Editing Toaru Majutsu no Index:GT Volume4 Chapter3 (section)

===Part 2===

Kamijou Touma walked through the minus-20 weather of Los Angeles.

He had a single goal: find Melzabeth Grocery, who had been set up as the culprit behind the disappearances as part of R&C Occultics’s conspiracy, take her back to her daughter Helcalia, and have her apologize for worrying the girl.

He would fight anything to accomplish it.

Powerful resolve filled his mind as he asked a question with a white puff of breath.

“''Umm, where am I supposed to find Melzabeth''?”

He was almost in tears. It was 20 below outside. It was closer to midday than morning now, but the temperature showed no sign of rising. He had barely escaped Union Station with his life, but if he walked around aimlessly, he would turn into a popsicle before long.

Othinus sighed in exasperation from his shoulder and recrossed her legs. She also crossed her arms to give him a haughty look.

“In the broadest sense, Los Angeles is a collection of several large cities. Trying to find a single person there on foot is as reckless as plans come. If you still don’t understand the sheer size of LA, keep in mind that there are 375km of pipe drawing water across the desert to the city center here. This is the US’s 2nd biggest city and its economic value makes all that development more than worth it.”

“Y-you mean it’s too large to walk from one side to the other?”

“A splendid answer well worth seeking out a god’s aid for, don’t you think?”

Now he was even more certain he would freeze to death before finding that Indian mother. Just walking brought him closer to death out here, so searching without a single hint was much too difficult.

So…

“Do you think there could be anything more hidden on here?”

He let out another white puff of breath as he pulled out that smartwatch. The square face, the red and black band, and the small scratches and smudges sure seemed to hide some important meaning, but none of it did him any good when he didn’t have a code sheet telling him how to interpret it.

It was like having a list of all the correct answers for a multiple choice test but not knowing what test it went to.

Othinus sighed.

“If you want to pursue Melzabeth Grocery, you do have a few keywords to go off of. 1. Her daughter Helcalia. 2. R&C Occultics. 3. Space Engage. Searching based on those things would probably be the most realistic option.”

Kamijou Touma looked down at the smartwatch again.

“I must be big dumb-dumb cause that didn’t help me at allllll.”

“You aren’t trying to get out of thinking for yourself because you think people find you cute when you’re dumb, are you?”

But if he couldn’t find anything with the smartwatch, maybe it was best to try something else. He also had the phone that synced with the watch.

Needless to say, that Grapple MilliPhone had to be chock full of personal information, but an ordinary high school boy had no way of getting past the lock screen to see inside.

“In that case…hmm, I guess I’ll have to ask her for help.”

“You aren’t even trying to do this on your own, are you? Being stupid will not work out in your favor, you know?”

Othinus sounded utterly exasperated while Kamijou operated a mobile device. But this was not the mother’s phone he had collected.

He used his own Academy City phone to call one of the numbers in the address book.

It was only a phone call, but he spoke with the world’s ugliest attempt at sounding ingratiating.

“M-Misaka-shaaaan? I’d like some help from your zappy powers.”

[[Image:GT_Index_v04_214.jpg|thumb]]

It was so pathetic that Helcalia Grocery might have reflexively kicked him in the balls if she heard it so soon after trusting him to the point of tears.

However, he was not a private eye or a veteran police detective and there was only so much a high school boy could do.

But he had decided to do what he could.

He would not let that mother and daughter be lost in the darkness, no matter what it took. So if he lacked the skills and knowledge, he would find a way to make up for it. He would not hold anything in reserve. He would use every single thing he could think of. And just because he was a failure of a Level 0 did not mean everyone around him was too.

On the other side of the phone, Academy City’s #3 spoke with ice in her voice.

“So you vanish from the hospital without telling me, but the instant you need some help, you decide to get me involved in your own mess like I’m suddenly a party member again? I see, I see, I see.”

“Kyahh! Is that Kamijou-san!? Why is he calling!? Where is he right now!? Kyah, kyah!!” shouted ''a mysterious voice'', but he couldn’t focus on that right now.

“Please, Biri Biri! This is an international call, not a free calls app!! Your anger is understandable, but I need you to act quickly right now!!”

“Oh, if you have a problem with this, I can always connect you to a mysterious call center in South Africa. Then you can think long and hard about what you’ve done while watching the call time rise on that abnormally pricey connection that refuses to hang up no matter how many times you hit the ‘end call’ button.”

“What in the world!? Did that defunct Dial Q service come back to haunt us as a phone fee black hole!?”

“And please stop shrieking, Shokuhou! Since when are you the giddy schoolgirl type!?”

“I was born this way.”

“And since when did you have hearts in your eyes?”

“I was born this way! Yes, born this way!”

“Well, it stops right now or I’m killing you.”

He heard a physical altercation over the phone, but he could not have this conversation delayed indefinitely. Those girls back in their peaceful country did not know the hell that was international phone rates.

