Editing Toaru Majutsu no Index:RailgunSS3 Chapter5 (section)

===Part 1===

The ambulance drove toward a District 7 hospital.

But this was different from using a phone and bicycle to deliver food. There was a lot they had to do before arriving.

An EMT and the two Anti-Skill officers looked down at the small girl belted to the stretcher. It was the EMT who took the central role here. He attached a transparent oxygen mask to the limp girl’s mouth. Then he placed a sensor shaped like a fluorescent light on the leotard and slowly slid it across her smooth curves from neck to hips.

“The suspect’s age is estimated to be 10 to 12, her sex is female, and I guess I should mention she is showing the early signs of secondary sex characteristics. Her connection to a crime is confirmed. She does not possess any identifying items or documents. Based on the tag and logo, her leotard is a standard product of a sporting goods company, so we can’t use that to determine her school. The only other noteworthy fact is her lack of shoes. Her weight is estimated to be 34kg and her blood type is B Rh+. The simple test kit shows slight allergies to shrimp and cedar pollen, but nothing else. Okay, we can use whatever drugs we need. Moving on to her injuries, she was knocked unconscious and lightly burned by a high-voltage current and, although the medical sensor can’t get a good reading with the leotard covering her entire body, she also has some contusions. …They are located on the front and back of her body, so it does not look like she simply fell during the arrest. The bruises on her right palm and shoulder are likely from restraining the recoil of a firearm…but there are some others I am unsure how to explain. She may have been in a fight before arriving at the club.”

The EMT recorded his voice while finishing his scan of the leotard girl belted to the stretcher and then he used a pair of scissors to cut through the thin material covering her flat chest and left arm. The fact that she was a girl did not matter here. He attached electrodes to her smooth chest and her temple, rubbed alcohol inside her elbow to disinfect the area around the vein, and slowly inserted an IV needle while the ambulance rocked around them.

He groaned slightly when he checked the monitor.

“Ugh, there’s a significant disturbance in her brainwaves and heartrate. I didn’t notice any broken bones or serious internal bleeding, but did I overlook something?”

“No. She was shocked by electricity until she could no longer move and then arrested as the suspect in a major crime, so it would be odd if she was not extremely stressed. This proves she’s still conscious. Excuse me, but my name is Inoue. Have you treated criminal suspects before?”

“Only some people to blame for traffic accidents, but, um, this girl used a real gun, didn’t she? That’s not something you come across every day.”

Did they think they were safe as long as she was strapped to the stretcher?

The girl called Riot still had a chance until they injected her with a tranquilizer that would mess with her thoughts. While checking the faces of each of the adults looking down at her, she directed her focus beyond them. She sent her Telekinesis behind the Anti-Skill officers’ heads. She chose a sharp scalpel from among the medical tools affixed to the wall and had it slowly float up. Instead of actual surgery, it was a first-aid tool meant to remove crushed bullets or jagged shrapnel from the body. This clean ambulance smelled of alcohol, so she did not need to worry about biological impurities like mites or fleas. If she was willing to make a surprise attack, she could quickly kill everyone else here and cut the stretcher’s belts. And after doing that, the driver would have to do what she said.

(This isn’t over yet. They took my blood, but they haven’t looked it up in the Bank yet. If I destroy their local devices, I can still escape this.)

“So we’re finally making some progress. Right, Inoue?”

“Yes. Sorry about shoving all the worst parts onto you.”

“It’s fine. I know my appearance has a way of scaring kids. At school, I’m the ‘scary gym teacher’. It’s a thankless job, but I felt like the world had opened up before me when I realized that actually prevents a lot of trouble before it starts. You could say it’s the role I was born to play.”

The casually chatting adults thought it was already over.

They were oblivious to the sharp blade dancing behind their backs.

“This was a strange case, but we don’t need to pursue every little thing. If we get her to talk, we can learn everything that way.”

“How about we take some time off after this is over, Inoue?”

“Oh, do you have a bunch of leave left? I’ve used mine up.”

“Really? You’re no fun. I was hoping to head to the racetrack and use your intuition to win some money.”

But…

(…?)

The strapped-down leotard girl saw something out of the corner of her eye.

One of the Anti-Skill officers – Inoue was it? – was surreptitiously moving his hand. He turned the valve on the spare tank not hooked up to Riot’s mask. A colorless gas silently leaked out.

Hyperventilation is the most obvious example, but oxygen could be harmful when its concentration was too high. And it was a necessary substance, so it would not show up in an autopsy or poison test.

The person increasing the concentration only had to be careful about how much they breathed in and restrict it to one half or one third of the usual amount. It was a definite toxin, but no special masks or suits were needed to avoid its effects.

Once the preparations were complete, he only had to wait. The oxygen’s effects would work their way deep into the minds of those who continued breathing normally.

“Gah…ah?”

The first to feel faint was the EMT who was performing a precise task.

“What’s wrong?”

Maeda tried to support the woozy EMT’s shoulders, but then he realized he could not move the way he wanted to. And once the symptoms were this evident, it was already too late.

“Ino…ue? Are you…okay?”

“…”

Inoue leaned back against the ambulance’s wall and shut his eyes. Although he may have been sticking out his tongue in his heart.

Maeda did not have it in him to give this anymore thought.

They had all collapsed to the floor, but modern ambulances used a camera instead of a rearview mirror. And since the treatment space was separated from the driver’s seat by a white curtain to make sure the drive recorders of oncoming traffic could not peek inside, the driver would not have noticed anything was wrong.

