Editing Toaru Majutsu no Index:Railgun Chapter3 (section)

===Part 2===

“It is a lab, but I don’t think it’s the one we wanted.”

Misaka Mikoto, a middle school girl with short chestnut hair, sounded bored as she leaned against a metal door.

The space through that door wasn’t much larger than a studio apartment. The oblong room’s walls had as many steel racks bolted to them as would fit and they held computers of all sizes. Something had been partially dismantled using various tools after its cushions had been removed. Was it a massage chair?

“Even cyber attacks are done for profit these days. I guess someone decided to copy that virus everyone is talking about and rewrote it enough to earn them some money. But whether this ransomware targeting public infrastructure is the original or a modification, taking people’s lives is a real crappy thing to do.”

“Onee-sama!!”

A new annoyance had arrived.

The girl with a Judgment armband on her right arm was her underclassman Shirai Kuroko.

“You shouldn’t be doing so much on your own. You aren’t in Judgment, so you need to stay behind me.”

“This isn’t a Judgment job either, is it?”

“Ugh,” groaned the defeated twintailed hero.

Student-run Judgment was only supposed to solve problems occurring within their own school. Criminal investigations out in the city itself were a job for teacher-run Anti-Skill. So as much as Shirai nagged, her pursuit of criminals in the streets was something she had learned from Mikoto.

Still leaning against the door, Mikoto looked back inside the rusty-smelling room.

The lab was actually a smoking room surrounded by frosted glass. Place a “closed for maintenance” sign on the locked door and you had your own private space to use. The cyber attack lab taking people’s lives for profit had been sitting in a corner of District 15, Academy City’s largest shopping district.

A group of small children in yellow hats raised their hands and followed their teacher across a nearby crosswalk. They were probably on a field trip rather than heading home after school. They looked like a bunch of baby ducks following their mama, but it wasn’t a heartwarming sight in this instance. It was awful knowing such a dangerous lab had been so close to them.

“Anyway, now we wait for Uiharu,” said Shirai. “We still haven’t found the original lab, but this place should still be full of valuable information. My guess is we’ll find the original one next time or the time after that.”

“I say this was worthwhile in and of itself.”

Mikoto used her chin to gesture toward the people collapsed next to the lab.

The lab’s technician and a few bodyguards (who were probably mostly meant to keep an eye on the technician and make sure he did his job) were twitching on the ground with a scorched smell coming from their clothing.

“These people were making money using a modified version of that dangerous virus, after all.”

It was said Academy City’s scientific technology was 20 or 30 years ahead of the outside world and illegal programs and tools were a serious problem there. Unfortunately, they were not all key picking software that neutralized an electronic lock’s security, invisibility tools that altered the records of security cameras, or anything else an SF action movie’s protagonist might use. In fact, someone using those tools would still leave microscopic skin fragments and clothing threads behind, so they would only be putting themselves at greater risk. Having your hair or saliva on the floor when the cameras never showed you there would raise some serious red flags.

The students familiar with Academy City science knew real life wasn’t like the movies.

The cyber rumors in this city were of a different variety:

There were rumors of a neutron cyber attack tool that could rewrite the electrical signals in someone’s nerves.

There were rumors of self-teaching VR that could increase your Level but had serious side effects.

There were rumors of a fashion server that could perfectly predict the next big thing.

And there were rumors of the ultimate underground security software that let you download as many sketchy tools and programs as you liked without ever falling victim to any cruel traps.

“The majority are phony. They take their advance payment and then run off with the money. But sometimes a truly dangerous app appears out there.”

This may have been the worst case of that yet.

The initial product description was incomprehensible, but it wasn’t just an online scam. The actual distributed product was having a real effect.

Mikoto looked up into the blue sky.

“ExitApp. ''The perfect suicide tool'' that lets you die without feeling any fear.”