Othinus, meanwhile, sighed with her arms still crossed.

“(She complains a lot for someone who picked up on the third ring. Was she waiting in front of her phone?)”

“Hey, put on that girl I just heard whispering,” said Mikoto. “I need to have a talk with her. And depending on her answer, I might just blow up the lithium battery by your ear.”

“?”

Kamijou looked puzzled and Othinus only gave a carefree whistle from his shoulder.

At any rate…

“I need to get past a phone’s lock screen, so can you open it with your powers?”

“A phone, huh? What kind? An Alkaloid?”

“It’s a Grapple MilliPhone. Why don’t you sound too confident?”

“It’d be a cinch if I had it in front of me, but over the internet is trickier. Those small, multifunction devices are so easy to accidentally break. Plus, the MilliPhones are rumored to have a planned obsolescence system called Telomere… Is the data backed up? If I fry the chip, you’ll never be able to see what’s on it.”

“But I really need to track down Melzabeth. The places she normally visits, her hideouts…anything really.”

“Dwehahhhhhhhhh!!!!!!”

A bizarre yell suddenly burst from the phone.

He thought maybe Miss Misaka Mikoto had overworked her brain and gone crazy, but apparently not.

“Onee-sama!! I wasn’t done speaking with you! And now you’re having a phone conversation in bed? You know you shouldn’t use phones in the hospital, don’t you? There, justification acquired! Now I can drag her to a mysterious basement of loving and courageous punishment! Calexa, order me a scavenger’s daughter and a pear of anguish!!”

“You don’t have to be so careful about it without any specialized equipment in this room, so settle down, Kuroko!!”

“Pant, pant!! And you, whoever that is helplessly on the other end of the phone!! What do you think is happening to Onee-sama right now? Just what deliciously naughty things are being done to her!? Heh heh heh. Use your imagination to its fullest and strain your ears to pick up every little sound. Weh heh heh. This! Yes, ''this'' is the true joy of cuckoldryyyyyyyyyyyy!!!!!!”

Mikoto seemed busy, so maybe it was about time he hung up, had a snack, and tried again later. The international fees were really starting to scare him now.

But even as he stared off into the distance, the previous intruder said something more. 

“Also, ''what was that about Melzabeth Grocery''?”

“?”

For a moment, he really thought he couldn’t breathe.

How had she known his question before he asked? Had she heard what he said to Mikoto? But he didn’t remember giving the Grocery last name. Why did someone know about Melzabeth Grocery all the way in Academy City!?

“Wait, um, why do you know about Melzabeth? Because, uh…”

“Sigh. You mean the president of Space Engage, don’t you? Then again, it’s one of that giant IT company’s slave companies now.”

Kamijou and Othinus exchanged a glance.

Why did someone on the other side of the globe – and a first year in middle school at that – know about this?

Shirai Kuroko replied before he could even ask and she made it sound like a silly question.

He was quickly reminded that the students of prestigious Tokiwadai Middle School really did live in another world.

“Um, why do you sound so surprised? My bank and investment firm contact me all the time about these things. And when they tell me about a promising new start-up with private equity, of course I’m going to check it out.”

“Investment firm? Private equity?”

Kamijou glanced down at his Transla-Pen.

But no. He couldn’t give up yet. This conversation was supposedly in Japanese, after all.

“To be clear, I am not an actual trader or marketer. It’s not about making money; it’s about getting a feel for how money moves around. Think of it like a form of social studies. The experts have already gone over all of this before introducing it to me and their reputation is riding on their recommendations. Maybe it’s like a fishing pond for special customers. This is ''entry level'' stuff that would get me a derisive snort from the actual mathematicians and financial engineers who are braving the tall mountain to go fishing in the most dangerous streams.”

Shirai Kuroko sounded utterly exasperated. When kids in the Tokiwadai world were taught the value of money, it apparently was not done by pedaling their bike around as a paperboy over winter break.

But even so…

“If you are interested in her keynote speech on private spaceflight, it should still be up on the video sites. You know, that thing so many American start-ups do, where they proudly announce their new project up on stage wearing a casual shirt and jeans. Of course, her corporate policies and principles were wiped out once she sold that new tech to that IT company, so I sold all my stock then. In fact, it doesn’t look like R&C Occultics even intends to let the company survive. They were only interested in the distribution infrastructure and rights to the technology, so they aren’t expected to actually produce those new products. They probably see her company like an empty candy wrapper now.”

A shareholder.

It was a completely different tug-of-war compared to the connections he was more accustomed to, like enemy, ally, family, or stranger.

“W-wait!! Are you saying you know a lot about Space Engage? I know they’re completely subservient now, but do you know where their office or lab was during the initial start-up days!?”

“Of course I do. Investigating a company’s assets and equipment is the least you should do before investing. Any prospective shareholder will ask for that data first and foremost. Without that, you wouldn’t know if their proud presentation is within their means or a complete bluff.”