Only the leotard girl who was breathing the oxygen supplied by her mask was safe.

And after making sure the other adults in the treatment space had fallen unconscious, Inoue pressed an index finger against his lips, switched off the recorder the EMT had been using, and made contact.

“(I will deal with the driver. An ambulance is a single box, so even with the thick curtain slowing the flow of oxygen, he will not last long. But we can’t have him passing out.)”

“Who are you?”

“(I am Reversible. I believe this is our first time meeting face to face, but I know you quite well, Riot.)”

The leotard girl breathed a sigh of relief when she heard that.

Luck was apparently still on her side. No, this may have shown just how thoroughly her employer had infiltrated this city.

But then she heard a clicking sound.

“…Ugh…”

And a groan.

She looked over to see supposedly-unconscious Maeda had reached a hand toward something hanging at his hip. But instead of his weapon, it was his radio.

“Inoue.”

He had hit the emergency button to inform the rest of Anti-Skill that something was wrong.

“Tch.”

Inoue clicked his tongue and twisted an oxygen tank’s valve. But instead of the spare tank, this was the one hooked up to the leotard girl’s mask.

“Kah!?”

Her mind immediately faded and her thoughts scattered. Now she could not use her power. Her powerful Telekinesis could grab gasses if she tried, but it was too late once she was having trouble thinking straight.
Riot’s eyes widened in confusion.

“Why…? I…am…”

“I thought you might not use your power if I earned your trust, but now sealing it off by force seems safer. As much of a pain as it is.”

“…”

“Sorry. You’re on the same side as me, so I was hoping to give you a quick death free of pain and fear, but that’s no longer an option. Thanks to him.”

Inoue kicked sluggish Maeda in the face.

“And on that note…Maeda, you shouldn’t have done that. I could’ve passed it off as a malfunctioning tank knocking everyone unconscious. Then I could have set everything up so only the girl there got a lethal dose. Well, the tank’s manufacturer might have had a bad time of it what with all the recalls, but only the one criminal would have died. Was that so wrong?”

“I…”

Maeda seemed to be struggling to even stay conscious.

But that may have been why his unfiltered thoughts made it through.

“I am an Anti-Skill officer… The lives of criminals aren’t mine to take…”

“Oh, is that so?”

Inoue barely seemed to care.

There was not even any malice in his voice. He did not view the other man as an equal.

“But you should have given some thought to what would happen once you ruined my plans. I want to stay in Anti-Skill after this, you know? So I can’t leave behind anything that would risk that. Do you get what that means? More than just the one person has to die. Now everyone here has to die. The entire ambulance full of people needs to lose their lives in a natural fashion. That way the Anti-Skill backup won’t be suspicious when they find me as the sole survivor.”

A confused comment of “What? Eh? What’s going on?” came from beyond the white curtain. The driver had apparently finally sensed the ominous atmosphere from the back.

Inoue held a finger to his lips.

“Watch carefully, Maeda. What is about to happen is your fault. I wonder if he’s married? He might have a wife and kids waiting for him back home. If it’s a two-generation home, his parents might be there too. But now it all falls apart thanks to some complete stranger’s foolish decision. He isn’t to blame. He did nothing wrong. But now a dark shadow is going to fall on the lives of his beloved family. They may never find their smiles again.”

Maeda desperately tried to reach out a hand, but it was no use. Inoue’s ankle passed by just a few centimeters out of reach as the man walked by and pushed the white curtain aside. He reached an arm around from behind the driver’s seat and Maeda did not even have time to shout a warning.

“Run a-…!”

“It’s no use, Maeda. You killed him.”

After a dull crack, the ambulance swerved to the side.

Inoue tossed something heavy onto the passenger seat and then climbed into the driver’s seat himself.

Maeda clenched his teeth and used the vehicle’s swerving motion to place himself on top of the restrained suspect.

“I’ve already…reported this. That unnatural oxygen poisoning won’t explain a broken neck. You’ve left traces of your crimes everywhere, Inoue…”

“It’s all in how you do it. I just have to dispose of the entire ambulance in a way that makes a broken neck look natural. And my target will of course be killed in the process.”

Inoue waved back from the driver’s seat.

No, was that a phone in his hand?

“I thought they stopped allowing this after that incident with a vehicle packed full of hydrazine, but I suppose the caution wears off with time. Products like these are apparently pretty common these days. Not that unmanned control tech is all that impressive in a city full of autonomous cleaning robots.”

“…?”

“I am talking about driverless vehicles. The Zero-Day Link AI server gathers more than 8000 vulnerabilities, virus varieties, and other online risks on a daily basis and sends them to the virus storage center, so making such a large truck driverless seems incredibly dangerous to me.”

There was a straining sound as the leotard girl tried to move her seemingly paralyzed limbs since the excessive oxygen supply kept her from using her esper power. But the belts firmly strapping them down kept her from leaving the stretcher.

Maeda also seemed unable to do anything. It was too late to do anything after the effects were noticeable, so he could not even stand on his own two legs. His right hand was touching something where it had landed, but he would have trouble grabbing something and throwing it. He only had enough power to crush a rotten tomato in his grip.

Only Inoue could act.

And he actually looked excited by what he was about to do.

“Okay, it’s time for an exciting car stunt. Where’s a good location for a head-on collision?”