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

===Part 11===

The shape of the face, the type and colors of the band, and the various small scratches and smudges.

Kamijou had no idea how much information was still hidden there, but he had a bigger concern at the moment.

“How am I supposed to keep that sniper from getting me, dammit?”

“Stay close to the walls, but do not actually touch them. In this cold, your skin would get stuck and you would have to tear it away.”

They had something to do while Index kept Stiyl at the diner.

Kamijou had stepped out into the minus-20 weather. They were close to the R&C Occultics HQ and they knew there was a magician and giant weapons out there. He could not let his guard down for a second.

“That smartwatch cannot function on its own,” said Othinus on the shoulder of his cheap jacket. “Just like your Transla-Pen, or whatever it’s called, it must sync with a phone first.”

“And?”

“There are a number of syncing methods, but that one uses short-range wireless that does not go through the phone towers. So with access to the phone lost, it sends out a signal to automatically search for it. That tends to drain the battery pretty fast.”

“Oh, so if I walk around with it, I might be able to locate the phone!? Like I’m searching for a transmitter!?”

“Currently, the only information we have on Melzabeth Grocery are those paper documents Stiyl Magnus brought back with him. If you want to argue with his conclusion, you need to find more information than him. If she did leave her phone out, it would be in a private space. You should find a more authentic view of her life than from those papers found in a military base.”

“…”

But that might not work out in Kamijou’s favor.

Like Othinus had said, this had all happened before Kamijou got involved. What if he found a strange lab, a bloody crime scene, stacks of dirty money, or a weapon far too powerful to be for self-defense? And Kamijou’s efforts would not influence that outcome. He was digging up what had already happened, so he might just find something that broke his heart.

He needed the courage to intrude on someone else’s life.

He could not let the worst-case scenario slow him down. He needed the true bravery to keep going even if that was what he found.

He glanced down at the watch’s small screen.

“Oh, it’s weak, but it has a bar now. Looks like you can also switch it to a numerical indicator…”

“Then we must be close. And I had guessed it wouldn’t be far from the base where she disappeared.”

“Why?”

“That tent base’s bathrooms, baths, and beds were not divided by sex. It’s a common social problem found in the military, like on submarines, but I doubt a civilian woman visiting the sweaty and tactless base would have felt comfortable spending the night there. And she had no commanding officer who could order her to do so. I don’t know if she was a benevolent cooperator or a double agent, but either way, it’s safe to assume she had a room for herself somewhere nearby.”

“Is that how it works?” wondered Kamijou while reaching out with the smartwatch in his hand and slowly spinning around. He found the direction where the reception improved slightly and walked in that direction. Little by little, the number of bars increased.

“Hm, about 500m to go.” Othinus sounded bored on his shoulder. “But the rest won’t be so easy.”

“Why not?”

When they arrived at a building, he looked up to see a large tourist hotel.

“You’re kidding, right? It’s huge. H-how many windows is that? It’s gotta have hundreds of rooms.”

“You can ignore everything above the 7th floor.”

“???”

“The distance from the phone includes vertical distance. If it was too high up, it couldn’t pick up the phone’s signal from the ground.”

Kamijou still didn’t understand, so Othinus gave an exasperated snort.

“The signal got stronger as you approached the hotel, remember? That doesn’t just apply to the horizontal distance. Think of it as a diagonal line rising from the ground. That also explains why the bars recovered faster the closer you got.”

Once inside, they found the place deserted.

But a cheerful voice still spoke to them.

“Welcome. Estimating language based on clothing brand…is Japanese acceptable? Will you be checking in?”

“Popper-kun!? I hadn’t seen you in Japan for a while, so were you having a major debut across the Pacific!?”

“I could not understand your question. Please speak more clearly.”

The communication robot that moved around on boring tires was surprisingly brutal.

The first floor was the front desk and the second floor on up included a shopping mall, a casino, and restaurants. There was no sign of any guest rooms until the seventh floor. Kamijou sighed when he saw all the doors lining the long hallway there. At this point, he just had to try them each in turn. He held the smartwatch toward each of the shut doors that seemed to reject the current state of LA.

“Here we go – Room 0709. The signal is strongest here and I’ve even got a lock screen!!”

“No point in holding back now. Kick the door down.

That was not happening. Kamijou walked to the end of the hallway and searched near the employee elevator. He found an emergency master key alongside the AED in the employee space.

“Heh heh. This is how civilized people do things, Othinus-kun.”

“Breaking into someone’s room is illegal no matter how you do it.”

He really wished she had said that before he used the key to unlock the electronic and analog locks and opened the door. He could not undo it now, so he withered like dehydrated seaweed while walking into the room.

“Huh, what a dreary room. And the building looked so nice from the outside.”

“Because this is the bottommost floor of the hotel rooms and this is a single room at that. You can’t tell with the place deserted, but this floor would be the noisiest. The bars and restaurants below would be making a racket late into the night. And that part of the wall that sticks out must be hiding a drain pipe.” Othinus sighed on his shoulder. “But this is enough to get a decent image of the woman.”

“?”

Kamijou was confused as he walked further into the room.

He found a neatly-made bed and a suitcase in the corner of the room. The phone the smartwatch was syncing to was on the bedside table and plugged into the wall with its charger. He picked it up, but he doubted he could get past the lock screen.

Othinus laughed.

“A Grapple MilliPhone. And a reduced-specs budget model at that. Open it up.”

“How?”

The boy complained, but when he lifted up the phone, the tilt sensor reacted and the screen lit up. It was still password locked, but what he saw made him pause.

“A few notifications popped up.”

“There’s an upcoming item on her schedule: 28th – UST 5 AA Secret.”

