Editing Toaru Majutsu no Index:Item Chapter2 (section)

===Part 3===

It was a simple matter.

“I asked around the sketchy people who know the back alleys, but none of them had any information on the Colosseum. That leaves the insurance company general manager as our only source of hints. We have his story, but it isn’t enough. Hanano, can you disguise yourself as him, infiltrate the company headquarters, and check the central server to see who the pricey payouts were made for and who received them? Hacking in from outside is apparently too difficult.”

They didn’t just threaten the general manger – who had already been treated to torture at the hands of two girls – and have him go because he was covered in bandages. A mummy (old) would stand out too much. And as an outsider, they couldn’t predict when he would get too scared and stop. Send someone like that to the enemy base and they tended to think they had escaped and the plan fell apart. Unfortunately, the cleanup afterwards generally meant brute force via long-range attack.

“This van is so much smaller. And my body is so stiff.”

Mugino complained from the back seat of the boxy minivan.

A three-blade wind turbine was spinning nearby, but they didn’t feel remotely cool. That rotation was from the quality of the bearings, not the strength of the wind.

She missed the larger vehicle. They could still use Item’s resources, but they couldn’t replace anything that was lost. They needed a new source of funding and fast.

“They’re doing fireworks!”

Frenda leaned out the window and stared into the distance.

Was a school out for its anniversary? Or maybe they had the day off because the air conditioner was broken and the school couldn’t keep the kids inside in this summer heat. Regardless, a bunch of small children were out in the blazing heat launching parachute-equipped fireworks in some kind of competition. If advance notice was given that children would be launching fireworks, a drum-shaped security robot with a special firefighting attachment would watch over the event, but Item was too far away to see it.

The other girls in the van were speaking too.

“Frenda-san, it’s super weird that you can detect the scent of explosives from this far away. Or that it excites you so much, for that matter.”

“Heh heh☆”

“Frenda, I don’t think that was a compliment. Kinuhata is disturbed by it,” said Takitsubo.

They were in District 3.

Even for Academy City, the district had a lot of office buildings for famous corporations.

Since the children were playing here, their local park may have been taken over by bullies.

The insurance company headquarters – a giant skyscraper – was also visible from here. Item was keeping enough distance that the company’s security team wouldn’t get suspicious.

“So, Mugino, are you sure the newbie can do this? We’re talking about a company full of old men. In the end, couldn’t I get in a lot easier making full use of my cuteness?”

“That’s worked in the past, but if we have a disguise expert, we might as well use her.”

“In the end, is this when I’m supposed to groan in frustration and complain that my job is being taken from me?”

“Mugino is worried about you, Frenda. She doesn’t like you doing those risky honeytrap missions.”

“Yeah, yeah, I know. But I don’t let them lay a single finger on me when I’m controlling them! In the end, the trick to luring them in is to make sure they just barely can’t see what they want.”

Frenda pouted her lips. What it was she knew was probably something only she could know. And she seemed to be ignoring the Level 0 newcomer and glaring more at the track suit girl who had taken up the position of the wife who knew everything about Mugino.

“Uhh.”

The ''elderly general manager'' was starting to get nervous and even whined like a small animal with the deep old man voice. Everyone watching had their brains rattled and had to question their understanding of the world.

She(?) put a small earphone in her right ear.

“Wh-whether this works or not, a lot of people are going to see me. That’s fine as far as I’m concerned, but won’t the real general manager be arrested for misconduct?”

“So what if he is?”

He was an immoral grownup who had refused to call Anti-Skill when he knew people were dying and even defrauded his own company to protect himself. He was a perfect example of Academy City’s shittiness. They hadn’t killed him since he had told them what they wanted to know, but they were under no obligation to protect him either.

“Speaking of him, didn’t he mention having a family?” asked Mugino. “We should probably tell him to get a divorce right away if he cares about his wife and kids. If they only get divorced after he’s arrested, his family might share the legal liability for the damages he owes.”

“If that’s the kindest option you can think of, it says a lot about the dark side,” complained Hanano.

Mugino gave an irritated look to the overly cheerful summer sunshine.

“It’s 11 AM. The perfect time for an executive to show up at the office.”

A real executive would arrive in a chauffeured black luxury car, but Item had destroyed that car last week. Unproductive VIPs needed to use their car as a status symbol to feel pride in something, so it wouldn’t be out of place for him to take the train or walk when a replacement hadn’t arrived yet.

The summery scent of mosquito-repelling incense wafted over.

The incense itself and the ceramic pig it came from were both made by Frenda, so it was extremely effective.

“Hanano, you’ll be masquerading as the general manager to get inside the building. You’ll just walk right on past the receptionist out front. What then?”

“I use his executive key card on the reader in front of the elevator that leads to the upper floors and take that straight to the central server room which is normally off limits. That means I need to be the only one to board the elevator on the first floor.”

“Good. Leave the security cameras to us.”

Mugino took out a computer smaller than a makeup bag and shoved it into Hanano Choubi’s hands.

“Physically connect this to the central server and the program inside will extract all the necessary data automatically. You don’t need to do anything more than that, but don’t let the receptionist notice you’re hiding this.”

“''Of course not. Who do you think I am?''”

Hanano Choubi had the old man’s voice and attitude down perfectly. Mugino saw her off and then returned to the van.

