman enemies like machines and military dogs.

In that sense…

(It was lucky the School Garden’s security cameras were vulnerable to the changing temperature and pressure at an altitude of 5000m.)

However, she hadn’t confirmed that every single security camera on the streets had malfunctioned. Whenever she spotted a camera, she had to observe it from a distance and confirm its lens wasn’t adjusting its focus before she could keep going.

And while traveling carefully through the School Garden like that…

“I see. So this is where you were hiding☆”

The food trucks that were everywhere on event days would function as sheltered hideouts without including any of the security cameras linked to the School Garden’s security servers. They would normally have a drive recorder in the front and back, but those would have been removed to meet the School Garden’s demands for any vehicle entering from outside.

In other words, Resanerié’s group could not see inside.

Shirai Kuroko pulled a metal dart from her thigh belt while holding her breath inside, but she poked her head above the counter on the side when she realized who it was.

“Geh. Shokuhou Misaki.”

“Does this mean they’ve found us. Umm, Shirai-san!?”

“Hey, there isn’t much room, Saten-san, so quit moving around. Hot, hot! The hot water for the cup yakisoba is spilling on me!?”

They appeared to be enjoying a sad meal chock full of preservatives and artificial flavors. Shokuhou refused to eat anything but natural ingredients, so those complex chemical equations looked like long-term suicide to her. And how were they making cup noodles when the reduced pressure of their high altitude would have shifted the boiling point of water?

“No need to freak out. First, I wanted to return this girl to you.”

Shokuhou aimed her remote and then the girl gasped.

And…

“Onee-chan!!”

Tsumebakei’s face lit up when she saw Kanaria weakly emerge from the food truck. Shokuhou narrowed her eyes when she saw the small girl spread her arms and run right into her sister.

She showed her face as a girl rather than as the Queen.

“Onee-chan, Onee-chan!!”

“Now, now. Don’t cry, Hoatzin. I’m not going anywhere.”

“Sniff, sniff. That’s Onee-chan’s scent. You’re so warm and soft! You really are the best. Hee hee. No one is as huggable as you!!”

Gradually growing more and more worried, Saten decided to interject.

“W-wait. I thought this was an emotional reunion, so why is it starting to feel uncomfortably Shirai-y?”

But Kanaria herself only seemed to be the doting big sister type.

Shirai brushed her twintail back from her shoulder.

“Heh. People are born with a love of their Onee-sama, search long and hard throughout life for something better, and always return to their Onee-sama in the end. That girl appears to have already arrived at the truth of her soul. She shows real promise for such a young girl.”

“Riiiiight. Can we get down to business please?”

Noticing the conversation derailing to the ends of the universe, Tokiwadai’s Queen cut in.

Shirai frowned.

“Business? What are you even doing here? And without your bodyguard Hokaze-san, I notice.”

“Oh, Hokaze is over thataway, working hard to keep me and this girl safe. Otherwise I never could have made it all this way without Resanerié’s group noticing, even if I was dodging all the security cameras. And since it wouldn’t count as a crime when done in self-defense during an emergency, she earns a perfect score if she happens to accidentally kill Misaka-san while she’s at it☆” It was unclear how serious Shokuhou was as she (seriously) said that, but then she shrugged. “At first glance, it looks like everything is going according to plan for Resanerié Sadis Dialine, but that isn’t actually true, is it? She loses points for having to rush in and silence someone who stumbled onto her secret, she loses further points for allowing anyone to notice that took place, and she loses major points for failing to silence that person and allowing her to be rescued. Do you see where I am going with this?”

Uiharu gulped.

“Y-you mean the Achilles heel of her plan was out where someone could see it? So we just need to know what Kanaria-san saw underground and why she was attacked!!”

Everyone turned toward the Tokiwadai 2nd year who was Mikoto’s classmate and belonged to the newspaper club.

Mikoto had said she would be extremely powerful if she used her power right. And that she had a very strong sense of justice and was afflicted with a super slow-motion curse.

“My, my. It was a factory,” began Yugure Kanaria while letting her huggy sister hug away. “If all they wanted to do was artificially reinforce the School Garden’s ground so it would survive floating in the sky, they would only need to fill it with the cubes of lightweight aluminum alloy used for megafloats, right? My, my. But the space down there was filled with passageways and rooms. That means it was more than just a foundation. That space was added for some kind of purpose. Namely, as a factory.”