“UST?”

“It could simply be United States something, or it could stand for something else entirely. We also don’t know how to divide it up. Is UST 5 AA all one term, or does AA Secret go together?”

The 28th. What had she had planned during this busy holiday season? Kamijou didn’t know all the Western holiday customs with Easter and whatever else, so he had a hard time even making a guess.

But if the phone was here, Melzabeth must have been out and about without her phone when the disappearance happened. Since it was plugged in, she may have forgotten to charge it up. Was she just a careless person? It was a silly fantasy, but it did make her feel more like a real person.

He found a few casual shirts and blouses in the closet.

“Nothing here either,” said Othinus about a drawer at the bottom of the closet. No, it had a number pad like a phone, so it was a safe for valuables. But it must have been unlocked because Kamijou could pull the thick drawer open with ease. There was of course nothing inside.

“Were you hoping to find something in there?”

“Something related to the Logistic Hornets, but I guess she wasn’t foolish enough to leave that in her room while she was out.”

Kamijou had not expected that answer. He had assumed Othinus would be after some occult secrets related to the sand magic or something.

She sighed and explained further for him.

“Those things are 5000m aerial fortresses. They’re more mysterious than most magic. Do you have any idea how many hurdles they had to clear to make that work? You can’t just scale up a paper airplane and expect it to fly just the same.”

“Is it really that amazing?”

“When I commanded Gremlin, we sent out Radiosonde Castle, but that was really just a giant balloon. Those things are much too big to work as actual airplanes that obtain lift from their wings, yet somehow they fly. …Melzabeth Grocery is undoubtedly a genius who has surpassed the known limits of aeronautics. Even off the top of my head, I can come up with more than three reasons that shouldn’t work. I can see why R&C Occultics wanted them so bad.”

Othinus then turned her attention to the room’s desk.

Kamijou opened the drawer to find the usual letter set and terms of service booklet, plus a few card-sized papers. He could understand the big “20% off” and he ran the Transla-Pen over the rest to find they were grocery store coupons. She must have collected them.

“I hope we can find some writing.”

“What do you mean, Othinus? Do you want me to run a pencil over the notebook or memo pad to see what was written on the previous page?”

“That would require her to be as careless as letting her bag’s strap pull up her skirt, revealing her underwear. She’s an adult, so I would like to believe she’s better than that.” Othinus snorted. “But, human, did you know some traces can be found on the top of the desk? For example, if you cover the front of a loose leaf paper with writing and then flip it over to write on the back, the writing on the front will be faintly transferred onto the desk. Just like with the carbon paper used for delivery receipts.”

“…”

“I’m saying we might just see her underwear after all.”

Kamijou switched on the desk lamp and lowered it until it was just above the desk’s surface…and there it was. It wasn’t much, but he could just barely make out some traces of English writing. But instead of the excitement of finding a new hint, he mostly felt bad, like he was going through someone’s trash.

The stalker god crawled along the desk, pressing her cheek against the surface to get a closer look (and sticking her butt up in the air).

“SiO<sub>2</sub>.”

“What’s that?”

“Silicon dioxide. But you don’t often see a distillation method with this level of purity. It’s far purer than the average fiber optic cable. 99.9998% or higher is really only useful for an ultra-fast neurocomputer that uses optical signals.”

“Um, Miss God? Should I just go take a nap while you finish this up yourself?”

“Stupidity is no excuse to slack off. Figure it out yourself.”

Kamijou picked up the landline to check for further details, but based on the Transla-Pen’s translation of the list the automated voice rattled off, Melzabeth had not ordered any room service. When it started listing off how many pairs of underwear she had sent to be laundered, he frantically hung up.

Unsurprisingly, the bathroom was small. The complimentary soap and shampoo had been used just a bit. The dryer did not look like something she had brought with her. It must have come with the room and its plastic body had faded with age.

The god, who was once more using his shoulder as a chair, crossed her arms and leaned against the side of his face.

“''Have you noticed?''” she asked.

“''Yeah.''”

The suitcase was locked, but they didn’t need to break it open.

“Hey, Othinus. She didn’t expect anyone to see this room, did she?”

“I can’t imagine why she would set up such a meaningless trap, so we should assume this is an honest look at her.”

Kamijou took a deep breath and worked to calm his heart. He may have grown biased at some point. He wanted to return to Helcalia with some good news and he may have let that influence how he interpreted what he saw.

But Othinus was not so easily influenced and she agreed with him.

“That is almost certainly the case,” she said.

“…I see.”

“Remember, she’s supposed to be the immoral success story who handed her distribution network over to a major corporation without even considering how they would use it, grew filthy rich in the process, and has found success thanks to thorough support from R&C Occultics. View this room through that lens and none of it makes sense, does it?”

“I see,” repeated Kamijou Touma under his breath.

Almost like he was savoring the words.

“Let’s go find Helcalia,” he finally said. “I can’t leave this undone. I said I would tell her there was nothing to worry about no matter what truth we found and now we’ve found that truth. I won’t reject the answer I found. It’s 20 below outside and the cause of the disappearances is still out there. We can’t leave her out there forever.”

The attack on Los Angeles had been a truly awful thing.

Even ignoring the 30 million disappearances, Helcalia could not have been having a good day. The largescale battle started by Academy City and the Anglicans might have been enough of a disaster, but like salt in the wound, things had gotten worse.

Her mother had disappeared.

And she had been told her mother was not worth saving.

She had trembled all alone in a cramped locker and, when help finally came, they pushed her away as well.

It was all garbage. Ever last bit of it.

“It’s about time we fought back, don’t you think, Helcalia?”