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

===Part 1===

'''(the_magician)

To be honest, few people would know what you meant if you mentioned Sakugawa Middle School. Typing the name into a search engine would only turn up a few results and the school’s official website would only receive a few hundred hits in a good month. Not even all the school’s students would know the site existed.

But even that plain and ordinary public middle school had a certain minor event: a field trip.

“Ohh, ohh. We’re actually at the Central Anti-Skill Station.”

“Saten-san, your eyes and voice look and sound dead. The Anti-Skill officers working here have done nothing wrong, so let’s not do that.”

Uiharu Kazari, a girl with lots of flower decorations in her short hair, gave that exasperated comment to her sailor uniform friend who had long black hair.

Officially, it was the school bowing its head and requesting a visit, but adolescent sensibilities could be cruelly honest, so if they were not interested, they were not interested. Saten Ruiko would have been more excited attaching a rubber band to her smartphone for a simple VR that let her peer into a world of swords and magic. She only felt any excitement at all because this got her out of having to take classes on a school day.

“Besides, Saten-san, I thought you liked hearing about crimes and such.”

“C’mon, Uiharu. My specialty is rumors and urban legends. I can irresponsibly enjoy those because they’re so vague and uncertain. I’m not so indiscriminate that I’d drool over some legit crime that’s not just in the online news but on the old-fashioned TV news and newspapers. I mean, you know someone’s really suffering then.”

The Central Anti-Skill Station was about the same as a prefectural police headquarters outside of Academy City. Saten was looking up at no more than a box of thick reinforced concrete. Since it was a government office, it was not given any unnecessary decorations. And unlike in a TV police drama, there was no one shooting their guns out front and no dump trucks crashing into the front entrance. To be blunt, it was a boring visual.

An Anti-Skill woman clapped her hands a couple of times to gather the uniformed boys’ and girls’ attention.

She wore a track suit instead of a proper uniform.

“Okay, okay. It’s time for the tour! We’ll start with the main lobby. And there’s no reason to be nervous just because it’s an Anti-Skill station. Most of the people here are submitting lost item reports, renewing licenses, and other standard business. It isn’t just wicked criminals who have business here.”

There were more than 100 curious or inattentive middle schoolers, but the Anti-Skill woman managed to keep them together as she guided them. That may have been due to Anti-Skill officers generally also working as teachers.

They walked through the thick glass door and found a lobby much like in a city hall or bank. Several counters were lined up alongside each other and each booth was given a number. There was also a machine that spat out numbered tickets.

A bank or hospital would have TVs set up, but an Anti-Skill station could not do that. They were meant to preserve order in the city, so it would damage their reputation if they angered ZASRAC.

“This is the general reception area. As I said, this is the main lobby for the people here for completely ordinary matters such as lost items or licenses. Dramas tend to show the arrested criminals taken in the front entrance while handcuffed, but we make sure normal people and suspects are never in the same area. Now, let’s head further in.”

The bulletin board was covered in posters with advice for avoiding bank transfer scams and how to use fire safely. But in an age of smartphone VR, the hand-drawn portrait drawings stood out. Would the day ever come that you could put on some goggles and view them from any angle?

“Uiharu, have you ever been to Anti-Skill before?”

“I barely interact with them at all.”

Just then, Saten came to a stop while the group followed their guide.

“What is it, Saten-san?”

“Well…”

The posters were all standard for an Anti-Skill station.

…Wanted for arson. Urgently seeking all information. Have you seen them? This is their last known appearance. The reward money period has been extended. The reward is set at a maximum of 6 million yen. Do not let them get away with robbery! The security camera footage of the Nichimaru Department Store stun gun incident has been released to the public…

Anti-Skill would seek information from the public for anything from locating a missing minor to identifying a wandering old person they had taken into custody, but Saten was looking at the section for wanted criminals with reward money being offered. Red, black, yellow, white… Those posters were given highly contrasting colors to draw the eye and they were covered with images of mean-looking people taken from licenses or security cameras.

“Hoehhh. These are wanted criminals, missus.”

“And the rewards have reached the millions because they’re so hard to catch.”

“I’m not interested in capturing them. I just want a photo of these. Doesn’t it make you feel like a bounty hunter in a video game!?”

“That’s actually a real job people do, you know?”

Just then, Saten’s smartphone made an odd noise.

The two of them frowned and looked at the screen to see something flashing at the top right corner of the photo management app. It was informing them of one of the app’s functions.

“What’s this? The album has started organizing the photos on its own.”

“Which means…the facial recognition kicked in? Eh? It found a connection between the wanted criminal poster…and the photos you’ve taken…?”

They looked in the app and saw two photos in an automatically-created folder.

One was the poster Saten had photographed.

The poster’s photo seemed to be taken from security camera footage. The person had their hoodie’s hood up and it was too grainy to see much of the face within.

They could not tell what the person looked like, but the machine had apparently done some kind of processing to see the face in the darkness.

Then there was the second photo.

It was a perfectly ordinary photo already on Saten’s smartphone.

She had probably wanted to show off on social media that she had gotten a convenience store’s new seasonal product before anyone else, but the selfie showed Saten sipping a toxically pink liquid through a straw.

However…

“Ah, look! There’s a cursor over here…”

“?”

“You can barely see someone on a bike in the back. Isn’t that the same person as the security camera footage on the poster?”