She had mentioned this factory back when she was first rescued.

The question was what that factory was meant to do.

“Resanerié’s independents are using two different ideas to bind the thoughts of the School Garden’s students. The first is active acceptance. By painting the teachers and researchers as evil, they have created a fictional enemy to bring the students together. Even though it, well, isn’t clear if the adults really are doing all those bad things.”

Kanaria hugged Tsumebakei like a stuffed animal.

“The other is passive acceptance. The students can continue their usual lives even after the School Garden has declared independence and the adults have been removed. That makes it look like accepting the status quo is the smarter decision compared to resisting and possibly coming to harm. Even if people see a lost child crying next to a long line, will they want to waste all the time they have spent in line to help? My, my. Deep down, they know it is wrong, but as long as enough people are convinced that not protesting is the smart thing to do, Resanerié can keep the crowds quiet. That is the basic principle behind a dictatorship where a minority ruling class controls the majority.”

Some might wonder why a middle schooler could discuss the “basic principle” behind such a dangerous world, but there was a simple answer: Tokiwadai also taught about ''dictatorships and how to psychologically control people.''

Anyone who opposed the executions would be treated like they were wicked people agreeing with the many incidents where the scientists had caused so much harm and had it all covered up by the city’s leaders, so the majority would decide it was smarter to keep any more extreme opinions to themselves.

They would show neither agreement nor disagreement with what was happening, but in the end, that was the same as letting it happen.

“Quite the dictatorship we’ve got here,” said Shokuhou. “It sounds silly, but it’s effective. She has done her homework on human psychology.”

“A-are you kidding me? How is this living their usual lives? If they really do execute someone as a group, then they will all be guilty of murder!”

“Which is exactly why the people who provided support at any stage along the way need to protect the dictatorship that protects them from any law or international treaty they might have broken☆ They won’t be able to take a step outside of these narrow borders without getting arrested. If she successfully sets up a situation where the students have to insist what other countries consider to be evil is considered patriotism in their own country, then those students will be forced to keep up the farce forever.”

“But that isn’t possible,” said Yugure Kanaria.

Everyone turned toward the girl who had witnessed something definitive.

“I don’t see how that factory can possibly be enough. I don’t know if the design was flawed to begin with or if there was some trouble and they couldn’t acquire the necessary machinery in time, but they can’t do it. Based on what I saw down there – my, my – they cannot keep the promises they have made everyone.”

“S-so what exactly is this factory?” hesitantly asked Uiharu. “I don’t see how a factory fits into any of this.”

“Do you remember how the passive acceptance works? My, my. Resanerié’s group says they can preserve everyone’s usual lives without the adults, so the students decide it is best to stay silent for now.”

“What about it?”

“My, my. There are certain necessities for people to live their lives.” Yugure Kanaria approached the crux of the issue. “That vast underground space contains a combination of an artificial vegetable factory and a clone meat factory like the ones found in Academy City’s agricultural buildings. But its specs are not nearly enough to support everyone in the School Garden. That is why they need these executions. I think they hope to solve the problem by reducing the number of mouths to feed.”

Reducing the number of mouths.

That phrase made it hard to believe they were talking about the present day.

What year was it?

Shokuhou Misaki didn’t shy away from harsher thoughts, so she decided to get the ball rolling again.

“Do you have actual data supporting this?”

“R-right here.”

Even with her super slow motion curse, Kanaria seemed intimidated into action by a direct question from the #5.

She hesitantly reached into the chest of her uniform and pulled out a long piece of plastic a bit bigger than a pencil lead case.

It was a digital voice recorder used when doing journalism work for the newspaper club.

Her phone would be able to record voices as well, but everyone would be on the lookout for something everyone carried. The separate device was useful for making a show of switching off her phone while using the voice recorder in secret.

But that wasn’t what mattered this time.

“I found a console in the factory and copied the facility’s specs onto the recorder’s flash memory. My, my. All the detailed numbers might seem confusing, but if you convert it into a graph, it shouldn’t take long to notice the production and consumption rates are out of balance.”

“Let me see that,” said Uiharu Kazari, pulling out her PDA. “I can reveal this to everyone no matter what security they have in place. It looks like the School Garden’s intranet is functioning, so let’s use this to open everyone’s eyes to the truth.”