The van was full of small monitors. They displayed grainy footage from a variety of angles. Needless to say, that footage came from the insurance company’s security cameras.

“In the end, how did we hack into this?”

“We couldn’t reach the central server located inside the building, but the security camera footage is gathered together and sent out to the security company along a single thick line. The insurance company doesn’t have a security room of its own, you see. So we messed with that. Now we can monitor all this footage without anyone noticing and without leaving a trace. Of course, that was all done by the support organization in their work jumpsuits, so I don’t know the details.”

“Oh, is that Hanano-san super there?”

Kinuhata pointed at one of the monitors.

Sure enough, it showed one of the automatic doors opening and a broad-shouldered old man entering the reception lobby. Like any top-rate corporate building, the first floor was all about showing off, so it was given a tropical look. It was full of green and even had a waterway. The arrogant general manager hadn’t been dropped off by his car like usual, so the receptionist and security team looked a little confused as they greeted him.

Takitsubo tilted her head while staring blankly.

“Have they figured it out?”

“I super don’t know.”

“In the end, he ''took some time off without permission'', but he’s also a general manager who lives in the lap of luxury. They don’t want to ask too many questions and learn he was on a trip with a mistress or something, so will any of the ordinary employees be willing to directly ask him where he was? Damn, the security cameras can’t pick up their voices.”

Disguised Hanano raised a hand in greeting before walking through one of the security gates that resembled the ticket gates at a train station.

A tearful voice reached them through the small microphone hidden on her suit rather than through the security cameras.

That girl was smiling with the utmost confidence, but she was sobbing on the inside.

“(Stop speculating so much! I’m sure it seems fun when you’re just watching, but my life is on the line here. P-please don’t abandon me if this goes wrong. You won’t, will you!?)”

It didn’t matter if she aroused some suspicion as long as it wasn’t enough for someone to stop her. Although she was blatantly fidgeting while waiting in an elevator hall that looked like something from a luxury hotel.

“Hurry, hurry, hurry, hurry.”

“In the end, speaking aloud is only putting you at more risk. Are you doing it on purpose as some kind of challenge run?”

“Says someone who’s only watching!!”

But there wasn’t any real trouble.

The metal doors parted and the general manager entered the empty elevator with a pace quickened just enough that no one would find it unusual. After the door closed, “he” held a card up to the control panel.

A push of the button and the elevator began to rise. It had switched into a mode that wouldn’t stop on intermediate floors.

“Um, Mugino-san. Super what floor is the central server room on?”

“28.”

“Hanano won’t have anywhere to escape if the security team surrounds her,” noted Takitsubo.

“I really am going curse all four of you,” protested Hanano. “Who is that munching on popcorn right next to the mic!?”

The correct answer was cinephile Kinuhata Saiai who always wanted popcorn when she was staring at a screen, but there was no need to say so. Frenda had opened a mackerel can and was going at it with a fork.

The elevator stopped at one of the higher floors.

The doors parted to reveal the exact opposite of the gentle atmosphere of sunlight and greenery found in the lobby. First of all, there were no windows to speak of. The large floor was divided up by chain link fences and thick tempered glass walls and the entire place was taken up by computers larger than vending machines. It wasn’t clear what the divisions between areas and machines signified, but the place looked like a labyrinth. Hanano trembled, walked pigeon-toed, and held her shoulders (all with the old man look), so the temperature may have been well below standard room temperature.

“This is…the central server room.”

She could already see the server machines. They were everywhere here on the 28th floor. But she couldn’t actually touch them with the labyrinth of chain link fences and glass walls in the way. She would need to unlock the door in the fence to get through.

Of course, Hanano would have already prepared to do just that.

However…

“I-it won’t open?”

She had sounded nervous before, but now her tone of voice rose even further.

With no one else around, she didn’t bother hiding the hesitation in her wandering hands.

“I don’t believe it. How is this happening? The fence door in the central server room won’t open!!”

“What does that mean? Didn’t you spend an entire week checking over everything from the general manager’s fingerprints to his irises? Including every little idiosyncrasy he has?”

“That week was the problem. It looks like they change the door’s passcode each week, so his information from July 1 isn’t good anymore!”

“And…what does that mean?”

“Uhh,” groaned Hanano. Mugino had repeated the same words, but her ''sizzling'' displeasure had been hard to miss.

They couldn’t have Hanano remaining silent during a mission, so Mugino compromised by speaking first.

“Do you have any tricks you can use?”

“Sure, if there was an emergency. For example, in an earthquake powerful enough to possibly bring the building down, all the locks are set to automatically release to ensure no one is trapped.”

“''You don’t say?''”

Frenda had known Mugino long enough to put down her mackerel can, grab blankly-staring Takitsubo, and scoot away from Mugino. Kinuhata was still new to this, so she only tilted her head with her big tub of popcorn.

Hanano Choubi was also new, so she failed to see the danger of her comment.

“Don’t run away, Frenda. Use those goggles of yours.”

“Ugh. No stopping you, huh? Fine, fine. In the end, I’ll support you.”

That was all Mugino had to hear before she smiled thinly and took action.

She reached a hand out the car window.

And she fired Meltdowner at the very center of the distant skyscraper.