Editing Toaru Majutsu no Index:GT Volume4 Chapter2 (section)

===Part 10===

“Touma? Where are you?”

A carefree voice rang through the downtown diner.

It belonged to Index and her arms were crossed.

“Hmm…there’s no one here. Did they all leave?”

“…”

Stiyl Magnus sighed softly.

Kanzaki Kaori had been defeated, Helcalia Grocery had run away, and now Kamijou Touma and Othinus had left the diner.

More and more people were disappearing. It was now just him and that girl.

“Are there even any hints out there for them to find? They might be eating something tasty!”

The nun parted the decorative plant to peek behind the fountain drink machine. In isolation, it would have been a heartwarming scene.

But Index froze after peeking underneath one of the booth tables.

That was the one Helcalia had been sitting and napping at earlier.

A single memo had fallen there and Index read the text on it.

“UST? Secret???”

“I have a document on that.”

Index’s shoulders jumped.

The priest smiled bitterly because that was an understandable response without her old memories.

He waved the stack of documents he had found at the Academy City base.

“Project Code: Secret. It appears to be a prototype optical neurocomputer modeled after cranial nerve connections. With this, the machine can handle accepting orders in every language on the planet, analyzing and managing individualized advertisements, planning and executing sales, sales analysis, mapping the customer base, locating likely illegal accounts, and preventing mass buying and scalping. Basically, whoever controls it will constantly receive obscene amounts of money while just sitting around. Although it looks like the design is not quite as complicated as an actual human brain.”

“But what is it?”

“The drone management server that controls the 12 Logistic Hornets is currently in their HQ building. It’s an old-fashioned supercomputer that requires people to actually look after it. If we can destroy that stationary device, we can shut down their entire global distribution infrastructure.”

Intentionally building a weak point like that could be seen as an advantage since it gave them a way to manually shut it all down.

However…

“But once they hook up Secret’s complex wiring, the computers within the 12 Logistic Hornets will take over while monitoring each other. That will allow those flying machines to manage themselves. Once that happens, taking out the HQ building will not stop it. The world will be surrounded by those meteorological disaster weapons. They would be able to target any part of the planet.”

“???”

Index only tilted her head.

The optical neurocomputers were already onboard the Logistic Hornets, but they were not yet running because the complex parallel wiring to connect the 256 processors was not yet hooked up. The optical neurocomputers used proprietary standards, so outside contractors could not perform the work. Even the employees from the start-up period had their doubts. They had never reached an answer, so they had apparently loaded all the equipment onboard and then left the wiring incomplete.

Even if they knew it was dangerous, an invention was still an invention. They had designed it, registered it, and actually built it to prove it was theirs. That sort of overeagerness was common with start-ups.

“They decided not to complete the wiring until 4/5 of the start-up employees agreed to it.”

Stiyl sighed.

“But none of that matters now. Melzabeth Grocery is the start-up’s president and she has the powerful support of R&C Occultics. Only those who agree with her remain. Those with more of a backbone have all left the company. No matter how complex the wiring, she just has to submit a detailed diagram. Then the Logistic Hornets will be unleashed on the world. That giant IT company will be able to manipulate everything from the economy to the weather of any country or region.”